Wolfgang Schneiderhan - Beethoven, Mozart: Violin Concertos (1996)

I am not forgetting Kreisler's wonderful 1926 performance with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra under Leo Blech (now reissued as part of a twodisc set on Biddulph) when I say that during the war years, when I collected 78s, the performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto which was considered very special (indeed unique) by discerning collectors was Georg Kulenkampff's Telefunken partnership with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt. This had an enthralling combination of spaciousness and vitality from the orchestra, yet the slow movement brought from the soloist an unforgettable purity and a breathtakingly rapt quietness of lyrical feeling. The recording was very good indeed, although it would be difficult to guess that from the meagre and unattractive sound offered by the current Teldec transfer. Michael Dutton, are you listening?

There is no question that in the mono LP era the mantle of Kulenkampff passed directly to Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and to our great good fortune that remarkable violinist, who had directly inherited the spirit of the German classical tradition (just as Karajan did symphonically, when he took over the Berlin Philharmonic from Furtwängler), lived to re-record that greatest of all violin concertos in stereo. He was fortunate indeed to have Jochum and the Berlin Philharmonic as partners in a truly legendary 1962 recording that has never been surpassed. Jochum's opening tutti is a marvel of spacious dignity, against which the silvery thread of Schneiderhan's violin gleams with touching innocence (try first the reprise of the main theme of the first movement in the orchestra on clarinets and bassoons at 510', with the violin entry following nine seconds later, and then the magical violin phrasing at 1054'). But it is in the serene, incandescent beauty of the slow movement that Schneiderhan is quite unforgettable. After his opening dialogue with the orchestra one catches one's breath at the sheer loveliness of the serene secondary idea (458" and again when it returns at 738"). The finale dances in sparkling fashion, and the performance overall is given added gravitas by Schneiderhan's use (throughout the work) of Beethoven's own cadenzas, including timpani, which the composer wrote for his piano transcription of the concerto. The analogue recording is very well balanced and truthful.

On this reissue we are also offered a characteristically classical performance of Mozart's A major Violin Concerto, in which the soloist directs the orchestral accompaniment. Schneiderhan launches into the first movement with great vitality and then sets the emotional world of the Adagio in an aura of calm tranquillity that makes the joyful contrasts of the finale, with its extrovert bravura, the more telling. The late-I 960s recording is fuller and rather more cleanly focused in the orchestra and the solo violin is vividly real, again with an admirable balance. But it is for the Beethoven Concerto that this record is indispensable and every collector who cares about this masterpiece should consider finding a place for Schneiderhan's interpretation in their personal CD library.