From 1908 through 1953, with the exception of a few years’ service to his country in both World Wars, Albert Spalding was rated as America’s greatest violinist—better than Maud Powell or Isaac Stern (though the latter pushed himself like potato chips) and the equal of Yehudi Menuhin, who later gave up his American citizenship in order to adopt Great Britain. He was unique among the great violinists of his time in that he wasn’t born of an émigré family, he wasn’t neurotic, depressed, homosexual or an addict of any kind. His temperament as a person was even and mostly calm; little if anything rattled him, including audiences. He just happened to have a sensuous yet exciting tone, superb technique and a heartfelt yet highly musical style. Yet in many ways he has been marginalized and forgotten, partly due to this now-antiquated way of playing which included a steady (but not overripe) vibrato and the use of portamento. In short, he was more the American version of Fritz Kreisler than of Jascha Heifetz, but while the former is still considered an icon because he was Viennese (and, therefore, to the manner born), Spalding has been pushed aside.
Yet if one listens to his best recordings—hard to find in one place and often reissued with a ton of surface noise burying the beauty of his playing—one will discover a sincere artist and a distinct personality. Beneath the layers of vibrato and portamento was a sincere artist whose performances were deeply heartfelt, a rock-solid technique that was admired by his peers as well as by such pedagogues as Carl Flesch, Joseph Joachim and Leopold Auer. In fact, when Spalding played in Russia in 1914, Auer brought his entire class of pupils—which at the time included Thelma Given, Toscha Seidel and a 13-year-old boy named Jascha Heifetz. Yet in his home country, it took more than a decade for critics to recognize him as the great artist he was, simply because he was American and thus didn’t have the right ethnic background to be playing music that they felt was “over his head.”
Spalding was born on August 15, 1888 to James Walter and Maria Boardman Spalding. His uncle Albert, after whom he was named, was a famous baseball pitcher (the first to wear a glove when playing) and manager (for the Chicago White Stockings) who wrote the rules of the game (he later called for a committee to investigate the false claim that Abner Doubleday created baseball) and, after retirement, founded the first sporting goods manufacturing company in America, of which his brother, Albert’s father, was named President. Thus although his parents weren’t wealthy when he was born, they became wealthy by the time he was 10 years old.
The legend has been spread for years that Albert’s family, involved as they were in sporting goods, were opposed to his wanting to become a violinist, but that’s not entirely true. His mother had, after all, been a contralto before her marriage to Jim Spalding, and from the very start his parents paid for all of his lessons—first with private teachers in New York City, then at the Paris and Bologna Conservatories, graduating from the latter with honors at the age of 14 (1902). Yet he felt he wasn’t yet ready to make his debut, and so waited four years before playing for the first time at the Nouveau Théâtre in Paris on June 6, 1906, then in the principal towns of France, Austria, Germany, Italy, and England. One of his most memorable early concerts was when he played the Saint-Saëns Violin Sonata with the composer himself at the piano. He received glowing reviews everywhere he performed, yet was still ignored by his own countrymen (and countrywomen).
After making his American debut with Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in a concert with the New York Symphony on November 8, 1908, Spalding received strongly opposing critical reviews. Henry Krehbiel in the New York Tribune accused him of “rasping, raucous, snarling, unmusical sounds,” but Walter Damrosch, who conducted the performance, called him “the first great instrumentalist this country has produced.” Pianist André Benoist, who later became Spalding’s permanent accompanist from 1908 until 1950, explained the origin of Krehbiel’s verbal vitriol in his autobiography:
This Krehbiel I knew well, having traveleed with him when he was giving learned lectures on the English version of Parsifal…in my conversations with him, I found that he gathered most of his information from different reference works and encyclopedias, which anyone of us could have done equally well, given the time to devote to this sort of research. His judgment, I found, was tinged on all things by what he either read or heard [from others]. And this was one of the high Gods that sat in judgment of an artist’s value to the world![1]
Fortunately, Spalding’s career proceeded well, since audiences liked him immensely. In 1909 he soloed with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra when that orchestra toured the United States. In 1916, he was recognized as a national honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music. And contrary to Henry Krehbiel’s nasty judgment, “Thomas Edison analyzed Spalding’s tone with electronic equipment and found it to be the purest of any living violinist he had heard; this led to a twenty-year ‘contract’ during which Spalding made over a hundred records.”[2]
One of the more interesting documents, because it shows exactly what a well-balanced character Spalding had even as a young man, comes from a rare interview in The Strad of January 1907 by one B. Henderson (not to be confused with the distinguished New York critic W.J. Henderson). I quote part of it here so that the reader can ascertain some of Spalding’s laid-back, no-nonsense personality:
“Tell me a little about yourself,” I say as we settle down for a chat. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you that is of any interest to the public.” “Is that your celebrated Montagnana violin,” I ask, as he carefully puts away the instrument from which he has just been drawing such clear silvery tones.
