Nathan Milstein, violin & Georges Pludermacher, piano
Studio: Produced by Christopher Nupen (Distr. by Naxos) A 06CN D 2-DVDs
Video: enhanced for 16:9 widescreen, color
Audio: PCM Stereo
Length: 225 minutes
Rating: ****
A film in two parts, capped by the 17 July 1986 Stockholm concert, it explores the life and art of Russian violin virtuoso Nathan Milstein (1903-1992), recipient of a 1987 Kennedy Center Honors Award for a lifetime of devoted service to music. Milstein was among my first musical idols in music, my having purchased his Capitol recording (with Artur Balsam) of Beethoven Violin Sonatas 8 in G Major and the “Kreutzer” in A Major. Pinchas Zukerman, one of the interviewers in this film, says of Milstein’s sound, “It‚s so huge. And you yourself are so wonderfully simple.” Milstein, with his characteristic dry frankness, quips, “If you are too complicated you spoil yourself.”
Yuri Nagai, a violinist and pupil of Milsten’s for over ten years, remarks, “He is always new. I mean, he is always pushing to do better, rediscover the piece he is working on.” She practices Paganini’s thirteenth Caprice for him, a piece he plays in the Stockholm recital. “You young people play too fast,” he advises. Later in the video, Milstein performs the same Caprice in stunning fashion. Milstein confesses that he would re-finger the piece he collaborated on in the middle of the performance! When as a young man Milstein played with conductor Franz Schalk, noted for his acid wit, Schalk stopped the rehearsal to lean over to whisper to Milstein, “I have something nice to say to you, but I hate having to compliment anyone.”
Before each of the two parts, producer Christopher Nupen makes an introduction, and we see him in conversation with Milstein, asking leading questions, sometimes calling Milstein Nathan Mironovich. They spend much time recalling Milstein’s mother’s influence on him. Moments spent with Milstein’s wife, Therese, raise memories of their courtship, and of musical visits from the likes of Vladimir Horowitz and a dying Gregor Piatagorsky. As an Americanized trio, they had been known as “The Three Musketeers.” Some of the footage had appeared prior, on a Teldec VHS devoted to Milstein: I had seen Zukerman pop the question, “Who is the greatest conductor you ever worked with?” to Milstein, and the immediate reply, “Furtwaengler.” “And what did you play?” “The Dvorak.” Then Zukerman asks Milstein if he cries inside during the second movement, and Milstein says no, but there are a few moments in some pieces that make him feel sentimental. Zukerman tosses off a passage from Serenade melancolique of Tchaikovsky, a bit of the Mozart G Major Concerto, but Milstein remains relatively impassive. Milstein sings a phrase from the G Major variations in the Beethoven Concerto – that, he claims, makes him cry.
As an historic document, the video is invaluable, as Milstein reflects on his musical associations and friendships, since many of the musicians he mentions are luminaries. Leopold Auer is the first great pedagogue. He introduces Milstein to his master class, has Milstein play, and then asks his pupils, “So what do you think of the Black Sea technique?” Milstein remembers Rachmaninov’s tearful reaction to Milstein’s playing an arrangement of the Vocalise. He plays Glazounov’s own A Minor Concerto with the composer and makes a slight change. Glazounov leans over and asks, “You don’t like what I had myself written there?” Later, Glazounov whispers, “It’s OK–play the piece there just as you felt it.” A wild memory of Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye, who came naked from an afternoon nap to welcome young Milstein into his home. “What will you play for me?” queries Ysaye. “I can play you a Paganini caprice.” “Which one?” “Any of them you like,” replies Milstein, who then adds, “I didn’t want to sound conceited, but I knew them all.” “And what did you learn from Ysaye,” asks Nupen. “Nothing,” answers Milstein, “but I stayed for three weeks, and I was completely taken in by Ysaye’s grand personality.”
At one point, the interviewer asks Milstein’s wife, Therese, what she found attractive about him. “He had the most expressive eyes, and he is very handsome. Then, when he played, I would seize my heart, for he moved me so much. I was divorced; he was divorced, and we discovered we had no one, and so we went to concerts together. Two years later we knew we were in love. I have been with him 45 years, and there has been no dull moment. Now that he has a [left] hand injury (sustained in 1992–actually a stroke, but no one is importune enough to say it aloud), he spends his time making lovely transcriptions of pieces for the instrument he knows so well.”
Shy, loathing publicity and self-aggrandizement, Milstein shares only the surface of his character, the simple, direct expression of music. He plays the piano with one hand, facilely demonstrating a run or phrase. He talks about the transcription he made of Maria’s aria from Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa, and then we see and hear that same piece realized in Stockholm. It took Nupen three years to convince Milstein to permit that footage to be spliced to their interviews. “Suppose I told you there was a video of Paganini–would you be eager to see it?” queries Nupen to the demure Milstein. “You are playing with me,” returns Milstein. But the point is made: Milstein is history, and if he refuses us this portrait, then a gap remains for the generations who missed his living art. You and I, then, reap the benefits of Nupen’s having convinced this private man into a couple of hours of visual celebrity. The Stockholm concert is a marvel. Though Georges Pludermacher has no part in the biographical portion of the documentary, his hands fit Milstein’s approach like a warm, youthful glove. I had seen and heard Milstein a few months earlier, in Atlanta, perform the Beethoven Concerto. He played the Prelude in E from the Third Partita as an encore. I had Milstein all to myself for a few precious moments before the rest of the interview-vultures assailed us. That brief sitting together is among the fond memories of my life.
— Gary Lemco
