Beethoven: Violin Concerto. Itzhak Perlman (violin), Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini (cond.) Warner (EMI)
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@jbbevan6 ай бұрын
Three or four years ago Perlman came and played the Beethoven in Provo, Utah at BYU with the BYU Philharmonic. He held master classes all day then played the Beethoven at night with the young musicians. He was full of humor as he drove his electric scooter up on to a purpose-built ramp...but the concerto itself was all serious and one of the great memories of my 65 years of concert-going. But perhaps more impressive than his artistry was his humanity...he's just a good guy. I have had this reference recording since it came out and agree wholeheartedly. PS: Dave your Reference series is extremely valuable because the consensus, where it exists, may be more valuable to the collector than any individual's point of view, so thank you for this series.
@edwardcasper52316 ай бұрын
I played in the orchestra behind Perlman in Gary, Indiana back in the late '60s or early '70s. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met. Very down-to-Earth.
@peacearchwa51036 ай бұрын
This was a digital recording, not an analog recording. The original 1981 LP release had a quite prominent tag identifying it as digital. EMI's engineering was marvelous and quite natural.
@mikesimpson32076 ай бұрын
Funny you say nobody cared about the one with Barenboim. That's the first Beethoven Violin Concerto I heard, at my music professor's recommendation, and I instantly fell in love with it. It's been my go-to recording ever since, though I've also heard Hilary Hahn play it very well.
@DavesClassicalGuide6 ай бұрын
OK, one person cared....;)
@b1i2l3366 ай бұрын
We know, thanks to you, that the Reference Recording is not always the best. Perlman will never eclipse the recordings by Menuhin, Oistrakh, or Grumiaux in my affections, but it's hard to deny that your choice is THE RR.
@tbarrelier6 ай бұрын
Heifetz/Munch?
@b1i2l3366 ай бұрын
@@tbarrelier That's one of the many good ones, and I thought it would be the one that Hurwitz would pick! He makes a good case for the Perlman/Giulini, though.
@maudia276 ай бұрын
I was the Classical Marketing Manager of EMI in Brazil when they released a big box of Perlman recording around 1995. I always thought it is too romantic, in a mellow way, for my taste. Of course an opinion I kept for myself that time. Oistrakh and Milstein lead the field for me, curiously both also EMI recordings, and not available in Brasil. Recently I began to love the Hilary Hahn/Zinman's one - which has almost the same times of the Perlman/Giulini.
@ewaldsteyn4696 ай бұрын
Thanks. Fabulous story. That's why I love this series of yours so much.
@stevenmsinger6 ай бұрын
This was the recording that taught me the work. It really was the recording everyone talked about. It's interesting to hear how that came about in this video. Thanks.
@sleepjar70136 ай бұрын
I was a big Perlman fan after seeing him perform a few times and this was the first recording of the Beethoven VC I ever purchased. I did not expect this! Thank you for the great explanation. I look forward to these every day.
@deleon91116 ай бұрын
Thank you, sir, for introducing me to this recording. There's a sense of warmth and spontaneity that makes this performance feel alive and engaging, even after repeated listening. A reference recording, indeed.
@greggoryrice70466 ай бұрын
Couldn't agree more. The Perlman recording truly is special. There is an amazing live performance on ytube that displays his uncanny feel for the Beethoven concerto.
@alexsaldarriaga83186 ай бұрын
I’ll have to listen to it again. It’s been decades since I last heard it. I faintly remember that I found it too reverential and restrained. Despite its sublime character, this concerto demands that the artist also put in his or her own voice, vision, and personality into the work. My reference recording is Heifetz/Munch. But I’ve been blown away by a video I saw recently of Batiashvili/Mehta. Thank you, David! 🙏🏻🎻
@DavesClassicalGuide6 ай бұрын
It doesn't have to be "the best." It's very good, and it's the reference.
@curseofmillhaven10576 ай бұрын
Absolutely see why it's the reference. I had the idea initially, it might have been the Menuhin/Furtwängler EMI.
@robhaynes44106 ай бұрын
This one is a digital recording. Surprisingly good sound, too, given how early in the technology it is. This also answers my earlier question about whether there's any references after the 1970s.
@danielo.masson3536 ай бұрын
The work entered our home with these interprets through its filmed version. I remember recording the sound with my radio cassette when a much awaited TV program broadcasted it. It immediately conquered my mum's heart and made me revere Giulini and Perlman.
