Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Violin Concerto; 2 Romances

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A very fresh and original interpretation: fiery, moody, and romantic by turns. Zehetmaier plays as if he were the very first person to bring this music to an audience. There is no noticable reverence or bowing to the past, just all the beauty passion and joy of this wonderful concerto played with effortless brilliance. I don't know a recent CD that can come even close.

The reviewers below me call this performance fresh and unpretentious, and I think that hits it right on the noggin. This is a very fleet Beethoven concerto, lighter and faster than we are typically used to hearing, but it's certainly not light*weight,* and the approach makes us feel we are hearing the work with new ears, which is the only reason I can justify adding a 15th recording of the LvB VC to my sagging shelves. Bruggen and his players still manage to give us spiritual radiance and the grand experience, telegraphing what an extraordinary work this was, while avoiding the sound of heavier, thicker, late 19th century conceptions of Beethoven. The recording, a live effort that has crystaline clarity and a nearly dead-silent audience, is a finely-textured experience with small forces and few loud moments. This is almost Beethoven's violin concerto as chamber music, and it works.

I'm not exactly sure how kosher this recording is, though--not that I care. The violinist plays with a free vibrato--I thought that was *verbotten* by periodistas. The orchestra doesn't, however. The real-world necessity for the vibrato by the soloist is to project into the concert hall, and halls are larger now than they were in Beethoven's day. At the same time, this vibrato has the effect of sweetening the tone and making this a very bucolic Beethoven violin concerto. Occasionally I find the first moment's tempo just a **little** rushed--there are moments where I want things to breathe more--but on the whole the approach works, and it's refreshingly different from conductors who think the way to mine a Beethoven violin concerto is to keep slooowing down all the time in the first movement. The Larghetto is gorgeous and the forte chords that announce the finale, along with the springy interplay among the strings and solist in the coda, really make sense and reveal subtlties in the orchestration that often get covered with thicker, heaver, and louder readings (eg, Bernstein's recording with Stern). What's really a miracle about this recording is how softly and delicately these forces sometimes play, yet you never feel they are about to lose control. Bruggen's pin-point (yet never mechanical) control and depth of feeling qualify him, I feel, as one of today's greatest conductors, yet for some reason his name is often overlooked when there's a rollcall of the greats, and that includes by me.

I have only one complaint: Zehetmair went with Wolfgang Schneiderhan's cadenzas. They're not very coherent, and in fact this great concerto has inspired many cadenzas, but few great ones. My favorites belong to Kreisler, and no one plays them better than Isaac Stern, in the aforementioned Bernstein recording (Sony); In the present disc, the cadenzas, with their silly tam-tamming in the first movement and the frequent lengthy breaks in the finale, may seem intrusive to some listeners. But, at the end of the day, this is a minor reservation, given the over-all quality of both soloist and orchestra here.

For a recording on the complete opposite side of the spectrum--very slow and seamless and not at all "period proper"--you really must hear Furtwangler with Yehudi Menuhin, 1947 Music & Arts live performance (as opposed to the later studio effort on EMI, which is completely different and much less satisfying). That release suffers from poor sound, however, even for the time, so audiophiles may want to beware. For a good straight-ahead performance in modern sound, Chung/Tennstedt (also live) should be considered.

These Beethoven violin concerts are remarkable: the interpretation is fresh, basic, and unpretentious. Being one of the most popular violin concerts, hearing an interpretation like this one is really refreshing!

Played on authentical instruments the sound is 'dolce' and colourful. Is was also wonderfully recorded, so if you are interested in buying these concerts this cd would be a great choice... (yes, it sounds a little like some kind of advertorial, but it's just that great...)

There are some works that are undisputed members of the classical music pantheon that I just don't quite appreciate at the level I feel I should. Apart from the perennial struggle with Verdi, three of these works are by Beethoven. They are his Missa Solemnis, his Fidelio, and his violin concerto. Strike the latter off that list.

I've liked recordings of this work (Milstein, Grumiaux), I've appreciated others (Hahn, Znaider, Oistrakh), and I've found others, still, wanting (Mutter, Perlman). But unlike the other "Concerto against the Violin," the Brahms, I've never loved this one - nor felt, rather than understood, its greatness.

