Beethoven: Violin Concerto. Yehudi Menuhin, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer ’66. EMI Studio CDM 7 69001 2 (1987), Studio Plus CDM 7 64324 2 (1992) with Violin Romances (Pritchard ’60) and other reissues

Beethoven: Violin Concerto. Yehudi Menuhin, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer. EMI Studio / Angel Studio CDM 7 69001 2 (1987) barcode 077776900124

 

Recorded 21-22 & 24-25 January 1966 at Kingsway Hall, London
(The discography on Menuhin.org mis-dates it 21-25 February 1966)

Compiled in 4 CDs CZS 25 2184 2 “Virtuosen der Violine vol. 1 Menuhin” (1989) 5099925218428

 

Reissued Studio Plus CDM 7 64324 2 (with Beethoven Romances Nos. 1 & 2: Philharmonia Orchestra, John Prtichard Nov. & Dec. 1960) (1992) 077776432427

 

Reissued HMV Classics HMV 5 73445 2 (with two Overtures) 724357344524 (1999)

 

Reissued Angel records 3 38767 2 (2005) 094633876729 “Superior Classics available exclusively at Best Buy”

 

Compiled in 6-CD set 4 04348 2 Klemperer Concertos (2013) 5099940434827

(New remastering) Compiled on CD 72 of 95 CDs Otto Klemperer The Warner Classics Remastered Edition (2023) 5054197257049 (link will open new tab to listing on Discogs.com)

Much better than its reputation (me against the critics)
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 5 August 2014

I don’t know why His Master’s Voice made this recording in the first place. After all Menuhin had made a stereo recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in 1960 with the Vienna Philharmonic under Constantin Silvestri, in excellent stereo sound and a publication which had been received with accolades in The Gramophone (see my review and listing of its CD editions – link will open new tab). So why re-do it six years later? And I think, in those pre-Naxos years, they even PAID the performers that they recorded, not just royalties on sales, but upfront, and hefty sums too when they were stars like these. Maybe EMI (the owning company of HMV) was hoping to bank on two of their greatest stars and on the universal success of Klemperer’s complete Beethoven symphonies, recorded in the late 1950s to early 1960s. And Klemp’ had never recorded Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (he would do the complete Piano Concertos a year later with Barenboim – and there are no recordings left of him, studio or live, in the Triple Concerto).

If so, it misfired. The recording was generally received with more than reluctance, and to this day it appears to be always dismissed in favor of Menuhin’s earlier versions, especially those with Furtwängler, the more famous one with the Philharmonia Orchestra from 1953 and, now that it has been reissued (by the invaluable Testament) and is easily accessible on CD, their earlier recording from Lucerne in 1947.

The review of the original release published in the Gramophone issue of November 1966 by Edward Greenfield is very typical and deserves to be reproduced (and if you find that it strangely resembles the review posted by Colloredo of Caracas on Amazon.com, don’t infer that Edward Greenfield is still alive and living in Venezuela, but rather that Colloredo helped himself in the Gramophone electronic archive without citing his source):

“The point is that the special individual qualities of Menuhin and Furtwängler matched one another. Each brought out the best in the other, for their basic approach was identical, profoundly romantic and expressive but with an inner spiritual strength that was more elusive in emerging. I was hoping that the equally interesting combination of Menuhin and Klemperer would precipitate equally fine results, but I am afraid there is nothing like the same marriage of minds. One might have hoped that Menuhin’s spontaneous imagination would lighten the impact of Klemperer and that Klemperer would give extra weight to Menuhin, but it has not worked that way. Admittedly Menuhin seems a degree or two more relaxed than he did in the Silvestri version made in Vienna, and the intonation is unquestionably better, but in neither case does that say very much. Though naturally there are many points of detail to admire, the overall impression is very much on the heavy side. One finds oneself objecting to the slow speed for the first movement, only to find that the basic tempo of both the earlier versions is a degree slower still. The fault lies here, I think, mainly with Klemperer, and no passage illustrates this more clearly than the beginning of the first movement coda after the cadenza. The pizzicato accompanying chords sound heavy not because they are loud or weighty but simply because they drag after the beat and the soloist seems to be pulling the players along.

