The two 12-inch 78s containing Sarasate's ''Playera'' and ''Zapateado,'' Dvorak's Humoreske and Achron's Hebrew Melody played by Josef Hassid and Gerald Moore were in our record collection at home during the last war, and they were probably on the turntable more often than any of the others; miraculously they have survived. It was not until many years later that I heard the other two, devoted to Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Massenet and Kreisler. Even in the 1940s the facts concerning this phenomenally gifted violinist were the subject of conjecture. He was a pupil of Flesh (or was it Auer?); he had apparently never recorded any major work, such as a concerto or a sonata; he had made these recordings when he was young (20, 25 years old?); and he had disappeared (dead, gone to a lunatic asylum, or simply stopped playing?).
More has become known about him recently (the BBC broadcast his complete recordings a year or so ago), and Bryan Crimp's informative and sympathetic sleeve-note for this most welcome reissue in the EMI Treasury series sets out the facts of his tragically short life and career in detail. Briefly, he was born (as Joseph Chasyd) in December 1923, in Suwalki in north-eastern Poland. He entered the Chopin School of Music in Warsaw when he was ten, and went in for the Wieniawski Competition in 1934 (and had a memory lapse). Bronislav Huberman arranged for him to study with Carl Flesch, who concentrated on his musical development more than his technique, since this was already so advanced. In the spring of 1940 he made his London debut, in a recital in the Wigmore Hall and in a concert in Queen's Hall (where he had another memory lapse in the Tchaikovsky Concerto). Later that year, in three sessions in June and November, he made his four records, under the supervision of Walter Legge and accompanied by Gerald Moore; he was 16. Soon afterwards he became seriously ill, suffered further from loss of memory, and schizophrenia was diagnosed. He spent a considerable time in hospital (during which his father died of cancer), and finally died, not yet 22, after unsuccessful brain surgery.
Kreisler said: ''A fiddler such as Heifetz is born every 100 years; one like Hassid every 200 years.'' When you hear these recordings you understand exactly what he meant. The playing displays total command of the instrument, allied to a warmth of sound, a feeling for phrasing and, perhaps above all, a sense of timing that one hopes to find in the most seasoned and mature artist, rather than a boy of 16. Nobody I have heard (not even Heifetz) can come near him in Sarasate's ''Zapateado,'' which is surely the pinnacle in this extraordinary recital, but it is all pure magic; even the 'test' recording of Elgar's La capricieuse, made with Ivor Newton in January 1939, and now issued for the first time, is very nearly as accomplished as the one Hassid made 18 months later. The fact that he died so young and without leaving any recordings of the major works in a violinist's repertory is an inestimable loss, but this 30-minute side of trifles is one of the most precious treasures in gramophone history.
Like Crimp, I must give less space, in an already long review, to the second side of this record, simply because it is concerned with a violinist whose life is not shrouded in mystery, whose distinguished career is well documented by recordings and who, thank goodness, is still with us and still very active. Ruggiero Ricci was born in San Bruno, California in 1918, five years before Hassid, and studied with Louis Persinger, whose other star pupil was Sir Yehudi Menuhin. He made his recital debut in San Francisco in 1928 and his concert debut in New York a year later. He made these recordings, also originally issued on four Electrola 78s and available here only to special order, in Berlin in 1938, two with Carl Furstner and two with Persinger (a gentle man, who gave a masterclass at the Royal Academy of Music years ago and demonstrated all his musical points on the piano). If the playing does not have quite the compelling quality of Hassid's, it is, nevertheless, a stunning display of virtuosity, notably in the pieces by Paganini and Sarasate, while those by Ysaye (Persinger's teacher) and Rachmaninov are played with a lyrical tenderness that is far removed from cheap sentimentality: a remarkable achievement.
All the transfers have been made by that backroom genius, Keith Hardwick.'