Adolf Busch in Beethoven

The omens were not good, and I half regretted ordering the Guild issue of Adolf Busch's March 1949 performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Statsradiofoniens Symfoniorkester conducted by one Launy Grøndahl. Busch was born in 1891 and died in 1952, so this performance was just three years before his life and career ended. The Danish radio station did not have a tape machine, so the radio recordings were made on a turntable, of which the station only had one, necessitating gaps in the recordings when one disk was full and the next one was made ready. Conductor and orchestra were unknowns (to me). I ordered the CD because of Adolf Busch who, especially when playing Bach, Beethoven or Schubert has always seemed to me to be without equal.

By serendipity, the performance proved to be a major acquisition. In my opinion, for performances of the Beethoven concerto that are truly great (amongst the many hundreds of violinists who have played the work), one has to concentrate on Busch, Erich Röhn, Kulenkampff and Schneiderhan. This 1949 Busch performance is a triumph of digital rescue. The remastering engineer, Peter Reynolds, has done absolute wonders with the sound, which is more enjoyable and natural than many modern digital recordings. The five gaps in recording have been expertly patched by Anthony Hodgson with bits from Busch's 1942 recordings, and few will notice many of the gaps. The performance is Busch's Beethoven at its best and greatest, with especially superb repose in the central larghetto. This recording receives one of my very rare “AAA” accolades; even the orchestra and the conductor come out with flying colours.

We live in a remarkable age of audio restoration, with the return of great artists of former years such as Busch and Furtwängler. For me, almost everything recorded by Busch and his string quartet in the music of Beethoven and Schubert deserves re-issue on golden discs – and his Bach performances can follow swiftly on. Audio restoration is a job for dedicated craftsmen, not for those working to a budget or earnings target. Thus the highly limited success of the mass digitisation programmes undertaken by companies such as EMI and RCA in the 1980s and 90s (not to mention the mangling of the Russian tapes in the 1990s by the likes of Bertelsman and Russian Disc). EMI Classics has now been sold to Warner, so do not expect much from the treasure vaults of EMI's unrivalled horde from the early 1900s to 1990; I suspect that Warner engineers are more accustomed to p/e ratios and Return on Investment (ROI) than they are to spending hours and days on restoring a 1949 classical recording to pristine audio condition (no pun on any audio recording company intended!)

Karl Goldmark's Violin Concerto

Karl Goldmark wrote two violin concertos, though only one has been published [where's the other one?] The Violin Concerto No.1 in A minor of 1877 is a highly agreeable work, with gentle melodies and superb writing for the violin (Goldmark was a violinist). It was championed for some time by Nathan Milstein but, on the whole, it is a concerto that is mysteriously neglected by concert promoters, recording producers, and violinists. The classic recording is by Nathan Milstein with the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1957 and, in many respects, this recording still stands at the head of the (fairly short) list of competitors, even after over half a century. Out of curiosity, I listened to three would-be runners-up: Nai-Yuan Hu with the Seattle Symphony orchestra under Gerard Schwarz; Vera Tsu with the “Razumovsky Sinfonia” under Yu Long; and Benjamin Schmid with the “Witold Lutoslawski Philharmonic, Wroclaw” under Daniel Raiskin.

At the start, it has to be noted that all three competitors are well worth hearing, but none can replace the 1957 Milstein. Both Hu and Schmid suffer from fairly indifferent orchestral backing; one senses that both the Poles and the Americans were not familiar with the work, and not too enthusiastic about playing it. Tsu with her Slovakian orchestra is much better served, with the orchestra having a good rhythmic swing when required. Hu has a truly lovely violin sound and is a fine player, but he is apt to slam on the brakes whenever the music becomes sentimental, and he also plays the last movement's extended cadenza without a cut (everyone else, wisely, makes a cut); it seems to go on for ever. Hu is also a bit deficient about allowing much dynamic range to his magnificent del Gesù violin. The always admirable Benjamin Schmid gains full marks for keeping things moving; his timings are roughly the same as Milstein's (though Milstein makes cuts in the finale that brings his overall timing down).

