Customer Reviews

Beethoven, Brahms: Violin Concertos

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This is not a review of the excellent music found on this album. Particularly, the Brahms' Double Concerto is an elegant interpretation.

Instead, this is simply a warning that, as of this writing, the pieces on this album are all mislabeled with respect to the downloads, previews, and names. In other words, if you are looking to purchase a single work (or track), as I did, you will end up with the wrong download. Amazon have been notified about this problem but do not appear to have taken any action on it. Additionally, in the correct downloads of the Brahms' Double Concerto, both the first and third movements have a very disruptive, static-like high frequency sound that hurts the ears and is likely representative of a poor transfer from CD. I cannot confirm if the CD contains these artifacts. I can only recommend that you avoid this download until these problems are resolved by Sony and Amazon.

First, the music performed here is simply magnificent - Beethoven's op. 61 and Brahms' op. 77 are some of the best violin concertos for my opinion. The other 2 concertos are great as well. There are many exciting, thrilling (and familiar!) moments all the way. No doubt you'll enjoy the music.

Then there's the performance - which is also great most of the way, with Stern giving a very worm and appealing violin sound and performance, and the accompaniment integrates just as well. I've heard a few other performances to most of the pieces here, and those from here are my favorites.

Finally, the recording is, surprisingly, very good. Although the original recordings are from the 60s, the sound is relatively clean and accurate, without too much "hiss", and it was transformed very well from analog to digital. There's even a bit of analog "warmth" in the sound (which doesn't affect its accuracy). I have brand new top quality recordings of most of the pieces, and yet I prefer the sound here due to this "warmth".

These are great recordings of these pieces. The Beethoven and Brahms violin concertos are very beautiful, the triple concerto is fun, and the double concerto is powerful. The performances are very good, as is the sound quality (recorded 1964 - 1978). Highly recommended!


Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major Op. 61
1st mov. - 24:11
2nd mov. - 9:12
3rd mov. - 9:14

Brahms Double Concerto in A minor Op. 102
1st mov. - 17:00
2nd mov. - 8:13
3rd mov. - 8:50

Brahms Violin Concerto in D major Op. 77
1st mov. - 22:48
2nd mov. - 9:23
3rd mov. - 7:45

Beethoven Triple Concerto in C major Op. 56
1st mov. - 18:25
2nd mov. - 4:38
3rd mov. - 13:01