LSO Live – Beethoven violin concerto(s)

Originally written for Classical Source

Violin Concerti don’t come any greater or more popular than the Beethoven and the catalogue is awash with performances, so any newcomer is going to have to be exceptional to merit serious consideration. The big selling point of this new one is Jörg Widmann’s radical cadenzas, but these are arguably irrelevant if the rest of the performance isn’t up to scratch, so how good are Eberle and Rattle?  

Rattle uses a string band built on only five double basses, which should bring plenty of clarity but in the introductions first ff the brass and timpani are very subdued. Nevertheless, in the first two movements apart from one or two irritating swells of sound in tuttis he lets the sublime music sing and is suitably alert and bouncy in the finale. Eberle’s first entry is tentative, but she has plenty of confidence and projection and isn’t afraid to use tempo variation. She sculpts the soaring melodies and obviously loves the slow movement, even if she can’t equal the profound spirituality and glorious tone of Schneiderhan, with Jochum (DG) and live with Kertesz (BBC Legends), or Kogan with Silvestri (HDTT). Nor can she equal the latter’s elfin grace in the Rondo finale. Nevertheless this is an enjoyable performance; which brings us to the cadenzas.

Unlike other cadenzas in all three Widmann refers both backwards and forwards. At the start off the first movement’s you get off-key pizzicati, followed by chromaticism and dissonance, the entry of the timpani (there is nothing unusual in this, Beethoven used them in a cadenza he wrote for his own arrangement of the Concerto for piano, which Schneiderhan played) then a double-bass and a brilliant foray into upbeat jazz. 

At the end of the Adagio Widmann makes extensive use of the violins upper register and pizzicati within his own modernist language. The finale, in amongst other things, is imbued with gypsy like rhythms, a double-bass that sounds like something out of Carnival of the Animals and the timpanist recalls the first movement. You could argue that the last two movement’s cadenzas are too long and obviously some may be outraged at such temerity, but they are brilliant and well-worth hearing. The fill-up is a decidedly uninspired half of a movement, which isn’t on the LP. 

The album was released some time ago, but it is now available on LP [not available at NativeDSD], which was compared to the DSD512 download. The latter is obviously very different to LSO Live Barbican recordings, but it has all of the labels trademark clarity, definition, sense of space and depth. Turning to the LP you get the usual more analogue feel and sense of naturalness. However, LSO Live have missed a trick here. The lacquers were cut from 24/96 files, but if you record in DSD256 you should be using, as Yarlung and OUR Recordings do, DXD, or at the very minimum 24/192. Yes the LP sounds excellent, but it could have been better.