Off to Bath on Saturday morning. Found -- at long last -- a butcher who sells veal chops! Had a big veal weekend. Also bought the new Emmanuelle Haïm recording of Handel's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo. Wonderful trio of vocalists -- Sandrine Piau, Sara Mingardo and Laurent Naouri -- and quite wonderful music. The whole thing played with plenty of spirit and colour. Baroque performances have moved on from the 1980s. The singers sound more at ease, the instrumentalists less amateur. Sara Mingardo, in particular, really shines in the new issue. Strange how English groups and singers appear to have faded somewhat in the baroque repertoire, after their pioneering efforts in the 1980s. Now it's Emmanuelle Haïm, Marc Minkowski, Philippe Herreweghe and René Jacobs. Baroque headquarters is now France and Belgium, with the Italians making headway.
So pleased with Aci that I restarted on Jacobs' Rinaldo. Decided I am not too keen on Vivica Genaux's voice (Rinaldo).

Bank Holiday weekend, and Wagner’s Parsifal, the old 1951 Decca public performance recording transferred by Mark Obert-Thorn for Naxos. A mere £19 for a first-class Parsifal on four CDs! Wonders will never cease.
Astonishingly, the 1951 recording is perfectly “acceptable” – ie, no allowances have to be made while listening. Balance between orchestra and voices is how it should be. And with pretty well all the singers (except, sometimes, the Kundry of Martha Mödl), you can really hear every word. Hans Knappertsbusch conducts the work as one suspects it should be conducted. Five hours of bliss! But I’m glad I had a big-print libretto, left over from the Goodall LP set.

Down to Portsmouth yesterday for the last concert of this season. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (excellent) conducted by Alexander Polianichko. Highly enjoyable Lieutenant Kijé Suite, followed by second piano concerto (with Nikolai Demidenko as the demonic, very Russian, soloist). I greatly enjoyed watching the soloist in action – a real Russian bear, with an expressionless counternance but with immense power and, on the few occasions permitted by Prokofiev, a warm tone. The concerto was exciting, but not really something I'd care to listen to regularly. A lot of steel, a lot of brutality.
After the interval, it was back to Prokofiev, and the fifth symphony. Enjoyable, but rather a lot of Prokofiev in one dose. Might have been wiser to switch to Vaughan Williams, or Sibelius, for the final work? The orchestra played very well indeed. Polianichko looked every inch a real haunted Russian conductor, albeit with a Simon Rattle haircut.

I listened to Schubert's B flat major piano sonata D 960 yesterday evening (it's one of my favourite works). Maria Judina's performance is quite fascinating. I think Schubert would have loved it, although asking himself who wrote the music. Does one want a marvellous performance of a piano work? Or a great performance of Schubert's last sonata? I don't think one gets the latter, but one certainly gets the former. It is, of course, one of the dividing lines of critics. I certainly would never wish to be without Richter's or Judina's performances of D 960, although I recognise they are almost certainly not what Schubert had in mind, exactly. I must invest in one or two more performances of this fascinating and difficult-to-read sonata.

My latest craze appears to be Handel's Duetti, sparked by buying Emanuelle Haïm's CD of the Arcadian Duets, and La Venexiana's CD of "The Ten Italian Duets" (with Rossana Bertini and Claudio Cavina). It seems to me that anyone liking Purcell and Bach just has to be sold on the duetti ! Intensely lyrical, but also highly contrapuntal. The slow movement of the Bach D minor concerto for two violins (or almost any baroque sonata or concerto for two violins) could be taken as a model. Lots of variety, lots of changes of mood and nothing lasting more than three minutes. Keeps the singers on their toes, and listeners wide awake. Adding these two CDs to my collection, I must have the world's biggest collection of Handel's duetti (with Kirkby and Nelson, plus Fischer and Bowman, plus Nelson and Jacobs, plus Zadori and Esswood ... )

Recent recordings by Hana Kotkova (Ysaye) and Susanne Stanzeleit (Enescu) have set me thinking about what makes a good, worthwhile violin performance. With both Kotkova and Stanzeleit, you find yourself concentrating on the music, rather than admiring how beautiful their violins sound. Kotkova's Ysaye pleases me more than did her Enescu / Janacek disc, which I found a bit too soft-centred and laid back. Stanzeleit I have always admired, though I've mainly had to listen to her in Bartok, which is not really my cup of tea (after nearly 50 years of listening to him!)
Well, the PR people can push Josefowicz, and Bell, and Hahn, and Shaham, and Znyder ... But I think current generation violinists such as Repin, Suwanai, Batiashvili, Kotkova and Stanzeleit are just fine for me.

