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Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concertos

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s

Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven
Title: Violin Concertos
Released: 1954
Label: EMI Classics
Time: 71:31
Producer(s):
Appears with:
Category: Classic
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Purchase date:  2001.01.06
Price in €: 8,58
Web address: www.emiclassics.com

 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D, Op.61
[1] I. Allegro ma non troppo - 24:02
[2] II. Larghetto - 9:42
[3] III. Rondo (Allegro) - 10:24

Felix Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64
[4] I. Allegro molto appassionato - 12:30
[5] II. Andante - 7:54
[6] III. Allegretto non troppo - Allegro molto vivace

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Sir Yehudi Menuhin - Violin

Philharmonia Orchestra - Orchestra [1]-[3]
Wilhelm Furtwängler - Conductor

Berliner Philharmoniker - Orchestra [4]-[6]
Fritz Kreisler - Cadenza

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Award: Choc du Monde de la Musique, France

EMI 5 666975 2 Mono. Digitally remastered in 1984/1999.
EMI Great Recordings of the Century CDM 5 66990-2



Two of the greatest and most popular of all violin concertos - Beethoven's (1806) and Mendelssohn's (1844) - in performances by a great musical partnership: Yehudi Menuhin and Wilhelm Furtwängler, an artistic relationship that could only exist after the Second World War, and after Furtwängler's clearance by a de-Nazification tribunal in 1947.

Their first collaboration, in 1947, was a concert performance of the Brahms Concerto, followed, a few weeks later, by a studio recording on 78s of the Beethoven Concerto. The advent of the long-playing record was undoubtedly behind the decision in 1953 that they should re-record the work.

The magnificent result - featuring the recently-founded Philharmonia Orchestra and recorded in London's Kingsway Hall - can be heard here coupled with an equally fine account of Mendelssohn's evergreen Concerto, recorded in Berlin the previous year with the orchestra with which Furtwängler had been so closely involved, the Berlin Philharmonic.

For this reissue the recordings have been newly remastered at Abbey Road Studios and the booklet contains an English essay by Alan Sanders, which appears also in German, French and Spanish translation.



"...the definitive (Beethoven) ...Menuhin gives a magnificent performance"

Gramophone




Yehudi Menuhin and Wilhelm Furtwängler, born a generation apart and separated by a world at war, were nonetheless musical and philosophical soulmates. Their recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, made seven years after they first met, is one of the treasures of the EMI archive, a testament to a bygone era of spontaneous and deeply subjective music-making. There is a nobility to the reading that has never been equaled, an unforced passion that would be difficult for any of today's musicians to duplicate. The monaural recording is remarkably fine, with satisfying depth and abundant detail.

Ted Libbey, Amazon.com essential recording



This is another of the GROC series (Great Recordings of the Century) from EMI. They were recorded in 1953 and 1952 respectively. EMI has also issued Perlman and Giulini Beethoven in this series. To be honest, I find the Menuhin/Fürtwangler combo infinity more "great". In fact, I’ll say that I think this is one of the best of all time.

Whilst listening I thought about how Beethoven’s Violin Concerto must have stunned audiences of his time. Already the "Eroica" had caused a furor. The audiences of the time must have been taken aback again, because there had been no violin concerto like this before. It is one of the Beethoven works that stands one foot in the classical world and one in the romantic. It is this Fürtwangler/Menuhin recording that prompted these thoughts.

I must confess, to add to my final opinion of the Beethoven, that I was prepared to not like the soloist and despair that we had Fürtwangler saddled to Menuhin. My previous exposures to the violinist revealed someone whose arm wasn’t as deep as I like. There was poetry, but no muscle. I was wrong. Menuhin is poetic, finding an almost pastoral quality to the slow movement, and romantic and also deep and fiery where need be. I guess the word that most often crossed my mind while listening to Menuhin was, arresting. I found myself over and over catching my breath in ecstasy.

The Mendelssohn was another discovery. Until I listened to this recording I generally found the music pleasant and pleasing but not very deep. Menuhin and Fürtwangler, however, plumb depths I loved hearing. In the very opening Menuhin finds a more nostalgic, almost painful backwards glance to life. This is a much darker, romantic Mendelssohn than I have previously heard. I have compared it with other "great" interpretations, the most recent Vengerov. Like a lot of others, he produces some spectacular gymnastics, but the whole thing sounds like a lot of fluff. Just compare the two at around 8 minutes into the first movement, where the solo violin begins to churn up the musical waters. Suddenly the orchestra joins in and the tension gets even more taut before the climax where they join as one. If you want substance with your soup, the Menuhin and Fürtwangler recording is what you need.

A couple afterthoughts. The notes say nothing about the pieces, and a lot about the circumstances surrounding the recordings. For those who have forgotten, Fürtwangler was shunned by many in the music world for having stayed in Nazi Germany during the war. He had to be "denazified" before allowed to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic again. Menuhin, a Jew, made the effort to reach out to Fürtwangler and help "rehabilitate" the conductor’s image. In addition, they "shared the same philosophical and spiritual approach to making music." (From Alan Sander’s notes) I think that you can hear the symbiotic process going on here and also the gestalt that results. It’s neat.

By the way, the sound is just great. There is air around the music and a depth to the sound stage. Neat stuff.

Copyright © Robert M. Stumpf II, 1999.



YEHUDI MENUHIN, Violinist, died on Friday, March 12, 1999. He was 82. May his music always live.

ANYONE who has knows where my CD-buying preferences lean to will know that I have a very large proportion of so-called "historical" recordings, usually taken before the stereo era and are thus in mono sound. There's life beyond DDD recordings and sometimes, in listening to some of these and reading a little, one can learn quite a bit about events in the world at that time. Wilhelm Furtwängler was one of the greatest conductors ever, possibly the greatest conductor on record. As an artist and as a person Furtwängler was by far one of the most charismatic, legendary - and controversial.

