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| EMI Studio Plus (Mid price) (CD) CDM7
64744-2 (70 minutes: ADD). Item marked a from HMV ASD2582 (9/70), b
HMV SLS786 (2/70). |
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These are illustrious performances and make a
splendid coupling at mid-price. EMI planned for a long time to assemble this starry
line-up of soloists, conductor and orchestra for Beethoven's Triple Concerto, and the
artists do not disappoint, bringing sweetness as well as strength to a work which in
lesser hands can sound clumsy and long-winded. The recording, made in a Berlin church in
1969, is warm, spacious and well balanced, placing the soloists in a gentle spotlight.
Indeed, the sound need make no apology for its age, and since we also hear playing of
effortless mastery this disc would be worth the money for this work alone.
As it is, we also have the same great violinist
and cellist playing another masterpiece with another superb orchestra and conductor of the
time (the recording is also from 1969), this time in Cleveland. A 1970s review of this
account of Brahms's Double Concerto called it "perhaps the most powerful recorded
performance since the days of Heifetz and Feuermann or Thibaud and Casals". I will
gladly concur with that, and merely add that the recording has come up extremely well in
this remastering: although one cannot deny that the sound is not as smooth as can be
achieved nowadays, one soon forgets that and is caught up in the magnificent music-making.
Collectors not already possessing these performances may be confidently urged to acquire
this disc, which deserves to be a best-seller again.
CH