The Naxos Menuhin series
continues to do good work in collating
sensible programmes from his discography.
This one gives us two sonatas by Mozart
and two by Beethoven recorded over an
eighteen year span in London and Paris,
three of them with Menuhin’s pianist
sister Hephzibah and one with Adolf
Busch’s colleague Hubert Giesen. One
of the advantageous things about the
disc is the Mozart F major sonata, which
constitutes Menuhin’s sole recording
of it, an Abbey Road set of two 78s
made in March 1938. Bright and vital
playing informs the twenty-two year
old’s performance, with cannily widened
vibrato usage in the Andante, a superbly
extended trill, and one or two quicksilver
downward portamenti to lace the movement
in expressive depth – songful and thoughtful
playing. The earlier A major is fine
as well, with astute phrasing in the
Presto finale and pianissimo phrasing.
His Beethoven D major
is with Giesen (the track listing mistakenly
says Hephzibah) and is a product of
Menuhin’s prodigy years. He was thirteen.
There are plenty of slides here as well
and some burnished tone leaps across
the years, though there are obviously
some moments of gauche phrasing (a bit
undifferentiated and over emotive in
the theme and variations second movement
for instance). Many years later in 1947
the Menuhins turned to the G major and
left a performance of great sensitivity.
There’s no spurious emoting in the slow
movement and Menuhin resists the temptation
here to dig into the string, instead
evincing an elevated, frankly almost
otherworldly spiritual detachment. In
general there is a dark-to-light profile
in the performance with a finale full
of culminatory vibrance. If he seems
slightly to downplay the espressivo
aspects of the Adagio the gains are
those of consistency – this is a notoriously
difficult sonata to make work.
The transfers have
used HMVs and retained a fair level
of surface noise but the sound is bright,
forward and warm.
Jonathan Woolf
Yehudi Menuhin (violin) 