Our Summer BAL 8: Schoenberg's Violin Concerto

[verismissimo]

For a long time I thought this a difficult work. But in recent years I've discovered its wonder.

It was the recording by Hilary Hahn with the Swedish Radio SO/Salonen that won me over.

Is it the best?

[Ariosto]

For a long time I thought this a difficult work. But in recent years I've discovered its wonder.

It was the recording by Hilary Hahn with the Swedish Radio SO/Salonen that won me over.

Is it the best?

Indeed I have it on good authority that it probably is the best. I've yet to hear it, but it is on my list.

[Bryn]

I would have thought the old Supraphon LP with Hyman Bress would be right up your wobbly street, Ariosto.

[Curalach]

I have known this work since I attended the UK premiere in Glasgow in 1960. The soloist was Wolfgang Marschner. I have two recordings, Zeitlin and Hahn.
The Hahn recording was a revelation to me almost 50 years after first hearing the piece. I warmly recommend it.

[LeMartinPecheur]

The one version weighting down my shelves is the Zeitlin/BavRSO/Kubelik from c.1972. Does anyone else have it, and how well do you thinks it stands up to mere recent recordings?

I confess it's not a work I take to very much. Is Ms Hahn really likely to convert me?

[Ariosto]

I would have thought the old Supraphon LP with Hyman Bress would be right up your wobbly street, Ariosto.

Thanks Bryn, but I'm wearing a much tighter bra now so I don't wobble so much ...

[verismissimo]

The one version weighting down my shelves is the Zeitlin/BavRSO/Kubelik from c.1972. Does anyone else have it, and how well do you thinks it stands up to mere recent recordings? I confess it's not a work I take to very much. Is Ms Hahn really likely to convert me?

Well, LMP, I've had the Marschner on my shelves for years and never really connected with it. Whereas Hahn seems really to treat it as a romantic concerto that she fully understands and loves. And the orchestral playing is outstanding, as is the recording. I play it often!

[Curalach]

Hahn seems really to treat it as a romantic concerto that she fully understands and loves. And the orchestral playing is outstanding, as is the recording.

That pretty well echoes my view in #4. The Zeitlin leaves me cold.

[Ariosto]

I really must get this Hahn recording as a very old friend (we were at school together) who is a fine player worked with her and has really said similar, in that she is the first person to make sense of the concerto for him. (Heifetz tried two or three times and each time threw it in the bin, apparently! And never played it in concert).

[Roehre]

The one version weighting down my shelves is the Zeitlin/BavRSO/Kubelik from c.1972. Does anyone else have it, and how well do you thinks it stands up to mere recent recordings?

I confess it's not a work I take to very much. Is Ms Hahn really likely to convert me?

That DGG recording (originally coupled with the piano concerto/Brendel, on CD with the Berg violin concerto added, IIRC) was my first Schönberg violin concerto too. I still think it is a good and convincing recording, but the Hahn beats it definitely, at least as far as the violin part is concerned (I think Kubelik's experience as a composer is helping him here in this then still contemporary idiom)

[barber olly]

The one version weighting down my shelves is the Zeitlin/BavRSO/Kubelik from c.1972. Does anyone else have it, and how well do you thinks it stands up to mere recent recordings?

I confess it's not a work I take to very much. Is Ms Hahn really likely to convert me?

Also on my shelves - I own up to not having listened to it more than once. Will add to the Round Tuit List!

[Serial_Apologist]

This work remains for me the violin concerto of violin concertos; the range of moods, textures, allusions (to Mahler, particularly in the last movement march) and feeling of follow-through is unique, even among Schoenberg's later works imo. My own version of the piece was, I think, taped from a Prom concert some years ago - a superb rendition - could have even been a last-minute soloist substitution, which I will check out again tomorrow to see which orchestra and soloist.

S-A

[Barbirollians]

Listening to the Hahn recording is like realising that what you thought was all thorns was full of roses too .

[Roehre]

Listening to the Hahn recording is like realising that what you thought was all thorns was full of roses too .

I like that expression

[ahinton]

I too have had a problem with this work for years until hearing the Hahn recording that, for me, at least, really does reveal it in all its glory. I'd have been intrigued to hear Heifetz play it but, as this was never to be, perhaps he should instead have concentrated on learning the composer's piano concerto; he was, after all, a fine pianist and the solo part in Schönberg's piano concerto is nothing like as terrifying to bring off as is ditto in the violin concerto...