The cover of the CD
box bears the word ‘BARTÓK’ in
large letters and underneath in much
smaller letters: "Yehudi Menuhin".
In marketing terms it would, I think,
be justifiable to turn that on its head
and call the package, "Yehudi Menuhin
plays Bartók". After all,
what we have here is a substantial collection
of violin music, all played by an artist
who had a special relationship with
the composer. Some people may wish to
buy the discs for performances of a
special authority that could be said
to be a fruit of that relationship.
Bartók benefited
from Menuhin’s championing of his violin
music before the war, especially in
the United States. For example, the
violinist was one of the first to take
up the Second Violin Concerto.
The composer admired Menuhin’s playing
so much that he readily agreed to write
an unaccompanied sonata for him. It
was completed in 1944 shortly before
his death. There are some people who
regard this work as one of the masterpieces
of the mid 20th century - in any genre.
I remember hearing Menuhin say in a
TV interview that, in purely technical
terms, he never really improved after
the age of sixteen. But there have been
some reports that Bartók’s sonata
was so technically challenging that
it gave its dedicatee some anxieties
that he may not have been too happy
to own up to. It is tempting to think
that Menuhin was forced to raise his
game. Maybe Bartók was shrewd
enough to see the dangers of a youngish
violinist beginning to rest on his laurels
and his talent, and was giving him a
little kick. After all, I also remember
Menuhin saying that, as his career progressed,
he did less and less practice.
The recording we have
here of the Sonata was made in
the 1970s, twenty seven years after
Menuhin first recorded the work. All
the other recordings were earlier –
mostly from the 1960s. It is an impressive
package – both Violin Concertos,
Rhapsodies, the (unfinished)
Viola Concerto and half a dozen
of the Duos (he wrote 44 altogether)
for which he is joined by Nell Gotkovsky,
as well as the solo Sonata. If
your CD collection is a little short
of Bartók then this EMI presentation
could be a very cost-effective way of
giving it a substantial boost. On the
whole the recordings, averaging nearly
forty years old, sound well. The performances
are clearly of special historic significance
through the Bartók /Menuhin connection
but they are very fine in their own
right. Both orchestras represented,
the New Philharmonia and the BBCSO,
are in excellent form and are in the
hands of two exceptional conductors
– Dorati and Boulez, both huge admirers
of Bartók’s music.
Dorati and Menuhin
had a special affinity, recording the
Second Violin Concerto together
three times. Menuhin also recorded the
work with Furtwängler but Dorati
definitely has the edge, coaxing more
zip and commitment from the New Philharmonia
than did Furtwängler with the same
orchestra in its earlier incarnation
as the Philharmonia. Dorati also helps
supply the necessary passion required
for the more youthful First Concerto,
perfectly blending with Menuhin
in a performance that conveys the emotion
with a power that never goes over the
top. This is one of those works
that could only have been born out of
a painfully passionate relationship.
In this case the short-lived one that
Bartók had with the talented
violinist Stefi Geyer in 1907. By the
time he finished the work they had broken
up but he gave it to her anyway. She
never played it. In 1919 she went off
to live in Switzerland with the manuscript
in a suitcase where it was found after
her death. So the performance we have
here was recorded only seven years after
the premiere which was in 1958. Menuhin’s
performance, never overdoing the emotion
nor indulging virtuosity for effect,
is a good example of that quality of
his – usually described as "integrity".
It is tempting to speculate what the
forty-nine old Menuhin might have made
of this 1908 work should it have been
available in his teens when his playing
was frequently described as "passionate
and spontaneous". Notwithstanding,
there is passion enough in this performance.
The unfinished Viola
Concerto is more the work of Bartók’s
former pupil, Tibor Serly, than it is
of the composer, but it gives us a chance
to hear Menuhin on an instrument that
he was keen play on occasions. Incidentally,
I only heard him play live twice, and
one of the performances was of a major
viola work: Berlioz’s Harold in Italy.
So this EMI package
is an irresistible bargain that presents
a range of Bartók’s work from
the folk-influenced Duos, to
chamber and orchestral masterpieces.
It brings together one of the twentieth
century’s greatest composers with one
of its leading peforming artists in
renderings of unmatched authority.
John Leeman
Yehudi Menuhin and Nell Gotkovsky, violins
