Beethoven. Violin Concerto

This recording of one of Beethoven's most melodious scores has been a favorite of mine since it first appeared in vinyl many years ago. It has long been superseded in popularity perhaps even critical acclaim by Kremer's later, grander, more conventional effort with Harnoncourt conducting on Teldec. Philips, to my knowledge, never saw fit to re-issue it on CD; it is now beind done so, under license by Arkiv, though preserving the Philips artwork but not the notes. The sound retains the warmth and clarity of the original, bright early-digital recording.

The violin concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven and Alban Berg are, on the surface, more different from one another than two compositions could ever probably be. Yet both stand as titans within the violin repertoire and broke incredibly significant new ground. Beethoven's lone Violin Concerto was different than anything that came before it and set the tone for virtually every concerto written after it for nearly a century.

“This album presents the core of the violin repertoire – Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Kreutzer Sonata,” says Nemanja Radulović. While these Beethoven masterpieces have been recorded countless times, Radulović’s approach to each of them has an element of innovation. For the concerto, he has expanded Double Sens, the chamber ensemble he founded in 2008. “I wanted to retain the special character of Double Sens as an ensemble which plays without a conductor and explores new ways of interpretation … In our recording of the concerto, we wanted to convey a range of emotions – courage, risk, joy, love, rage, sadness, nostalgia, and magical serenity and tenderness.”

Immensely gifted emerging artist" (New York Times) Daniel Lozakovich has been dreaming about recording the Beethoven Violin Concerto since he was eight. He first performed it on stage when he was thirteen, and at fifteen was invited by Valery Gergiev to perform the concerto with him in Moscow. A few short years later, he has reunited with his mentor Gergiev to record the Beethoven with the Mnchner Philharmoniker for Deutsche Grammophon.

Lorenzo Gatto's 2014 release on Outhere signals his return to classical performance, following popular successes with his crossover violin group, Trilogy. Yet because Gatto has been firmly grounded in classical music since childhood, recording Beethoven's Violin Concerto and the two Romances is a homecoming only in a technical sense, since he plays with the ease and mastery of one who has spent years living with these works. Accompanied by Benjamin Levy and the Orchestre de Chamber Pelléas, Gatto delivers an expansive and spirited reading of the Violin Concerto, giving the music natural elegance in his clean phrasing and pure tone, and high energy in his virtuosic displays. The Romances are long-breathed and lyrical, and with the orchestra's stirring performance of the Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus, this is a well-balanced program that shows Gatto's and Levy's excellent taste and superb musicianship.

Stern’s well known strengths in Brahms, as evidenced in his studio recordings, are reprised here. He plays with a communicative classicism that embraces romanticised rubati - which elongates but never breaks the line - and which vests the music sometimes with a heartbreaking sense of pathos…The orchestra remains rather bluff…But never mind, it’s Stern’s show and Wöss accompanies admirably.

Judging simply by timings, Mintz and Sinopoli seem to have decided on a middle path in their approach to the first movement of this concerto: they take nearly a minute less over it than Mutter and Karajan (also on DG), about a minute and a half more than Perlman and Giulini on EMI. Using ears rather than a stopwatch, however, they seem to be giving by far the slowest performance of the movement that I have heard in years. It is a reading from which anything which might savour of soloistic display has been expunged, in which no note, even one of a flourish of semiquavers, is allowed to be 'merely' decorative. Mutter is fond of polishing every note like a jewel, too, but the very opening of the concerto in hers and Karajan's reading sounds positively sprightly set beside the newcomer. The moment Mutter enters the speed slackens markedly, but Karajan watchfully assures that the pulse returns with each tutti, and a sense of momentum is present throughout, even during the soloist's most wayward rhapsodizings.

With a celebrated career encompassing five decades, Pinchas Zukerman reigns as one of today's most sought after and versatile musicians - violin and viola soloist, conductor, and chamber musician. He is renowned as a virtuoso, admired for the expressive lyricism of his playing, singular beauty of tone, and impeccable musicianship, which can be heard throughout his discography of over 100 albums.