Word: francescatti
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...didn't actually sport a pair of slippers and a pipe, but Violinist Zino Francescatti acted very much at home. Instead of a fireplace, however, he had the audience in Carnegie Hall in front of him last week, and the Philadelphia Orchestra behind him. When he wasn't fiddling, he lolled comfortably near the podium, gestured familiarly to Conductor Eugene Ormandy, even stage-whispered to him during the concerto. "That was pretty good;" he would say to Ormandy, or "We got it that time...
...Says Francescatti, with a crinkly grin: "With Ormandy, whom I play with most, I make fun. With Bruno Walter, no; with him it is just the angelic smile." Francescatti likes to take concerts easy-but he keeps his playing clean, forthright and brilliant. A small, excitable Frenchman of 42, Francescatti has been fiddling in the U.S. ten years, and is now regarded as one of the half-dozen first-raters in this country. In his native Marseilles he learned most of his art from his mother and father, both able violinists, and could play classical concertos before he learned...
Like most touring violinists, Francescatti finds U.S. orchestras slow about playing anything but the threadbare "boxoffice concertos" (Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky). Recently he wanted to play Prokofiev's Concerto No. 2 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and was told he couldn't because it would take an extra orchestra rehearsal, an expensive proposition. But he enjoys exploring the U.S.'s musical hinterland, playing old works in towns where they are still new. Says he: "In Europe, there is always the memory of the greats before you; there is always Joachim.* In new cities, you yourself can be Joachim...
Franck: Sonata in A Major (Zino Francescatti, violin; Robert Casadesus, piano; Columbia, 8 sides). One of the most fiery and exciting performances on records of one of Franck's best works. Recording: excellent...
During the two weeks at Lucerne the parade of participating talent was like an all-star game: Menuhin, Casadesus, Sargent, Francescatti, Ansermet, and Kletski. But above all these towered the stumpy, leonine figure of Edwin Fischer. Known to Americans mainly for his recordings of Bach, the sixty-year-old master branched out into other types of music. One evening, he played trios of Beethoven, Brahms, and Tehaikovsky. On two other occasions he played the last sonatas of Beethoven as they have seldom been played before. The greatest of all, however, was his performance of the Emperor Concerto a performance which...