Jean Sibelius; Johannes Brahms - Violin Concertos (Ginette Neveu)

Information

Composer: Jean Sibelius; Johannes Brahms

• (01-03) Sibelius - Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47
• (04-06) Brahms - Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

Ginette Neveu, violin
Philharmonia Orchestra
Walter Susskind, conductor (1-3)
Issay Dobrowen, conductor (4-6)

Date: 1945 (1-3), 1946 (4-6)
Label: Pristine Classical (originally recorded by EMI)
https://www.pristineclassical.com/products/pasc357

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Review

The Sibelius Concerto was recorded in November 1945 and the Brahms nine months later. When the former appeared there was no other version, save for the pioneering Heifetz/Beecham account, available only as part of a Boult Sibelius Society volume with Night ride and sunrise and The oceanides. (Anja Ignatius's wartime set made in Berlin under the baton of Sibelius's son-in-law, Armas Jarnefelt was never issued here.) Neveu's recording was hailed the following January by Alec Robertson in glowing terms, ''round the head of Neveu is not a gentle halo, but a flame of fire''. As he said, this is ''without any doubt, a great performance—a performance so incandescent that at the end I felt like bursting into flames myself!''. Although I have known the Sibelius in its various incarnations, I was never on such close terms with the Brahms. W. R. Anderson wrote of it with less enthusiasm, speaking of ''a powerful rather than a subtle performance from the orchestra'' and noting that ''the soloist has remarkable power, skill and a good deal of feeling'' (my italics) which seems to me to do less than justice to this reading! If ever there was a performance highly charged with feeling, this is it, though emotion is tempered by fine musical discipline and no mean degree of spirituality. Apart from the panache and brilliance, there is a wonderful sense of freedom and space here; and there is momentum but no sense of the bar-line.

The recordings were made by Walter Legge and Arthur Clarke, and thanks to the expertise of Keith Hardwick, relatively few allowances have to be made for the passage of four decades. When you remember that a concert ticket or a book in post-war Britain cost a few shillings and now invariably costs more than a few pounds, it is a salutary thought that these two great performances—in greatly improved sound—have not even doubled their original price. I recommend this with all possible enthusiasm.

-- Robert Layton, Gramophone
reviewing EMI References CDH 7 61011 2 (released: 1987)

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Dec06/Brahms_Sibelius_4768302.htm
https://www.allmusic.com/album/sibelius-brahms-violin-concertos-mw0001849165
https://www.amazon.com/Brahms-Sibelius-Violin-Concertos-Johannes/dp/B000ML4K44
https://www.amazon.com/Neveu-Plays-Brahms-Dutton-Labs/dp/B019GRP2OG

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Jean Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish violinist and composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. His music contributed to the development of a feeling of national identity in Finland where he is now celebrated as the country's greatest composer. Sibelius is widely known for his seven symphonies, the violin concerto and the tone poems, especially Finlandia and the Karelia suite. Throughout his career, the composer found inspiration in nature and Nordic mythology. He almost completely stopped composing after 1920s and did not produce any large-scale works in his last thirty years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Sibelius

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Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer and pianist. In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable. Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished. Brahms is often considered both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters, with a highly romantic nature embedded within.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Brahms

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Ginette Neveu (11 August 1919 – 28 October 1949) was a French classical violinist. She studied with Line Talluel, Jules Boucherit, and completed her training with instruction from George Enescu, Nadia Boulanger, and Carl Flesch. At age 16 Neveu achieved worldwide celebrity status when she won the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition over 180 contestants, including the future virtuoso David Oistrakh, who finished second. After World War II, Ginette and her brother Jean-Paul toured Europe extensively. Neveu gave her last concert on 20 October 1949, before her flight crashed on a mountain on 28 October.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginette_Neveu

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