Boris Giltburg plays Rachmaninov

I noticed the release of Boris Giltburg playing Rachmaninov's Etudes-Tableaux Op 39, and the Moments Musicaux Op 16. Since I love both sets of pieces, I put the CD on my wishlist. After a time, I decided that, given I already had several recordings of both pieces, including those by Zlata Chochieva and Xiayin Wang, I would forgo Giltburg, so I took him off the wishlist. Then a highly laudatory review in the Gramophone magazine put him back on the wishlist. Then I noticed it was a Naxos CD, and thus only around the price of a good sirloin steak in the supermarket. So I bought the CD, happily for me.

Giltburg is a pianist on this CD with superb pianism, and a superlative range of sound and dynamics. Some pieces I found too slow for my taste, but it did not matter when Giltburg played them this way. Like Rachmaninov himself, the pianist concentrates on the music, eschewing showmanship. Zlata and Xiayin are still there in my must-listen pile. But so now is Giltburg. Strange to remember that Rachmaninov the composer was once somewhat looked down on by “those in the know”; it is dangerous to write music that music lovers really like!

Violinist Repertoire

It is difficult for fine musicians to achieve notice in the overcrowded modern world, where every man and his dog can commission a recording or post on YouTube. Some try the eccentric route; Nigel Kennedy and Gilles Apap come to mind, in the violin world. Many try the experimental modern contemporary composer-of-the-moment route, where competition and comparisons are limited; Patricia Kopatchinskaja comes to mind, obtaining press coverage with an enfant terrible image. Some violinists still try the well-trodden route of Tchaikovsky-Mendelssohn-Bruch-Sibelius, where they promptly come up against Heifetz, Kreisler, Milstein, Oistrakh, and 200 others.

I fully appreciate that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a mark in “standard” repertoire. But nearly three hours of recorded music for violin and orchestra that arrived chez moi yesterday show one does not need to resort to cacophonic experimental compositions in order to do something different. Two of yesterday's CDs contain three violin concertos of Christian Sinding, plus his better known Suite and a couple of shorter pieces. The third CD contains seven substantial pieces for violin and orchestra by Eugène Ysaÿe. Pretty well none of the three hours of music here is well known, yet all the works are worth getting to know. Violinists in the Ysaÿe are Amoury Coeytaux and Svetlin Roussev; the Sinding features Andrej Bielow.

Kristof Barati in Mozart Concertos

Kristof Barati is a very fine violinist, as he has proved many times since winning the Queen Elisabeth competition in Brussels in 1997. Being a Hungarian violinist living in Hungary, he is perhaps not as well known internationally as he ought to be. His recorded opus to date, however, is extensive – and enjoyable. The latest addition is two hours of Mozart violin concertos and a few pieces for orchestra, recorded live in Hungary last year and just issued by Brilliant Classics in a well recorded and low priced double CD album. I enjoyed it immensely.

Barati is a brisk player in Mozart, particularly in the first movements of the concertos. A little perturbed at first, I soon began to enjoy the image of a young Mozart flaunting his prowess on the violin. One does not always enjoy young Mozart for violin virtuosity, but one does here; Barati is always interesting. I also much approve of his brief cadenzas (Joachim's in the first movement of K.219); often violinists choose cadenzas that go on and on and thus interrupt the flow of the music. Not so here.

The Hungarian Chamber Orchestra (directed by Barati) contributes appropriately. Inevitably in two hours of live recording there are a few bits and pieces that would have been re-done and patched in a studio. Such things rarely worry me. I have recently enjoyed Mozart concertos played – very differently – by Arabella Steinbacher, and by Katrin Scholtz. There is room for everyone in Mozart interpretation, but I'll always enjoy coming back to Barati's brisk, virtuosic versions that hold my interest from the first bar onwards, even in this music I have known backwards for around six decades.

Symphony Orchestras

I am never over-fussy about orchestras. Modern orchestras are filled with – often younger – players who can cope with most technical challenges. As I have mentioned before in this blog, I have the impression that one and two star orchestras can often make for more rewarding listening, since they try harder than their three star cousins, who are sometimes content to rest on their laurels or past reputations. This seems to be particularly true when it comes to accompanying soloists, and one suspects that – particularly in the past – major orchestras here often fielded ranks of substitute players, rather than the principals. There are many reports of conductors in the past having been nonplussed to discover that the orchestral personnel they were conducting at the actual concert did not entirely correspond to the orchestral personnel with whom they had been rehearsing!

