Encore pieces, in longish sequences, do of course belie their original nickname; but must surely be ever welcome when they are presented in a quality of playing which allows them to stay today's long courses.
Joshua Bell, a relatively young newcomer to the American scene, without question provides such quality. Of course he also plays standard repertoire concertos and EG reviews his Bruch/Mendelssohn coupling on page 1589. But I have never had the opportunity to hear him in such major works; nevertheless, I can remain abundantly content to hear him in what in cold blood must be described as trifles for ever.
But blood should not be so cold. Who should even try to resist, say Sibelius's Mazurka, one of the more elegant trifles (perhaps unexpectedly from a composer usually more successful in structures of granite than of strawberry mousse)? Yet there is some small representation, here, of the sterner stuff: the Bloch ''Nigun'' certainly sees to that. But of course Wieniawski, Novacek and Sarasate see to something else: that the virtuoso piece is in no danger of being neglected.
In these virtuoso pieces Bell is dazzling; in the gentler pieces he is moving, in the Bloch he is intense. And in one piece at least he introduces, successfully, the unfamiliar: Edwin Grasse's Waves at play whose gentle ripple is said to have enchanted earlier audiences, and, played as effortlessly as this, could well begin to enchant today's audiences all over again.
It is just believable that there are perhaps one or two spots that Bell himself, if nobody else, would like to take again. It is also just believable that the slightest tartness in the recording (rather more noticeable when considering the splendid piano accompaniments provided by Samuel Sanders) might send some listeners to adjust their treble control a notch. Neither of these points could reasonably even begin to cloud visibility of the star quality of the record as a whole. If Bell can play like this at 21, how is he going to play in 40 years' time?
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