Michael Rabin (1936-1972)

"Who is the greatest instrumentalist in history? Was it, Paganini, Liszt, Chopin or Beethoven? Well since those guys hated to record we will never know for sure but I think of the ones that `did' like to record it would have to come down to Buddy Rich or Michael Rabin. And my vote goes to Michael Rabin. Michael Rabin was born on May 2,1936 and died on Jan 19,1972. By his teens in the 1950s, he had already joined the ranks of violin greats and he was being compared to Heifetz, Milstein, Stern, and Francescatti. And many people will argue that Michael Rabin was by far `the' best to ever live and blew everyone away. Heifetz actually said in an interview that Michael Rabin was his favorite living violinist. But there is something in the sound of Rabin that can break a man down.

Michael Rabin had such an extraordinary gift, he transcended technique. On this level of musical execution it's about connecting with the listener. If two people play all the right notes with absolutely no mistakes in the piece what makes one stand out against the other? Why do certain players reach out better than others? It's the soul of the musician that connects, their spirit. It could be hundreds of fast notes or a few long notes. Bach said that, "Playing an instrument is very easy, all you have to do is press the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself." Ok, Mr. Bach, so if you press the right notes at the right time what more do you need? Many people play the right notes. Music is all about `feeling', something you can t learn in music school kids, you're either born with it or you're not. That's why someone like Willie Nelson can connect as well as Luciano Pavarotti does, its not about how many notes or how fast, its about communication with the people who are listening to you. That's why we don't just sit and listen to a machine play. We need so much more than perfectly fast notes. We need the human touch, we need sadness, we need happiness, we need rage, and we need passion. A computer can't do that. The good musicians are able to express love or pain, joy or sorrow.

Michael Rabin played the most difficult music written for the instrument and brought out something in his performances that hasn't been heard from before or since. No other player has been able to record the, `24 Caprices For Solo Violin' by Paganini with such perfection, it leaves you breathless. And one can only wonder how Paganini himself sounded because it's hard to imagine that it would have been any better. There is so much emotion in his playing, so much intensity.

His recording here of, Carl Engel's, `Sea Shell' is beautiful and very emotional, such warmth and such tone color. In my opinion nobody can touch him. He was a very rare musician who left us way too young but at least left us with a fairly large body of work for us to enjoy. He had a very troubled life and developed an intense fear of falling off the stage. It's so tragic that he could not find someone to help him to regain his health back. He lived a very sad life but he left us so much."
-MICHAEL CORRAL (Amazon.com)