All too often, three star orchestras have become “brands”, in the modern parlance, so much so that, a few years ago, the “Royal Philharmonic Orchestra” was caught out playing two different concerts in two different places; on the same evening! Common sense tells us that the Berlin Philharmonic of the 1930s will not be the same Berlin Philharmonic of the 1960s, or 90s, or the present day. Players change, and retire. Orchestras go through good periods, viz the Philharmonia in the 1950s and 60s, and weak periods, viz the London Symphony Orchestra in the same period. Conductors known for their orchestral training prowess, such as Toscanini, von Karajan, Stokowski, and others, can make a big difference fairly quickly.

Nevertheless, orchestras are not all the same. Russia, Scandinavia, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and America have usually offered a range of fine orchestras whereas, for some reason, countries such as France, Spain, Italy or Greece struggle in any given period to offer even one orchestra of real international standard. France is particularly puzzling, since the country boasts a strong range of first-rate instrumentalists and numerous prestigious conservatoires. There are orchestras in Paris, Toulouse and Lille, but it is difficult to think of a famous French orchestra. As for Germany; the country bursts with fine orchestras, some with major “brand” images such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, not to mention the orchestras of Dresden and Leipzig, with superb orchestras all over the place in Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart and elsewhere – Bremen is a recent fine contestant. I am very fond of the recordings by Günter Wand that he made mostly in Cologne and Hamburg with regional German radio orchestras; to my ears, the orchestras sound fine and I do not miss their three star cousins.

Having said that, however, orchestras can make a difference in certain respects; Russian orchestras appear to dive into the music of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich in a particularly heart-felt way, as do British orchestras in the music of Elgar – and the Vienna Philharmonic in the music of Anton Bruckner. I marvelled recently at the sound of the Vienna Philharmonic in Bruckner's eighth and ninth symphonies (conducted by Carl Schuricht in the early 1960s); the sound was simply so right. In many respects, however, symphony orchestras are much like restaurants or wine: they have their good periods and their bad periods, good years and bad years, a change of chef can make a major difference as can a change of ownership or funding. Ah, the Concertgebouw orchestra of the 1970s vintage !

Tristan & Isolde

Hans Knappertsbusch, Carl Schuricht, Bernard Haitink, Günter Wand, Adrian Boult, Jascha Horenstein, Pierre Monteux, Victor de Sabata, Eugen Jochum, Karl Böhm, Eugen Jochum, Eduard van Beinum ... there is a long list of highly admirable conductors who never managed to reach the "star" list, not because of lack of ability, but often because of lack of ambition, or lack of effective PR managers, or inability to gain three star recording contracts or media material posts with prestigious orchestras. Otto Klemperer nearly joined the list, but he was "rescued" by Walter Legge in the early 1950s and Legge, for all his chronicled faults, could recognise first-class musicians and do something for them, if he chose.

Carl Schuricht was one such "star, non-star". In its dying days, EMI issued a superb re-mastered SACD version of Schuricht conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in 1961 and 63 in Bruckner's eighth and ninth symphonies, and I have been listening again to this with much pleasure. I have an uneasy feeling that great performances of the music of Wagner and Bruckner died out during the later decades of the twentieth century, a feeling reinforced today listening to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, recorded by EMI in 1952 and conducted in a London studio by Wilhelm Furtwängler. This is a well-known great classic of the recording eras, but how incredible it is! The stature of this recording is due almost entirely to Furtwängler, who melds the massive 4-5 hour opera into one seamless, impassioned whole. Timings are slow, forward progress relentless. The stature is enhanced by the 1952 mono recording, produced by Walter Legge with the incomparable Douglas Larter as balance engineer. I found the recording quality (digital transfer by Christopher Parker) to be quite amazing, given the 64 years that have elapsed since the original was set down. They don't make great classics like that any more when it comes to Wagner or Bruckner, it seems; the old dinosaurs died with their secrets intact.