At last, a day worth writing about. Dover sole, plus Monsieur Bachelet’s wine for lunch. Haggis for dinner. Handel’s marvellous La Resurrezione (Koopman recording). Plus Vadim Repin – Miaskovsky violin concerto (French recording) plus January 1999 Louvre recordings. Good food. Good wine. Good music. Good performances. The weekend ends happily!

Changing my mind about the 1935-36 set of Beethoven violin & piano sonatas with Kreisler and Franz Rupp (Naxos, Ward Marston transfer). I have usually thought it a shame Kreisler was not partnered with someone a little more worthy (Rachmaninov, Cortot, Arrau, etc). However, listening to the pieces in their new transfers, it is apparent that Rupp (and the careful balance instigated by Fred Gaisberg) does an excellent job. Of course, Kreisler was 60 years old when these recordings were made, but it is still a classic set to put beside Szigeti and Arrau, or Grumiaux and Haskil. As usual, around 3 minutes into listening one adapts to the new sound world and it doesn't really matter whether things are stereo or mono, digital or analogue; just so long as the sound is good and true (and not over-shrill, over-clean, etc). Marston seems to me to have done an excellent job here. And the entire set was only £9.99 (£1.00 per sonata!)

Ah, Werner Güra singing Schumann! The new CD contains the Op 39 Liederkreis, plus the Dichterliebe. I grew up with DFD singing these, but Güra gave me much pleasure. A lovely voice, and highly intelligent singing without DFD's occasional blustering. I have always been a great fan of the Op 39 Liederkreis.
As part of a good weekend, I also recorded off-air Hilary Hahn playing the Spohr 8th violin concerto (Gesangsszene). I am not an uncritical admirer of Miss Kahn, but I liked the Spohr as much as I liked her Elgar. Some beautiful playing, and she seems to be learning to play softly, on occasions. You still notice, however, the modern tendancy not to articulate with the bow; emphasis is still too much on a long stream of beautiful sound. Still, it is good to have a fine modern recording of the Spohr, though Heifetz is still well nigh unbeatable in this music.
Finally, for £10 I bought the three Naxos CDs of Kreisler and Rupp doing the complete Beethoven violin & piano sonatas. When I was a teenager, holiday jobs working on the local farms used to see me earning enough money to buy 2 LPs (roughly 80 minutes worth of recorded music). A week's work for 80 minutes! Times have certainly changed.

Six new Michael Rabin CDs! Great joy (though I only have three at the moment; the rest are following). The six discs cover Rabin's Bell Telephone Hour appearances (Donald Voorhees and the Bell Orchestra). Hearing Rabin is like meeting a good old friend again. His playing really was flawless, and his "slushy" style quite genuine and distinctive. Nothing on the Bell Hour is allowed to last more than 4 minutes or so (American radio audiences obviously were thought to have low attention spans) so everything is played fast, and isolated movements are played from concertos. The Voorhees accompaniments are slushy and Hollywood-inspired. The announcer makes mundane comments and manages to mispronounce almost everything. Still, Rabin is great! The appearances start from 1950 when he was 14 years old. And, unlike his studio recordings, the balance is less diabolical -- how one could throttle the recording producer who nodded through Rabin's incredible recording of the complete Paganini caprices, recorded so near the mike it makes listening a strident experience.
Six hours of Rabin! One of the great things about the CD-R revolution (and the copyright expiration for so many older performances) is that it makes it possible to hear many more hours of an artist than would have been permitted by just the authorised commercially-released recordings.