In some ways, Vera Tsu with her Slovakian players is my favourite of the three contestants. She has an excellent dynamic range and makes a lovely sound, which is important in this gentle, genial concerto. She captures well the wistful melancholy that lies at the heart of much of the music, and she is also an excellent violinist (as are the other two). Her main weak point is the familiar one with many post-war musicians: the belief that playing sentimental music very slowly makes it sound deeper and more profound. Wrong. Music needs to keep moving. When Goldmark says his slow movement should be played “andante” he knew that andante was connected with the Italian verb andare [to go], and that andante means strolling along. Miss Tsu does not stroll; she crawls, and ends up taking 7:40 against Milstein's 5:57. She is even worse in the Korngold concerto that is also on her CD, where the andante movement takes forever and a day at 8:27, sometimes not seeming to move at all. These things should have been corrected in music school. Musicians as diverse as Toscanini and Beecham knew that the more fragile the music, the more the need to keep it moving and not to drag. Vera Tsu plays very slowly very beautifully, and with admirable concentration. But the tempo in slower passages is just wrong for this kind of music.

Of the older generation of violinists apart from Milstein, Peter Rybar and Bronislav Gimpel played and recorded the work. Of the younger generation, there are Joshua Bell and Sarah Chang (who is just as slow as Tsu in the andante, and whose EMI recording is not of the best). Until another really well played, well accompanied and well recorded version comes along, I am happy with the 1957 Nathan Milstein and 1995 Vera Tsu (Naxos).

Miss DiDonato, and Miss Ly

I was perhaps a little curmudgeonly in my reaction to Joyce DiDonato's new Drama Queens CD of baroque opera arias. In truth, it is a magnificent compilation of magnificent arias, sung with the greatest artistry and technique by a soprano equal to any in the current constellation. And heard through wireless headphones, the sound is not as shrill as I first thought. Perhaps I am becoming allergic to the rasping sound of “authentic” violins. Anyway: a plug for Sennheiser's RS 170 wireless headphones; I began my music listening 60 years ago via a wind-up “portable” gramophone player with steel needles, and the Sennheisers give perhaps the most authentic sound yet.

A reader chides me for the current absence of anything to do with gastronomy. In truth, my current menus at home have not been terribly exciting. However, from recent adventures I can mention: the restaurant at the Whatley Manor Hotel (near Malmesbury). Superb French-type cuisine and highly enjoyable as long as someone else is paying the bill. And Miss Ly's restaurant at 22 Nguyen Hue, Hoi An in Vietnam if you ever feel in need of real food in an authentic local environment. The food comes from the Central Market that is around 75 metres down the street. Superb.

Soo-Hyun Park

The recorded performances by Michael Rabin of Wieniawski's first violin concerto are rightly famous, and Jascha Heifetz's recording of the genial violin concerto by Julius Conus is another classic. No need for rival versions, in that case? Well, actually, yes there is. There was a strange habit in the middle of the last century of hacking large chunks of music from violin concertos by composers such as Paganini, Wieniawski or Vieuxtemps, usually leaving the violin part more or less intact, but excising many orchestral passages. A bit odd, since I do not recall piano concertos by the likes of Liszt, Grieg or Rachmaninov suffering the same indignities. Added to this, it was the fashion post-war, particularly for American artists or American recordings, to give violinists solo spotlight treatment so that, even when playing pianissimo, they could eclipse a full orchestra.

The Rabin Wieniawski recordings suffer both cuts, and outlandish balance. Heifetz in the Conus concerto may or not have made cuts (I do not have a score) but, again, the balance is unnatural. I therefore bought a début CD by 23 year old Soo-Hyun Park since not only does it contain both the Wieniawski first concerto and the Conus concerto, but also the concerto in all but name by Vieuxtemps, the 19 minute Fantasia Appassionata in G minor. A happy purchase. Ms Park does not, needless to say, have the outsize personalities of Rabin or Heifetz. But, like all modern violinists, she can play this music standing on her head with one arm tied behind her back, even the fiendishly exposed theme in tenths in the first movement of the Wieniawski. She demonstrates an excellent empathy with all three pieces, none of which demands a molto bravura approach and all of which respond well to Ms Park's playing. And there are no cuts, which gives the Wieniawski concerto a whole new stature, plus the violin is accorded a natural balance with the orchestra. The result is three highly enjoyable concerto performances, and 69 minutes of enjoyable violin playing.