Music in Germany, and Katrin Scholz

One of those strange media articles (CNN, I think) recently featured “Seven Things the Germans do Best”. Cars were there, as were beer and sausages (I think). But nothing about music, even though the Germans obviously do music very well indeed, and have done for a few centuries now. Looking through a list of my favourite German-speaking violinists, I found:

Erich Röhn, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Frank Peter Zimmerman, Christian Tetzlaff, Katrin Scholz, Adolf Busch, Fritz Kreisler, Arabella Steinbacher, Georg Kulenkampff, Laurent Albrecht Breuninger, Isabelle Faust, Julia Fischer, David Frühwirth, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Benjamin Schmid, Gerhard Taschner, Thomas Zehetmair. Quite a list. And of major orchestras in the world, the orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart. Plus the plethora of opera houses in pretty well every German city, plus the music conservatoires. And when it comes to recording music, the Germans have been superb for getting on for a century now (with the Dutch and the British also often highly competitive). German music, played by Germans and recorded by Germans, is often a benchmark for first class quality.

All of which came to mind as I listened to Katrin Scholz playing Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn with the Kammerorchester Berlin (Michael Sanderling conducting in the Beethoven). Ms Scholz plays the five concertos on her two CDs – the last three by Mozart, plus a Haydn concerto, plus the Beethoven – with a touching simplicity and playing that is “classical” in the best sense of the word, avoiding the heavy point-scoring in every bar in which some performers seem to indulge. The recording quality, dating from 1997-2004, is excellent, as is the balance between violin and orchestra. I cannot think why Music did not make CNN's list of things the Germans do best. And I cannot think why Katrin Scholz, who has made some fine recordings, is not better known.

Tempi in Mozart, and Arabella Steinbacher

My good friend Lee Cheng Hooi compiled an interesting chart showing the timings of Mozart violin concerto movements as played by Arabella Steinbacher, Frank Peter Zimmermann, and Arthur Grumiaux. Tempo is an interesting conundrum and, as is well known, stopwatch timings tell only half the story. In my view, a tempo usually feels too fast or too slow if it is chosen because:

• “at this speed, everyone will think I am a great player”
• “at this speed, everyone will think I feel deeply about this music”
• “this is the speed I think (or, more arrogantly, I know) Mozart et al would have expected”.

A tempo usually seems right if it is the tempo the player feels suits the music best. Jascha Heifetz's rapid tempi usually suit me fine, since it is obviously the tempo Heifetz felt to be right at the time. Similarly, I am (usually) impressed with Arabella Steinbacher's tempi, even when, on average, she takes half a minute or more per Mozart movement compared with Zimmermann or Grumiaux. Coming back to Arabella, I find I really enjoy her performances of Mozart's 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th violin concertos; I would characterise her playing as relaxed. She seems to be enjoying playing what she plays, and overall enjoyment is helped by the superb Pentatone recording, and the contribution of the Festival Strings Lucerne led by Daniel Dodds. An enjoyable experience. On order I have yet another CD of Mozart violin concertos, to be played this time by Kristof Barati; he'll have a job to do better than Arabella, who is a lovely violinist in all senses of the phrase.

Jean-Delphin Alard

I have just spent a little time with Jean-Delphin Alard (1815-88), listening to the third Duo from his opus 27 Duos brillants, and to his short salon piece Sevillana. Sevillana is most attractive, played here by Mela Tenenbaum. The duo, played by Ilya Gringolts and Alexandr Bulov, is a pretty substantial piece in three movements, lasting nearly 22 minutes. Easy and attractive listening, and well played and balanced on the BIS CD. I cannot understand why there is not more music by Alard available; it would make a pleasant change from yet another Ravel or Debussy sonata.

