Search - Bela Bartok, Eugene Ormandy, Leonard Bernstein :: A Life In Music: Isaac Stern, Volume 9

A treasured musical document!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 08/30/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is a true finding. Isaac Stern was not a febrile player of Bartok's violin music like Menuhin, for instance but his encounter with Bernstein who was not a renowned Bartok's director produced a weird and successful chemistry. The complex dissonances and the melodic roughness are performed with leonine skillfulness and artistic feature of that unforgettable violinist: the maestro Isaac Stern!.

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A violinist's observation

Gordon Lucas | 01/15/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a professional violinist, and one who has met Stern and played in orchestras accompanying him as soloist, the skuttlebutt within the profession ranks him as a great albeit erratic soloist, a view to which I also subscribe.



Most violinists I've met, however, consider this the best recording of the Bartok Concerto ever made. The other contender is that by Ivry Gitlis. (#2 that is; the first concerto is really the composer's "Two Portraits" renamed, a pleasant but unsensational opus).



The collaboration is about perfect, and Stern is here at his absolute best. His affinity for modern music is uncanny, and I would also recommend his Bartok Rhapsodies and the Berg Concerto, as well. It doesn't get better."

Still today, half a century later, one of the best versions

Discophage | France | 08/14/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"To this day Isaac Stern's and Leonard Bernstein's recording of Bartok's Violin Concerto, dating from 1958, remains one of the best. The 1958 sonics have held up remarkably, letting you hear many details of Bartok's orchestra, in particular (appropriately) fierce brass. Stern plays with his usual full, throbbing sound (the dreamier moments of the second movement and some of the grazioso passages in the finale might have called for a lighter and leaner sound than Stern could or wanted to provide), and he knows how to dig deep in the strings when required, even reaching the brink of raucousness, but never coarseness. He and Bernstein play Bartok's masterpiece with the right blend of fiery passion and deep-voiced lyricism. One of the remarkable features of Stern's interpretation in the outer movements, and one that dates it really and makes it of its time and age - but in my opinion for the better - is that he doesn't take every lyrical passage as an excuse to slam the brakes and linger; like Heifetz', Stern's lyricism unfolds within a tempo kept flowing. That doesn't make it less lyrical, but on the contrary more intensely so, because the forward motion is never stemmed and the lyricism never becomes sentimental. Stern follows here the lead of premiere performer Zoltan Szekely in 1939 (with Willem Mengelberg conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Violin Concerto 2) rather than of Menuhin who made the premiere studio recording in 1946 (with Dorati conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Violin Concerto 2 or Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, Piano Concerto No.2, Violin Concerto No.2) and established there an interpretive tradition which he himself pursued in his three subsequent recordings (Violin Concerto 2 1953, Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2; Second Suite 1957 and Bartok: Violin Concertos, Viola Concerto, 6 Duo for 2 Violins, Violin Rhapsodies; Yehudi Menuhin 1965) and that is followed by most modern versions. Timings, if you go down section by section, can be telling: try for instance the quasi lento section in the finale, which Stern reaches after 1:56 and plays in 55 seconds: Szekely and Mengelberg took 1:52 to get there and another 57 seconds to get through, Menuhin in 1946 reached it in 2:04 and played it in 1:15.



On the other hand, where Stern does NOT follow Szekely's or Bartok's lead is in the middle "Andante tranquillo". This is a theme and variations in all but name and thus it is of sectional nature, and there are basically two ways to tackle it: one is to let the theme and slower passages flow, tranquil but "andante" - which conforms to Bartok's absurdly detailed timings and to Szekely and Mengelberg's rendition. The other is to take those passages slowly indeed and turn the piece into a quasi adagio (which doesn't preclude taking the faster variations very dynamically) - which is what Stern does (compare his 1:36 statement to Szekely's 1:15). My personal preference goes to the first option, not only because it is truer to score, but also because the other approach runs the risk of sentimentalizing the music, and I firmly believe that, like Ravel's, Bartok's slow movements should be atmospheric, but never sentimental. But in truth the movement can easily take the other approach, provided the fiddler doesn't lapse into heart-on-sleeve sentimentality - and Stern never does. I hear nothing to fault when I hear his second movement.



I am happy that I don't have to live with only one version of Bartok's Violin Concerto in my collection, but if I had to, this one would be a possible choice. I have it both on the Bernstein Royal Edition (Bartók: Piano Concertos No. 2 & No. 3 / Concerto for Two Pianos & Percussion / Violin Concerto No. 2 / Rhapsodies No. 1 & No. 2 (The Royal Edition No. 2 of 100) - a great set) and on an earlier CBS (not even yet Sony) reissue not listed on this website, paired with Sibelius' Concerto, a much better deal than the early Bartok Violin Concerto offered here. Still, at less than 3$ as I write, this CD is a steal.

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