An account to set the pulse racing
Christian Tetzlaff (violin)
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/hannu Lintu Ondine ODE 1317-2
Of all the great 20th-century violin concertos, Bartók’s Second has one of the richest recording legacies, stretching back to the very first performances. These include the world premiere by Székely and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1939, the second US performance, given in the presence of Bartók, by Tossy Spivakovsky and the Cleveland Orchestra in New
York in 1943, and the first commercial recording from Yehudi Menuhin in 1946. Inevitably, the sound quality in all these performances calls for a good deal of tolerance, since many of the subtleties in Bartók’s orchestration are lost. Fortunately, Menuhin’s long-standing connection with this work, which he studied with the composer, is better represented in later recordings, especially the one he made in 1957 with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under Antál Dorati.