Customer Reviews

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

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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!

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, Ysaÿe, 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.

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.

Granted that opinions on music performances are mostly subjective, it is perhaps not surprising that the "rave reviews" for this particular recoring in the 1999 Gramophone Good CD Guide and 1996 Penguin Guide to CDs are almost identical. (It seems that Edward Greenfield and Robert Layton author both.) Unfortunately, they fail to point out, that despite the fancy equipment at Teldec, the audio level is annoyingly weak and requires that you must crank up the volume just to make the violin more present. Having listened to about 12 versions of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, Op. 61, the Kremer/Harnoncourt did not measure up to the reviewers' predictions. In theory, incorporation the cadenza from Beethoven's piano arrangement of the concerto may find academic support somewhere, but the actual use of a piano produces musical results that are equivalent to mixing oil colors in the middle of a watercolor painting; it just doesn't work. Even the lengthy Henryk Szeryng/ Bernard Haitink on Philips is, by far, more successful and better recorded. If you want to hear the true beauty of this violin concerto, try the fabulous Milstein/Steinberg, the monumental Menuhin/Furtwangler, or the dramatic Schneiderhan/Jochum, just for starters.

The reason why I bought this recording was simply because I wanted a more historically informed performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Accounting its structure, this is an arch-classical concerto. There is no sentimentality, no showy passages, just music of the highest order, beautiful, profound, never leaning towards artifice. Beethoven's Violin Concerto represents the pinacle of violin repertoire, staying shoulder to shoulder with Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Once again, nowhere does any leaning towards romanticism become apparent.

Most performers have paid little if any consideration for these facts, hampering with orchestration as if it was their own concerto, downgrading the violin parts to mere virtuoso passages proving one's technical valor and adopted fluctuations of tempi that should be evicted from a classical concerto performance.

Beethoven was a master orchestrator. Nobody except Bach comes close with his intense knowledge of the instruments in usage. He knew EXACLY how and when they should blend in, what is the amount to provide a certain effect, why is an instrument preferable and why the other is not. When a modern performer chooses to alter orchestration, add more strings, change the nature of instruments, disrespect Beethoven's own meticulous indications of tempi, means he is in service of himself rather than Beethoven. It implies thinking of these works as imperfect, asking for being "corrected" thanks to one's superior knowledge. This is why historically uninformed performances rarely fail of being ridiculous.

Harnoncourt's Chamber Orchestra of Europe is an accomplished team who uses modern instruments performed in a historically informed way. The reasons why modern rather than older instruments are to be used for the particular case of Beethoven are many. Unlike Bach or Mozart, Beethoven was never happy with the instruments of his day, pointing out over and over their imperfections and inability to sustain loud powerful notes. A key aspect is how Harnoncourt keeps exactly the same level of orchestration envisioned by Beethoven. He adds not a single instrument. He relies on Beethoven for work's architecture and does so justly. Also his tempi always sound right, for the very reason they follow Beethoven's own indications.

Taking all these aspects into account, I had very high expectations from this CD. Quite expectedly, the orchestral support is brilliant. Instruments sing in thorough unison. They are far more potent than ones in Beethoven's days, but given the size of orchestra, the harmonies they create can be followed with ease. This is a giant leap forward compared to older recordings. Their sound is vigorous, powerful, yet subdued, never downgrading into caricatures typical of "Beethoven - The Revolutionary".

The major problem is Kremer. A comparison with Heifetz will only make the other's problems even more painful. Heifetz, widely acknowledged as 20th century greatest violinist, makes you concentrate on the music rather than its extreme technical challenges. He sings brilliantly, with full conviction, bringing no sentimentality where it doesn't belong. Perhaps the first movement would have benefited from a bit slower tempi, but the dialogue between soloist and orchestra is exemplary. I find Kremer's playing simply unremarkable, unimaginative and rather boring. He has nothing to sell in a competition with Heifetz, Stern, Millstein, Menuhin, Szeryng or Grumiaux.

In full classical tradition, Beethoven's Violin Concerto has marked places for cadenzas. Beethoven let the VC cadenza to performer's devices. The large majority of performers use the Alfred Schnittke's cadenza for unaccompanied violin. A few have attempted to create their own. Kremer has come with the otherwise acceptable solution to use the cadenza from Beethoven's own piano transcription of the concerto. But I couldn't believe my ears actually hearing the piano... The latter's presence is so contrived and so out of place that it breaks the unity of the piece. It makes it sound like patched morsels of different concerti. To make the problem even worse, this part is stretched far beyond acceptable limits, only to show off Kremer's technical prowess. This is pure deconstruction of Beethoven...

