As
far as I can see this makes the first revival on CD of these
two LP era recordings.
Edith
Peinemann was born in Mainz in 1937 but now lives and works
in Frankfurt, where she has been professor of violin at the
University of Frankfurt Hochschule since 1976. From an early
age she studied with her father Robert Peinemann, later with
Heinz Stanske and Max Rostal. She has performed with many conductors
including Münch, Solti, Karajan, Szell, Steinberg, Barbirolli,
Sargent, Kubelik and Ozawa. Her orchestral debut took place
at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1965, where she played Beethoven’s
Violin Concerto. This performance was almost immediately followed
by a Bartók 2nd Concerto with the New York Philharmonic under
William Steinberg. She has been honoured with the “Plaquette
Eugène Ysaye 1858-1958”. She is in good company for the only
other recipients before her were Oistrakh, Kogan and Grumiaux.
She plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin (1732).
The
concerto dates from between the Fifth and Sixth symphonies and
is the work of a composer in his late thirties. Peinemann’s
version of the Dvořák Violin Concerto has poetry
and splendidly powerful attack without being as moving and tender
as it might have been. There are moments in the first movement
where her reading seems effortful; elsewhere she is poetic.
The orchestral part is ripely put across but with some hardness
in the now forty year old recording. This is not a first recommendation
version but it’s a good reading all the same and enhanced by
the role of the Czech Phil. Ideally I would however opt for
Suk on Supraphon (review1;
review2)
or Accardo on a now deleted UK Eloquence disc (review).
Better still
is the Kubelik Serenade which is springy, heart-warming,
touching and not afraid to be a touch sentimental as in the
Larghetto which yearns towards Tchaikovsky’s own Serenade for
Strings. There is some hardness in the violin tone but I only
noticed this in the Scherzo. The original DGG recording team
have faithfully captured the muscularity of the ECO bass and
this pays dividends in the tumbling and galloping excitement
of the Finale.
Two
healthy revivals from a neglected corner of the DG archive.
Credit to Cyrus Meher-Homji for singling these out. They will
be greeted by old friends from LP days and will make new friends
amongst the CD generation.
Rob
Barnett
AVAILABILITY
Buywell
Just Classical
Edith Peinemann (violin)