A critical quibble with which to end? The dreaded graphic artist strikes again and deems that for a very pale grey CD centre label, pale white type colour is in order so that it cannot possibly be read. Daft. Anyway, all praise to Onyx, and all praise to Ms Park for a début disc with three excellent concertos that are not by Bruch, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn or Sibelius. Future rivals take note!

Yevgeny Sudbin

The Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin is my kind of pianist. I first came across him playing Scarlatti, then went on to hear him in Rachmaninov and Medtner, and now in a Liszt recital (also including Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit). Where thundering is required (as in Funerailles) Sudbin thunders. When virtuosity is required – as in most of this programme, including Gaspard and Liszt's arrangement of Saint-Saën's Danse Macabre – Sudbin becomes a super-virtuoso. Where tenderness is demanded, as in the Petrarch sonnets, Sudbin is tender. Above all, he is a superb musician (and also writes interesting liner notes that reveal that he actually thinks about the music he plays). Yet another superb piano recital CD to keep beside my player; space is getting tight. The BIS recording in excellent.

In the world of classical music, there are intelligent top musicians; there are also showmen for whom the classical arena becomes a branch of showbiz, and this has always been so. To my mind, major musicians as diverse as Lang Lang, Horowitz, von Karajan, Bernstein and Pavarotti crossed the line from intelligent musicians to showbiz personalities; the motive is almost always lodsa money, rather than artistic fulfilment. Not that there are not moments in most musicians' lives when money is not vital; I recall my father, as an unemployed musician during the period 1946-49 declaiming: “Art for art's sake; money for God's sake”. And many musicians were pretty poor during much of the 1920s and early 30s. But lodsa money beckons for musicians prepared to invest heavily in major PR and to ricochet round the world playing the same handful of well-known warhorses. It rarely enhances their reputations, since crossing invisible boundaries tends to be somewhat final; someone who crossed the other way was Alfredo Campoli – an excellent violinist – who went from café orchestra leader to a classical violin career without, however, gaining much respect from his fellow classical musicians. Musically, the worst performance of Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas I have ever heard was given by old Alfredo in Blenheim Palace, standing in for an indisposed Yehudi Menuhin.

Needless to say, there is nothing showbiz about Yevgeny Sudbin; like pretty well all my favourite classical artists, he is a real musician and always well worth listening to.

Tianwa Yang

I need another recording of Mendelssohn's violin concerto like I need a few extra kilos of weight. But I bought the new Naxos offering because the violinist was Tianwa Yang, a young violinist who has always impressed me. In an interview on the Naxos site, Yang claims that she learned her violin technique in China, and her musicianship in Europe. Interestingly, she claims that the recordings by Jascha Heifetz were a significant influence on her appreciation of the Mendelssohn concerto and I think it shows: the work flows without the violent braking and swooning that disfigure so many modern performances, and the andante, in particular, sounds like a true andante, as it did under Heifetz's bow. Yang's distinctive slender tone and fluent bow arm help give a welcome freshness and youthfulness to this unpretenious music that, in the hands of some performers, is grossly inflated. Not here.

The CD also contains Mendelssohn's youthful D minor concerto, and the early F minor sonata for violin and piano. 66 minutes of highly enjoyable violin playing; Tianwa Yang knows all about playing piano and pianissimo when required. Her technique, it goes without saying, sees off the technical aspects of Mendelssohn without problems, but it is her musicianship that impresses mightily with this CD. We live in a wonderful age for hearing first class young violinists.

Baroque Opera

Handel's opera Alessandro makes enjoyable listening, and the new recording from a Greek-based outfit conducted by George Petrou is excellent. No weak points in the singing, that I noticed. Of the two female rivals, Julia Lezhneva (Rossane) struck me as exceptional, with a voice that is attractive, accurate and that appears to mean what she is singing. Karina Gauvin is the other female; entirely reliable, but without the involvement of Lezhneva. As was the custom of the period, the two male roles, including Alexander the Great himself, are sung by modern castrati, not a voice to which I am partial. Alexander the Great hoots away in a high register and sounds very unmanly to modern ears.

