Available March 22, 2011
 
 
Sony Classical is excited to announce the release of Jascha Heifetz – The Complete Album Collection available March 22, 2011.  Acknowledged by Guinness World Records™ as “the greatest number of audio discs in a boxed set of classical recordings by a single instrumentalist,” this monumental collection includes 103 CDs.  It features three hours of previously unreleased Heifetz recordings, plus the Heifetz in Performance DVD and a 260-page hardcover book with photos and discography.
 
Heifetz is a legend who set a standard of violin playing to which violinists around the world still aspire. Isaac Stern called his playing “the single most powerful violinistic influence in the twentieth century.” Itzhak Perlman says simply that Heifetz is the “God” of all violinists.
 
The incredible recorded legacy contained in this collection spans fifty-five years of Heifetz’s career: from his first recording session for Victor, just days after his triumphant 1917 Carnegie Hall debut, to his last public recital in October 1972. In between are decades of benchmark recordings and legendary collaborations with many of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. Through them all, the Heifetz magic shines through: his unforgettable mixture of intensity and aristocracy grounded in impeccable technique, tonal purity, and rhythmic control, all of which he combined to create an absolutely unique sound.
 
The repertoire is vast: staples of the concerto, sonata, and chamber music literature alongside rarely performed gems. Included are world premiere recordings of concertos by Sibelius, Prokofiev, Korngold, Walton, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Gruenberg, and Rózsa. Rounding out the collection are dozens of short pieces played in Heifetz’s inimitable style. Among them are many of his own acclaimed transcriptions, including his only stereo recordings of selections from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.
 
These recordings are presented as originally issued on LP by RCA Red Seal, Columbia Masterworks, and Vox Cum Laude. Original jacket covers and labels are reproduced as they first appeared. Bonus CDs contain previously unreleased recordings dating from 1934 to 1964 of concertos, sonatas, and chamber music. These include a performance of the Brahms concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky that Heifetz recorded a year and half before the familiar issued version.
 
In his lifetime, the name Heifetz – which became synonymous with perfection – transcended the world of classical music. He made a Hollywood movie, appeared regularly on the radio, was pictured on the cover of Newsweek magazine, and reached an entirely new audience through his extensive USO tours for military service men and women during World War II. He even wrote a hit pop song under the name Jim Hoyl. Even Frank Sinatra identified him as an influence, saying that he listened to Heifetz to learn how to improve his phrasing.
 
Today, almost forty years after his last recital, countless musicians continue to be inspired by his recordings. As the violinist Maxim Vengerov told The Strad magazine in 2009, Heifetz’s recordings “left an incredible mark on my musical life.” Vengerov said that he would listen to a recording by Heifetz “from start to finish and then put it on again, to find out how interesting the violin can sound.”
 
This beautifully crafted and carefully restored collection will allow a new generation to discover the Heifetz magic, and will remind the rest of us why the great critic Deems Taylor once wrote that Heifetz has “only one rival, one violinist whom he is trying to beat: Jascha Heifetz.”
 
Sony Classical is the label group in charge of classical music within Sony Music Entertainment, based in New York and Berlin and responsible for the international productions of Sony Classical, RCA Red Seal and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, as well as a vast catalogue that goes back to Enrico Caruso. Sony Classical is the home of artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lang Lang, Joshua Bell, Murray Perahia and Vittorio Grigolo, as well as containing the musical legacy of Glenn Gould, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Arturo Toscanini and Leonard Bernstein. In the USA, Sony Classical is represented by the Sony Masterworks label group.

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