Elgar Violin Concerto - Boult: Which version?

[visualnickmos]

...I love emotional Elgar hence Barbirolli's symphonies and the du Pre Cello Concerto recordings are at the top of my trees .

But I also love the recording she made with her husband; it seems almost the antithesis of her Barbirolli recording. I love the iciness of it. Takes it to quite a different level. I use 'different' as opposed to 'better'

[Barbirollians]

Time stands still in that record the televised performance is sort of halfway between the two .

[pastoralguy]

I heard Nigel Kennedy play the Elgar with The late, great, Sir Alex Gibson with the (R)SNO circa '86. Lovely performance.

[LeMartinPecheur]

The Sammons/Wood was the one I owned & got to know first...

- so did I. The EMI reissue was a lot cheaper than the Menuhin/Boult when that was about the only other one in the catalogue.

Since those mid-70s days of school-leaving and relative poverty I've topped up with (in rough order of purchase) Zukerman/Barenboim, Chung/Solti (LP), Kennedy/Handley and Menuhin/Elgar (CD), all of them IMVHO with something to say.

Sadly, one of my worst musical might-have-beens was a 1972 prom performance by Menuhin and Boult. It just never got off the ground, and Menuhin's tuning was (un)pretty dire. The second half had VW6 - not much better to my ears, though somebody has since thought it worthy of CD release. That hasn't happened with the Elgar AFAIK!

[Barbirollians]

Listening to the Du Pre/Barbirolli on that EMI Signature pressing from 2012 . This performance just never pales .

[Dave2002]

Sadly, one of my worst musical might-have-beens was a 1972 prom performance by Menuhin and Boult. It just never got off the ground, and Menuhin's tuning was (un)pretty dire. The second half had VW6 - not much better to my ears, though somebody has since thought it worthy of CD release. That hasn't happened with the Elgar AFAIK!

I am sorry to read that, though I'm not too surprised. I did hear Menuhin - the only time - with Boult in Mendelssohn and Elgar. The Mendelssohn was pretty bad, but IMO the Elgar was sublime. I think Menuhin was quite erratic/unreliable during the 1970s.

[Barbirollians]

I saw Menuhin twice towards the end of his solo career. A 1985 Beethoven concerto with the LSO and Norman del Mar ( I think it was the LSO it was at the Barbican but could have been the RPO) when he was in very good form and his 70th birthday concert with Rostropovich where he was in better form in the second half when they played the Double Concerto .

[mikealdren]

I think Menuhin was quite erratic/unreliable during the 1970s.

Sadly I think he was unreliable from long before the 1970s but even into the 1970s he could be magical. Very sad that he had such problems.

Mike

[Roehre]

.... I think Menuhin was quite erratic/unreliable during the 1970s.

As is also documented by the Berg concerto with the BBC SO/Boulez.
All three having an off-day during the recording, I'm afraid

[morebritishmusicplease]

I would go for the Campoli version myself - maybe because that's the version I grew up with. On a slight tangent, I came across a most fascinating performance by a Russian violinist called Dora Scharzberg, on Youtube. I think it's with the Siberian State Symphony Orchestra or something! You can view it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvI3ksLh0bU

They actually do make it sound quite Russian!
The New Lyricist
thenewlyricist.wordpress.com

[Barbirollians]

I love the Menuhin/Boult - no doubt as it was my first recording on HMV Concert Classics - despite any issues with his intonation. Yes he did have issues throughout the 1960s to 1980s but he could still be magical as said above - the question was which Menuhin was one going to get .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've just been listening to the Menuhin Boult 1966 recording and I think it's tremendous. I've formulated a theory for which I'm ready to be shot down in flames:

Menuhin rose to greatness with his 1932 recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto under the composer's baton. He then remained one of the greatest violinist up to and including his second studio recording of the Elgar with Sir Adrian Boult. After that, his violin playing was inconsistent and he could no longer be classed as one of the great players. His greatness as a violinist began and ended with these two recordings of the same work.

[Barbirollians]

Erm - no !

He was already producing stunning performances before the 1932 Elgar and one or two rather disappointing records before the 1966. ! Indeed , there are all manner of reports of one off sensational performances after then including a Bartok 2 in Russia as late as the early 1980s as I recall . Very inconsistent by all means from the 1960s onwards bit still capable of great performances .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I bow to your more expansive knowledge.

[aeolium]

Menuhin's recorded collaboration with Wilhelm Kempff on the Beethoven sonatas was IIRC in the early 1970s and there are some very fine performances in that collection (particularly the op 30 sonatas imv). I saw him in Oxford in the 1970s play the Bartok violin sonata dedicated to him, and that was a very moving performance.