Menotti, Barber: Violin Concertos

Ricci (Artist), Ruggiero:vln......... (Artist), Samuel Barber (Composer), Gian Carlo Menotti (Composer), Keith Clark (Conductor), Pacific Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), Ruggiero Ricci (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Ruggiero Ricci
• Orchestra: Pacific Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Keith Clark
• Composer: Samuel Barber, Gian Carlo Menotti
• Audio CD (December 17, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Reference Recordings
• ASIN: B00000158X
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,570 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bashing the "unabashed" lyricism of Barber and Menotti, December 21, 2007

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Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Menotti, Barber: Violin Concertos (Audio CD)

This was fairly rare material when it first came out on Varèse Sarabande VCD47239 (which is how I have it) in 1985, not so much for Barber's popular Concerto (though the disc boasted being the digital premiere) as for Menotti's. There had been previously only one recording, by Tossy Spivokovsky and Charles Munch conducting the Boston SO in 1955 on RCA (the Concerto was completed in 1952). Not so much any more: a search on this site yields three other recordings, including one with the same Barber coupling, to which Harutunyan's Violin Concerto was added (Romantic Violin Concertos Of The 20th Century).

Indeed, these two works make good discmates, and not only because Barber and Menotti were long-time lovers. They also share a same Romantic and strongly lyrical language - "unabashed lyricism", they call it. Barber's Concerto from 1940 is couched mostly in a long-lined, gentle lyricism, with occasional outbursts into more passionate and intense utterances. The animated finale reminds me strongly of a near-contemporary and (unjustly) hardly popular Violin Concerto which I find more colourful and appealing, Rodrigo's Summer Concerto (see my reviews of Rodrigo: Concierto de estio; Semenoff; Double Concerto; Elizalde; Violin Concerto and Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez; Concertos; Orchestral Works [Box Set]].

Menotti... is much the same, with occasional flights at the beginning and end of the first movement into a more scherzando section reminiscent of Prokofiev's First Concerto. But Menotti, I find, also has a not so appealing tendency to take a characteristic theme and harp upon it to the point of satiation.

I must confess that I don't warm very much to that kind of mid-20th Century romanticism. I fail to understand why composers took interest in repeating the gestures that were already passé even 20 years before. I far prefer Barber's more angrily thorny statements in his two Symphonies, and I find the lyricism of Prokofiev's Concertos much more personal and memorable - but the real lyricism to me is one that is not heart-on-sleeve, as in Berg's or Bartok's Violin Concertos. And even within the confines of this kind of "unabashed lyricism", I wonder what Barber's Concerto has attained such a popularity, and not, say, Rodrigo's, or Harris' and Piston's respective First Concertos (see my reviews of Roy Harris: Symphony 1933; Concerto for Violin and Orchestra; Symphony No. 5 and Louis Kaufman plays Piston Violin Concerto No. 1, Copland Violin Sonata). Still, for those who enjoy Barber's Concerto, the coupling with Menotti is ideal.

I haven't done detailed comparisons between Ricci's reading of Barber's Concerto and others (I have a number in my LP and CD collection, including Stern, Leonard Bernstein Conducts Barber & Schuman and Elmar Oliveira, Howard Hanson: Symphony No. 2; Samuel Barber: Violin Concerto) but the American violinist appears to play with fine tone throughout, and the sonics are fine. TT is an acceptable 53:30.