Berceuse

Jascha Heifetz and Bing Crosby: Berceuse from Godard’s “Jocelyn”

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Jascha Heifetz was the ultimate “crossover artist” before the term existed. During the Second World War, Heifetz joined popular entertainers such as Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in performances for U.S. servicemen. Heifetz’ collaborations with Crosby included this performance, recorded in Los Angeles on July 13, 1946, months after the War’s end. Accompanied by the studio musicians of the Victor Young Orchestra, Heifetz and Crosby performed the Berceuse (Lullaby) from the opera, …

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Tchaikovsky’s “Un poco di Chopin”: A Mysterious Homage

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky seems to have had a strangely conflicted opinion of the music of Frédéric Chopin. There are accounts of the young Tchaikovsky, nine at the time of the great Polish composer’s death in 1849, giving a spectacular performance of two Chopin mazurkas as a child. In the 1860s, Nikolay Kashkin observed that Tchaikovsky “did not particularly like Chopin, as he found in him a certain sickliness of expression, as well as …

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