OSSY RENARDY The Complete Columbia Recordings (1938/39) - PASC383

Pristine’s insert provides the dates (all in 1938 and 1939, when the self-taught Ossy Renardy—Oskar Reiss—hadn’t even reached the age of 20), the matrix numbers, and Columbia’s original catalog numbers for the pieces in its collection. Mark Obert-Thorn made the transfers, from “first edition ‘Full-Range’ label Columbia shellacs” and, in the case of Dvořák’s Sonatina and Slavonic Dance, from a “pre-war ‘Gold’ label set;” the 78s appear here in their entirety, according to the notes, for the first time since their original release.

Corelli’s Sonata in E Minor represents Renardy’s recording debut; he deploys from its very first notes a tone of commanding vibrancy. That tone and his crisp trills in the first movement, his architectural sense in the second, his natural lyricism in the third, and his stately elegance in the Finale raise the performance above the level of mannered romanticism in pre-historical readings of the works. Renardy’s reading of Giovanni Benedetto Platti’s Sonata in E Minor (possibly a flute sonata, arranged by Philipp Jarnach), with Walter Robert as pianist—as he would be in the rest of the Columbia recordings—displays a similar warmth and refinement in the slow movement. In Carl Flesch’s arrangement of a movement from Handel’s Te Deum, Renardy rises above the ponderous, glowing on the G-string and plaintive in the upper registers.

Renardy takes a brisk tempo in the opening Allegro molto of Schubert’s Sonata No. 1, but that doesn’t prevent him from oozing Gemütlichkeit from every one of the music’s pores. He fashions a similarly sympathetic reading of the slow movement without kneading the middle passages’ tempos; and his flashing quicksilver in the running rapid notes makes the finale seem very brilliant indeed, even though he doesn’t deploy electrifyingly crisp off-the-string bowings elsewhere in the movement. Renardy recorded only the last two movements of the composer’s Sonata No. 3—arguably a more developed work—bringing to the Finale an irresistible lyricism. The violinist’s recording of Paganini’s Sonata, op. 3/6—sparkling in its second movement, with bright passagework in the upper registers featuring brilliant, even, left-hand pizzicatos—has appeared in Sony’s release on CD of early recordings by Renardy and Michael Rabin.

The recorded sound in Dvořák’s Sonatina seems even more immediate than the generally quiet though vibrant transfers that precede it in the program. Renardy seems to have had an affinity for the composer, in a redolent yet commanding reading of the first movement, a throbbing, nostalgic (yet not mannered) one of the second, a starchy one of the third, and a strutting one of the Finale’s march-like sections. The rhythmic vitality of the Slavonic Dance’s double-stopped sections creates an impression of breath-bating virtuosity. Willy Burmester’s confection, Viennese Serenade, seems charming—a description few have given his works in recent years—and Renardy makes it easy to understand why they once enjoyed such a wave of popularity. Franz von Vecsey’s Caprices have also been largely forgotten (Ruggiero Ricci and others have resurrected Le Vent), but it sounds positively effervescent in Renardy’s reading.

Pablo Sarasate’s ethnic compositions also appeared in Sony’s collection (with transfers by Andreas Meyer); but for Pristine, Mark Obert-Thorn has produced a more noise-free, squeaky-clean, and three-dimensional representation of Renardy’s instrument. In Adios, montañas mias, Renardy smolders more darkly than does David Oistrakh (Oistrakh’s reading makes the zortzico seem more like a bonbon by Fritz Kreisler). It’s probably not necessary to repeat, once again, the difference in the way in which Sarasate himself played his works and the way others conceived them; but I will, anyway. So Romanza Andaluza, in this slightly cut-down version, comes across as fiery and passionate rather than cool and elegant. And while the opening sections of Jota Navarra could hardly be more coruscating, the middle section grows languid (though appealingly so) in Renardy’s reading. Zapateado may not radiate so many lumens in Renardy’s version than it does in Sarasate’s own or Jascha Heifetz’s, but it’s engaging in its own way.

Not everyone may share the opinion of a violinist I know who reveres Renardy’s performance of Brahms’s Violin Concerto as arguably the greatest of all time, but the collective weight of these early recordings reveals him to be a flexible, insightful stylist as well as an impressive technician. Urgently recommended.

Robert Maxham

This article originally appeared in Issue 37:2 (Nov/Dec 2013) of Fanfare Magazine.