Kreisler : Liebesfreud

Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986) was never a technical daredevil and his playing has been described as being "for conoisseurs only." Indeed, his style was quite refined and his repertoire tended towards pieces that which suited his musical gifts. His Beethoven Concerto and Sonata recordings and performances are most definitely among the best ever done of those works. This large set of 30+ smaller pieces (with a couple larger ones thrown in) focuses on Grumiaux's ability to touch the listener and indeed there is a thread of imperturbable calmness that runs through this recording upon a casual listening. This discing on Philips came out around 1996, presumably to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death. I'll just touch on a few of the highlights of this 2 CD set. In all of them, we hear Grumiaux at his best - polished and radiant, with Istvan Hajdu as the competent piano partner for all of the numbers.

Seit der Gründung im Jahr 1981 ist es der Wunsch des Ensembles, dem Publikum mit kontrastreichen Programmen die vielfältigen Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten der Bläserbesetzung näherzubringen.
Mit brillanten Arrangements Strauß'scher Kompositionen knüpft "Art of Brass" an die im 19. Jahrhundert übliche Praxis an, bekannte Kompositionen für die damals sehr beliebten Freiluftkonzerte mit Militärmusiken zu bearbeiten. Die Werke von Johann Strauß Sohn und seiner Zeit, sowie die Weiterentwicklung der wienerischen Musik bis hin zu Fritz Kreisler werden hier in unprätentiösen, kammermusikalischen Bearbeitungen realisiert, die auf bodenständigen Traditionen beruhen.

“…Returning to Galleria, let me recommend without reservations a splendidly played and recorded Shlomo Mintz recital with Clifford Benson of Kreisler encores, including all his most famous pieces, such as Caprice viennoise, Liebesleid, Liebesfreud and Tambourin chinois, plus arrangements and pastiches of music by Albeniz, Weber, Wieniawski, Dvorak, Glazunov and others. This infectious recital comprised part of Mintz's recording debut for DG in 1981 and very entertaining it is, backed by a recording that is realistically full of presence.”

Two names virtually synonymous with the violin in the twentieth century are Fritz Kreisler and Oscar Shumsky. The former was a notable performer in his own right, appearing as soloist in front of most of the world's most prominent orchestras. Today, however, Kreisler primarily lives on through his extensive compositional output, particularly that for the violin. This vast body of work can generally be categorized as being nationalistic, imitative of eighteenth century composers, or arrangements.

Ultimate Violin Classics: The Essential Masterpieces would be an appropriate title for this five-disc set of performances taken from EMI's archives, if it weren't for the word "The." These are certainly many of the greatest works for violin, but there are too many obvious omissions - solos by Bach, concertos by Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Brahms, to name just a few - for this to be considered a definitive collection of violin masterpieces. The collection is diverse: sonatas by Beethoven; concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Bruch; and many small encore-type works for violin and piano.

A quick glance at the heading tells the knowledgeable reader that most of what we have here are well-known lollipops. They exist in literally hundreds of recordings. Everybody will have his/her favourite pieces played by one or several of the violin greats through the last eight decades. The reissue of this twenty-year-old recital at budget price poses the question: is it worth adding yet another collection? The answer should be an unequivocal “Yes!”, since Chung is one of the stars of fairly recent times. Even before putting the disc in the CD player one knows that these will be technically impeccable readings, played with great musicality, refinement and commitment – elegant but never bland.

Universal Music France pays homage to one of the greatest French violinists of the 20th century with an outstanding 10-CD box set (at budget price). This is, in fact, the first large-scale anthology devoted to the violinist. For the first time, this set takes his complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, including the Bach Concertos with Karajan and Serge Nigg’s Concerto, previously unreleased on CD.