Aaron Rosand, violin: Celebrating a Life in Music (2006-07)

by | Mar 3, 2008 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews | 0 comments

Aaron Rosand, violin: Celebrating a Life in Music (2006-07)

Program: BACH: Violin Sonata in G Minor: Adagio; Chaconne in D Minor from Partitia in D Minor, BWV 1004; BRAHMS: Contemplation; FRANCK: Recitativo-Fantasia from Violin Sonata in A Major; BONUS: BRAHMS: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78: Adagio
Performers: Aaron Rosand, violin/Hugh Sung, piano/Oxana Yablonskaya, piano (Franck, Brahms)
Studio: SMH Music DVD (Distrib. by VAI)
Video: 4:3; Color
Audio: PCM Stereo
Length: 65 minutes
Rating: ****

Produced and directed by Sheila and Steve Halpern,  this fine video traces the career and artistry of American violin virtuoso Aaron Rosand (b. 1926), who first came to my attention through his recordings of Sibelius, Sarasate, and Saint-Saens for the Vox label back in the early 1960s. Trained at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he would, in 1980, become a leading teacher–after the death of Ivan Galamian–of the Russian Violin School, Rosand studied with Efrem Zimbalist, but only after having imbibed the Ysaye French/Belgian tradition from his mentor Leon Semertini. As Rosand explains in one of the several interviews that comprise this video, the “Russian” and “Belgian” schools are methods of holding the bow, the frog, by placing pressure to create a flat surface and full sound (Russian) or leaving the index finger draped over the frog to produce a lighter, more flexible sound (Belgian). “I apply the technique depending on the repertory; so for the Tchaikovsky, I am Russian.”

The film divides itself into several parts: we have archival photographs of the young Rosand, including one from 1938 and another from 1946 when Rosand served in the US Army in Special Services, playing for GIs.  After the 1950s, despite important concerts, Rosand found that the influx of European and Russian musicians–especially with orchestras led by European conductors–made his American-born talent uncalled for. “Both Nathan Milstein and Mischa Elman told me to go to Europe. Milstein told me to go to Vienna, where I would be a king in ten years.” [Rosand is gracious to mention Isaac Stern in a positive light, considering that it was Stern who blocked much of Rosand’s progress via Columbia Artists Management.] Eventually, Rosand settled in a villa outside Genoa, which became his European theater of operations. Finally, after an American conductor came to the fore–Leonard Bernstein–did an opportunity arise: Rosand played the premier of the Barber Violin Concerto.

We hear Rosand in several selections, like the Bach Adagio from BWV 1001, the playing clean, articulate, always driving to what Rachmaninov called ‘the point.’ Rosand tells a student explicitly to phrase–as she plays Sarasate–with a line in mind, else Bach sounds dull. One of Rosand’s assistants remarks on the accuracy of his intonation and the beauty of his tone. Several of his students mention the sheer energy of the learning experience while playing for him or by simply watching him. Always thoughtful and patrician in his musical bearing and approach, Rosand speaks disparagingly of those musicians who lack any knowledge of style and context, who play the notes of Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, and they all sound the same. We see Rosand at the Summit Festival, engaged in teaching and in chamber music sessions. At SUNY Purchase, we have his two collaborations with Russian pianist Oxana Yablonskaya–she dressed in a pink gown that makes her look like the Ephesian Artemis–of which the Franck Sonata excerpt proves sultry, dreamy, lithe, and vibrant, at once.  While the box packaging makes no mention of it, the major work is Bach’s mighty Chaconne played live-in-concert in one monster gulp, all of its labyrinthine transmutations of the opening motif in kaleidoscopic colors. Labeled ‘The Last Romantic,’ Rosand passes off such hype as both exaggeration and truth: he sees in Bach limitless possibilities for ‘romance,’ or what he deems personal color. “If all the notes and styles were equal, we could put them into a computer and attain a standard performance. But music is not just black notes on white paper.” Words of proven wisdom from one of the living sages of his craft.

— Gary Lemco

   

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