The recording struck me as being exceptionally good, with excellent balance and a warm sound for the baroque band. Well done the sound engineers of Universal. Would they had been around for Joyce DiDonato's latest recital with Alan Curtis and his band. Built round the theme of “Drama Queens” we hear DiDonato in 13 different pieces, lamenting or raging. The music is attractive; the singing is full of conviction. The sound recording is over-bright and sounds a bit like 1980s early digital, with rasping violins and an unfortunate edge to the higher notes of both the soprano and the orchestra. The EMI engineers are no longer what they used to be in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Janine Jansen plays Prokofiev

Janine Jansen has always been a violinist I have greatly admired and she does not disappoint in a 2012 recording of Prokofiev works. The second violin concerto – indelibly engraved with the name of Jascha Heifetz – is beautifully played, well aided by Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic. The first violin and piano sonata is another winner on the disk; pianist is Itmar Golan whom I have never really liked, but he seems to have improved greatly with age even if, in the “wind through the graveyard” passages, he could do with a few more graveyard visits to appreciate they are silent, mournful places rather than passages to play tasteful chords whilst Janine does her admirable pianissimo stuff. Mr Golan still sounds happier doing the allegrissimo forte passages in the final movement.

Praise, for a change, for the recording and the balance engineers (Decca). Both the concerto and the sonata pose problems; in the concerto, it is often difficult outside of a live concert attendance, to separate the high-flying solo violin from the high-flying orchestral violins. In the sonata, the piano (especially when played by Mr Golan and his confrères) can often drown the sound of the violin. On this CD, balance is pretty well impeccable and we can sit back and revel in Janine Jansen's vibrant violin playing. Filler for the CD is Prokofiev's sonata for two violins (where Jansen is partnered by Boris Brovtsyn); not one of Prokofiev's more memorable works. In my view, only in the first violin and piano sonata did Prokofiev approach the kind of emotional depth of his colleague Dmitri Shostakovich.

Beethoven String Quartet plays Shostakovich

The Fitzwilliam Quartet made a thoroughly admirable recording of the fifteen string quartets of Shostakovich back in the 1970s and, until now, I have lived happily with them. But a recent acquisition of the quartets played by the Beethoven Quartet has completely overturned my loyalties. From 1938 onwards the Beethovens worked closely with Shostakovich, and gave the first performance of 13 of the 15 quartets. In particular, the first violin – Dmitri Tsyganov, the viola – Vadim Borisovsky and the cellist – Sergei Shirinsky come over as passionate solo players within the quartet. The second violin was Vasily Shirinksy, and I think that passion defines the quality I love in these performances.

The transfers from the Melodya LPs of the 1950s and 60s are very well done by Doremi (at least, for those quartets I have listened to so far). I love these string quartets, but I'm afraid the Fitzwilliams go back on the shelf, and the Beethovens stay very near at hand.

Lisa Batiashvili in Brahms

The Russians – led by Heifetz, Kogan and Oistrakh – began the tradition that the Brahms violin concerto is a macho work, where a big, tough violin competes with an orchestra and dominates it. It is good, however, to hear an alternative view and I lapped up the performance by Lisa Batiashvili in partnership with the Dresden Staatskapelle under Christian Thielemann. First and foremost: this is a partnership performance, much in the way that any concerto performance with Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting became a partnership, rather than a soloist accompanied obediently by a deferential orchestra.

Lisa Batiashvili has long been one of my absolute favourites among modern violinists, faced with a veritable horde of competitors. In this performance of the Brahms concerto she gives a thoroughly feminine view, as opposed to the usual machismo one. Her concentration is as remarkable as ever, as is her lovely violin tone and her penchant for real piano and pianissimo playing; you often need good ears to hear Lisa. The sound engineers have placed the violin within the overall sound picture, as opposed to its usual prominent focus. The tempi adopted by Batiashvili and Thielemann are fluid and, thankfully, a little faster than is now fashionable; the adagio, in particular, preserves a good forward momentum. This performance goes straight into my first-echelon ranking, like so many of Batiashvili's performances. The first movement cadenza is by Busoni, rather than the usual Joachim, and this makes a refreshing change.

