Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Triple Concerto; Overtures

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Recording of the Triple Concerto is soundwise, very good. Performance is superb! This is one of my absolute favorites...if you have not heard it, you are missing a great piece of work! Highly recommended! There is also another recording of this out with Karajan and the BPO with Rostopovich, Richter, and Oistrakh...also a fabulous recording...I have both. If I was stuck with just a couple of CD's on a desert island (with a lot of batteries), this would be one of them.

To settle the dispute over dating this CD, the three overtures were taken from much earlier sessions (1965-70) to fill out the 1980 Triple Concerto. Karajan led a blockbuster version of this work with the incomparable trio of Richter, Oistrakh, and Rostropovich (on EMI), so it was an audacious move to try and repeat the feat. He was wise to spotlight three young soloists rather than grand lions. Yo-Yo Ma and Anne-Sophie Mutter went on to great fame, of course, and they overshadow the now-forgotten Mark Zeltser, but he's light, bright, and sparkling, as is the performance as a whole. (Strangely, however, Ma has some intonation problems that mar the first movement.) Karajan lightens his accompaniment from the earlier version and takes faster tempi. I've heard other readings with a more heroic trio of soloists, but the presence of a great Beethoven conductor and the wonderful Berlin Phil. is a major asset here.

I'm a bit less happy with the three overtures. All are played on a grand scale, particularly the earth-shattering Egmont, which comes off best. The Coriolan sounds majestic but feels emotionally inert to me, with Karajan attempting to prettify the great development section, and the Fidelio Over. is rather too grand and foursquare. All are magnificently played, needless to say. I am giving five stars to the Triple Concerto and perhaps the Egmont Over. in a pinch.

Generally, I am not fond of Von Karajan's Beethoven recordings. This definitely is an exception. I think it is excellent in every way. Fine performances all around are matched by a solid recording. And the wonderful, although often neglected, concerto is nicely balanced with the master's most famous orchestral overtures.

Despues de escuchar detenidamente el triple concierto se puede decir que tanto la orquesta y el director como los solistas son excelentes y no hay que dejarse llevar por lo del sonido o como dijo otro reviewer que cuando se grabó el disco Yo Yo Ma contaba con 12 años porque no es asi el concierto fue grabado en 1980 cuando contaba la edad de 25 años y era un consumado violoncelista, con respecto a las oberturas si son anteriores pero estan repetidas en otras obras como ser la sinfonias de Beethoven con un sonido realmente extraordianario. El cd es realmente bueno y la ejecución del mismo extraordinario.

I have this recording.Unfortunately time has taken it's course and the CD has picked up some bad spots.

I have had ultimate pleasure in listening to this particular recording. The Egmont is beautiful and Von Karajan was in his finest form-

I have been trying to figure our when this album was originally released, but I'm quite certain that the Keyes review above which states that the recordings were made between 1965 and 1970 is inaccurate.

Yo-Yo Ma is featured on this album, and he was born in 1955. Yes, he was a young virtuouso, but he was not making recordings with such highly-respected artists at the age of 10 or 12. According to the Deutsche Grammophone website, this CD was released in 1985.