Sunday 6 December 2009

I am greatly enjoying the C major violin concerto Op 30 of Moritz Moszkowski. I have now listened to it three times -- with pleasure. It has attractive themes and is very pleasant listening. A bit over-long at 37:43, but far above the meandering efforts of "composers" such as Weingartner, Bruno Walter, or Furtwängler.

The playing of Thomas Christian is accurate and tasteful. But one cannot help wishing the concerto was being played by Janine Jansen, Alina Ibragimova, Renaud Capuçon .. or Kreisler, Heifetz or Michael Rabin. In pleasant music such as this a committed violinist with personality makes quite a difference. Still, all praise to Thomas Christian for actually playing the work, in the first place.

2 comments:

oisfetz said...

And why not Tasmin Little?. I've it
(plus the Ballade op.16 No.1 and Karlowicz v.c.), and I like it more than Christian's.

Harry Collier said...

Yes, someone is sending me Little Tasmin's version. It may be better than Christian, but for me she is a "B-List" player -- beautiful playing, completely in tune, but not the kind of verve, colouring and charisma you sometimes get with Josefowicz, St. John, Liza Ferschtman, Leonidas Kavakos, etc (to mention only active violinists).