All awhile I have often read the remark that a new recording of the Beethoven concerto was good - but would not supplant Thomas Zehetmair's in the estimation of the reviewer. Eager to explore if there was anything to that claim, I snagged the recording (for a long time not readily available in the U.S.) the second I saw it at the local store. The overused cliché of "hearing a work as if for the first time" must be used. Actually, I immediately felt like I remember feeling when I first listened to Beethoven as a little kid. A large part of that experience is the excellent, brilliant sound that was captured on this live recording. That, and Frans Brüggen's Orchestra of the 18th Century which plays (vibrato free) with such gusto and force, with such heft (listen to the timpani rolling into your room threateningly) one moment and then with the most subtle delicacy the next, that the experience of listening to this concerto becomes eerily visceral.

Enter Zehetmair (with vibrato and playing the Schneiderhan cadenzas) in the Violin Concerto and the two Romances. He does play with some vibrato, he's fast but never rushed, and he's fresh and energetic. The communication between orchestra and violin seems symbiotic, the execution is flawless. The word "fresh" is the one that wants to insert itself in every sentence describing the performance... to me, it feels like a crisp, perfect Sunday family breakfast in the mansion. Whatever it may `feel' like to you, be assured this recording is not just marginally better or different than others, it is, in the most literal meaning of the word, outstanding. Do try and hear for yourself!

Amazon's ratings are meaningless ever since they started rejecting, out of hand, most reviews with one or two stars... so you can't know for sure how many people hate this recording. For what it's worth, my five stars are--in this case--not gushing, but genuine.

Philips 02894621232 is out of print now, but don't despair in light of ridiculously high prices: It has been re-issued on Decca at super budget price. It will be available in the US sooner or later, until then it's on Amazon.de: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002N1RM5K/nectarandambr-21

If you are only going to own one performance of Beethoven's violin concerto, this might not be it - it is a marvelous performance, extraordinarily so, and one that should be heard even by those who know the piece inside out, but while it succeeds brilliantly it does in many ways give you an unconventional take on the music. The first movement has an urgency and a fierceness I don't think I have heard the likes of anywhere else; already from the very opening you can sense that this is going to be a fire and brimstone performance, but Zehetmair realizes more deeply-felt poetry than most of his rivals, wonderfully, songfully phrased, almost defiantly so in the stormy rivalry between soloist and orchestra. It is a performance of dynamic extremes, to be sure, but yet it hangs together coherently - the gain is mainly a forward momentum that few other performances can rival.

The fierceness is underlined by the somewhat harder, edgier sound of period instruments (I leave it to the potential listener to determine whether this is a good or a bad thing, but I'll claim that if you are going for period instruments, then it can hardly be done more convincingly and more effectively than this). The Larghetto is wistful and wonderfully nuanced with great attention to details without losing sight of the overall structure, and the Rondo is rhythmically vital and full of spirit and vigor. The two romances are wonderful extras, reflective but flowing. The sound is a little cavernous in the concerto, but not really objectionable, and excellent in the Romances. This, then, is a really quite wonderful release, and while I won't claim that it is going to replace any of the classics it is truly a one-of-a-kind performance; strongly recommended.

If in the course of an entire lifetime I was allowed to only own one single recording of a classical performance, this would be it. Everyone with whom I have shared this recording has been blow away by the majesty, power, and delicacy of Zehtmeir's performance.

I had great expectations, but am disappointed. Several times in the first movement they are (or seem) too fast for my taste, like they are in a hurry to finish the first movement.

I think I heard this cadenza (or this similar part) before with kremer/harnoncourt (who bring piano in it!) , but it is pretty bad and the part 18:30 to 19:15 completely break the mood/continuity of the first movement and is really horrible to my ears. I am not sure what cadenza they play, but I went back to Oistrakh, Mullova and like them way better. Personally, even if it is what was played at the time, it ruins it for me.

And in the third movement, the 'magic' I hear with Oistrakh, Mullova

(around 3:10 in this recording) is gone to my ears.

I personally way prefer the Gardiner/Mullova version to this one to pick a recent recording and Oistrakh or others for an older recording.