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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A modern, fresh & innovative reading of rare intensity,
By Tienauhchan@hotmail.com (Dublin) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 / Romance in G major, Op. 40 / Romance in F major, Op. 50 - Gidon Kremer / Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Audio CD)
This was the first recording of Harnoncourt that I bought. Unaware that he uses a chamber orchestra I could already sense the power of the music he generates from the opening tutti. Never has the opening timpani sounded so precise, with such a such sense of purpose & drama (In many other recordings the opening timpani notes sounded like the orchestra is just warm-up). At first I did not find the recording as great as the Penguine guide has claimed, but on repeated listening I slowly began to feel the powerful & dramatic effect of this music making. Harnoncourt knows what he is doing. By using a chamber orchestra (as far as I know, a mixture of both modern & authentic instruments), he lightens up the orchestral texture, brings out the clarity of both the woodwind & lower strings, and produces a reading that is crisp, fresh and full of bite. Without the heavy lower strings & inflated brass sound of the modern orchestra which can sound clumsy, he tightens & intensifies the music so that not at any point is the listener allowed to wander away. Kremer's playing, as usual, is full energy & vigor. Just listen to the great dynamic contrast & subtlety of his cadenza-like passages in the first movement. With great sensitivity, never once does he allow the intensity of the music to loosen (which can be a real problem in the massive 1st movement). The second movement is meditative, yet not over-romantic (as found at times in Schneiderhan and many other players), but has a sweetness of rare intensity. The third movement is effortlessly light and full of humor, without loosing any intensity when called for. Here Kremer demonstrates that he is still one of the greatest virtuosos around. The most controversial issue here is of course the CADENZA sections, especially in the first movement, where the backstage piano suddenly comes out through the loudspeakers of the concert hall. The concerto suddenly transforms into a trio for timpani, piano & violin. Kremer 'instrumented" them from Beethoven's own arrangement of the violin concerto for piano, timpani & orchestra. At first I also find it strange, but with repeated listening, it sounds rather interesting, with timpani giving highly dramatic solo passages (indeed Harnoncourt uses the timpani to great theatrical effect throughout the whole concerto). The flawless concentrated playing of Kremer alone is enough to compensate for any loss of integrity during this "triple concerto section" The cadenza in the second movement is for violin alone while in the third movement cadenza the piano makes a brief final appearance. The musical quality of the cadenza itself is great, with many references of material from the concerto itself, and integrates very well into the concerto. Personally I still prefer this "trio" to Kennedy's ridiculous "quarter tones" in third movement cadenza where he attempt to demonstrate his unorthodox 'taste'. Schneiderhan uses the same Beethoven cadenzas arranged for violin alone in his recording with Jochum to great effects. His collaboration with Jochum is a classic reading of great nobility and beauty in the traditional manner, probably the one to go for if wants only one definitive version. The 2 violin romances are again sensitivity delivered, without falling into the trap of over-romantization. Indeed, under Kremer's hands, these pieces seem to have much greater significance than they usually sound. In conclusion, this is a powerful, fresh & high-spirited reading of the Concerto, an interesting modern approach that leads well into the 21st century. Those who have listened to Kremer's Beethoven Violin Sonatas will know what I mean. Needless to say, this somewhat unorthodox version is a must for admirers of both Haroncourt & Kremer. For those who wants a fresh feel of this work should also give this a try! And guess what, by the end of listening you would not have believed that this is actually a live recording!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Then comes the cadenza...,
By
This review is from: Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 / Romance in G major, Op. 40 / Romance in F major, Op. 50 - Gidon Kremer / Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Audio CD)
Beethoven wrote his Violin Concerto in haste, for a benefit-concert given by the conductor, fiddler and composer Franz Clément on December 23, 1806 (on the manuscript, Beethoven wrote the dedication "par clemenza pour Clément", and the story is that Clément sight-read from the manuscript on the first rehearsal).