I have not met Christian Thielemann before (except as the conductor on Diana Damrau's exceptional collection of Strauss Lieder) but he impresses me in the Brahms concerto with Batiashvili; a German conductor in the Furtwängler mould when in partnership in a major concerto. So well done Johannes Brahms, Lisa Batiashvili, Christian Thielemann, the Dresden Staatskapelle, and the DG sound engineers. The only sour note is one unconnected with the music or the performance: nine photos of Lisa Batiashvili; one sideview of Christian Thielemann; none of Alice Sara Ott who partners Batiashvili in the three Romances by Clara Schumann that constitute a miserly filler to this short-duration CD. And no photos, of course, of Johannes Brahms. Very clear where DG's marketing department has its priority and what it thinks it is selling.

Niu Niu

15 year old Zhang Shengliang gives an attractive programme of Liszt transcriptions of Saint-Saëns, Schubert, Paganini and Wagner, with a couple of real Liszt pieces thrown in. He plays accurately, meticulously and with feeling for the music. Absent is much sense of emotional involvement, or any real idiosyncracies, not that, in virtuoso pieces such as these, this matters too much. But we are some way from the kind of playing and intensity György Cziffra brought to this music; one hopes that this remarkable 15 year old will be allowed to do his own thing, choose his own repertoire, and play things as he feels they should be played. And expands a little from a limited range of mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte. The music on this new CD is great for evening listening.

One's heart sinks reading the liner booklet that lists six “Artist Management” personnel, plus someone for “Hair & Makeup” and another person for “Styling”. Alas, we will probably now never know who did the hair and make-up for Casals, Szigeti, Furtwängler or Adolf Busch; these things are important to know. Listing these hangers-on is all part of the intense commercialisation of classical music and performers; any good performer has a host of parasites waiting to be fed, and they add nothing to the music, nor to the performances. If Mr Shengliang loses his hair, or turns 35, he will probably be dropped from the EMI artist list within hours. He has even been given a nice new memorable marketing name: Niu Niu. A friend tells me that, in Chinese, this means Cow-Cow. Anyway: Mr Cow Cow can certainly play the piano with superb technique and good feeling. One hopes the six Artist Managers will leave him free to do his own artistic thing.

Adrian Boult in Brahms

I would never have believed it: listening (for pleasure) to four Brahms symphonies in one day? It came about because I sampled the first symphony (conducted by Adrian Boult, in the 11-CD monster box I acquired recently). I enjoyed it so much that I went on the the second symphony ... and the third … and the fourth.

It all shows the value of serendipity when one buys these incredible bargains. Boult has never really figured in my pantheon of major conductors. I enjoyed his traversal of the Bach Brandenburgs (in this box) immensely. His Brahms is sane: organic, free-range, no added ingredients, no conductors' whims or follies. Brahms, the whole Brahms, and nothing but the Brahms. The recorded sound (1970-2) is rich and really well done; during that period, EMI had some of the best recording engineers around. The orchestral playing is good (London Philharmonic in all but the third symphony, where the LSO takes over. The sound of the LSO is noticeably less full and less rich than the LPO of that period). All in all, an excellent set of the Brahms symphonies. Boult has risen rapidly in my esteem. He was never an international figure and, in so far as I am aware, never conducted outside England. There again, many major musicians chose not to join the international circuit and remained admired figures in their native lands. Adrian Boult was born in 1889 in Chester, so by the time these recordings were made he was well into his 80s. Remarkably, he shows no signs whatsoever of the elderly conductors' disease of slowing down (e.g., Klemperer) or speeding up (e.g., Toscanini). Over the 16 movements of these four symphonies I found not one movement where I had doubts concerning Boult's chosen tempo. Remarkable.

Keep to Hand

As I once mentioned, once I have listened to a new CD, it is filed away for future listening. An exception is with recordings into which I like to dip on frequent occasions, and these are kept in a (limited space) rack next to my CD player. At the very end of 2012, the “keep close at hand” selection looks like the following:

