Bach: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, BWV 1041 (reference recording: Nathan Milstein / Remastered)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, BWV 1041
00:00 I. Allegro (2026.b Remastered, New-York 1965)
04:00 II. Andante (2026.b Remastered, New-York 1965)
10:23 III. Allegro assai (2026.b Remastered, New-York 1965)

Violin & Conductor: Nathan Milstein with chamber orchestra
Recorded in 1965, at New York
In 1915, Leopold Auer, principal violin professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and the supreme authority of violin pedagogy in Russia, visited Odessa. Impressed by young Nathan’s talent, he immediately recommended that he join his class in Saint Petersburg. A disciple of Joseph Joachim and a legendary pedagogue, Auer trained many of the century’s great masters, including Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist, and Mischa Elman. Forced to leave Russia during the 1917 Revolution, he had Milstein as his last pupil. In 1919, Milstein first returned to Odessa, where he frequently gave concerts in Odessa and Kiev, achieving great success. That same year, he met the pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who, like him, was born in 1904. The two musicians became friends, formed a duo, and later a trio with the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

Joseph Szigeti, informed by Auer’s daughter Natasha of Milstein’s exceptional talent, helped him leave the Soviet Union for Western Europe during his first tour in 1924. Milstein arrived in Berlin on Christmas Eve 1925 and then received instruction in Brussels from the great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. He quickly gained widespread fame throughout Europe. In 1929, he made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Stokowski, achieving sensational success.

Having thus established a solid international reputation, Milstein made the United States his base of operations, became an American citizen in 1942, and after World War II settled mainly in London while continuing an intense concert career in Europe and America. He was then celebrated as one of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century. Even after the age of seventy, he remained extremely active, gave masterclasses in Zurich, and taught at the Juilliard School in New York, devoting his later years to training young musicians. When speaking of his playing, it is impossible to overlook a technique whose precision and perfection rivaled that of Heifetz. At the same time, he possessed a rare tone—clear, transparent, and tensile. Armed with this incomparable technique and beautiful timbre, he offered interpretations that were both elegant and incisive. His art conveyed a noble, almost aristocratic atmosphere, yet retained a deeply human warmth and a passionate impulse of remarkable purity. The combination of these multiple qualities produced a unique and irresistibly captivating style found in no other violinist.

Milstein was not a violinist with an especially vast repertoire. Faithful to his own artistic standards and rather conservative in his tastes, he showed little interest in contemporary music—aside from a few exceptions such as Prokofiev—and devoted himself primarily to the works from the Baroque to the Romantic periods that he truly loved. It is said that he cherished a lifelong devotion to J. S. Bach; the works of Bach and of the Italian Baroque thus ranked among his most treasured repertoire.
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