@thebiblepriest49506 ай бұрын
A film was made along with the Giulini-Perlman recording, and it soon after appeared on an early laserdiscs, which I still own and cherish above all others.
@hoot24166 ай бұрын
I have this off his Great Romantic Concertos album. It's a great older 3 CD set from EMI that includes his Brahms w/Guiulini CSO, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Bruch and Paganini 1. I also have the album with Daniel Barenboim and Berlin Phil that includes the 2 violin romances. Itzhak Perlman is the only violinist I will listen to for this concerto.
@HoheBrachtAcht6 ай бұрын
A stellar choice.
@Taosravenfan6 ай бұрын
One I have owned for many years. Perlman was the greatest violinist of his era, IMO. No one was better than Heifetz. And on my personal list he’s behind Milstein as well. But I’ve seen him in concert and he is wonderful.
@gregorycooper31326 ай бұрын
Thanks!
@DavesClassicalGuide6 ай бұрын
Thank you!
@frankaoi97016 ай бұрын
I do agree with what you said: I knew it was something specially, so I collected as many LPs as I wanted some years ago.
@charlespowell91176 ай бұрын
Yes! my reference recording too and I love it!
@buddyjones64296 ай бұрын
Oistrakh / Cluytens was the first vinyl I bought in the mid 70s and my favorite. The largest variations I've noticed in artistic interpretation is in the Kreisler cadenzas. Very few played cadenzas by others (I think Bell wrote his own and he is no Kreisler). I have the Barenboim but no others by Perlman. Has anyone heard Martzy's recording?
@geertdecoster53016 ай бұрын
I remember entering the Sistine Chapel for the first time and not looking up some 40 years ago now already. The sublime of The Last Judgement just hooked my attention. How come? Because it's the absolute masterpiece for any chapel. It's the reference one. I guess that was also my personal impression when I listened to this recording for the first time. It felt right
@guillaume.pirard6 ай бұрын
Giulini and Perlman are a fine partnership (as with the Brahms!). Here are a few takes on that work that inspired my journey in music and maybe will inspire yours: Grumiaux/Cluytens, Zehetmair/Bruggen, Kogan/Silverstri, there's Kremer''s Schnittke cadenza, I just stumbled upon Pekka's idiosyncratic take on youtube (why not?), and hopefully, one day, Amandine Beyer will record it!
@greve6 ай бұрын
Bought also as soon as it came out, but not my favourite. It really is the "new" référence, though. But to my mind comes something else about recording this marvellous work: Menuhin praised the child prodigy Sarah Chang and since that day we have been waiting for her interpretation of the work, haven't we...?!
@DavesClassicalGuide6 ай бұрын
Not really.
@vdtv6 ай бұрын
I feared it was going to be another version than this. Happy days - it's this one! The only advantage of the later Barenboim one is that they made better use of the medium by adding the two romances. Perlman/Giulini was a very skimpy release (as was the later Brahms). One bone to pick, though. This was not the moment when the industry sat up and took notice of Perlman as a serious artist. That came some five years earlier, when the Beethoven violin sonatas with Ashkenazy came out. They were at least as well received as this concerto. So wel, in fact, that they might have been reference recordings for the complete set (were it not for that pesky Grumiaux/Haskil box...).
@willduffay22076 ай бұрын
Thanks for this. And, as you say, surprisingly late! I wonder if there will be a similar story with other reference recordings: a work so popular but serious and profound that there are multiple highly regarded versions until one emerges from the pack.
@stevemcclue57596 ай бұрын
Yes, it's a great, great performance. I prefer those with the cadenza of violin and timps, but you couldn't get better than Perlman.
@fabgourmet6 ай бұрын
"expectorate the bowels of his creativity..."
@JamesDavidWalley6 ай бұрын
"If you've made the reference recording, don’t repeat yourself"…unless, of course, your name is Adrian Boult, and the work is The Planets…
@noza236 ай бұрын
Upon hearing the death of Maurizio Polini, could you do the reference recording on Chopin's two études?
@frankie69546 ай бұрын
Very sad to hear. I heard Pollini, live in London 35 years ago. Absolutely wonderful. Very sad.
@DavesClassicalGuide6 ай бұрын
Already did.