* Beethoven: Late string quartets (Busch Quartet)
* Shostakovich: Complete string quartets (Fitzwilliam Quartet)
* Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues (Nikolayeva)
* Bach: 48 Preludes & Fugues (Edwin Fischer)
* Bruckner: Symphonies 8 and 9 (Carl Schuricht)
* Telemann: Operatic arias (Nuria Real)
* Berlioz and Ravel: Songs with orchestra (Véronique Gens)
* Claire-Marie Le Guay: Recital of Russian piano music
* Vivaldi: Operatic arias (Roberta Invernizzi)
* Rachmaninov: Piano music (Xiayin Wang)
* Liszt: Lieder (Diana Damrau)
* Bach: Solo violin sonatas and partitas (Alina Ibragimova /
__Gregory Fulkerson)
* Bach: Solo cello suites (Pablo Casals / Pierre Fournier)
* Thibaud & Cortot: Sonatas by Franck, Fauré and Debussy
* Schubert: Late piano sonatas (Leif Ove Andsnes)
* Yuja Wang: Piano recital

No particular rhyme or reason to this selection except that almost all the works are here because of the music, and not because of the playing. If I'm still around, I'll re-list the pile as at the end of 2013. Meanwhile, I'm off to Vietnam for a couple of weeks, so this blog will (probably) be somewhat silent for a while.

Sherban plays Ernst

Volume III of the music of Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst provides more evidence that Ernst wrote agreeable and enjoyable music. In particular, he loved a good tune and playing lovable melodies. The new CD (Toccata Classics) also provides evidence that modern recording producers are all at sea when it comes to balancing violin and piano in these kinds of salon works. The piano's role is normally to provide background harmonies and to support the lone violin (most of the time, but in some places the piano has a prominent melodic role, with the violin accompanying). Sherban Lupu plays valiantly, but all too often his sweet melody is severely impacted by plonking chords on a piano that is given more than equal prominence to the violin. This is wrong. We wish to listen to Mr Lupu playing Ernst's music; we do not want to listen to Ian Hobson playing supporting chords. Come back Emanuel Bay; all is forgiven. It's probably not Hobson's fault that he often dominates the violin part. We need to blame the producer for detracting from our listening pleasure.

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich did not have an easy life. During the 1930s and 40s in the Soviet Union he ducked and weaved during the purges in order to survive. His music was banned, then re-instated. He wrote private music, and public music. Outside the Soviet Union, his reputation did not have an easier passage. He was denounced by the Western musical avant-garde for by-passing serialism and atonality and for writing music in A minor, and C major. When he stayed in New York there was an organised demonstration outside his hotel demanding that the “Commie Musician” return home forthwith.

Between all the ducking and weaving, demonstrations and denunciations, he was – in my view – the greatest composer of the twentieth century. I spent this evening listening to his first violin concerto (composed in 1947, but not published until after Stalin's death) and to his tenth symphony. Searing music that goes straight to the heart. The violinist in the concerto was Lisa Batiashvili in a quite incredible performance; the conductor of the tenth symphony was Vasily Petrenko. Plain to see that the heirs of the old USSR have taken Shostakovich's music to their hearts – as have I. Lined up for later listening are Shostakovich's fifthteen string quartets, music I just have to get to know. I recall being somewhat outraged in the mid- 1950s listening to the British premiere of the first violin concerto (played by David Oistrakh) when the BBC announcer half-apologised for the fact that this was not really “modern” music, but was the kind of thing Soviet composers had to write. I listened to the concerto for the first time and found it superb, despite the denunciations of the BBC, the musical cognoscenti and the Cold War warriors. In my view, now, the first violin concerto (in A minor, no less) of Shostakovich is the greatest of all violin concertos.

Schneiderhan and Furtwängler

The orchestral side of concertos can often sound routine. But with Wilhelm Furtwängler at the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic in Beethoven's violin concerto, the orchestral contribution is anything but routine; Furtwängler always seemed to be at his best in this concerto, and the violin part in the latest release from the admirable Pristine Audio is played by Wolfgang Schneiderhan (live, May 1953). This is the fourth version I have with Schneiderhan in the solo part, and very good it is too.