Beethoven wrote no cadenzas, but Clément was a great improviser anyway; he was also a great eccentric and prankster, and in the second part of the same concert (re the concert's program which is still extant), he played a set of variations with his violin "turned around" (umgekehrt, not clear if it meant scroll to shoulder or simply back up with strings facing the ground). So each violinist is left to play either his own cadenzas (rarely done), or those composed by the great masters of the past (Kreisler's is the most famous) or present (Schnittke's, written for Kremer's previous recording, with Marriner in 1980, Beethoven: Violinkonzert (Violin Concerto in D), reissued onViolinkonzert/Violinromanze Nr). Ruggiero Ricci even made a disc of all those cadenzas (David, Vieuxtemps, Joachim's two, Laub, Wieniawski, Saint-Saëns, Auer, Ysa˙e, Busoni, Kreisler, Milstein, and even Schnittke), and it has become a prized collectors' item (Violin Concerto). But in fact, Beethoven DID write cadenzas after all: not to the Violin Concerto, but to the transcription he made himself (at the prompting of composer and publisher Muzio Clementi) in form of a Piano Concerto, opus 61a. And this is what brings us back to Kremer and Harnoncourt. This 1992 recording of the VC was Kremer's third studio effort, after those with Wlodermar Nelson for Melodiya (1974) and Marriner. It is an excellent version, one that could easily be a prime recommendation among modern recordings. In the first two movements, while by no means rushing, Harnoncourt adopts tempos that are more flowing than the accepted norm, but true to Beethoven's tempo markings, "allegro ma non troppo" in the first movement and "Larghetto" (which is not the "Largo" most turn it into) in the second. In the finale, his tempo is more within a norm established long ago by Szigeti, robust rather than fast. The orchestra is wonderfully crisp and with great instrumental presence in the numerous dialogues between the fiddler and woodwinds and horns, and Harnoncourt doesn't mellow down Beethoven's sfz or sfp accents. At times he even lets his trumpets glare (but so did Toscanini and Munch, both with Heifetz, in 1940, Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Piano Concerto No. 3, and 1955, Heifetz Plays Beethoven & Brahms), but he also has his strings play a real ppp when Beethoven has written it. Some rubato and slowing down of tempo is applied in the more lyrical sections of the first movement, but never excessively so (and much less than in the "traditional" versions), in a way again very reminiscent of Heifetz, at least with Toscanini (the remake with Munch is more high-strung); and that's fine: the piece's lyricism and songfulness can be fully expressed without needing to grind to a halt, and likewise in the second movement. Kremer plays with a juicy tone, with fine dynamic shadings, forceful when needed but also paying full tribute to the numerous "dolce" markings, and careful attention to Beethoven's articulation marks (note how he goes from legato to staccato at the end of the 2d movement for instance). All this is historically-informed, musical, tasteful, well-balanced, with no excesses and nothing to shock except maybe the diehard traditionalists who stopped at Menuhin-Furtwangler 1953, Oistrakh-Cluytens 1959 and Francescati-Walter 1961. Then, at 18:15 in the first movement comes the first cadenza, and you're in for a treat, or rather, a jolt. Kremer decided to use the cadenzas written by Beethoven for the Violin-derived Piano Concerto, but that of course entails a problem: with its ten-fingerer possibilities the piano enables a polyphony that the fiddle, with its poor double or triple stops can't emulate. The first violinist to return to Beethoven's cadenzas was apparently Wolfgang Schneiderhan, in 1962 (see my review of Beethoven, Mozart: Violin Concertos / Schneiderhan, Jochum), and he re-wrote it to adapt it to the violin. Not so with Kremer. His first cadenza starts... with a pianoforte sounding as if it was placed in the wings (in fact it is, and transmitted even on stage through loudspeakers - the ghost, or the distant memory of a cadenza, maybe?) And Kremer picks up the melodic line, exchanges it with the pianoforte, turning the cadenza into a duet for violin and (distant) pianoforte, and the merriment is later briefly joined by the timpani (yes, Beethoven wrote it that way). It took me a little while to adjust and recognize that, yes, this music might have been composed by the same Beethoven who wrote the Violin and Piano Sonatas. The two cadenzas written by Beethoven at the end of the second movement and the beginning of the third (the latter, at 2:15, never played in "normal" versions) is taken by Kremer for violin alone, but pianoforte joins again in the big third movement cadenza. I can't say it is entirely convincing, but it certainly places this version in a category of its own - for the better or the worse. Such was the case already with Kremer's previous recording with Marriner, because of Schnittke's cadenzas; actually, I find the newer option in many ways more jarring than Schnittke's music. I was in fact sent back to Kremer and Harnoncourt by the recent version of Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Herreweghe (Beethoven: Complete Works for Violin & Orchestra); she is far wilder than Kremer in the liberties she takes with Beethoven's published score, using some variants from the manuscript (and she and Herreweghe play the finale as a real allegro), and she also plays the opus 61a cadenzas, but she resorts to voice-over re-recording rather than piano accompaniment to fill in the polyphonic gaps. That is not entirely convincing either (it makes the cadenzas sound at times even more jolting than Schnittke's!) but it is sonically more consistent than Kremer's option. Still, the most convincing of the three is Schneiderhan. No cadenzas in the two Romances. It is good to have them played at a flowing tempo, rather than excessively solemnize and sentimentalize them as used to be the norm, which these simple, unassuming and early compositions do not really take well. The recording offers much less presence though than in the Violin Concerto. This is a version that deserves a place in one's collection, if a very special one.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Unconventional, Yet Definitive Beethoven Violin Concerto,
By
This review is from: Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 / Romance in G major, Op. 40 / Romance in F major, Op. 50 - Gidon Kremer / Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Audio CD)
Traditionalists may not enjoy listening to the Kremer/Harnoncourt version of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Not only does it lack the warmth associated with great recordings such as the definitive Perlman/Giulini recording, it contains a controversial adaptation of Beethoven's cadenzas to boot! Yet I have rarely heard the Violin Concerto played with such lyrical sweetness as I have from Kremer; his exquisite performance is commanding. And Harnoncourt gives a vibrant, brisk reading of the score with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Together, Kremer, Harnoncourt, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe have wrought a compelling version of this great violin concerto.
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