Bernard Haitink conducts Brahms’ Double Concerto in a broad, big-boned manner, slightly slower than his later remake for EMI, but no less vital. He is keenly attuned to the dizzy euphoria and searing passion of this work, a surprisingly virile product of Brahms’ last years. Cellist Janos Starker has the measure of his massive part, and despite a wincing lapse in intonation at the beginning, projects mastery and imagination throughout. Henryk Szeryng’s solo violin emits a lean, taut tone, but he manages to produce some wonderfully delicate sounds during passages of repose, especially in the slow movement. The Concertgebouw Orchestra produces a full, lush Brahmsian sound that is well captured by the Philips engineers.
The coupled Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Strings is an odd work–the solo writing is so virtuosic and fully fleshed-out that it comes off more like a sonata for violin and piano with orchestral cushioning. In any event, both Jaap van Zweden and Ronald Brautigam give crackerjack performances (especially Brautigam as he negotiates Mendelssohn’s knuckle-busting piano runs in the first movement), well supported by the conductorless Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra. The sound understandably balances the soloists forward. An intriguing release from Eloquence.