In the slow movement Menuhin finds the mood of relaxation that was so conspicuously lacking in the Silvestri version, but go back to the Furtwängler and each phrase has a rapt sense of magic, of being created spontaneously in a way that makes the new version seem a little ordinary. In the finale the Silvestri version takes a turn for the better with Menuhin gaining confidence and a genuine spring in the rhythm. The new one is the slowest of the three, and characteristically Klemperer refuses to put a spring in the rhythm at all, so that at first it seems dull after the other two. But taken on its won it has a good bucolic solidity, and the middle D minor episode is firmer and stronger than in either of the previous versions. And interesting Klemperer point in the coda: instead of playing the emphatic crotchet plus quaver chordes at an even volume, he plays the last two comparatively quietly to allow the soloist’s rising figure to come trhough.”

And upon the recording’s newly digitally remastered LP reissue on EMI 29 0274-1 (remastering which would serve for the subsequent CD editions – link will open new tab to listing on Discogs.com), Ivan March, writing in the August 1985 issue:

“Sir Yehudi Menuhin’s recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto dates from a decade earlier (1966) and does not show this artist at his best. Clearly there was no symbiosis in his partnership with Klemperer and when the slolo playing is sometimes rough in timbre, to the point of edginess, this is difficult to enjoy. The sound is brightly lit and not flattering. As it happens Menuhin’s two earlier recordings have both been recently reissued. The 1954 mono performance with Furtwängler has been given CD status and was warmly welcomed by MEO, but more comparable in price is the Eminence reissue of the 1960 stereo version with a splendid accompaniment from the Vienna Philharmonic under Silvestri, which is in every way preferable to the later account”.

Finally, it is probably significant that in 2000, when EMI released a 9-CD set collating Klemperer’s Beethoven Symphonies and Concertos on 5 73895 2 (barcode 724357389525), among the latter they failed to include Menuhin’s Violin Concerto. Even more typical and telling is that Menuhin’s recording with Klemperer is NOT included in EMI’s great  Menuhin compilation from 2009 on 51 CDs, “Menuhin The Great EMI Recordings“, barcode 5099926413129 (link will open new tab to listing on Discogs.com). Both versions with Furtwängler are included as well as the one with Silvestri, but also the one conducted by Menuhin himself with the Menuhin Festival Orchestra in 1971 (originally released in 2003 on EMI 5 62607 2 “Menuhin The Unpublished Recordings”, barcode 724356260726, link to Discogs pending review). If EMI themselves don’t consider his collaboration with Klemperer to be part of Menuhin’s great recordings made for them, who am I to disagree?

Yet I find this Menuhin-Klemperer version much better than its reputation.

First, the notion that Klemperer conducts slow, let alone TOO slow, must be seriously qualified. It is true that he takes slightly longer to reach the first movement cadenza than Furtwängler in 1953 (20:12 vs 19:49) or 1947 in Lucerne (19:44) and significantly longer than Silvestri (19:14). But in fact, for the first part of the first movement, up until the re-entry of the violin on its opening rising motive, Klemperer’s timing is EXACTLY the same as Furtwängler’s: 10:40 in Lucerne, 10:50 with the Philharmonia, 10:50 with Klemperer. So it’s only thereafter that Furwängler, in typical Furtwängler fashion, tends to step up his tempo, while Klemperer, in typical Klemperer fashion, remains steady as a rock.

Greenfeld’s review seems serious enough, but when you listen to the recordings you realize that much of it is crap. “The basic tempo of both the earlier versions is a degree slower still”? (and here Greenfield is referring, of course, to Furtwängler 1953 and Silvestri 1960, not to Furtwängler 1947). No it’s not! Basic tempo of Furtwängler 1953 was exactly the same (he reached the end of the orchestral introduction in 3:22, to Klemperer’s… 3:20), and basic tempo of Silvestri in 1960 was significantly faster (though not really in the overture, which he conducted in 3:17). Precisely, one of the main differences between the Silvestri and the Klemperer version, is that the first remains very strict in tempo even in the more lyrical passages and Menuhin deploys his lyricism within the discipline of that strict tempo, while the other takes the time to relax and let the violin melodies soar more freely (that’s what Greenfield alludes to when he writes, with justification, that “Menuhin seems a degree or two more relaxed than he did in the Silvestri version made in Vienna”).

