Beethoven: Violin Concerto. Yehudi Menuhin, Vienna Philharmonic, Constantin Silvestri.
Recorded 5 & 7 February 1960 in the Musikvereinsaal, Vienna
(2 CDs) EMI “Rouge et Noir” “Yehudi Menuhin Concertos pour violon” CMS 7 62536 2 (1988) barcode 077776253626 (later reissues under label number 7 62536 2):
Reissue EMI Eminence CDM 7 63481 2 / CD-EMX 2069 (1990) 0077776348124 (digital remastering December 1989):
Reissue EMI “Kostbarkeiten” CDZ 25 2230 2 (1990) 5099925223026 (digital remastering 1990):
Reissue in 3 CDs “Yehudi Menuhin The Great Violin Concertos” CZS 7 67310 2 (1991) 077776731025:
Reissue EMI “Encore” 5 74972 2 (2002) 724357497220 (HMV) and 5 74973 2 (2002) 724357497329 (Angel):
Reissue EMI “Nipper Collection” 5 75027 2 (2002) 724357502726 (German edition of the “Encore” series):
Reissue EMI “Encore” 5 75695 2 (2002) 724357569521 (French edition, no backcover image found):
Reissue in 2 CDs Rouge & Noir “Yehudi Menuhin Concertos pour violon” 5 75413 2 (2002) 724357541329 (reissue of CMS 7 62536 2 (1988)):
Compiled on CD 10 of 51 CDs “Menuhin The Great EMI Recordings” (2009) 5099926413129 
(link will open new tab to listing on Discogs.com)
Excellent performance of the Violin Concerto – until the Finale
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 4 August 2014
Menuhin made two famed recordings of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Furtwängler, in Lucerrne in 1947 (reissued in 1997 by Testament, SBT 1109, link will open new tab to my review) and with the London Philharmonia in 1953, and although the remake all but eclipsed the first essay in the LP era, I find the Lucerne version marginally better, sonically equivalent to its successor in Testament’s stupendous transfer if not marginally better, nearly identical to it interpretively in the outer movements but with a more held-back and deeply-felt Larghetto. But common wisdom is that thereafter Menuhin’s tonal control deteriorated, and that his later recordings never approached the heights of the Furtwängler collaborations. I don’t hear that in this recording with the Vienna Philharmonic under Constantin Silvestri, made between 5 & 7 February 1960, as I don’t hear it in Menuhin’s later remake from January 1966 with Klemperer (first CD reissue on EMI Studio CDM 7 69001 2, 1987). The tone in 1960 and 1966 may not be as luminous as in 1947, and some of the runs and double stops in the Finale may sound a little “sticky” (they did also in 1953), but there is none of the tonal deterioriation so often associated (and sometimes found) with later Menuhin, nothing screechy in the upper registers, no smudged articulation, no disagreeable wiriness. On the contrary, Menuhin’s lyrical phrases in the upper reaches are particularly beautiful.
The performances with Furtwängler were typically Furtwänglerian, unfolding a spacious and noble first movement. This one with Silvestri, without being rushed in any manner, is more “in the fold”, and timing, up to the first movement cadenza, is very middle-of-the-road and comparable to the roughly contemporary Grumiaux-Van Beinum (1957), Stern-Bernstein (1959), Francescatti-Walter (1961). The most remarkable feature of the first movement is in fact how “straight” it is in its rubato and agogics, which makes it very different not only from the Furtwängler collaborations, but also from the later one with Klemperer. Each time you’d expect a perceptible relaxing of tempo to accommodate the more lyrical and songful moments, tempo remains remarkably strict: not that it is metronomic – nobody, except metronomes, is metronomic, and those who claim Toscanini was metronomic have no ears -, but the rubato is imperceptible. Some may find it uninflected (and I do prefer the greater flexibility of the Klemperer version), but I appreciate the discipline, the unfolding of the lyricism within a unity of tempo rather than against it, and within this discipline of tempo, Menuhin’s lyricism is a sweet as it ever was (it brings back to mind a witty pronouncement by pianist Arthur Schnabel, when, asked by an interviewer if he considered himself to be of the school of those who play according to feeling or of those who play in time, he retorted: “can’t one feel in time?”). As in all his recordings Menuhin plays the Kreisler cadenzas (in 1966 only a greatly abridged version of the 3rd movement cadenza) and, here in 1960, he plays them very well.
