"I've been trying to play Beethoven. David (Oistrakh) thought he plays Beethoven. Sviatoslav (judge) played as always only themselves and Karajan believed he is Beethoven."
A beautiful Annekdote with a kernel of truth: so solemn, so full and soft sound of how these four superstars of classical music and the tasty gambling Berlin Philharmonic I have never heard Beethoven's version of the classic Sinfonia concertante. This of course makes fun, especially when a virtuoso as judges ababeitet to the relative ease of the piano part, the 16-year-old piano student at that time was Archduke Rudolf of Austria composed for the dedicatee, Beethoven.
However, I miss something the playfulness of relatively early Beethoven, the rhythmic rigor, the aggressiveness. In fact, this großbögige music partly more of Tchaikovsky as of Viennese Classicism.
In the same year was - also with Oistrakh and Rostropovich, accompanied this time by the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell -. The recording of the Brahms Double Concerto op 102. The fairly steep late work was Brahms composed as a conciliatory gesture for his longtime friend, the great violinist Joseph Joachim , Therefore, it mainly lives from dialogue between the solo instruments, with Brahms himself had characterized as a cello.
The recording is somewhat unbalanced in proportion to the solo instruments - the cello dominates much - and Oistrakh no longer plays with the ease, elegance and intonation of his previous recording with Pierre Fournier (1956). This is especially noticeable in the quite slow played the third movement, which is also charged with too much gravitas.
Who it mainly to the Brahms concerto is, should take up the very beautiful, led by Alceo Galliera older recording with Oistrakh and Fournier therefore prefer.
