7 February 1942 witnessed
a magnetic performance of the Sibelius
Concerto from the leading German violinist
still resident in the country, Georg
Kulenkampff, and its reigning conductor
and, focus of Melodiya’s reissue programme,
Wilhelm Furtwängler. The sense
of spontaneity and tensile onrush is
palpable and at a complete remove from
the commercial recording made in the
same city under a year later by the
composer’s compatriot Anja Ignatius
with the Städtisches Orkester
Berlin under Armas Järnefelt (Symposium
1310 – see review).
Kulenkampff was better
known as a classicist but in fact his
Northern German temperament was highly
attuned to the Slavic and Russian repertoires.
A splendidly preserved performance of
the Glazunov concerto, for example,
can attest to these broad ranging interests.
Kulenkampff’s Sibelius is garnished
with plentiful portamenti, crystalline
upper string playing, burning commitment
and energy. His playing in the slow
movement is certainly his most overtly
and nakedly expressive romantic playing
on record. Furtwängler proves a
dark, dramatic Sibelian and provides
a landscape of tremendous power for
his soloist. In the finale the trombone
rasps are truly intense and for those
who find performances of this concerto
sometimes anticlimactic be assured that
this one ends in anything but disappointment.
It blazes away until the end. It’s been
reissued a few times of course; DG in
their wartime series and Music &
Arts CD 799 amongst the most prominent
labels.
En Saga comes
from the same concert. It too receives
a trenchant, simmering and brooding
reading, one that shows again the conductor’s
feel for the intense and forward moving
in this repertoire. Rubati are malleable
but convincing and the control and relaxation
of tension is marvellously vivid. Another
performance exists from Stockholm in
September 1950 (it’s on the Music &
Arts disc) but this wartime performance,
despite the less-than-optimum sound,
is significantly more penetrating and
dramatic.
To round off the disc
there’s the equally magnificent 1943
Coriolan in the conductor’s finest surviving
performance – better than the two Vienna
performances of 1947 and 1951. A demerit
is the Magnetophon tape damage – the
familiar mini pneumatic drill noise
in quieter passages. Otherwise a complete
success.
Adherents of the concerto
should have this Kulenkampff, along
with the Ignatius, Wicks, Neveu and
Heifetz on their Historic Performances
shelf. Others should get it anyway in
whichever incarnation they may find
it.
Jonathan Woolf
MELODIYA
CATALOGUE
for
details
Georg Kulenkampff (violin) 