“Yes, that is the violin that was given to me by my grandmother on my first appearance in Paris the year before last. I could have had my choice of two Strads at a higher price, but I don’t consider either of them equalled to this one in tone. It was very funny when I played in Bristol last week to hear the remarks passed on it. A rumor had gone round that it was a very expensive instrument, and one lady was heard to remark that the violin I was playing on cost £10,000!”
“Are you nervous when playing in public?” “No, I cannot say that I am. I am naturally a little excited before playing, but once on the platform I enjoy it. The only time I ever remember feeling nervous was when I was to play with Saint-Saëns at the Pergola theatre in Florence. I had heard that he was sometimes a little abrupt with musicians that did not please him, and as I was to play his compositions I was naturally a little anxious. However, I found him perfectly charming and most kind.”
Mr. Spalding does not add that the great French composer expressed himself delighted at the violinist’s interpretation of his great concerto, but this is a fact which I learned from other sources.”Do you practice a great deal?”: “No—that is to say I have never over-practised. Many average is about three hours daily, but I always make it a point never to let a day pass without working if I can help it. In travelling about it is sometimes difficult to arrange, but at home I do a great deal of work, also at harmony and composition.”
“Have you any other hobbies besides music?” “Yes, I am passionately fond of sport, but there are certain forms in which I dare not indulge, as I like to keep my hands supple.”
“What is your favorite school of music?” “All music that is good appeals to me, but, if I have any preference, it is for the German classical school. Bach and Beethoven are my ideals in music, which, I suppose, is the reason for my great admiration for Joachim.”
“Have you ever met him?” “Yes, I spent some time with him at his home in Berlin and played for him, and I shall not easily forget his kindness and encouragement.”
So there you have, more or less, Albert Spalding in a nutshell. His head was screwed on straight; he had no hang-ups and, unlike his accompanist André Benoist, who was prejudiced against blacks, Spalding was very open-minded since his mother had a highly competent and personally esteemed black handmaiden named Nannie who was taken by the Spalding family all over the world when they traveled and treated as one of the family. Even more interesting was his reaction to Benoist’s horror about his enlisting in the Army Air Force in World War I, that he wasn’t considering the possibility that he might damage or lose his “precious” hands. Spalding angrily reacted as follows:
Spalding in uniform, 1917
“All you say is beside the point and only evades the real issue. In the first place, my hands are no more precious than any other individual [emphasis mine] who does work conscientiously and with loving care. In the second place, I have no responsibilities except my own, as I am not married [Spalding married after the War]m hav no children, and my immediate family is able to care for itself. And as for me, I have to live with myself, and could not do this comfortably knowing that other men, be they steam fitters, miners, painters, etc., were going to give their all in the defense of their country, while I, being fortunate enough to have a profession that makes for a comfortable living, stood by and watched them for the dirty work! NO! Let anyone who feels that his hands are too precious to risk them in this drama keep out of it. I do not blame them for the thought; but I could never reconcile such a thought with my personal feelings in the matter.” [3]
As was to be expected, however, the Army Air Service used him primarily in espionage assignments and as a code-breaker. At once point, he was aide-de-camp to then-Comgressman Fiorello La Guardia, but his top secret work must have saved lives because after his discharge he was awarded the Cross of the Crown of Italy.
Although Spalding was much older when World War II began (53) and had in fact been married by then for 22 years, he was contacted and asked if he would return to help his country. He again consented. According to Wikipedia, “Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle successfully urged Spalding to work for the Office of Strategic Services. He was posted to London, for six weeks, and then served in North Africa until he was ordered to Naples where he was attached to the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF. (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces).”
