I finally took an opportunity to listen to a famous or—depending on your point of view—infamous recording: the Bach two-violin concerto BWV 1043, performed by Jascha Heifetz on violin with Franz Waxman conducting an RCA Victor studio orchestra, committed to grooves on Ocrober 14, 1946 with Heifetz returning on October 19 to overdub the second violin part. So it’s Heifetz playing a two-violin concerto all by his little self.
Keep in mind that there was no multitrack tape in 1946. So the process required overdubbing, which implied some potential degradation of the sound in the process, and it rendered the already sticky business of no-edit recording all the stickier. Very few violinists would have had the sangfroid—much less the cojones—to pull it off, but Heifetz negotiated those treacherous waters with the consummate grace of a born studio sailing master. All in all, it was quite an impressive achievement.
RCA Red Seal LM-1051: Heifetz and Heifetz and Waxman cook up some Bach
Another commentator came up with a significantly less hysterical but no less ridiculous put-down of this fundamentally inoffensive recording. He tried to prove his distaste by logic, much to his discredit and much to my snide merriment. His thinking, such as it is:
1) What makes a double concerto compelling is the interaction of two separate personalities as the soloists.
2) This recording has only one (cloned) personality as the soloist.
3) Therefore this recording is icky.
Logisticians and statisticians have just got to have a name for this fallacy: the first premise isn’t a premise at all, but a conclusion, stated for the express purpose of "proving" the point, when in fact nothing is proven since the premise is the conclusion.
I suppose you could call it circular reasoning.
Or perhaps it’s a false premise.
I don’t think it’s a straw man hypothesis, given that the first premise isn’t included just to be discarded. I’m sure it’s not a Texas sharpshooter fallacy.
Or is it confirmation bias? That’s practically de rigueur in the arts. Consider the burgeoning industry of Shakespeare authorship debunking, as sleuths seek evidence of their pet hypotheses, such as the plays being written by the Earl of Oxford, or Queen Elizabeth I, or Francis Bacon, or Christopher Marlowe. Since they start out thinking their point already proven, they invariably find all the evidence they want. They can’t not find it, in fact.
A great deal of so-called "analysis" in music is likewise flawed, just conclusions dreamed up out of thin air and then "proven" by the evidence presented.
Perhaps in this case confirmation bias led to circular reasoning. Ultimately all a reviewer can say is me like or me no like, but what self-appointed arbiter of merit would be comfortable with that? Expansion is needed: Me like because or Me no like because. I have no problem with reviewers explaining themselves, but I draw the line when they attempt to drag logic into situations where it doesn’t belong. What if the reviewer had been told that the soloists were Jascha Heifetz on violin I and Efraim Schnord on violin II? Might that critic have gone into ecstasies over the singleness of purpose hammered out by the two soloists? All in all, it seems to me that the real issue here is an individual reviewer’s squeamishness with studio tweaking, this recording serving as an example of unmitigated sin.
My critical feathers, on the other hand, remain smoothly unruffled by Heifetz’s fling with hi-fi autofellatio. No bias deceives me into hearing things that aren’t there. My verdict, short version: Me like. My verdict, expanded version: Me like because all them LA studio guys play like hell and Mr. Waxman he write cool score for Bride of Frankenstein and conduct like hell too, and that Heifetz guy—both of him—play fiddle like hell.
I am reminded of an acquaintance I made on a Caribbean cruise. He was convinced that I wasn’t getting my money’s worth of enjoyment out of my cruise experience. In his opinion, the only way to enjoy yourself on a cruise ship was to remain half-crocked all the time. Alas, I wasn’t remaining half-crocked all the time. Therefore, according to him I wasn’t enjoying myself to my fullest capacity. But in point of fact I had myself a fine old time, and what’s more, my final bar bill didn’t wind up looking like a piece of federal legislation.