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Jacques Thibaud

Violinists: A forgotten Frenchman these days in the violin world

From Cheng Hooi Lee
Posted September 26, 2006 at 02:34 PM

Happy Birthday - Jacques Thibaud (27 Sept). A forgotten Frenchman these days in the violin world - I also share his birthday. Any comments on his recording legacy and playing please?

From Kevin Huang
Posted on September 26, 2006 at 04:16 PM

I like Thibaud a lot.

Thibaud was a melodic violinist. He sang on the violin, and that always appeals to me. His sense of style isn't usually my cup of tea (I insist on more score and stylistic adherence), but what he does is appealing and that's what counts.

To me, Thibaud is like a painter who doesn't try to photographically reproduce a scene. Rather he uses the scene as inspiration for his own musings.

From Anne Horvath
Posted on September 26, 2006 at 06:17 PM

Yeah! Happy Birthday!
Jacques Thibaud is one of my favorite violinists.
I especially treasure his recordings with the pianist Alfred Cortot: Faure #1, Debussy, Franck sonatas, plus a bunch of short pieces. I listened to his Lalo Symphonie Espagnole (no 3rd mvt, alas) all summer like a crazed, obsessed fiend.

From Mitchell Pressman
Posted on September 26, 2006 at 06:48 PM

His 1934 recording of the "Archduke" trio with Cortot and Casals is one of my all-time favorites.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on September 26, 2006 at 11:07 PM

Greetings,
I think Thibauds playign is fantastic. The Art of TRhibaud CD collection is one of my all time favoritwa. Huch Bean once wrote about the reocring sesison with Misltein for the Goldmark cocnerto in which if he could choose one passage from the recorde dliterature to exemplify `violin` it would be Milstein playing the second theme of the 1st movement. Quite true but there is a smilar astonshing moment provide dby Thibaud.
In the Chausson cocnerto for violin quartet and ocrhcstra the entry of the solo violin is so perfect and touchign I had to keep clicking the cd back to just that passage over and over the first time I heard it.
Cheers,
Buri

From Daniel Broniatowski
Posted on September 27, 2006 at 01:07 AM

Thibaud was the teacher of my own undergraduate professor - Michele Auclair. Unfortunately, he died on a plane crash (along with his Strad, I think) going from Paris to Saigon (what was Saigon at the time).

Daniel

From Christian Vachon
Posted on September 27, 2006 at 11:32 AM

Hi,

Joyeux Anniversaire M. Thibaud!

One of the great violinists of the first half of the 20th century, beloved and praised by his colleagues. What a tone!!! That's all I can say!

Cheers!

P.S. There is a very rare set of recordings on a French label of Thibaud in live performances (mostly recorded in the 1940's) that is worth it if one can find it.

From Kevin Huang
Posted on September 27, 2006 at 02:54 PM

As great as Thibaud is, I didn't agree with him at all about his - or anybody's - negative assessment of Jan Kubelik's playing.

Those two violinists were at polar opposite spectrums of great musicianship.

From Sander Marcus
Posted on September 27, 2006 at 03:45 PM

Believe it or not, I've always liked the Brahms Double Concerto (with Casals), even though it's a little eccentric at points. Thibaud really was a great violinist, but from what I've read he had a limited repertoire.
Sandy

From Anne Horvath
Posted on September 27, 2006 at 04:49 PM

From Henry Roth's "Violin Virtuosos":
"It is said that one evening in the green room after a concert, an admirer asked him [Thibaud] to write a few lines in his autograph book. The noted pianist Moritz Rosenthal, known as a wag, happened to be standing nearby. 'What shall I write?' asked Thibaud of the pianist. Rosenthal quipped: 'Just write your repertoire, Jacques.'"

From Joey Corpus
Posted on September 28, 2006 at 03:05 AM

Definitely one of my favorite violinists of all. The slow movement of the Schubert Bb piano trio with Casals and Cortot--pure magic.

From anisha netto
Posted on September 28, 2006 at 01:04 PM

Joyeux Anniversaire!!!!

From Johnny Fang
Posted on September 29, 2006 at 04:09 AM

Funny Thibaud anecdote in Albert Spalding's memoirs, "Rise to Follow." Charlie Hart, accompanist to Thibaud related that, "Only a few nights previously he had been subjected to a kind of Chinese torture such as only the irrepressible Jaques could have thought up. The first page of the Beethoven sonata which they were to play had been doctored and distorted by the alteration of accidentals, sharps being substituted for flats and vice-versa. The score was a pernicious cryptogram. After the first shock, Hart had broken out in a cold sweat. To avoid complete disaster he took a chance on his memory and shut his eyes during the playing of the first page. Surely the toture was not to be prolonged throughout the piece? When he heard the page being turned he opened his eyes to find an enormous "Bravo" scrawled in Jacques' boldest manner at the top of page two."

From Alan Wittert
Posted on September 29, 2006 at 05:29 AM

I so enjoy his recordings of Mozart concertos, so eccentric and personalized...elegant.

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