But André Benoist was more specific in describing his duties, which were far more dangerous than his decoding work in World War I. Because of his knowledge of both the language and culture, Spalding was put in charge of the Italian underground in Naples under the code name Major Sheridan. Had he been found out, he would surely have been killed on the spot by Fascist thugs. Yet he hung in and stayed with it for two years. The website DeseretNews adds this detail to an astonishing impromptu concert that he gave in 1944:
An incident much publicized in the Italian press and which indicates something of the resourcefulness, alertness and courage of the man occurred during an especially severe bombing raid in Naples. Everyone was forced to take refuge in shelters. Spalding was in a shelter with several hundred others. The crowd was near panic. Noticing a man with a violin case, Spalding asked him if he might borrow his instrument for a while. Then he quickly launched into an unaccompanied rendition of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. The crowd, inspired by Beethoven’s heroic music and Spalding’s heroic behavior, soon calmed down.[4]
Among his many good qualities, Spalding was not jealous of any other violinist, not even Fritz Kreisler whose playing was so similar to his own or the phenomenally gifted Jascha Heifetz, who Benoist accompanied during the year-plus when Spalding was serving in the military.
Undoubtedly the funniest back-handed compliment ever paid to Spalding came from an elderly woman who approached him after one concert in a small Southern American town. According to Benoist, she breathlessly told the violinist with enthusiasm, “Ah, Mr. Spalding, I have heard them all, since I was a little girl, and I’ll tell you what the trouble is with all of them. They’re all technique and no soul, whereas you…you’re all soul and no technique!” Not realizing the full import of what she had just said, the old lady walked away triumphantly with a fixed smile on her face while Spalding laughed out loud.[5]
Spalding returned tho concertizing after the War, but his sun was starting to set. By the time he and Benoist parted company in 1948, a new rival had appears on the scene, the much younger Isaac Stern. Although Stern had nowhere near the beauty of tone of Spalding or Menuhin, he had a powerful agent who pushed him like potato chips. In addition to concertizing and radio, he also performed in movies and on television, which Spalding never did, and Goddard Lieberson of Columbia Records pushed his career as well.
After a New York concert at the end of May 1950, Spalding announced his retirement from the concert stage, although he did continue to make recordings. During this later phase of his career he taught at the Boston University College of Music and, in the winter months, at Florida State University, and he did occasionally played recitals at these venues. His last recital, with pianist Jules Wolffers, was given at Boston College on May 15, 1953; 10 days later he died in New York, a few months shy of his 65th birthday. Since no one lists the cause of death online, I would assume that it was something quick like a heart attack that felled him. Thus did the life and career of an outstanding musician come to an end.
We turn now to what I feel are the best recordings Spalding has left us. You can access them on the Internet Archive by clicking HERE.
1-3. Brahms: Sonata for Piano & Violin No. 2 in A, Op. 100 (Ernö von Dohnányi, pianist)
Often considered to be the weakest of Brahms’ three violin sonatas, possibly because the piano part often overshadows the violin, Spalding gives it just the right touch. This was his second recording of the piece; his first was made with Benoist for Victor. Even his portamento seems to suit Brahms to a T, just as Bronislaw Huberman’s does in the Violin Concerto (Brahms heard Huberman play his concerto and admired it immensely), yet he is content to let Ernő von Dohnányi, a superb pianist in addition to being a good composer, “lead” him in this work, which is the right way to approach it. If you pay close attention to the music, you’ll note that what the violin plays is often in reaction to what the piano has played just before him. In addition, Spalding’s superb sense of line and structure gives his playing much more “sweep” than we now hear from modern violinists. They could all learn a thing or three from listening to Spalding’s recordings of standard repertoire—and beyond. And please note than when the music calls for more “bite” and less lyricism, Spalding is ready to present that aspect of it, too.
4-7. Brahms: Sonata for Piano & Violin No. 3 in D min., Op. 108 (Dohnanyi, pianist)
The more popular and tighter-written third sonata remains a favorite with both violinists and pianists, and this duo really digs under the music’s surface. The second movement, pitched very low for the violin, is almost in the viola range, and Spalding handles this assignment very well. In the second movement, note how even his trills are; very few players, even today, can match him on this.
