Georg Kulenkampff plays BRAHMS = Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77; Double Concerto in A Minor, Op. 102 – Georg Kulenkampff, violin/Enrico Mainardi, cello/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (Op. 77) /L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Carl Schuricht (Op. 102)
Dutton CDBP 9795, 72:36 [Distrib. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
Georg Kulenkampff (1898-1948) represented the romantic side of German violin pedagogy, having been a pupil of Willy Hess and eventually instructing violinists at the Berlin Hochschule 1923-26 and 1931-1943. An inheritor of the Joachim tradition, Kulenkampff played the ex-Nadaud Stradivarius, whose sweet tone contributes to the warmth of the Brahms inscriptions on this disc, made 21 June 1937 (Violin Concerto) and 8 July 1947 (Double Concerto). Ruggiero Ricci recalled some studies with Kulenkampff, who spoke little English but communicated well enough by picking up his fiddle and demonstrating his desires.
Kulenkampff performs the Brahms Violin Concerto with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973), the same conductor with whom Kulenkampff would win a strange repute or notoriety for having premiered the newly-discovered Schumann Violin Concerto in 1937 after the Nazi regime forbade Menuhin to give the performance. Kulenkampff’s artful fluency in the Brahms concerto appears at once, his low bow arm permitting him an expressive quality quite sweet, his left hand articulate in passagework requiring the old-style portamento. The music glides with cantilena singing, and Kulenkampff’s tonal luminosity remains poised and incisive. The lyricism of the phrases, their clear articulation, eschews anything like an intellectual or academic’s approach. In the faster sections conductor and soloist push hard, and only the limits of 1937 sonics prevent the grandeur of the conception to have more auditory force. We can only speculate what the traversal would have gleaned were Wilhelm Furtwaengler at the podium. The tension mounts as we move into the strictures of the development section, the tympani as vibrant as Kulenkampff’s solo. The high extension of the vocal line with flute and horn proves most affecting. A swift rush to judgment before the Joachim cadenza, which Kulenkampff proffers in arched phrases, tiny increments of sound in the form of a duet or Paganini etude. The coda heaves with sugared Viennese schlag, but the effect can only be called gorgeous.
The Adagio–whose oboe was once credited with the only melody in the entire work–allows Kulenkampff ample scope to intertwine with flute, French horn, and supporting strings with that same, elongated cantilena quality, including some striking diminuendi, that defines his opening Allegro. Hungarian rhythms and bold scale passages in octaves ignite Kulenkampff to manic, sizzling gestures in the Rondo movement, Schmidt-Isserstedt breathing heavily to keep up. The landings for each ritornello come down hard, propelled by lyricism and structural drama. A marcato cadenza-arioso over the sullen tympani takes us to the martial statement of the Rondo theme, almost janissary in character, playful and impishly virtuosic. The grand coda concludes a concerto well made, well-played, by a true initiate of the style.
Two distinct, musical personalities join Kulenkampff for the A Minor Concerto: Enrico Mainardi (1897-1976), the virtuoso cellist who joined with Kulenkampff and Edwin Fischer in 1935 to form a splendid trio; and conductor Carl Schuricht (1880-1968), the eternal itinerant of the Old School, here leading Ernest Ansermet’s Suisse Romande. Affection and warmth of expression embrace every turn in this collaboration, the orchestra’s swelling with rhetorical largesse under an aroused Schuricht. Each of the cello entries reminds us of Mainardi’s huge tone and thorough immersion into the full Germanic repertory, from the Bach suites to the post-Romantic stylists like Max Reger. The combined sweetness of strings’ tone endears the performance to any Brahms aficianado, the interplay often easing into the empyrean without strain. From an endless song of an Adagio we segue to the thick Hungarian Rondo, played less vivace than moderato at first; but the first full entry of the orchestra remedies any sense of drag, and the forces engage with passionate ferocity. The cleanliness of the lines is matched by the fervor of the interplay, the whole movement a paean to Brahms, the spirit of collaboration, and Kulenkampff himself, who, dying of encephalitis, would soon pass into history. Seamless transfers by Michael Dutton make us forget the age of these fine performances.
— Gary Lemco
