Thursday 29 September 2011

Fleeing the advancing armies, or tidal wave, or whatever: which CDs do I grab and take with me? Do I choose work, or performance? This involves also the perennial question of recording quality, versus performance.

For me, performance of a given work is always the No.1 consideration; recording quality comes second. Where there is a clear “winner”, rival candidates can safely be left behind. So I will tuck under my arm Albert Sammons in the Elgar violin concerto (1938), Adolf Busch and Rudolf Serkin in the Schubert Fantasia (1931), Wilhelm Furtwängler in Bruckner's 9th Symphony (1944), the Busch String Quartet in the late Beethoven quartets (mid-1930s), Julian Sitkovetsky and Niyazi in the Khachaturian violin concerto (1954). From my recent purchases I would add Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien in the Lekeu sonata and the Goldner String Quartet and Piers Lane in the Elgar Piano Quintet. For Kreisler pieces, I will always go for Kreisler himself during the first three decades of the last century. For the great Bach choral works I will defy contemporary wisdom (and the BBC) and pick Otto Klemperer in the Mass in B minor, and the St. Matthew Passion (1960s).

For most works, however, it's a toss up. There are many recordings of the Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Sibelius and Shostakovich violin concertos, some from great players of the past in poor or average sound, some from excellent players of today in average or very good sound. Which CD do I seize for the first Shostakovich violin concerto? There are so many good ones; Batiashvili? Josefowicz? Fischer? Khachatryan? Kogan? Oistrakh? Repin? Vengerov? And some of these have recorded many versions; there is no obvious choice, as there is not for the Sibelius violin concerto, nor the Mendelssohn, nor the Bruch. Bruch's Scottish Fantasia is a fight between Heifetz and Rabin, with everyone else standing in the wings. Many candidates for the Paganini caprices but, for the first Paganini violin concerto, a fight between Rabin and Kogan (with many runners up, however).

I am extremely happy when I discover a new “golden classic” that can overtake older recordings – one reason why I was pleased with Thomas Zehetmair's 2008 recording of the Elgar violin concerto which, although it certainly does not overtake Sammons' classic version, certainly provides a thoroughly acceptable modern alternative. But otherwise, when the great wave bears down, which version of the Sibelius violin concerto do I grab and run with out of the 50 on my shelves?

1 comment:

Lee said...

Super blog. Please pray continue with your other selections of the key repertoire. Cheers.