8-10. Dohnányi: Violin Sonata (Dohnányi, pianist)
Dohnányi’s violin sonata is just as lyrical but more dynamic and, at times, more dramatic that either Brahms sonata they recorded, and Spalding is near perfection here, particularly the added Slavic “bite” in Spalding’s violin tone. (These are the kind of notes that sound particularly harsh on recordings, but terribly exciting when heard “live.”)
11-12. Spalding: Excerpts from “Etchings” (Benoist, pianist)
Although Spalding was not a great composer, as we shall see he was often better than average. Etchings was a 10-part suite of which the last eight pieces were relatively tame, but the evocative “Desert Twilight” and the eerie “Ghosts” are clearly among his finest pieces. The high passage near the end of “Desert Twilight” almost sounds like a clarinet, so pure is his tone. (I had to do some radical cleaning-up of these sides, which only appeared on an old Biddulph release from the early 1990s and had no noise filtering done to them.) I’d hold up “Ghosts,” in particular, to any modern-day violin piece of a similar nature.
- Sibelius: Valse Triste (violin-piano transcription) (Benoist, pianist)
My regular readers know that I generally loathe transcriptions of music for instruments that were never expected to play those pieces, but I make an exception for this almost heartbreaking rendition of Valse Triste. Spalding plays it like a man whose grief is beyond tears; he does not cry on your shoulder. On the contrary, he is crying inside, and you can feel it. This, the only acoustic recording I chose for my survey, was an Edison Diamond Disc from 1923, and anyone familiar with these remarkable artifacts knows that Edison was able to capture the sound of soprano voices and violins much better in the acoustic process than anyone else. In fact, Spalding preferred his Edison records to any others, claiming that they captured his tone perfectly whereas Victor did not. Even so, I had to spend nearly 20 minutes removing all the clicks and most of the overwhelming surface noise that otherwise covered up this remarkable performance.
- Spalding: Dragon Fly, a Study in Arpeggios
Although Spalding’s technique was never quite as supernatural (in both the realistic and metaphoric senses of the word) as Jascha Heifetz’, even Heifetz admired Spalding’s ability to play the fastest technical passages with perfect balance, meaning that each note was equal in volume and touch to every other note. (Musicians call it articulation.) I’m not surprised that modern violinists don’t attempt to play Dragon Fly, since it’s even more difficult than Paganini’s Moto perpetuo but not as catchy to the ear. Note here, too, Spalding’s uncanny ability to create a real “line” in the music from start to finish even when dazzling the ear with pyrotechnics.
- Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D, II. Larghetto – excerpt (Austrian Symphony Orchestra, Wilhelm Lobner, cond.)
Although this is clearly not the 1940s performance that Spalding played in that Neapolitan shelter, the otherworldly beauty of his timbre and his superb ability to craft a continuous line of music was never shows to better advantage than it is here. Very few violinists have come close to this.
- Barber: Violin Concerto – III. Presto in moto perpetuo (Phildelphia Orchestra, cond. Eugene Ormandy)
I’m not at all fond of the first two movements of this concerto, which I consider to be pretty drippy music and inferior Samuel Barber, but this final movement is not only fascinating musically but a real ass-kicker. The irony is that the pianist for whom this concerto was commissioned, Iso Briselli, was the one who insisted on a more virtuosic last movement and then, after Barber had written it and had an advanced violin student at Curtis play it at a “test run” for the concerto in 1940, Briselli said he hated it and wouldn’t play it!And no other violinist save Heifetz could possibly have played it with such evenness in each and every note. I’ve listened to other “great” violinists of today, among them Hillary Hahn and Gil Shaham, and none of them play it as perfectly, or with anywhere near the continuity of musical line, as Spalding did. NONE of them.
17-20. Franck: Violin Sonata in A (André Benoist, pianist)
This was one of Spalding’s specialty pieces as it also was for Jacques Thibaud. An interesting sidelight is that accompanist André Benoist was with Franck on the day he suddenly collapsed and died amidst the students who loved him. Both participants throw their hearts into this recorded performance, which in my view is the finest ever made of this piece (although Heifetz and Rubinstein come close).
- Chopin: Waltz in B min., Op. 69 No. 2 (André Benoist, pianist)
Yet another transcription that actually works, mostly because, although Spalding plays with great feeling, he purposely avoids pathos or bathos in his approach. All of his feeling is in his timbre, not in any extra added sentiment.
