MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
Crotchet

 

Jean SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
Violin Concerto Op. 47 (1903 rev. 1905) [30:15]
Aram KHACHATURIAN (1903-1978)
Violin Concerto (1940) [34:05]
Pablo de SARASATE (1844-1908)

Carmen Fantasy after Bizet’s Opera Op.25 [9:07]
Gerhard Taschner (violin)
Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra/Herbert Sandberg (Sibelius); NWDR Symphony Orchestra/Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (Khachaturian); Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Fritz Lehmann.
rec. 6 January 1956; live 8-9 May 1955; live, 21 August 1953
MUSIKPRODUKTION DABRINGHAUS UND GRIMM MDG 642 1508-2
[73:39]
Experience Classicsonline

The white-heat Gold Standard for German violinists in Sibelius was set by Kulenkampff, whose live broadcast with Furtwängler has been widely re-issued. That was a performance of searing intensity. Over a decade later Gerhard Taschner turned to it – he shared something of the Hanseatic Kulenkampff’s predilection for the Slavic. But Taschner’s Sibelius couldn’t be more different from that of his august predecessor. It’s lightly bowed and curiously undemonstrative despite the quick slides. He reserves tensile power and instead adopts a broadly aristocratic, rather aloof profile. The first movement cadential passages are rather unconvincingly phrased and the orchestra meanwhile sounds rather prosaic and uncommitted. Taschner brings some fanciful moments to the finale, a movement he apparently spoke to Sibelius about in 1944, proposing a slower-than-usual tempo. Here he plays the standard type of tempo. And as a whole this is a rather lightweight reading.

Tahra has already released two Taschner performances of the Khachaturian concerto, one with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin under Rother from September 1947 [Tahra 350/51] and this one from 1955 with Schmidt-Isserstedt. Once more it shows Taschner’s affinities with music somewhat to the east of the Austro-German hegemony, a trait - as one has already noted - that he shared with Kulenkampff, who was Hanseatic, and inclined to be broad-minded. Taschner’s way with the work is tensile and enjoyable though it’s not the last word in tonal variety. He’s certainly not nearly as tonally arresting or rhythmically incisive as the two leading Russian exponents of the work, Oistrakh and Kogan. He finds poetic warmth in the second movement within certain rather limited expressive ranges but leads a spirited, fluent finale.

The Sarasate was taped in a very reverberant church acoustic with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Lehmann. Taschner is at his best here, charismatic, powerful - totally committed music making.

I prefer MDG’s transfer of the Khachaturian to Tahra’s. It has a slightly clearer sound-stage than Tahra’s slightly muddier one. As for the Sibelius if you have Archipel ARPCD 8232 – the most recent incarnation of which I’m aware – you‘ll find MDG’s work clearer and far more open on all fronts and greatly to be preferred.

Jonathan Woolf




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.