As issues go nowadays, 41 minutes of music is a far from generous measure, but, as the tailoring maxim has it, never mind the length, feel the quality. There is an exhilaratingly youthful feeling emanating from this disc: Grieg was only 24, and in the first transports of his marriage only a month previously, when he wrote his Second Sonata Faure was 30, and in love, at the time of his First and Heifetz was 35, and at his freshest, when he recorded these two works (written within a decade of each other) in 1936—though, astonishingly, the information on the jewel-box and in the slender booklet is in disagreement about the date of the Grieg recording (February 7th or April 24th?).
Of the two works, the Grieg is much the less often heard, which is a bit surprising, in view of its sunny atmosphere (after a would-be portentous opening in the minor) and rhapsodic forward drive. Heifetz's commanding first entry, his ultra-sweet lyricism and his vigorously rhythmic attack at the Allegro vivace make for compelling listening; and for an illustration of 'art concealing art' one need look no further than the subtly produced simplicity of the Allegretto's start, which then rises to lyrical fervour. The light, springy finale is a sheer delight, and here Emanuel Bay, playing what sounds like an upright piano of constricted tone, manages some sparkling work.
For the Faure, Bay seems to have been allotted a decidedly worn grand. Its harsher less covered tone is hardly ideal to convey poetry; and Heifetz too, superb as is his playing technically (was it ever not?), is too tense and too concerned with projection, insufficiently intimate for this refined, somewhat elusive music. Ardour there certainly is, but especially in the second movement this sounds like a solo with a subservient accompaniment rather than the dialogue it should be: fortunately balance of interest is restored in the quicksilver scherzo. The recording of the violin, though very forward, is faithful, and the original surface noise has been skilfully rendered unobtrusive.'