This isn't music-making for the timid, used to the sanitized, faultless performances on your everyday CD. In its raw, unvarnished way, it is daring, fierce, mesmerizing, to be heard when you're feeling strong of spirit and mind. Toscanini views Fidelio and indeed Leonore No. 3 as stark drama, devoid of sentimentality. The winds leap from the speakers, the brass blare ferociously as the old wizard tells a story of the struggle for freedom in a year when, even in the United States, events far away in Europe must have felt very present. In achieving his end, he demands and mostly receives superhuman efforts from his charges: speeds are nervously fast, rhythms alert, as though the events were happening in the conductor's presence. The wind section is prominent in a way we have since heard from Norrington in Beethoven, indubitably influenced by his predecessor. An occasional untidiness is a price worth paying for such an edge-of-your-seat interpretation. Inevitably the epithet 'hard-driven' has been used about the performance: a visionary conductor, inclined to the dictatorial, demands much from his performers and listeners. No compromises can be made. We won't always want to hear the score done like this; once in a way, it is cleansing and salutary.

According to Harvey Sachs's notes, Rose Bampton once said that Toscanini declared ''the words came first and that the music was composed afterwards. So we had to understand the deepest significance of the words in order to be expressive.'' Certainly all the singers enunciate with the utmost clarity, to a fault in the case of the inadequate Rocco, whose German is poor. Bampton herself, although no Lehmann (Toscanini's Salzburg interpreter) in matters of voice or diction, is a determined and dedicated Leonore, whose ''Abscheulicher'' comes from a later session and is the best part of her performance—elsewhere she is sometimes off form vocally. The young Steber is a lovely Marzelline. Although not one's ideal Florestan, Peerce sings with his customary honesty and technical security. Janssen may not have the incisive bass-baritone for Pizarro, but he projects his part with biting venom. Nobody else makes much of an impression and the chorus is no more than adequate—Robert Shaw hadn't yet arrived on the scene—but the sum is greater than the parts.

Much as one may regret the break for Leonore No. 3, the performance is so electrifying as to silence criticism, but exception has to be taken to the complete absence of dialogue, an essential part of this score. The digital tapes, made from NBC acetates rather than RCA originals, have a little more breadth and reliability than previous transfers to LP. In any case, reservations about sound should deter nobody from sampling this unique experience.

-- Alan Blyth, Gramophone

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 1 -

Bringing together hundreds of performances commercially recorded over the course of 48 years (from 1928 to 1976), the Arthur Rubinstein Collection is a handsome and smartly executed achievement. Its 81 volumes chronologically chart Rubinstein's studio legacy, with each volume serving up liner notes and photographs that place the recordings in satisfying context.
Rubinstein was 88 years old when he recorded Beethoven's last piano concerto. It is a truly wonderful thing to hear the meeting of these two great musical minds in this performance. There is the composer who had, by the time of the "Emperor," thoroughly mastered and transformed the genre of the piano concerto. And there is the pianist who had, by this point in his long and prolific career, mastered and transformed the art playing the piano. Rubinstein's technique is as sure as it ever was, and his sound is unmistakable, especially in the utter refinement with which he ends a phrase. Never, however, does he overpower Beethoven's music with his own musical personality. No, this is a true collaboration between composer and interpreter, one which conductor and Rubinstein protegé Daniel Barenboim fosters with appreciative verve at every turn.

Rubinstein Collection, Vol. 77

Though Toscanini was one of the greatest conductors ever to mount a podium he was scarcely renowned for his skill and sympathy as an accompanist. But here we have recordings by two instrumentalists who in different ways were able to combat the maestro's tendency to impose his will and his way on any performance. In the Third Piano Concerto Toscanini conducts an intensely dramatic opening tutti, and whenever he has his head he creates a rare incandescence in the orchestral part. Rubinstein goes urbanely but determinedly in his own direction, and his playing has typical poise and clarity. The result is hardly a marriage of minds, but the mixture works well to produce a performance which possesses a good deal of vitality and character. The 1944 recording sounds very well for its date, with good piano tone and just a little surface hiss and crackle from the original source. The audience is very quiet until the end, when there is enthusiastic applause. The 1940 sound in the Violin Concerto is again very good, and Heifetz is in superb form, so that he in the end dominates the formidable Toscanini through the wizardry of his technique and the force of his musical personality. In general tempos are on the fast side, and there is a good deal of tension in the performance, but there is some marvellous music-making too, particularly in the slow movement, where Heifetz plays with great poetry and a beautiful quality of tone.

-- Gramophone [3/1988]
reviewing these performances previously reissued as RCA 5756

BASIC 100 VOL 23 - BEETHOVEN:

This recording was formerly available as Eurodisc CD 610-510-231. It is
also available as 610 520.

MARLBORO FEST 40TH ANNIVERSARY

BEETHOVEN: VIOLIN SONATAS FRA

Classical Music

There are few living pianists so well-known and with such legendary status as Evgeny Kissin. A former child prodigy, Kissin came to international attention in March 1984 when, at the age of twelve, he performed Chopin's Piano Concertos 1 & 2 with the Moscow State Philharmonic. Since then he has gone on to win countless prizes and plaudits. He now brings his considerable talents to Beethoven's five magnificent piano concertos, recording them for the first time as a complete cycle.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The violinist Midori has been a celebrated performer for more than 35 years, this recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, complemented by his two Romances for violin and orchestra, marks the composer's 250th birthday in December 2020. Midori plays with the Lucerne Festival Strings in a recording made in Switzerland shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic had caused the cancellation of a planned concert performance and international tour. "Beethoven guided my colleagues and me," says Midori, "his work focusing and inspiring us, our concentrations heightened, enveloped together in our musical efforts... I am reminded that he was a man of strong beliefs... who took firm stands on many major issues of his day... Beethoven's determination still provides a model for humankind."

Beethoven's influence over the string quartet was profound; in his hands, the genre acquired a new significance, becoming a powerful vehicle for the expression and exploration of an inner world. Featured in this box set is the Alban Berg Quartett's acclaimed recording of the complete cycle, a showcase of the group's accomplished artistry and seamless ensemble playing.