EMI’s entry for Leonid Kogan in its Classic Archive™ series draws from BBC (Handel, Debussy, and Shostakovich) and INA films of performances between 1962 and 1968. Henry Roth considered Kogan’s style leaner and more overtly virtuosic (Heifetz was an inspiration) than Oistrakh’s, but also more modern in its relative anonymity. Yet his breathtaking virtuosity, exceptional even in the bygone era of giants, defines a style almost as readily identifiable as his compatriot’s. If he played second fiddle for many years, consider who played first. Both violinists fathered violinist sons, but Oistrakh’s relationship with Igor received far more attention than did Kogan’s with Pavel. Oistrakh, beloved by his colleagues, engaged in chamber music, played the viola, and conducted. Kogan, supposedly feared by his, played the violin. But how he played it! For those who haven’t had the opportunity to observe him, either live or on video, EMI’s collection should come as an exceptionally welcome opportunity. Few violinists (except for Heifetz) conveyed such a sense of easy command simply by the way they held the instrument (and Kogan adopted what Carroll Glenn used to call the “Heifetz twist”). He adapted every motion so efficiently to its goal as to create a sense of poetry. Seeing is believing; hearing Kogan is only part of the show.

Kogan chose Brahms’s Violin Concerto for some of the most critical performances in his career, but in Beethoven’s he united purity and power in readings of searching profundity. In his performance with Froment from March 12, 1966, (Paris) he may not have enjoyed the most imposing orchestral support; but the close miking reveals not only the integrity of his musical conception but the warmth as well as the strength of his tone. Unfortunately, the visual and aural images aren’t perfectly synchronized (in the Concerto, in his mesmerizing reading of Bach’s Sarabande, which served as the encore, and, to a lesser extent, in Leclair’s Sonata), so watching can grow irksome. Tully Potter remarked in his notes to EMI’s Oistrakh DVD that Oistrakh was a man for the big occasion—the concerto and the sonata. Whatever the truth of that observation, Kogan’s perspicuous way with miniatures (Brahms, Paganini, and Falla from Paris, 1968, and Debussy and Shostakovich from London on March 20, 1962) shows him to be a gourmet confectioner equal to Milstein, Francescatti, and—dare I say it?—Heifetz himself. In a melodramatic stroke, the London production team placed him on a podium in the shadows for Beau soir, a touch that might have rendered a less haunting and controlled performance almost laughable. Whether or not Handel actually wrote the Sonata in E, Kogan scrubbed away individual mannerisms (the piece was a Heifetz favorite, but one that some think the Grandmaster overpersonalized), the better to reveal the work’s own considerable appeal. Kogan and his wife, Elizaveta Gilels-Kogan, apparently enjoyed Leclair’s Sonatas for Two Violins, and their performance of the Sonata, op. 3/3 (from Paris, November 21, 1963), while not reaching the Oistrakhs’ perfect unanimity, provides a bracing conclusion to the program.

Kogan’s long fingers look and move much like those of his most prominent pupil, Viktoria Mullova; and the flashes of steel in her playing recall his dashing machismo. But the pupil received only part of her teacher’s inheritance. The suppleness and grace that only superficially seem so much at odds with that flint and steel completes the bequest, which no one has yet claimed in its entirety. Anybody who admires violin playing as an art in itself should find EMI’s Kogan compilation irresistible, but the performances hold more than voyeuristic interest. Strongly recommended, accordingly, to all kinds of listeners and viewers.

Robert Maxham , Fanfare Magazine