It is difficult to understand why this superb performance did not receive better circulation. Part of the problem may have been the critical climate in the 1950s and 60s, when live recordings were somewhat disparaged and the accepted dogma – maybe propounded by the school of Walter Legge – was that recordings were “definitive documents for all time” and that every semiquaver had to be impeccable, something that did not happen with live recordings and performances. The Mark Obert-Thorn transfers for the present release are very good but cannot disguise the highly bronchial audience, nor the fact that the violin is recorded well forward of the orchestra. No real matter; this is a truly excellent performance from two people – Schneiderhan and Furtwängler – who excelled in this concerto, with the added frisson of a live performance with its feeling of tension and continuity. Many thanks to Andrew Rose and Pristine for bringing this performance back into circulation. The cadenzas here are by Joachim, and the tempi for all three movements flowing and acceptable -- something that is not always the case with the first movement of this concerto, which is too often over-expanded and dragged out.

Also on the Pristine release are Furtwängler and the Berliners in an orchestral arrangement of Beethoven's Große Fuge; I find it highly pleasing. Apparently Furtwängler considered the Fuge to be superior with an orchestra rather than with a string quartet; arguable, but pretty convincing in this 1952 public performance in Berlin. All in all, €9 well spent.

Gregory Fulkerson plays Bach

A good friend (Lee) kindly sent me a two CD set of someone called Gregory Fulkerson playing the Bach solo sonatas and partitas. In top position I already have many other sets, including Heifetz, Milstein, Lara St. John and Alina Ibragimova (the current favourites) not to mention Oscar Shumsky, Arthur Grumiaux and several others. Abandoned and given away were many other sets, including Rachel Podger, Johanna Martzy and Julia Fischer. So I approached Mr Fulkerson without too many hopes, nor too much enthusiasm.

But my affection mounted quickly. This is fine Bach playing. Fulkerson does not indulge in fashionable “authentic” antics. He hits what I consider to be the “right” tempo for each movement. He never dawdles. He varies his dynamics. He is technically fearless. He does not sound heavy and over-reverential (a frequent mistake by those who play these works). He does not milk his violin sound for all it is worth. So I like him very much, and the four favourites above become five. The B minor Partita is, for me, the weakest of the set of six works; it can often seem to be over-long, and any violinist who can sustain my interest for the full 30 minutes gets my accolade. Fulkerson manages it well, with swift tempi and varied dynamics.

Apparently Fulkerson was much liked by “the critics”, which really put me off, since I have learned over the decades that music critics are highly fallible beasts, subject to all kinds of bias: they rarely agree with each other; they are subject to editorial whims concerning favouring advertisers; they are invited to the entertainment circus by managers and PR people, given exclusive interviews with artists, plied with free tickets; they are subject to current fashions; they usually favour the “Home Town Boy, or Girl” and the performer who is “famous” in their neck of the woods. I have frequently been led astray by over-enthusiastic critics, the first time being when I was around 15 and a friend asked me for a recommendation for a set of the Brahms symphonies. I reported the ecstatic Gramophone review of the Adrian Boult set (Pye Nixa) without realising that the reviewer, Trevor Harvey, was a Boult acolyte and worshipped the conductor. My friend bought the set and was considerably put out to discover that the recorded sound was truly awful; my reputation sank on the spot. Of the current commercial reviews, I listen particularly to the American Record Guide, that does not accept advertising and has many reviewers who are not afraid to be unfashionable, nor to say exactly what they think. The Gramophone has probably the least reliable reviewers; highly parochial and with all kinds of bias towards advertisers and favourites such as Simon Rattle, Rachel Podger, Tasmin Little or John Eliot Gardiner.

Bach's Cello Suites

Twenty to thirty years ago, I used to enjoy playing the Bach cello suites (on my viola). Speciality was the fourth suite, the prelude to which I always thought of as “the killer”; pretty well every bar has accidentals – sharps, flats, naturals – and you never know what key you are in, from bar to bar, while no two sequential notes appear to be the same. You arrive pretty exhausted at the end, but it's invigorating to play.

I sampled the suites again in the classic recording by Pierre Fournier. Beautifully and smoothly played, but Pablo Casals and I (what a pair!) liked to dig into Bach's notes with more gusto, more personality – and almost certainly less authenticity. Those pedal notes on the C string should be savoured! This is above all music for playing. I never quite understand the fascination of Bach's music; he does not have the melodic genius of Handel, Mozart or Schubert, nor the emotional frissons of Mozart, Schubert et al. But he is indubitably and rightly in everyone and anyone's list of The Three Greatest -- my list included-- (whoever the other two happen to be).