Frank Peter Zimmermann plays Mozart

The earliest recordings I possess are from the year 1900 (Arnold Rosé, and Pauline Viardot). As someone who spent much of his youth – including three years at Oxford – studying history, I am extremely interested in how things used to be, and how we have arrived at here, from there. Very interested to hear how a Mozart violin concerto was played in 1916 – or 1776. However, for music listening in 2016, give me 2016 sound and playing any day, all things being equal. In my earlier years, there was a battle of ownership between harpsichordists and pianists for keyboard music prior to the later years of the eighteenth century. The battle then switched to the mediocre “fortepiano”. Fortunately, the grand piano seems to have won the battle, and we can all sit back and enjoy Yevgeny Sudbin playing Scarlatti sonatas, or Igor Levin playing the Beethoven Diabelli variations, or Bach Goldberg variations – on a grand piano, albeit with a knowledge of the style and limitations of the earlier eighteenth century.

A similar battle occurred with boy trebles and male altos in the music of Bach, Handel and the like. Non-vibrato white tone was the order of the day in the 1970s and 80s if you wished to be politically correct. Happily, the boy trebles and male altos appear to have ceded the field, or at least agreed to share it. A sense of style and history is important, but it should not be carried to extremes. At the premier of Beethoven's violin concerto, the soloist is reputed to have played an improvisation of his own between the first and second movements; should we emulate that tradition? Nigel Kennedy probably would.

An appreciation of the age in which a piece of music was written – and why – is important. We know that 17^th and 18^th century orchestras would (usually) be small – even though Mozart exclaimed in delight at an orchestra with 60 violins playing one of his symphonies. He is lucky a current musicologist was not around at the time to admonish him. Music does not often transcend the medium for which it is written; string quartets do not translate happily into music for a string orchestra, although an exception might be made for Beethoven's Grosse Fuge that really strains – and perhaps at times over-strains – the string quartet medium. The recording by Otto Klemperer with the strings of the Philharmonia – presumably the Felix Weingartner transcription – is pretty convincing. Wilhelm Furtwängler and Adolf Busch also both recorded string orchestra versions.

A battle yet to be won is that of the anaemic sound produced by “period instrument” players, hailed to be a glorious return to what the composer may have envisaged prior to the later decades of the nineteenth century. Granted, this olde style gives valued employment to string players who would be all at sea trying to navigate Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in a major orchestra. But it does no favour to the more sophisticated and demanding ears of 2016. And as for “gut strings”, lauded as the new Holy Grail of olde musike; I started my violin playing with gut strings and they quickly went out of tune, or broke. Jascha Heifetz always used gut strings (except for the “E” string, which was always the first to break, in my day). I suspect that Fritz Kreisler also used gut strings – spun metal was in its infancy, in those days. I suspect most modern critics cannot tell what string fabrication anyone is using; I certainly cannot. Yet they continue to pontificate about “gut strings” as if their use makes a considerable audio difference.

All this as a long-winded introduction to my pleasure in listening to Frank Peter Zimmermann playing Mozart violin concertos (numbers 2 and 5, plus the Sinfonia Concertante) with the Chamber Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. A nice light touch from both orchestra and soloist, without any fake 18^th century sounds that so plagued recent violin recordings by the marvellous Vilde Frang (Mozart) and equally marvellous Alina Ibragimova (Bach), where both recordings were spoilt for me by the ham-fisted accompaniment of Jonathan Cohen and a motley group that calls itself Arcangelo. Gurr! Zimmermann, Radoslaw Szulc and the Bavarians show how Mozart can sound appropriately fine in 2016 without resorting to stylistic gimmicks, tambourines, arch-lutes or sack-butts. The sound on this second CD from Hänssler is light, airy and never heavy and romantic, and Zimmermann's set of the Mozart concertos can take its place beside the Grumiaux set from the 1960s. In the Sinfonia Concertante, by which time Mozart was appreciably more mature in his instrumental writing, Zimmermann and Antoine Tamestit are perfectly matched and perfectly balanced and we are given a more-or-less ideal performance of this masterpiece. It is good to know that in this gimmick-crazed 21^st century where everything has to be “new”, that a few good, solid classic values are still in evidence in musical performances. Tempos in eight of the nine movements on this CD are fine, with me, but I take exception to the second movement of K 219, marked adagio. This simply sounds wrong, to me, dispatched at this speed.

And that is all from me for a time, while I go off to France in search of seafood and the local cuisine of Provence.

Fame!

