Biddulph 80225-2, 74:19 (Distrib. Albany) ****:
I well recall seeing and hearing Zino Francescatti (1902-1991) perform the Brahms Violin Concerto in 1959 at a New York Philharmonic concert, Leonard Bernstein conducting. Francescatti’s warm tone and elegance of line had none of the visual sang froid sported by Heifetz; rather, Francescatti moved, dipped, waltzed, and virtually sang the phrases as he bowed, a ballet of sensuous figures enacted upon the stage. The performance inscribed here–Francescatti’s first commercial recording of the Brahms–(11 March 1956) from Philadelphia with Eugene Ormandy (as CBS ML 5114) exudes the sweet charm that characterizes the Francsecatti ouevre – natural music-making that is neither superficial nor over-intellectualized. The music proceeds literally, not with the arched, epic intensity of the Milstein-Jochum inscription or the haunted, visionary power of Menuhin-Furtwaengler. Typically, Ormandy’s accompaniment plays to the individual soli that mark the course of the concerto’s major/minor modes, especially the oboe solo in the F Major Adagio, the long-held French horn chords in the first movement, the driving, homogeneous string section in the gypsy finale.
The Brahms Second (15 February 1953) tends to Ormandy’s direct, sunny disposition; for those raised in the Bruno Walter or Wilhelm Furtwaengler tradition, it may proceed with only a naïve, surface affability. Even for the Leopold Stokowski devotee, wherein the Philadelphia Orchestra itself becomes a transcendent instrument, the restrained polish of the instrumental choirs seems self-effacing; so to my ears, this could be Antal Dorati or Anatole Fistoulari at the helm. The Andante, among the composer’s darker slow movements, pouts instead of hurls threatening gestures. And while the last movement achieves a sense of jubilation, it never sheds the demure modesty that too often plagues the Brahms style, but which a Munch or a Koussevitzky could cloak with the mask of elation. You buy this one for Francescatti.
— Gary Lemco
