Parnassus Records is pleased to return to international availability some of Seidel’s rarest and most sought-after recordings from his years as a Columbia artist, performing a variety of repertoire including movements from the concerto repertoire, evocative works of the late romantic era, encores, popular music, and the premiere commercial release of a live performance of Chausson’s Poème with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
“A recent CD on Parnassus treats us to a number of rarities taken from shellac plus a 1945 Hollywood Bowl account of Chausson’s ‘Poème’ (conducted by Stokowski)… a distinctive performance, certainly as far as Seidel is concerned. … such is the richness of Seidel’s tone and sureness of his attack that his playing emerges more or less untarnished by the primitive recording process. The transfers are in general excellent and so are Gavin Dixon’s annotations.” —Rob Cowan, Gramophone (January 2023 Issue)
“The quality of [Toscha Seidel’s] tone is one of the most beautiful I have heard in my career…it is an injustice of fate that he is not considered the third in a triumvirate with Heifetz and Elman.” So wrote Carl Flesch in his posthumously published Memoirs, containing candid, but often brutal, evaluations of his colleagues. While Seidel’s name remains little known among the general public, he is a legend among violinists – and, as Hollywood’s go-to violinist during the golden age of filmmaking, arguably the greatest violinist you’ve heard but never heard of!