Listened to the two new James Ehnes CDs I brought back from Paris. Why did I buy them? I don't usually enjoy Ehnes, who is a very fine violinist indeed, but can be a little unimaginative.
Well, the CD of James Ehnes playing Kreisler was thoroughly enjoyable. Somehow, faced with just playing the fiddle superbly in lighter music, Ehnes takes wing. A super performance of the Tartini-Kreisler Devil's Trill. Ehnes sounds as if he is enjoying himself.
The CD of Bruch (second violin concerto, and Scottish Fantasy) introduces a conundrum. The second violin concerto is really rather a dull work. Ehnes plays the Scottish Fantasy beautifully. But anyone who remembers Heifetz in this piece will realise that Ehnes is heavily influenced by Heifetz. Phrasing, bowing, fingering, expressive gestures and tempi all sound so similar as to be downright imitation rather than "influenced by". Only in the finale does Ehnes depart from His Master's Voice, with a slower tempo. A bit puzzling. I enjoyed the performance greatly; but it really was Heifetz in good modern sound!

Evening of duo sonatas. Hanna Kotkova in the Janacek sonata didn’t please me too much. A bit limp, and the balance favours the piano, with her playing away in the background. Turned to Akiko Suwanai and Boris Berezovsky in the Janacek (and in the Dvorak Four Pieces); and what a difference! Ended up with Vadim Repin and the omnipresent Boris Berezovsky in the Strauss sonata. A magnificent performance; quite as good as the classic Heifetz performance (and that is saying a lot). It has to be said that Berezovsky contributes as much to the Suwanai and Repin discs as do the violinists themselves.

Overwhelmed, as often in the past 40 years or so, by Delius’s Sea Drift (Beecham, Bruce Boyce, 1954). This is a piece, and a performance, that have so often left me deeply moved. Beecham knew instinctively the need to keep music such as Delius’s moving. Left me feeling quite moist of eye.
Preceded Sea Drift with more Beecham: Grieg’s incidental music to Peer Gynt (sparked by a telephone query from my daughter Tabitha). The period 1880 to 1910 was so rich in music! Grieg and much of Delius; and also Strauss, Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner, Debussy, Elgar, Chausson … This may even be my favourite musical period (despite all my Bach listening over Christmas).
Resisted the temptation to follow the Grieg and Delius with Chausson’s Poèmes de l’Amour et de la Mer, or with Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Elgar’s cello concerto. But they will surely follow …

Christmas Eve saw a great meal of pâté de foie gras, langoustines, cheese and dessert, all washed down with champagne, the incredible Australian Nobel One dessert wine, and a good pinot noir d’Alsace. The langoustines (from William’s Kitchen) were excellent – Tabitha and I consumed 2 kilos of them between us.
Music over Christmas was overwhelmingly Bach. I was surprised just how much I still enjoyed Karl Richter’s 1958 Matthew Passion – and how much I enjoyed Fischer-Dieskau’s singing therein (for a change). Just goes to show one can never generalise. In fact I suspect this may still be my favourite recording of the Matthew Passion; one I have known for over forty years.
Then, on to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. I have seriously underestimated this in the past. It is, in fact, a cycle of six high-grade cantatas. I knew the first two from an old DGG recording I had in the 1950s, and the final four cantatas sort of passed me by ever after. My loss! And also, in this reversal of ancient prejudices, I greatly enjoyed John Eliot Gardiner’s performance of the Oratorio. He usually comes over as the Toscanini of the baroque orchestra. But in this recording (mid 1980s) one cannot really fault him and he doesn’t “hector” the music as he is wont to do in Bach.

