MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in D Minor; Violin Concerto in E Minor; BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26 – Yehudi Menuhin, violin – Naxos Historical

Two of the works on this restoration by Mark Obert-Thorn derive from
RCA LM 1720, which coupled the familiar E Minor Concerto with the rarer
discovery, the D Minor Concerto, composed in 1822 but only unearthed by
Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) in 1951. Menuhin gave the first modern
performance of the youthful and artful work 4 Feburary 1952 and
recorded it for American RCA two days later. The Mendelssohn E Minor
Concerto with Wilhelm Furtwaengler was taped May 25-26, 1952, the
second of Menuhin’s four recorded versions of a piece he knew
well.  While some critics and music critics prefer Menuhin’s very
next approach, with Efrem Kurtz in 1958, I remain partial to this
darkly introspective rendition, with its visceral passions.

Though an infrequent performer of Mendelssohn, Wilhelm Furtwaengler
(1886-1954) left us persuasive accounts of the Hebrides Overture, the
Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, and this concerto.  The lyrical
passages and level of virtuosity find the two artists in total
sympathy, and the tragic grandeur the Furtwaengler emanates avoids the
sentimental cliches that too often mark this piece. The Bruch Concerto
with Charles Munch derives from another elusive RCA LP (LM 1797), and
is Menuhin’s third inscription of a work that as a boy he played with
Pierre Monteux and Landon Ronald. The collaboration is sinewy, perhaps
overly aggressive in the outer movements, straining after the
monumental effects Mengelberg managed with Bustabo. As a collector, I
can only hope Obert-Thorn keeps reviving the RCA vaults around the same
period, which furnished us the Tchaikovksy Concerto also with Munch and
the BSO, this time with a ferocious Nathan Milstein (LM 1760). 
Meanwhile, Menuhin is in good controlled form for all of these works,
and the breezy D Minor Concerto is as definitive a reading as we are
likely to own.

–Gary Lemco