Search - Beethoven :: Violin Concerto in D M a

The only one you'd want

Ryan Kouroukis | Toronto, Ontario Canada | 09/18/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This recording is excactly what it should be. I mean that the piece itself is beauty againt a backdrop of intellectual refinement. Beauty is the violin and the intellect is the orchestra. Menuhin plays beauty and Klemperer plays the intellect. This performance is well neigh definitive right along side Mutter's recording with Karajan. The thing is, you may have trouble finding this rare Klemp recording. But I ordered it from my local HMV store easily. Try checking out HMV England or Australia online for it. It will not be this one listed here, it will be coupled with the 2 romances with Menuhin and Pritchard conducting on the EMI "studio plus" label. The blend of beauty from Menuhin's violin combined with sparkling intellect from Klemperer's orchestra makes this version of the violin concerto one of the greatest out there. By now you should know that anything Klemperer does is worth owning, and you already know that his Beethoven is the best! And you don't need me to tell you that Menuhin was one of the greatest violinists this world has ever produced! Worth every penny and so much more!"

Two great artists, but their chemistry is lacking

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 06/18/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Yehudi Menuhin was a news story as a child prodigy on the violin, some say the greatest ever, and once the headlines forgot him, he settled in as a fixture of the British musical scene after the war. Allowed to record whatever and whenever he wanted, Menuhin made no less than five recordings of the Beethoven concerto (one of which, from the Lucerne Festival with Furtwangler in 1946, survives as an air check; the others are studio efforts). Here we have his fourth version from 1965 with Otto Klemperer at the height of his autumnal renascence.



Unfortunately, the collaboration of two renowned artists doesn't create sparks. Each movement is among the slowest on disc (the three movements timing out at approx. 24 min., 10 min., and 10 min.), and Klemperer, giving us his accustomed direct, no-nonsense style, draws a box around the rhythms and proceeds to keep the music inside. Often this approach produces something special, a kind of unbudging integrity, but here it sounds flaccid and dull too often.



Menuhin exhibits his fairly slender, silvery tone, which is at odds with Klemperer's style. He doesn't dig in anywhere, and his passagework is often slow and detailed. Intonaiton is good, and there's no sense that the violinist is struggling, but nothing soars, either. Despite patches where everything comes together, more often than not I found my attention wnadering. By the end, the relaxed finale misses an opportunity to exit with a show of exuberance. All in all, this foursquare account was a disappointment.

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