Fame. Probably most highly gifted instrumentalists never become famous and remain pretty well unknown. And not all “famous” musicians are top, top, top rank. Fame, or lack of fame, depends on a number of factors. String players, in particular, are often denied a major soloist career because of nerves or stage fright. It is difficult to give of your best if your right hand is subject to trembling; Joseph Szigeti and Jacques Thibaud, to mention only two, often suffered severely from le trac. It does not matter whether or not a conductor suffers from nerves; but it certainly does to a string player. Another factor is backers, sponsors, family, supporters. To get up there and be seen costs either money or influence (usually both). Jascha Heifetz did not stand up in Carnegie Hall in 1917 thanks only to his violinistic prowess. A final factor is cultural milieu; being a genius pianist in somewhere like 1920s Australia would have meant a tough, tough road to stardom and recognition. And, in the end, there are many musicians who just do not want the hassle and strain of trying to build an international maestro career; the first class British violinist Albert Sammons was one such non-candidate for international stardom, as were violinists such as David Nadien, Oscar Shumsky or Joseph Gingold.

When he won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1963, Alexis Michlin was a truly superb violinist. Following that, he pretty well vanished, and even Mr Google has a hard job finding him now (he is rumoured to have become a happy and successful professor of the violin in Oviedo, Spain). Apart from Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz and David Oistrakh, most lovers of violin playing can list at least a dozen or so other top names. Three real “stars” of the second half of the twentieth century will often be missing from those lists: the names of Josef Suk, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and Arthur Grumiaux. All three were superb violinists and musicians and came to the fore in the period 1950-70. Suk's reputation was handicapped by being in Czechoslovakia, with limited opportunities for concertising or recording on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Schneiderhan's reputation suffered from being a German musician at a time when anything German was not too popular. Grumiaux's reputation suffered from his dislike of travel and concertising outside a narrow geographical area. None of the three were ever remotely “media figures”. However, anyone seeking out “the best” performance of, say, Beethoven's violin concerto (whatever “the best” might mean) will be safe with Suk, Schneiderhan and Grumiaux, plus a few others.

Many years ago on a visit to New York City in the days when there were still record stores, I was going through the racks of violin recordings when a man came up to me holding a CD. He explained he was buying a CD for someone in his family, and wanted the Paganini caprices. He showed me the CD he had picked; it was Itzhak Perlman's recording. I sorted through the racks and handed him Michael Rabin, telling him it was miles better, in my view. He looked dubious. Didn't recognise the name, but thanked me and took the Rabin CD. A little later, when I was elsewhere, I saw him carefully replace the Rabin CD and head off to the cash desk with: Perlman. Perlman was a known brand, and even appeared on American television. Rabin was an unknown. No one ever got fired for choosing IBM (in those days).

All of which explains why I am often doubtful about choosing a concert or recording by a Big Name. There have been many, many highly gifted musicians over the past 70 years or so, most of whom have always had to live in the shadows. So the press can enthuse over Miss X or Mr Y, but I always prefer to use my own judgement rather than follow the hype. And, no, I am not going to reveal my list of today's and yesterday's “stars” who, in my view, are simply good musicians over-hyped, for one reason or another. Many music lovers will know who they are, or will have their own views.

Leonidas Kavakos: Virtuoso

The geographical distribution of major violinists has been pretty uneven. By “major”, I mean violinists who have achieved significant international recognition. Many major violinists from France and Belgium, from Germany and Austria, from Central Europe, from Russia and the old Russian lands, from Scandinavia, from China, from South Korea, from Japan, from Canada, from America. None I can think of from South America or the whole of Africa. And from Spain: nothing since Pablo de Sarasate. From Italy: nothing since Paganini. And from Greece: nothing since Leonidas Kavakos, whose latest CD had just been entertaining me for an hour or so.

