> Kreisler: Beethoven - Mendelssohn [WH]: Classical CD Reviews- July2002 MusicWeb(UK)

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Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Violin Concerto in D major, op. 61 (1806)
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)

Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64 (1844)
Fritz Kreisler, violin
London Philharmonic Orchestra/John Barbirolli (Beethoven) and Landon Ronald (Mendelssohn)
Recorded June 1936 (Beethoven) and April 1935 (Mendelssohn) at Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London, UK.
NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.110959 [69.48]


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Being a lover of these two concertos – who isn’t? – rather than a devotee of historic recordings, I came to this issue with few preconceptions.

It’s difficult not to be aware of the awe in which Kreisler was held, by Elgar, amongst others, and I was looking forward to hearing for myself this legendary artist in these particular works. So I was taken aback that the first thing that struck me about the Beethoven was the soloist’s technical fallibility. Intonation is frankly poor during his first, rising entry, and sour notes in passagework occur frequently throughout the concerto. In his review of this same disc, my colleague Jonathan Woolf cites Jacques Thibaud, a friend of the violinist, who asks "Do you go to concerts to listen to the wrong notes?" Well, of course the answer is no, but I think one also hopes as far as possible to avoid hearing them, and the intonation problems in this performance of the Beethoven are certainly serious enough to interfere with my listening pleasure.

I know there is an argument, to which I only rarely subscribe, that today’s musicians have everything in the way of technical facility but little musical insight or maturity. I searched in vain for any enlightenment from Kreisler to compensate for the technical problems. It’s true that in the slow movement he establishes a commendable atmosphere of calm, but no more than any one of my modern favourites, and they manage it without the excessive holding on to certain notes, sliding between others, no doubt features of period style, but, to my ears at least, intrusive. And the whole concerto is rather pulled about, an interpretative characteristic with which the young Barbirolli seems totally in sympathy.

The Mendelssohn fares better, to my ears. It begins with a momentary difference of opinion about tempo, though: Landon Ronald sets one tempo in the tiny "on your marks" introduction and Kreisler sets another, significantly quicker, one. And indeed at several points, particularly in the first movement, the soloist seems to want to make the music move forward more than the conductor is expecting. Intonation is far from impeccable here too, though less problematic than in the Beethoven. The slow movement, marked andante, also moves on at a quicker pace than we are used to in more modern performances, and the reading as a whole seems more under control, less indulgent than in the earlier work. That said, one or two absolutely magical passages count for little here: I can hear very little poise as the music slows down to introduce the second subject of the first movement, and the wonderful linking passage between the slow movement and the finale displays, for this listener at least, none of the magic or fantasy I wait for every time I hear it. The finale is cleanly played but rather bland: there is neither much wit nor, where required, much fire.

A disappointment for me, then, though I realise that anyone buying this disc will do so for Kreisler; admirers know already what to expect and newcomers to his playing may react differently. All the same, the next time I want to listen to one of these two wonders it won’t, I think, be Kreisler that I’ll take down from the shelves. Kyung Wha Chung (with Dutoit) or Milstein (with Abbado) in Mendelssohn, for example, are two very satisfying readings, and a recent favourite is Hilary Hahn in Beethoven. But the violinist whose view of these works seems most completely to reflect what I want to hear is Josef Suk, the Mendelssohn on an irresistible Supraphon reissue, coupled with Bruch and Berg and conducted by Ancerl, and a Beethoven concerto of enormous integrity and poise with Boult on EMI.

William Hedley


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