Jansons has a high
profile at present with two Proms with
this orchestra last summer, and his
assumption of the position of chief
conductor with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw
Orchestra very recently. Already two
CDs of this partnership have been released
and Warner Music have now issued this
concerto recording with the young Lithuanian
soloist, presumably hoping to cash in
on the rush.
I must confess to a
prejudice here. Although I love the
Brahms Concerto, I am not too positively
disposed towards the Mozart. So it is
with some embarrassment to have to admit
that I enjoyed the Mozart concerto immensely,
more in fact than the Brahms. Every
once and a while, the playing of artists
in the recording studio gel into something
special, and here it is with this performance.
There is a unity between
conductor, soloist and orchestra which
has been caught on the wing by the engineers.
In spite of my feelings about these
concertos, I would love to hear this
combination recording the rest. I am
sure that anyone who is a Mozart fan
will love this disc, with first and
second movement cadenzas by Sam Franko,
and third movement cadenza by David
Oistrakh.
The soloist has a very
forthright playing style with minimal
finger noise, and the dovetailing of
his playing with the very sensitive
playing of the Bavarian Radio Symphony
Orchestra under their chief conductor
is absolutely superb.
When it comes to the
Brahms Concerto, one of my favourites,
I feel that the inspiration is at a
lower level than that of the Mozart.
It is not that it is a poor performance,
far from it. However, Rachlin is no
Oistrakh, and I miss the sense of flow
that the Russian Master usually delivers
under such diverse conductors as Klemperer,
Kondrashin and Konwitschny, Pedrotti,
Szell and others.
The level of inspiration
in the Brahms isn’t quite at the exalted
level of the Mozart, but still this
is a good, rather than a great performance,
with conductor and orchestra performing
superlatively.
The Warner recording
is warm and clear, and gives an accurate
representation of both concerti. In
the Brahms concerto, the cadenza in
the first movement is the now usual
Joachim, so there is nothing to be concerned
about here. The balance between woodwind,
brass and strings in the Brahms is exemplary,
and I haven’t heard a better performance
of the orchestral part of this work
for a long time.
The recording is brand
new, having been set down in February
2004. I am sure that the soloist’s teachers
– Boris Kuschnir (in Vienna) and Pinkas
Zukerman, will both be very pleased
with this effort. I look forward with
great interest to hearing this artist
again, hopefully in similarly exalted
company.
John Phillips
Julian Rachlin (violin) 