Not that this invalidates Greenfield’s contention that, overall, Klemperer conducts a slower version; in fact, it reinforces the notion. That said, such expansive tempos may have seemed more shocking to some ears in 1966 than they do now. Prior to Klemperer, very few recordings had crossed the 20-minute threshold to reach the cadenza. Schneiderhan and Van Kempen were just there in 1953 (20:02), Oistrakh was way over with Cluytens in 1958 (20:42), Ferras-Sargent took 20:10 in 1959, Kogan-Silvetri 20:21 the same year, and Suk-Konwitschny had broken the 21-minute barrier in 1962 (21:10). But Menuhin-Klemperer seemed to have opened the dams. Came Ferras-Karajan in 1967 (21:07), Suk-Boult in 1970 (21:22), Zukerman-Barenboim in 1977 (20:35). When the famed version of Perlman-Guilini came out in 1981, it was hailed in The Gramophone (“no finer version available”, they said – which of course left all those that were no more available) and the reviewer didn’t complain that its first movement was too slow, although they reached the cadenza in 20:17. By the way that reviewer was Edward Greenfield.

Of course there is more to the feeling of slowness than just timing. But precisely, the claim against Klemperer and his purported slowness leaves entirely aside the very distinctive feature of his art of conducting, which makes him one of the greats of the 20th century: not just the deliberation, but the massive power he invests in the orchestra. And that’s one massive advantage over Furtwängler’s 1953 version, where by dint of the sonics but also the interpretation the orchestral tutti are much mellower. I hear none of the heaviness pointed by Greenfeld, because other than investing the tutti with massive power, Klemperer always keeps the phrasings crisp and accented. To me this doesn’t sound “slow” or “heavy”, it sounds immensely powerful.

But how could Greenfeld have heard that? At the end of his review of the Klemperer version, he confesses that he’s “only heard the mono as yet”! Jesus!!!! And you are going to call a Rembrandt a fake based on a black and white photo??? Critics…

In fact, there are many advantages of this first movement with Klemperer over the two previous ones: over Furtwängler 1953, the stereo sonics and the sense of orchestral power; over Silvestri, the greater flexibility of tempo and greater songfulness in the lyrical passages. And to that, you may add that the 1966 sonics are an improvement, in clarity in impact, over even those of 1960.

And that thing of Greenfield with the pizzicati after the cadenza (23:09): frankly, I don’t know what he is talking about, what he’s heard or thought he’d heard – maybe again an effect of listening to the mono recording? There’s no dragging of Klemperer here, there is the customary slow and meditative going out of the cadenza, and on the contrary as soon as the bassoon re-enters at 23:51, Klemperer adopts a rather flowing tempo where others prefer to retain the very expansive mood of meditativeness.

More crap from Greenfield: that Menuhin’s “intonation is unquestionably better” than in 1960 with Silvestri. Obviously Ivan March heard the opposite. To my ears they are both wrong. Certainly the tone is not luminous as it was in 1947, there are a few edgy moments verging on wiriness in the runs and double stops of the Finale, Menuhin enters in Kreisler’s first movement cadenza with more gentleness and less vibrancy than in 1960 (although this may be only the effect of a slightly more distant microphone placement), but you can find the same kind of – truly minuscule – tonal blemishes already in 1960 and even in 1953, and they don’t add up to anything near the painful listening experience described by March. In fact, looking for tonal differences or trying to check on some I think I’ve heard, I am jumping from one version to the others, and the more carefully I listen and compare, the more, like the legendary desert mirage, they seem to elude me. Truth is, contrary to reputation (and sometimes fact), there is NO notable tonal deterioration between 1953, 1960 and 1966. The only implicit pointer that there might have been some technical deterioration in the 1966 Menuhin is that he plays a much-abridged version of the Kreisler 3rd movement cadenza, a decision for which I can find no obvious rationale: certainly not timing constraints of an LP side: even with the Cadenza played complete, Side B wouldn’t have been longer than side A. This is not the greatest and purest violin tone in the world, but it is nothing to rant about and more than acceptable (I find the much-hailed Szigeti much more painful to hear in his 1947 recording with Bruno Walter, to say nothing of his 1961 remake with Dorati), and Menuhin deploys his customary lyricism and songfulness in the upper reaches.

“In the slow movement Menuhin finds the mood of relaxation that was so conspicuously lacking in the Silvestri version”? Crap again. With Klemperer the slow movement takes 10:09 to unfold (up to the cadential flourish leading to the Finale), and it was 10:13 with Silvestri, both find the very same “mood of relaxation”, which is in fact a return to the way Menuhin did it with Furtwängler in 1947 (10:37). In fact Silvestri is even slightly MORE spacious than Klemperer in the first part of the movement, it is only with the movingly hushed passage with “raindrop” pzzicatti accompaniment (reached in 6:00 to Silvestri’s 6:16) that Menuhin-Klemperer are now slightly more held-back. It is in 1953 with Furtwängler again that Menuhin strayed from that raptly held-back unfolding, with a more flowing and not so deeply-felt 9:23 duration. That’s one of the main reasons to prefer Menuhin-Furtwängler 1947 over 1953. 1947 is possibly Menuhin’s most beautiful and intense Larghetto, but all is relative: those with Silvestri and Klemperer are beautiful in their own right. The only thing you can say against Klemperer is that there is some artificial spotlighting of the woodwinds: the clarinet at 1:13 sounds as if he were seated next to the soloist. Beautiful, but not realistic.