An oddly assorted violin trio enabled me to sort out some of my likes and dislikes (aka prejudices).
I responded with coolness to Jerrold Rubenstein and Dalia Ouziel (1997) playing the three Brahms sonatas. I enjoyed Emil Telmanyi and Georg Vasarhelyi (Berlin, 1939) in the first two Brahms sonatas. And, very surprised, I thoroughly enjoyed Joan Berkhemer and Kyoko Hashimoto in the Mendelssohn F major sonata.
Why? Rubenstein played beautifully; too beautifully, and usually too slowly. Telmanyi, very much in the early last century Central European tradition, took 8:31 and 7:05 respectively over the first movements of the first two Brahms sonatas, and this felt about right. Rubenstein took 11:19 and 8:57 respectively, and this dragged.
Every violinist should understand why there are not too many sonatas and concertos for solo clarinets, oboes or flutes; it’s not that these three woodwind instruments don’t sound beautiful. It’s just that beautiful sound begins to pall after five minutes or so. The best violinists vary the colour and dynamics constantly (Heifetz was a master of this). Beautiful-sound violinists such as Mischa Elman broke up the stream of sound with varied bowing and a lot of right arm articulation. Alas, Rubenstein (ex Julliard) has a lovely Joseph Guarneri violin with a particularly beautiful rich sound on the lower strings. And don’t we know it! In the end, the beautiful slow, rich sound with the seamless son filé from the immaculately smooth bowing arm have the same effect as eating an entire kilo of high-grade pâté de foie gras. Frank Almond in the same three sonatas eventually had a similar effect on me.
Which is why Joan Berkhemer was like a refreshing glass of sparkling water. He (I think Joan, like Ana, is male name in Dutch, for some odd reason) plays the violin with zest and spirit. And it’s infectious. I am not a Mendelssohn fan, but enjoyed the contrast with the over-precious Rubenstein. Berkhemer sounded like a violinist; Rubenstein reminded me of a clarinettist.
Telmanyi in Brahms is no model; but he kept things moving and was consistently interesting. I’ll go back to his two performances (not surprisingly, his playing reminded me of Jeno Léner and the Budapest of the late nineteenth century).
Insight or prejudice? I don’t know. Just keep me away from violinists who play consistently beautifully!

Well, after well nigh 45 years, Paul Kletzki’s performance of Mahler 4th Symphony (1957 with the Philharmonia and Emmy Loose) has been dethroned in my affections. By the 1967 public performance in Prague (3 January) by John Barbirolli and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with Heather Harper in the finale.
Beside the 1957 Philharmonia, the BBC orchestra sounds a bit rustic. But it’s suave, northern playing versus rustic southern playing, and Barbirolli and the BBC orchestra win hands down. To my mind, Barbirolli masters the ebb and flow of the music magnificently. The structure holds together and nothing seems too long – especially not the 20 minute adagio. After so long a time, it is increasingly rare that a “newcomer” ousts an old favourite. The Barbirolli was broadcast on 19 December 2002 and, I must say, the sound transfers beautifully to CD. A new confirmed favourite. Probably unlikely to be supplanted in my affections from now on? I even prefer Heather Harper to Emmy Loose. There’s a volte face!

A lot of pleasure yesterday evening from my new (EMI Great Recordings of the Century) 2-CD set of Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia in Wagner bits and pieces (1960-61). Wagner fitted my mood very well, and the Tannhäuser Overture makes good listening. The sound is fine, and well balanced. Interesting to note how the stock of Klemperer (and Furtwängler, Weingartner and Mengelberg) keeps rising -- and that of Toscanini, for example, drifts downwards. Partly to do with the awful sound Toscanini used to like. But partly due, one feels, to his brutal way with so much music. Whatever: the two Klemperer CDs will give me as much pleasure as does the similar 2-CD set of Furtwängler conducting Wagner bits.

Somewhat disturbed evening, and nothing I listened to seemed to “speak” to me. But around 10.15 I found (by accident when looking for something else) the DG re-issue of Clara Haskil and Ferenc Fricsay in the mid-1950s playing Mozart (mono). Put on the piano concerto No.27 (K 595) and was immediately entranced, both by Mozart and by Haskil. It sounded as if Mozart himself were playing, and the music certainly “spoke”. At such times, Mozart truly joins the great triumvirate (with Bach and Beethoven). And what a good recording! No apologies needed for 1955 mono sound. The disc also contains the 19th concerto (K 459) so I must dip into that when I get back next week.
There is, after all, a point in having a back collection of CDs about which one has forgotten!