Another remarkable feature and an asset of this 1960 recording is the Larghetto. If in London in 1953 Menuhin and Furtwängler didn’t quite recapture the ethereal unfolding of their 1947 Larghetto, in 1960 Menuhin and Silvestri do approach it, and so will Menuhin and Klemperer in 1966. Menuhin’s luminous tone in 1947 makes it even a touch more beautiful, but 1960 and 1966 are breathtakingly beautiful in their own right; with its more flowing tempo, I find 1953 plainer and less deeply-felt.
The Finale is more exceptionable, though. Menuhin and Furtwängler never rushed it, but the impression that Menuhin and Silvestri in 1960 aren’t very dynamic and even a little lazy is borne out by a look at the clock: up to the cadenza, they add 24 seconds to Lucerne and 18 to the Philharmonia, and turn out the slowest version I’ve heard after the one of Schneiderhan and Van Kempen in 1953… and before Menuhin’s 1966 remake with Klemperer, which is even slower than both. And jumping, as I did, to the near contemporary version of Milstein and Leinsdorf (I have it on a French single CD from 1991, EMI CDM 2 53654 2 barcode 5099925365429) where the tempo is the same as Heifetz-Toscanini’s (and the sound of course infinitely superior), is another litmus test: with Menuhin, any spirit of dance is gone, the impression is more of an elegant and bonhomous Menuetto than of a boisterous Finale, and 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.
The even slower and trudging version with Klemperer may seem more exceptionable still, but in fact I prefer it. First, because it is, precisely, even more radical, and 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. With Klemperer, the massive power, the gruff and clumsy vigor ARE interesting substitutes to the lost spirit of dance. They evoke, as some other of Klemperer’s Beethoven (the Finale of the Emperor Concerto with Barenboim, the Scherzo and Finale of the Eroica) the hippos of Fantasia musingly hop-scotching. Whatever you think, it is one of a kind, the Finale of the Violin Concerto as you’ve never heard it. The Finale with Silvestri just sounds undynamic, sucked of any spirit of dance.
Nonetheless even the Finale doesn’t betray the work (if it gives a very slanted, and not entirely convincing view of it), and if you are adverse to mono and to the 1947 Lucerne recording, AND to Klemperer’s deliberate tempos and massive orchestral power, this can serve as the Menuhin version of choice of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Comparing those various versions by Menuhin, and observing how different they are, ultimately paints an interesting and unexpected image of the violinist. Not one to impose, like, say, 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 sounds like a good definition of “the meeting of minds”, and of making music together.
I have this recording in the 3-CD set of Menuhin’s Concerto recordings from the late 1950s to 1960s, CZS 7 67310 2, selling irresistibly cheap at the time of writing and with a 1988 remastering corresponding to the first CD reissue on French EMI’s “Rouge & Noir” mid-price collection of twofers, CMS 7 62536 2, which sounds excellent. EMI Eminence’s 1990 edition indicates a digital remastering from EMI Electrola in December 1989, and German EMI Electrola gives a copyright of 1990 for the digital remastering in their budget collection “Kostbarkeiten”, released the same year – I assume they are the same. That said, with no complement and a total time of 45 minutes, the two latter editions are stingy, although it all depends on the price demanded for those CDs on the marketplace. But in 2002 EMI reissued the Silvestri version, paired with Menuhin’s contemporary recording of the Two Romances under John Pritchard, on their “Encore” collection, and again the price is extremely right: so that’s probably the edition to go to if you want Menuhin-Silvestri’s version and not the other concertos on the 1988 original 2-CD set or the subsequent 3-CD set from 1991. The “Encore” release comes in English, US and French editions, with different label numbers and barcodes – meaning that if you don’t find one for cheap enough, just look for the others. But note that EMI used the same version of the Two Romances as the filler to their 1992 reissue, in the collection Studio-Plus, of the Menuhin-Klemperer recording (all details in my review, see link above), so, depending on your choice, you may end up with some duplication.