I can’t fault Greenfield on his assertion that Klemperer’s Finale is the slowest of the three; in fact, it is, up to the cadenza, the slowest version I’ve ever encountered, and if the movement’s total timing doesn’t give that impression, it is only because, as already mentioned, Menuhin plays a vastly abridged version of Kreisler’s cadenza. But still, Greenfield WAS crap when he claimed that there, the Silvestri version took “a turn for the better with Menuhin gaining confidence and a genuine spring in the rhythm”. It is the opposite in fact, and before Klemperer, Menuhin’s version with Silvestri was the second slowest ever that I had encountered after the one of Schneiderhan with Van Kempen in 1953. Even compared to the expansive and mellow Furtwängler in 1953, it was sucked of any spirit of dance, and was the most exceptionable part of the 1960 recording. In fact, I find the still slower Finale with Klemperer preferable: first, because it is, precisely, even more radical: as long as you are going to have the slowest ketchup in the world, have it REALLY the slowest. Second, because that very radicalism of approach serves character much better. Of the Silvestri version, I wrote that “the bounce that Menuhin manages to retain in his phrasings, his sweet lyricism in the more lyrical passages and the vigor of the orchestral outbursts are no real substitute” to the lost siprit of dance. With Klemperer, the massive power, the gruff and clumsy vigor ARE interesting substitutes. It calls for the same kind of comment that I made already about Klemperer’s Finale of the Emperor Concerto with Barenboim, or the Scherzo and Finale of his Eroica: it evokes images of one of the hippos of Fantasia musingly hop-scotching, followed by the rest of the posse. It might have been impossibly elephantine and plodding – and it probably is, in fact – yet I don’t find it “dull” at all. Whatever you think, it is unique, the Finale of the Violin Concerto as you’ve never heard it.

I don’t know why HMV made this recording in the first place, but I know why they were right to do it: because, where many performers, when they re-record a work, are happy to offer exactly the same interpretation as before (Heifetz or Grumiaux come to mind), Menuhin here offers one that is very different from his previous ones, and one that is highly valuable to boot. In all, I find that the comparison of Menuhin’s various recordings, and the observation of how different they are, paints an interesting and unexpected image of the violinist. Not one to impose, like Heifetz or Grumiaux, HIS unchanging views on his different conducting partners, but rather one ready and eager to blend into THEIR views. If the versions with Furtwängler are so Furtwänglerian, if the first movement with Silvestri is so strict in tempo and so expansive and massively powerful with Klemperer and if the Finale with Klemperer sounds so much like Klemperer’s other Beethoven, it seems to be because Menuhin arrived at the recording sessions and said, “okay Wilhelm, okay Constantin, okay Otto, how would you like to conduct it? It’ll be fine for me, I’ll be happy to fit in, and say what I wish to say within your conception, rather than against it”. That’s a good definition of “the meeting of minds”, and of making music together. As long as shelve space permits, I am not parting with this one, and if things get really bad, it’s the one I’ll keep with Lucerne 1947. Now if things get REALLY bad….

Menuhin-Klemperer’s recording was first CD-reissued on EMI’s mid-price Studio collection in 1987, with no complement. It was reissued in 1992 (still using the 1984 remastering) on EMI’s sequel to their Studio collection, Studio Plus, with the welcome complement of the same two Violin Romances, recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra under John Pritchard in 1960, that EMI also used in a later reissue (2002) as a complement to the Silvestri-conducted Concerto (“Encore” collection, four different editions – US, UK, French, German, see my review for the details, link above), and that way all tastes and preferences are met. There, Menuhin illustrates, with Pritchard as he did already with Furtwängler in 1953 (a recording reissued by Testament as a complement to their 1947 Lucerne Concerto), an approach that is way too solemn and sentimental for the music’s own good, and even more in Op. 50 than in Op. 40. Once you’ve heard Kremer and Harnoncourt’s way more flowing approach, there’s no turning back . The Romances offer a welcome complement for the Menuhin completist, but it is the Klemperer-conducted Concerto that warrants purchase, with or without complement.