@jensguldalrasmussen64466 ай бұрын
I think there might be local differences - no nationalistic nonsense, but maybe more a question of view point. For many years the Schneiderhan/Jochum was the (or one of the) reference recording(s) this side of the Atlantic, especially when you apply your consensus criteria with respect to what constitutes a recording to be considered a reference. Beside my normal job I worked for almost 20 years, a couple of days a month, with 2nd hand classical cds (pricing, sorting, etc.). I might have happened upon the Perlman/Giulini recording once in awhile, but can't recall it. I certainly would have, if it had been. a recording we had in spades (like fx the ubiquitous Mahler/VPO/Maazel recordings), especially because Giulini was a conductor I took a liking to already in my youth. For many years my personal references were, indeed, Schneiderhan/Jochum, and Milstein/Steinberg, that is untill I happened upon the fabulous partnership of Grumiaux/van Beinum...and, lo and behold, another reference triptych materialized on the horizon! (A reference for The Brahms vln.concerto will be so much easier: we just have to negotiate whether the accompanist ought to be Klemperer with The Orchestra National de la Radiodifusion Francaise or Szell with his Clevelanders. My choice would hands down be to go with Klemperer)
@DavesClassicalGuide6 ай бұрын
2nd hand sales aren't helpful. An abundance of copies means either that people were quick to get rid of the performance, or the label couldn't sell the pressing and so remaindered it.
@jensguldalrasmussen64466 ай бұрын
@@DavesClassicalGuide Well, over the 20 years we received a lot of well assorted collections from the estate of decedents, who were clearly serious collectors...the Schneiderhan/Jochum recording appeared innumerable times (as well as the xxx/Klemperer Brahms concerto, and to a lesser extent the xxx/Szell recording of that concerto, too). Of course this is no scientific proof of anything...though maybe more an indicator of the factual status overhere.
@rationalistssj65406 ай бұрын
I agree with you that Schneiderhan/Jochum would have to be the reference recording. It is one of my most treasured cds, as the performance is outstanding, no weak links there!
@abesmissioncontrol20136 ай бұрын
Funnily enough, I've never heard that particular recording. I remember seeing it in the record store, but I already had half a dozen versions of the Beethoven concerto and wasn't interested in another. I had already heard Perlman's recording with Barenboim, and it was "meh" for me, so that probably influenced my decision not to get the Giullini collab.
@sandy444406 ай бұрын
When I was younger it seemed the music press was always talking about Schneiderhan/Jochum or Krebbers/Haitink, though this one got a bump from being an early (the first?) CD version available. It was my first purchased version, and while it was always 'very fine' isn't it maybe a bit ... boring? Especially in the last movement which needs a bit of romp. Giulini for all his merits wasn't very rompy by 1980.
@chrisvershaw7743 ай бұрын
David - question: do you enjoy anything besides classical music?
@DavesClassicalGuide3 ай бұрын
Cooking, rocks, television, reading, my cats, life in general...of course.
@chrisvershaw7743 ай бұрын
@@DavesClassicalGuide Sorry - I wasn't exact enough on my question - Do you enjoy any other kind of music besides classical?
@chrismoule72426 ай бұрын
Yes this is the version I have.
@hermanblinkhoven18566 ай бұрын
Dave, I understand your enthusiasm for this version, but I would like to know why you did not even mention Grumiaux, nor A S Mutter. And you forgot to praise the importance of the timpani in the opening bars...
@DavesClassicalGuide6 ай бұрын
I didn't forget anything. This is a discussion of the reference recording for Beethoven's violin concerto, not a summary of available versions or a "best of" review. You can find that elsewhere. Those other versions are not relevant to the topic at hand.
@buddyjones64296 ай бұрын
You realize it was Beethoven who introduced the timpani to symphonic orchestra
@goonbelly58416 ай бұрын
Perlman/Giulini was my favorite until I heard Grumiaux/Davis. Also, I don't find Perlman's second recording to be anywhere near as good as the reference. I guess the Menuhin/Furtwangler(1947) recording was too obscure to be considered a reference.
@nattyco6 ай бұрын
That's my favourite, with Oistrakh and Schneiderhan, (van Kempen).
@peacearchwa51036 ай бұрын
As Dave mentioned, this particular concerto received an astonishing number of fine recorded renditions over the years. Among my own favorites, for different reasons, are Szigeti/Walter/"British Symphony Orchestra" (1932), Heifetz/Toscanini/NBC Symphony (1940), Francescatti/Walter/Columbia Symphony Orchestra (1960), Schneiderhan/Jochum/Berlin Philharmonic (1959) and Stern/Bernstein/New York Philharmonic (1959). Perlman/Giulini does strike me as an excellent reference for judging the others, albeit I think Schneiderhan/Jochum and Szigeti/Walter come very close behind.