Vasa Prihoda (1900-60) can be said to occupy the stylistic middle ground between Jan Kubelik, the great Czech violinist of the preceding generation, and Josef Suk, the quintessential modern Czech virtuoso. Toscanini heard the young Prihoda play in Milan in 1919 and was favourably impressed. This in effect launched his career, leading to concerts and a series of recordings for Odeon's associate, Fonotopia. 'From then on', as Tully Potter puts it in his well-researched booklet essay, 'his success was constant' – though his 'laissez-faire attitude' during the Second World War (when he gave many concerts in Germany) led to charges of collaboration and a ban from performing in Czechoslovakia. This compendium is culled from recordings Prihoda made between 1935 (the Bazzini) and 1943 (the Dvorak and the two movements of the Bach sonata), and catch the violinist in his musical and technical prime. The Dvorák, strongly conducted by van Kempen, is tremendously forthright, full of tonal warmth and vibrancy. Prihoda delivers an excitable but never overwrought interpretation, more overtly personal (and more inclined to take risks) than Suk in his more classically restrained reading with An?erl. In the Bach, Prihoda's breadth and power in the opening Adagio remind me of the old Szigeti recording, though the ensuing Fugue is dispatched with brisk efficiency.The Tartini Violin Sonata contains details that are disturbingly anachronistic – teasing rubato, extravagant cadential ritardandos and a tasteless, inflated cadenza by Prihoda himself. I much prefer Oistrakh's eloquent advocacy of the sonata, using Kreisler's more stylistically apt cadenza. Paganini's Paisiello Variations, though done with an unnecessary piano accompaniment, are dazzling in their pyrotechnics. Even more astonishing is Prihoda's hair-raising performance of Bazzini's Ronde des lutins, especially in the second episode where the hapless player has to sound four rapidly repeated notes, each on a different string. He negotiates these hurdles as triumphantly as did the teenage Heifetz in 1917. What a pity, then, that Prihoda's well-nigh perfect account omits the less technically demanding first episode. Still, whatever my reservations, these skilfully transferred performances make a fine memento of a significant and under-appreciated violinist.
Harris Goldsmith