The CD – fifteen well-known short violin pieces – is titled Virtuoso. Kavakos, one of my favourite violinists, reveals himself as very much the Gentle Virtuoso. There is no showing off, no grand-standing, no exaggerated effects, even in this showing-off music. It is difficult to play these fifteen pieces and still be memorable when compared with the enormous number of competitors. Something that helps maintain interest throughout this recital of short encore pieces is the way Kavakos varies the dynamics, both between different pieces, and within pieces. No hesitation: Kavakos is a true virtuoso, but he is also a thinking virtuoso, much as Pablo de Sarasate must have been. Not too much bravura and milking the audience here; Kavakos starts with an immaculate Danse Russe from Petrouchka, and ends with a tender Humoresque from Dvorak. The CD also includes his familiar party-piece, the Recuerdos de l'Alhambra by Tarrega as arranged by Ruggiero Ricci (and played here a lot better than Ricci played it in a 1978 recording I have by him). I have been a Kavakos fan since the late 1980s, and he has very rarely if ever disappointed. Even the over-familiar pieces on this CD come up almost shining new — Sarasate's Caprice Basque and Romanza Andaluza, for example. A very fine CD.

Otto Klemperer in Philadelphia: Volume II

I grew up with Beethoven's Pastoral symphony played by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler (a November 1952 recording happily re-transferred by Pristine Audio some months ago). Critics of the time did not like it, with most of the tempos being dubbed “slow”. Klemperer's Pastoral aroused similar doubts among many, with even Walter Legge showing distress over Klemperer's tempo for the Peasants' Merry Making. “You'll get used to it,” Otto Klemperer was said to have retorted. Well, I like Furtwängler and Klemperer in the Pastoral. Klemperer conducts the symphony in a very welcome 2-CD second volume of Klemperer in Philadelphia in 1962 conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra (Pristine Audio). The sound on this CD is excellent, and the performance of the Pastoral in the Klemperer and Furtwängler tradition stemming from Germany during the later decades of the nineteenth century, and the first half of the twentieth. What the tradition was – if any – in the first decades of the nineteenth century is anyone's guess. However I prefer Beethoven enjoying the country, the brook and the peasants' merry making as depicted by Klemperer and Furtwängler, to the Beethoven city dweller scampering to get back to Vienna as soon as possible as depicted by conductors such as Toscanini, Chailly, or Roger Norrington and his like.

The new Philadelphia set also contains a taut, passionate performance of Schumann's fourth symphony, beautifully played by the orchestra. I have never been a fan of Schumann's foray into the world of the symphony. Returning to more traditional Klemperer territory, we have Mozart's Jupiter symphony, and Beethoven's seventh. The Mozart symphony might even be called Mozart's Klemperer symphony since it suits Klemperer's stern and craggy sound, especially in the first and last movements. The performance here is magnificent, with typical forward woodwinds and transparent textures. The slow movement contains some of the most beautiful music Mozart penned, and it is here played with superb taste and affection. A classic Jupiter recording. The Beethoven seventh symphony is another classic Klemperer account, with a strict control over rhythm and a Furtwängler-like pointing of the bass line throughout. The emphasis on textual clarity is particularly pronounced.

Arguably the concert series would have been even more valuable had the repertoire been different. The Philadelphia Orchestra in the 1960s had a big, rich sound, thus my delight in its performance of Brahms' third symphony recorded in the first volume of the Pristine set. A big, rich sound comes into its own with music such as Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Bruckner; I feel that the Beethoven comes off even better with the sleeker sounds in the 1960s with orchestras such as the Philharmonia, Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, and the Concertgebouw orchestra. Fortunately, with Klemperer we have a choice: for example, for Beethoven's Eroica symphony, I have seven different recordings conducted by Klemperer, ranging from 1954 to 1963. Taken altogether, however, the four CDs from Pristine are a most welcome and valuable addition to the library of great performances from the past. I shall keep returning to them. If, following its welcome re-issues of so much Furtwängler material, Pristine Audio is going to turn to Klemperer, I'll be waiting. The recorded archives of Klemperer, particularly live, are vast.

Joseph Haydn Opus 50 and the Quatuor Zaïde

By this stage in my life, I am always interested to read other people's views on the performance of a piece of music, but I have learned not to be too swayed by either enthusiastic or negative critiques. Critics differ, and criticism is usually mainly a subjective matter. I made an exception for a review in the Gramophone magazine of a new recording by an unknown (to me) string quartet of four young French women playing the six quartets of Haydn's Opus 50. The critic compared this recording – by the Quatuor Zaïde – with a new release of the same works by a British quartet. The British players were judged to be admirable, playing with taste and refinement; the French players were judged to have plunged into this somewhat revolutionary music and to have displayed enthusiasm and a sense of exhilaration. I bought the French CD, because I value enthusiasm and am somewhat wary of just good taste.

