Search - Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Milstein :: Violin Concerti

Untrammeled Beethoven from Szigeti and Walter--a first choic

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If only they performed the Beethoven violin concerto today like they did in 1947 when Bruno Walter and the great Joseph Szigeti made this wildly original recording. One cannot believe the liberties taken with accents and tempo changes in the first movement--Walter charges ahead just when the music calls for it, without the slightest danger of the usual tedium that sets in (heretical thought!) when Giulini maunders through it with Perlman on EMI. But it's really Joseph Szigeti who steals the show, with originality to match Walter's and his own total abandon. Nearly forgotten by modern listeners, one is reminded of what a giant Szigeti was, his besetting sin being that he tended to play out of tune in later years (not a serious flaw here, however). The recording is so clear and has such impact that it could date from a decade later. I much prefer this reading to the classic Furtwangler and Menuhin account on EMI from the same period. Five stars without a doubt.



Two years earlier, in 1945, Walter recorded the Mendelssohn concerto with Nathan Milstein, considered a patrician among violinists. The opening tempo is swift and sparkling--one is thrilled from the first bar. Walter's Mendelssohn has real guts, never mincing, and although Milstein's tone isn't robust, it doesn't need to be. The central slow movement is noticeably relaxed, giving Milstein room for songful phrasing, until the finale races off a good minute faster than any competitor I've heard except Heifetz. The great Jascha was the bane of all other violinists since he totally dominated in the public eye, but Milstien was the connoisseur's fiddler, as he proves to be here with his lightning elegance. Again, the sonics sound a decade ahead of their time. Five stars with enthusiasm."

A dissenting view on Szigeti's recording of Beethoven's Viol

Discophage | France | 12/28/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I don't have this specific CD from Sony's Bruno Walter edition, but since the above commentators seem to rave about his and Szigeti's 1947 recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, see my review of the recording's two other outings, one on Sony's Masterworks Portrait series (Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Violin Sonata No. 5 "Spring") and one by Dante (Bruno Walter Volume. 4 - Conducts Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21; Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 (recorded at Carnegie Hall, 1947)) for a dissenting view.



I can't comment on the sound of the present reissue, and I don't know if Sony has refurbished their transfer over the one released on Masterworks Portrait. But whatever one's appreciation of the interpretive approach illustrated by Szigeti and Walter (and I personally find it somewhat too mellow and laid-back, despite Walter's fine efforts to whip up the orchestra in the tuttis; I much prefer the more muscular and fiery - but no less lyrical - approach of Heifetz-Toscanini in 1940, Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Piano Concerto No. 3), it is all marred by Szigeti's plain (at best) to sour (frequently) tone, his numerous little finger slips and blemishes. As to why the previous reviewers seem either not to have heard these defects or been left unfazed by them is a matter (for me) of conjecture. Maybe they simply don't hear them, or maybe, if they do, they attribute them to the recording rather than the fiddler and make do with them, or maybe they are so convinced by the interpretation that they turn a deaf ear on Szigeti's tonal deficiencies, or excuse them.



But Szigeti in 1932, in his previous recording of the Concerto with the same Walter and an anonymous British orchestra, was free of these problems. The overall conception didn't change much in the ensuing years - in 1947 Walter is commendably more muscular, and disciplined: if Santa Fe listner thinks Walter jerks the tempo around in 1947 (and that applies only to the first movement I believe), he should listen to the 1932 recording! in comparison Walter 1947 is a model of restraint.



By the way I don't know whose cadenzas Szigeti plays in 1947, his own or maybe Busoni's. They don't sound very Beethovenian, but they are great! That is definitely one thing to salvage from this recording.



The 1932 recording doesn't sound vastly inferior to the one from 1947, at least in Dante's transfer (contained in a valuable companion set to this Walter Beethoven series, volume 7, with the rest of Walter's pre-war, pre-US Beethoven recordings, including a Pastorale with Vienna and an Emperor Concerto with the same orchestra and Walter Gieseking; unfortunately it is not listed here, but you will find it referenced on the European sister companies, under ASIN B00000HZHD; whether it is available is another matter; I found mine on the famous auction site). All things considered, despite Walter's quirks (and the loss of the 1947 cadenzas), these factors make the 1932 version a preferable one.



That is, if it is Szigeti you are interested in. If it is in Walter's Beethoven Violin Concerto, or simply in Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Walter's third and stereo recording, made in 1961 with Zino Francescatti and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, by far surpasses his both with Szigeti, and not only (but also) for sonic reasons: Beethoven, Sibelius: Violin Concertos."