Jascha Heifetz plays Beethoven (Sonatas & Concerto)

It is a shame that Heifetz’s Beethoven-sonata recordings aren’t available in a more digestible package. As it stands, one can only hear them in this complete anthology alongside the Violin Concerto. If it were broken up, it would highlight, for instance, his brilliant and haunting performances of the early violin sonatas (1–4), where he reveals how strange, shifty, and melancholy Beethoven’s music was even while the composer was still young. The quicksilver changes of mood in No. 2 and the minor-key turbulence in No. 4, for instance, leap out in Heifetz’s hands.