The music really is pretty extraordinary for 1787; the quality of the six quartets in very high. They make for happy listening, each quartet lasting for around 20 minutes for the four movements; just under two hours for the six. And, yes, I have taken to the zest with which the Zaïde launch into this music; young people can often bring a welcome enthusiasm to a musical performance, an enthusiasm that can escape older groups playing a piece for the 200^th time. I'll keep this CD close to hand – for the music, as well as for the performances.

Pictures at an Exhibition: Khatia Buniatishvili

I have always liked the piano playing of Khatia Buniatishvili; her latest CD featuring Mussorgsky's familiar Pictures at an Exhibition, Ravel's La Valse, plus three movements from Stravinsky's Petrushka, proves no exception. I have no idea how her rendition of Pictures compares with others — including Richter's famous 1958 recording from Sofia. All I know is that I love sitting back and listening to this music under Buniatishvili's fingers. The Mussorgsky is particularly good; I much prefer Petrushka in its orchestral original, but if anyone is going to please me with the piano version of the dances, it is Khatia. A CD for frequent replays. The liner notes are pretty bad: a bizarre mixture of pseudo-philosophy and psycho-babble. Well you can't have it all, all the time.

In between listening to Mussorgsky, I have to find a way to eat the 1.6 kilo ox tongue I have just cooked and pressed. It looks pretty daunting sitting waiting on its plate.

Otto Klemperer in Philadelphia: Volume I

Occasionally when delving deep into the archives of recorded music, archivists come up with some real gold. This, in my view, is the case with a double CD issue by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio of Otto Klemperer conducting Bach, Brahms and Beethoven in Philadelphia in the Autumn of 1962. As far as I know, these superb performances are here made publicly available for the first time since then (when I was a second-year student at Oxford University).

It is good to hear the Philadelphia orchestra under the baton of a great conductor, for a change. The sound as massaged by Pristine Audio is thoroughly acceptable; better listened to through good headphones rather than loudspeakers, I found – particularly where the Bach was concerned, where the various strands of the music need to be heard clearly.

Klemperer, Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, Bruno Walter, Günter Wand were traditional and authoritative in the mainstream German symphonic repertoire and dominated much of the twentieth century. Bach's first Brandenburg concerto with Klemperer and a (slimmed-down) Philadelphia orchestra may sound a little strange to 21^st century ears (as well as to 18^th century ears, I would imagine). But, famously, you can play Bach almost any way you like – even with a brass band – as long as there is rhythmic integrity and the counterpoint is clearly delineated. No problem with Otto here; it is one of those performances where you start listening to just a sample, and then find yourself being drawn in and listening to the whole work. I loved it. Klemperer loved Bach's music and knew more about it than a whole slew of period performance experts and harpsichordists put together.

The performance of Brahms' third symphony here is an all-time classic. The sound of the Philadelphians comes into its own. Not too many conductors get this symphony right, apart from Klemperer, Furtwängler, Günter Wand, Bruno Walter and maybe a handful of others. But, to my ears, Klemperer gets it 100% right. Of the Brahms symphonies, my personal favourites are the third and the fourth, and I loved this performance of the third.

Beethoven's Egmont overture could have been written for Klemperer; the performance here does not disappoint and has probably never been surpassed. I have been listening to Beethoven's third symphony since around 1953 (by now, my favourite Beethoven symphonies are numbers three, six and seven). My reaction on listening to this current performance was to forget about Andrew Rose, the Philadelphia orchestra, and Otto Klemperer and to marvel at how incredible is Beethoven's third symphony. I am sure that Klemperer would be happy with this epitaph to this performance. Prima la musica. No one has ever equalled Klemperer in the Eroica.

This is billed by Pristine Audio as Volume 1 of Klemperer in Philadelphia. I'll be first in line for Volume 2 with my €18 ready in my hand. Beethoven's seventh symphony? Brahms' fourth? Here is hoping.