Before the second world war, the so-called pre-war period, Furtwängler had established a career of considerable repute. His flair for conducting showed especially in the works of Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms. Ironically, his love for music was to bring himself considerable suffering. The notorious Adolf Hitler, Führer of Deutschland was also a great lover of the antisemetic Richard Wagner's works, and he admired Furtwängler's conducting to no end. It has been said that after one production of the opera Lohengrin, he went to the unnamed conductor, telling him that the tenor had sung the wrong words at a particular point.

Hitler's hope for Germany, a warped product of early eugenics and misguided nationalism, was to create a pure "Aryan" society, by systematically eliminating the Jewish population, deemed to be inferior genetically. During the war, he found it necessary to bring out "Aryan" talents to show that his ideas were worth pursuing. Born of pure Germanic origin, and therefore of "Aryan" blood, Furtwängler was therefore held up as a shining pillar of the great German conducting tradition - the "Aryan" conducting tradition.

Furtwängler was given the chance to migrate out of Germany, rather than to continue conducting and be part of the atrocities that were occuring in his Vaterland. However he believed the truth in his music and his conducting would vindicate him from such insinuations. Furthermore, he also wanted to help Jewish musicans who were subject to Hitler's caprices.

During the war, he conducted frequently, and was often broadcast over the radio network of Germany. When the war ended, Furtwängler was investigated for war crimes as he was considered one of the Nazis. He was not allowed to perform in public and was kept away from his beloved Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, while he was "de-nazified". Wilhelm Mengelberg, conductor of the Concertgebouw suffered a similar fate.

IT WAS NOT until the late 1940s that Menuhin, who had heard of Furtwängler's enormous reputation, and was full of admiration for him through recordings of various Beethoven and Brahms performances, decided to investigate for himself the damaging insinuations. He found no evidence of Furtwängler being a Nazi, and decided to collaborate with him. Because of Menuhin's own reputation as a humanist, Furtwängler was largely vindicated, even though many anti-Furtwänglerians still believed the contrary. In 1951, Furtwängler was again chosen to open the Bayreuth Festspielsaal, an honour which the German society believed belonged only to an artist of Furtwängler's stature. His besmirched reputation was once again unsullied. The recording which I have stated above is a monument to the collaboration of these two great humanists and great artists.
Though recorded in mono sound, these recordings feature brightly lit sound, with the violin comfortably placed, and the orchestra well-recorded. Walter Legge's Philharmonia Orchestra was purportedly the best in the world at that time, featuring such players as Dennis Brain in the horn section. Menuhin and Furtwängler clearly treated the Beethoven as the great concerto that it is - the opening orchestral introduction is wonderfully conducted - at a moderate pace. Gentle rubato and thundering orchestral tuttis are the order of the day. When the soloist comes in, the effect is the pure magic that it should be. Menuhin is often impulsive, but Furtwängler proves a willing collaborator in this impulsiveness and gives worthy accompaniment. The second movement features a little faulty orchestra entry in the horns somewhere in the middle.

The Adagio is one of beautiful stasis, made more wonderful by Menuhin's playing, which had not yet faltered. The third movement is playful and jolly, and everyone involved in this recording seems to have great fun here. I often liken the finale to a merry chase between a butterfly (the violin) and a cat (the orchestra). In this case the orchestra is a big fat cat, agile nonetheless, yellow with white stripes. In the orchestral tuttis it bounds after the violin's theme with great pleasure. The violin teases continually, the cat always proves the worthy pursuer. This is a chase, but a fun one, and the cat and the butterfly are friends!



THE E-MINOR Mendelssohn, "the jewel in the heart of all the violin concertos" (Joseph Joachim) is treated heavily and dramatically - an alternative from the more "comfortable" readings. Taken very romantically, with the timpani at the beginning sounding loud and clear, soloist and conductor take the listener for a real ride - sample the first movement, where there is a real sense of "settling" into the work, rather than being at the surface all the time. Menuhin takes the cadenza very well. His playing is fiery in both concertos, though not lacking in poetry. The second movement is never badly played, and Menuhin's sweet tone is shown off well here. The wonderful sparkling third movement is a little of a disappointment, but only at the beginning, where the slow tempo doesn't seem to work so well. But this takes off too, and ends very satisfactorily. The Menuhin/Furtwängler collaborations at live performances must have been those that are only dreamt of nowadays, judging from these recordings. To anyone who hasn't heard these works before, this will prove a worthy first recording which you will return to. To everyone who heard these works to death, get this CD for a taste of something special.

This slice of history has a interesting turn - apparently during the war Furtwängler was asked to conduct for the Nazi campaign, which he rejected outright. This angered Hitler, who went searching for a replacement Furtwängler. This eventually turned out to be Karajan, who was in fact by records part of the movement. Goes to show that no matter what, some things never change -- the sun will always rise from the east, Windows 98 will continue to crash periodically and politics when interfering with culture will remain blind - more or less.

by Derek Lim



Glorious!

So far, I've heard the Beethoven Violin Concerto recordings of Heifetz/Toscanini, Milstein/Steinberg, Szeryng/Haitink, Heifetz/Munch, Sziegeti/Walter and Jamie Laredo. While I personally think that the Milstein is a remarkable asthetic jewel, the Menuhin/Furtwangler of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, Op. 61, is an incredible achievement. Truly, a monumental performance and collaboration. While Menuhin attacks and stretches his amazing virtuosity, together with Furtwangler and the Philarmonia Orchestra, they glorify Beethoven's concerto. And, their Mendelssohn with the Berliner Philharmoniker is equally beautiful.

A music fan from New York City, September 10, 1999
 

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