Davidovici/Royal PO/Nowak
(Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)
First rate though Robert Davidovici's performances of Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto and the violin-and-orchestra version of Lutosławski's Partita are, there's no shortage of existing recordings of either work, some of them superlative. The Violin Concerto by Paul Kletzki is the real treasure here; it appears on disc for the first time and is much more than a historical curiosity. Up to the outbreak of the second world war Kletzki worked both as a composer and conductor. But he gave up composition in 1942, believing all his manuscripts had been destroyed when he was forced to flee central Europe. In the postwar period, his conducting career thrived – his Mahler performances and recordings were particularly admired – and only after his death in 1973 was it discovered that many of his scores had survived intact. Among them are three symphonies and three concertos, including this work for violin, which was first performed in 1928. It's a three-movement piece modelled, I'd guess, on the Brahms concerto, but with its late-Romantic gestures overlaid with much more chromatic harmonies and exotic textures; the result is well worth investigating. It certainly never suffers by comparison with the other works here.
Rating: 4/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.
(Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)
First rate though Robert Davidovici's performances of Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto and the violin-and-orchestra version of Lutosławski's Partita are, there's no shortage of existing recordings of either work, some of them superlative. The Violin Concerto by Paul Kletzki is the real treasure here; it appears on disc for the first time and is much more than a historical curiosity. Up to the outbreak of the second world war Kletzki worked both as a composer and conductor. But he gave up composition in 1942, believing all his manuscripts had been destroyed when he was forced to flee central Europe. In the postwar period, his conducting career thrived – his Mahler performances and recordings were particularly admired – and only after his death in 1973 was it discovered that many of his scores had survived intact. Among them are three symphonies and three concertos, including this work for violin, which was first performed in 1928. It's a three-movement piece modelled, I'd guess, on the Brahms concerto, but with its late-Romantic gestures overlaid with much more chromatic harmonies and exotic textures; the result is well worth investigating. It certainly never suffers by comparison with the other works here.
Rating: 4/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.