Having read about this recording in "The Gramophone" and "Penguin" Reviews, I was curious enough to buy an inexpensive, used copy. Fortunately my outlay was small enough to tolerate the disappointment. The moment that the first movement cadenza begins it's as if someone had changed the disc, so bizarre is the appearance of the piano and so disturbing is the violin transcription of the piano cadenza. This is not about traditonalists versus radicals; this is about aesthetic judgment. This performance is so ugly that it became impossible to hear the rest of the recording. The only reason I keep it is so that I can show someone how otherwise intelligent and sensitive people can occasionally produce garbage.

The Penguin Guide to compact disks gives this particular recording a rosette. However, if you want a truely superlative recording then go elsewhere (the Barenboim recording). The main problem lies in the low level of the recording and the fact that the inclusion of the piano cadenza doesn't really fit in with the rest of the concerto.

I can't say anything different to what was written before.

Harnoncourt is great. He shows strong conducting, adding fresh air to a well-know piece. I love the string colour he gets from his players. It seems so close to the original instruments ... and of course the trumpets are so powerfull, better than in period instruments groups! A small negative critic: when violin come closer to the end of development, when music is fading (just before the pizzicati before the powerfull tutti of reexposition), you can hear in other recordings that the horns first and later trumpets annd timpani play the timpani motif of the beggining. Well, here that is almost missing, not noticeable. I suppose a conductor interested in clarity should make a point hear. A small thing among so well playing.

Kremer is fantastic. Well, he is an "enfant terrible" of classical music (just listen to the cadenza of the 2nd movement, or the lead-in of the thirth, before the orchestral tutti appears for the second time). But in order to obtain respect from everyone, he must show he is in complete control of techical and stetical demands of traditional repertoire. An he shows that here, and close to perfection. I love the dinamic contrasts he shows, sometimes adding strenght, sometimes playing very piano, and mixing fantasticly with the orchestra. As I expected, this is a newly - thought interpretation, and at the same time paying a great tribute to the profound lyricism and at the same time the grandeur of the "Eroic" or "Middle" period in Beethoven writing.

And about the cadenza, what an original idea. For it is Beethoven cadenza, written for the piano version (scored for piano or piano and timpani). But here you get the violin concerto, so the discrepancy is well solved by using violin, timpani, and piano played through speakerphones, so as to remember it comes from the piano version. In general, when the piano plays a passage twice, you get alternation of piano and then violin, or in other places they play colla parte. May be long, perhaps (interesting, there is a simple march in the middle), but is very well conceived (did you expect something different from the composer in his great works?).

I was simply not impressed with this interpretation of Beethoven's works. Although Kremer performed reasonably well, I didn't get much of an impression from Harnoncourt's direction of this work or Teldec's sound quality which is a chronic problem.

Harnoncourt is generally a rather conservative symphony director and likes to be safe in his interpretations: they tend to be a little slower than one would expect. Although the limitation of the instruments is clear in the recording, I felt they could have compensated for that when they mixed the recording at the studio. Kremer was O.K. but the piece seemed more robotic than romantic. The violin didn't really give any sense of romantic or revolutionary expression that I would expect from Beethoven's works. Kremer's sparing use of vibrato just kept the piece flat without any expression. Finally, the inclusion of the piano movement was simply a shocking surprise that didn't fit with the piece at all. I am generally wary of Teldec productions as they always have quality problems with their sound regardless of whether it's Bach or Beethoven. It has come to the point where I just don't buy their label anymore as I found it to be a waste of my money. There are simply better labels out there to check out that also have great performers for this piece.

I wouldn't make this my first choice for buying these works as both Teldec and Harnoncourt always seem to have problems with their performances and sound mixing. One will probably be better off by looking elsewhere.

hum, to play cadenzas from piano version of this concert -
on piano of course ! - here, it is very interesting and pretty
stupid idea, soloist's added own play in these cadenzas is also very original - and very long, he seems to like his play very much, but good heavens what does that chap play between the second and the third movement ?! simply said - MASTER does not play some Beethoven, but shows his own EGO.