Willem Mengelberg

The name of Eduard van Beinum may too often be overlooked among the music directors of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in between the longer and more internationally renowned tenures of Willem Mengelberg and Bernard Haitink, but this is a wrong that Eloquence has put right with the reissue of the greater portion of Van Beinum’s recorded work with the orchestra on both Decca and Philips. The conductor has been revealed anew as an interpreter of lucidly phrased fidelity to the score and uncommon sensitivity. The present issue brings repertoire especially close to Van Beinum’s heart. He was a master Schubertian, who needed to be taught no lessons by the nascent period-instrument movement on nurturing a hop, skip and jump in the composer’s effervescent orchestral textures or coaxing a sweetly flowing lyricism from their sunny complexions.

Serge Rachmaninoff himself played his Third Piano Concerto in 1911 in the Netherlands with the Concertgebouworkest and Willem Mengelberg. He noted at the time: "The musicians thought it was beautiful, but the audience and the critics did not." In the end, pianist Vladimir Horowitz was able to inspire the audience for the work, and today 'Rach 3' is considered to be one of the warhorses in the repertoire. With this notoriously difficult concerto the young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov made his dazzling Concertgebouworkest debut under the direction of Valery Gergiev.

French cellist Maurice Gendron (1920-1990). His origins were poor and he hailed from Nice. At the age of three he took up music, starting with the violin, but his mother then gave him a quarter-sized cello and he was drawn to it immediately. The rest is history. At ten he was introduced to Emanuel Feuermann, and at twelve he was admitted to the Nice Conservatory, winning first prize at fourteen. Then it was on to the Paris Conservatoire to study with Gérard Hekking. Whilst there he supported himself by selling newspapers. When war broke out he was declared unfit for active service due to malnourishment, so he became a member of the resistance.