Renaud Capuçon, and Pablo de Sarasate

Along with Joseph Joachim, Pablo de Sarasate was probably the most influential violinist of the second half of the nineteenth century. Edouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole was dedicated to him, as was Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy (and Sarasate also played the Bruch G minor concerto). From accounts – and from the handful of recordings he made towards the end of his life – his playing was suave and sophisticated and a long way from what I term the modern Russian-Israeli-Juilliard style of playing, with its emphasis on power and heft. Sarasate was an elegant player.

I was reminded of this listening to a new CD from Renaud Capuçon. Suave, sophisticated and elegant, yes; Capuçon is also a very fine violinist. On this new CD he plays the Lalo Symphonie, as well as Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, and Max Bruch's G minor violin concerto. I had expected to enjoy the Lalo and the Sarasate, since Capuçon's playing fits them like a glove. And I certainly did. I had a few less hopes of that old warhorse, the Bruch G minor, that is usually belted out with maxi-macho violin playing, soaring and swooning. Listening to Capuçon, I was reminded of the Sarasate connection, and also of Jascha Heifetz, who also had a supreme level of sophistication in his playing. I actually enjoyed Capuçon's elegant approach to the Bruch, and gave it three stars. A fine CD, helped by Capuçon's fleet tempi and refusal to wallow.

Franz Liszt's Piano Sonata

We all have our blind spots. One of mine has always been the piano sonata in B minor of Franz Liszt. Over the decades, I have listened to it advocated by Martha Argerich, Sviatoslav Richter, Georges Cziffra, Lazar Berman, Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, and now, today, by my much-favoured Yuja Wang. It is a work that never does anything for me. I can listen with pleasure to works such as the sonatas and chamber works of Guillaume Lekeu, or Albéric Magnard. But Liszt's sonata (and most of Liszt's piano works, including the concertos), leave me cold. Liszt's works for violin and piano I can enjoy. Liszt's songs I can enjoy. But for the rest: we go our separate ways. For the piano sonata, given the advocates above, Herr Liszt cannot claim I have not given his work a fair hearing, over a long period of time.

Vilde Frang in Britten and Korngold Concertos

I was born in 1941, so my lifetime overlaps pretty well 100% with the violin concertos of Benjamin Britten and Erich Korngold. Neither concerto found much favour with the avant-garde critics of the time, but the then- protégés of the avant-garde have vanished and, little by little, the violin concertos of Britten and Korngold have advanced towards the front of the twentieth century violin repertoire. Korngold's concerto benefited from Jascha Heifetz including it in his repertoire. The Britten concerto was recorded as far back as 1948 (Theo Olof), with Mark Lubotsky and Britten in 1970 and Bronislaw Gimpel in 1961. Recorded performances began to pick up at the end of the 1990s and, since then, the Britten concerto seems to have entered the accepted violin concerto repertoire, as has the Korngold.

On a new CD, the superb Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang couples the Korngold and Britten concertos, with James Gaffigan conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, with a talented recording team in Frankfurt. Both concertos earn three stars from me in these recordings. I admire the purity of Vilde Frang's playing, and her obvious identification with both works. The Britten concerto has thrown up some really talented recordings by Frank Peter Zimmerman, Janine Jansen and James Ehnes, but I am not sure that Ms Frang does not trump them all – albeit helped by an excellent recording that enables us to hear the orchestral parts plus Ms Frang's violin even when she plays softly (as she does quite often). Does the Korngold concerto need a little more schmaltz? Arguably, however, there is enough schmaltz already in Korngold's Viennese-Hollywood score without more indulgence from the soloist (Heifetz, too, felt no need to add über-schmaltz to Korngold's score).

Vilde Frang is a superb violinist, and her love and understanding for both works here shines through her playing. I am not usually a fan of Britten's music, since all too often I find it calculated rather than passionate and spontaneous. The violin concerto, however, has become one of my favourites. In previous decades, spurred on by Heifetz's espousal, the violin concerto of William Walton made regular appearances; the Britten hardly ever. The tables now have turned, and Britten's concerto – like that of Korngold – seems to be taking its rightful place in the violin concerto repertoire. Vilde Frang's new CD is one I shall cherish for a long time.