22-25. Spalding: Sonata in E for Violin Alone
This extremely interesting work was published by the Volkwein Brothers in Pittsburgh in 1948. That much is known and provable, but when and where this recording of it was made is a mystery. It just popped up one day on YouTube, so I said “Thank you very much,” streamed and recorded it. It is clearly Spalding’s masterpiece, written in a style not unlike that of Bartók or Martinů, and parts of it are very challenging technically for the violinist. To aid you in your listening, I have attached the complete PDF score which you can access by clicking HERE.
26-28. Mozart: Sinfonia Concertnte in E-flat, K. 364 (William Primrose, viola; New Friends of Music Orch., cond. Fritz Stiedry)
This was Spalding’s one and only orchestrally-accompanied recording for Victor, made in May 1941. He is joined on this set by the distinguished American violist, William Primrose, with the “New Friends of Music Orchestra” (members of the NBC Symphony) conducted by Fritz Stiedry. Stiedry later became Rudolf Bing’s right-hand man at the Metropolitan Opera, where his performances were stodgy and lacking any musical grace, but aside from the dated, boxy sound this performance is surprisingly modern in concept and execution, with a lean orchestral profile. brisk tempi and plenty of energy. It was later reissued on an RCA Camden LP after Spalding’s death.
- Sarasate: Zapateado, Op. 23 No. 2 (André Benoist, pianist)
One last encore piece in which Spalding is accompanied by Benoist. Although the violinist absolutely detested his Brunswick recordings because of their boxy sound, modern audio editors can do wonders with restoring his brightness of tone, and this is yet another perfect example of his long-lined musical phrasing even in the fastest and most virtuosic passages.
Despite the best efforts of the Historically-Informed Performance Mafia to shove straight tone down our throats, violinists like Spalding, Elman and Huberman do not deserve to be forgotten except as historical figures. They were highly prized by the very composers the HIP crowd now thinks they are serving, but are not, and their style is much closer to the composers’ conception of their music. I urge you to listen to all of these recordings and then make up your own mind.
—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley
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[1] The Accompanist: An Autobiography of André Benoist, Paganiniana Publications, 1978, p. 157.
[2] This and other info on Spalding’s career from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Spalding_(violinist)
[3] Benoist, ibid, pp. 257-259.
[4] https://www.deseret.com/1988/9/22/18778902/celebrating-the-spalding-centennial
[5] Benoist, ibid, p. 261.
As usual, Pappano’s work is slick, beautifully rehearsed and elegantly flowing but only occasionally tightly dramatic. He is the British counterpart to James Conlon. I respect both conductors because they are unfailingly musical without really loving their work; nonetheless, the elegance with which Pappano leads this performance is so exquisite that I must give him high marks. No musical detail escapes his attention; he obviously knows this score inside and out, and gives you everything that is in it. The Royal Opera Chorus, directed by William Spaulding, is as superb as usual. The choral fugue in the first act is sung as well or better than I’ve ever heard it, and that is NOT an easy feat to pull off. (Just don’t watch it; they’re dressed like modern-day nudniks.) In a way, what Pappano gives us is a very French reading of the score so long as one considers such French conductors as Munch and Prêtre to have been anomalies. His control of dynamics, in particular, is extremely impressive, and he is able to tie all the disparate parts of the opera together to create good structure and a continuous flow.
A few things I liked about the production were the way they swiftly changed the sets during the Act II introductory music, and Jones’ idea of Dalila finding Abimélech’s dead body just before singing “Amour, viens aider”; this made excellent dramatic sense, as she sings about revenge. I was much taken by Garanča’s excellent acting in this scene, so much better than earlier-age Dalilas of my experience. But I still had to laugh at our High Priest wearing a black jacket and blue jeans. Even in an updated view of the opera, this just doesn’t say “High Priest” to me. Garanča’s print dress also seemed several centuries too modern for me, but at least she looked good in it, and her acting in this scene is entirely convincing, particularly the look on her face when she tells the High Priest that she hates Samson. Pappano pulls this sometimes-rambling scene together beautifully, too. (Yet I wondered about the political implications of the Philistines silently burning a white flag with a Star of David on it; that’s a very touchy topic nowadays.)
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