BaL 18.11.23 - Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D

[Nick Armstrong]

I want to like Hannah French but I hear her as the Joshua Bell of presenters: overdoing the suavity and unnatural of utterance.

That’s so well put. You’ve put your finger on it in a way I’ve been unable to when fast-forwarding through her links on Record Review Extra…

Her references back to comments in Record Review are… overwrought, somehow. The BAL choice is (breathlessly) “the beating heart of our programme”…



I agree with underthecountertenor too about her interactions with W Mival…

[Alison]

Why don’t they give John Shea a Record Review runout?

[Barbirollians]

Also reminded that this cut off deprived us also of Ida Haendel's splendid traversals with Basil Cameron and Eugene Goossens.

It reminds me that much the best live performance I heard of this concerto was with Ida H in the early 1990s on Radio 3 - I think with the CBSO/Rattle but I could not find it on Genome - perhaps she was a supersub that day. I remember coming in late from work and being utterly gripped by the performance after turning on the Radio . You can get some idea of it from her SWR Classics live recording.

[pastoralguy]

Yes I saw Kennedy play the Tchaikovsky around 1984/5 in London and it was an outstanding performance. If I recall rightly the EMI Eminence record was conducted by Okko Kamu and the accompaniment did not quite take off . I only had it on cassette maybe it is more impressive on CD.

I thought I had this cd but it turns out I don’t. (Or didn’t!)

It popped through the letterbox at lunchtime so I’ve been listening to it. It sounds much better than I remember it although it’s quite an ‘expansive’ performance of the first movement. I agree that the conductor seems somewhat disengaged.

Whatever happened to Okko Kamu? Didn’t he win some big conducting competition? His career never really took off, iirc.

[pastoralguy]

Sorry, Barbie. It’s no more impressive on cd. It’s possibly my favourite violin concerto and I’ve heard dozens of performances of it. The recordings that are less memorable tend to be the ones where the conductor isn’t really interested.

It seems I’ve just contradicted myself!

I’ve not heard it for many years and certainly not since getting the terrific Hi- Fi system I have now.

[Barbirollians]

I thought I had this cd but it turns out I don’t. (Or didn’t!)

It popped through the letterbox at lunchtime so I’ve been listening to it. It sounds much better than I remember it although it’s quite an ‘expansive’ performance of the first movement. I agree that the conductor seems somewhat disengaged.

Whatever happened to Okko Kamu? Didn’t he win some big conducting competition? His career never really took off, iirc.

He did record a later Sibelius series as well as of course the very good 1-3 on the series made up of that and HVK’s 4-7 on DG. This record is not however the finest accompaniment - EMI would have been much better sticking with Tod Handley.

[pastoralguy]

He did record a later Sibelius series as well as of course the very good 1-3 on the series made up of that and HVK’s 4-7 on DG. This record is not however the finest accompaniment - EMI would have been much better sticking with Tod Handley.

Yes, Todd Handley would have been a much better conductor for that Tchaikovsky recording. Ah well…

[Master Jacques]

You miss my point: Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto is a classic from the 19th century. If you were limiting your choice of novels in the way you suggested, none from the earlier canon would be present. And again you're too hard on the poor old BBC: In Our Time covered Middlemarch:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09z1dd7

Well, perhaps we miss each other's points! And I think In Our Time was not a survey of the criticism, so much as a historical account of Middlemarch with added speculation as to the rationale of its survival as a still-influential creation. That's a different thing from history of its criticism, perhaps.

My point - for what it is worth! - is that recordings of established works are performative, in the same way as novels. The "narrative" of a Milstein or Oistrakh performance is as different from Joshua Bell's as Mehalah or Great Expectations is from The Essex Serpent. And you can't actually understand what Sarah Perry is doing in the latter, unless you link back to Baring-Gould and Dickens. Similarly, a "21st century only" survey of Tchaikovsky's work exists in a - literally senseless - bubble.

[silvestrione]

Well, perhaps we miss each other's points! And I think In Our Time was not a survey of the criticism, so much as a historical account of Middlemarch with added speculation as to the rationale of its survival as a still-influential creation. That's a different thing from history of its criticism, perhaps.

My point - for what it is worth! - is that recordings of established works are performative, in the same way as novels. The "narrative" of a Milstein or Oistrakh performance is as different from Joshua Bell's as Mehalah or Great Expectations is from The Essex Serpent. And you can't actually understand what Sarah Perry is doing in the latter, unless you link back to Baring-Gould and Dickens. Similarly, a "21st century only" survey of Tchaikovsky's work exists in a - literally senseless - bubble.

Thanks for clarifying.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well, perhaps we miss each other's points! And I think In Our Time was not a survey of the criticism, so much as a historical account of Middlemarch with added speculation as to the rationale of its survival as a still-influential creation. That's a different thing from history of its criticism, perhaps.

My point - for what it is worth! - is that recordings of established works are performative, in the same way as novels. The "narrative" of a Milstein or Oistrakh performance is as different from Joshua Bell's as Mehalah or Great Expectations is from The Essex Serpent. And you can't actually understand what Sarah Perry is doing in the latter, unless you link back to Baring-Gould and Dickens. Similarly, a "21st century only" survey of Tchaikovsky's work exists in a - literally senseless - bubble.

I was so disappointed with the Essex Serpent in a way that I wasn’t with Great Expectations.
A 21st century only survey of a classic is , as you say , pointless. The past informs the present and , in the case of this work , surpasses it.

[akiralx]

So who actually won then... I don't think the highlighting in the p.1 list happens any more?

[Pulcinella]

So who actually won then... I don't think the highlighting in the p.1 list happens any more?

From the R3 schedule webpage:

10.30 am
Building a Library: William Mival chooses his favourite recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

When it first appeared on the scene one influential critic said this concerto "brought us face to face with the revolting thought that music can exist which stinks to the ear", labelling the last movement "odorously Russian". But public opinion is in strong disagreement. Nowadays Tchaikovsky’s ever-green concerto is one of the must uplifting, joyful and popular in the repertoire.

Recommended version
Lisa Batiashvili (violin)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim (conductor)
Deutsche Grammophon 4796038

[Barbirollians]

Batiashvili’s recording has divided the critics . I like it but it’s not what I would have regarded as a library choice due to the quirks it has but then again my library choice Oistrakh/Ormandy is too old.

[Barbirollians]

Been listening to the recently arrived Nigel Kennedy version today . In both the Tchaikovsky and Chausson’s Poeme his playing is quite outstanding reminding one of why he was seen as the next big thing in the mid 1980s before the Four Seasons and all that hanging out with celebs posturing.

It is a shame that the accompaniment is simply not up to snuff. He will conjure up a magical atmosphere and then it is all rather foursquare and earthbound when the orchestra comes in. He was still on EMI Eminence then and was only upgraded to full price recordings after this.

I suspect had they got the team from the Elgar VC back together or splashed out on a conductor like Muti or Jansons his recording would have been an all time classic .

I met Kennedy twice once at the RFH when he had played the Tchaikovsky at a record signing when I was the only person with the Elgar Violin Sonata - he was very effusive about how much he had enjoyed making that record and once in Sheffield - I think again he was signing records I can’t remember if I had any when he told a friend of mine who did play violin and me that it was the first time he had ever played the Britten and asked what we thought . He came across as a very different person to “ Nige”

[mikealdren]

I agree about Kennedy, I've met him after a concert and he's a really pleasant natural guy.
As to the best version, well it has to be Oistrakh but I have a soft spot for the Konwitschny version, my 3rd LP in the 1960s. Having said that the Ormandy and 60th birthday Rozhdestvensky are very very good too, it was one of many works he excelled in.