Francescatti in Lalo and Vieuxtemps

Here is the second installment in my series devoted to the French violinist Zino Francescatti. Reader Alan Cooper suggested this particular recording, noting that Columbia and its successor companies have never offered a CD reissue of the violinist's traversal of the Vieuxtemps Concerto No. 4.

I am happy to oblige Alan, because the Vieuxtemps performance is superb. It displays Francescatti's spectacular technique, which is all the more remarkable for seeming so nonchalant. The fine support here is by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. The sessions were in the Broadwood Hotel in April 1957.

Zino Francescatti and Eugene Ormandy

That's not to say that the coupling, Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, is any less impressive in this performance with the New York Philharmonic and Dimitri Mitropoulos, dating from April 1957 and Columbia's 30th Street Studio. Here, Francescatti chooses the truncated version of the work that was then the norm, omitting the central Intermezzo. This was his second recording of the Lalo work; the first was in 1946 with André Cluytens and a Parisian orchestra.

My transfer is from the original mono pressing, which has excellent sound. The Lalo was later issued in stereo, as a coupling for the Walton concerto, but I don't have that LP. To my perhaps deficient knowledge, the Vieuxtemps has never seen a stereo release.