Dvorák’s Violin Concerto sits awkwardly with Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole on this Virgin “The Classics” reissue. In the former, violinist Christian Tetzlaff takes a powerfully robust view. Certainly the difficult opening (many a violinist’s graveyard with its fearsome leaps up the E-string before the player has really had time to warm up) is highly assured, but the promise is short-lived and Tetzlaff’s performance as a whole disappoints. His gear-changes aren’t seamless: there’s no attempt made to modulate the speed of vibrato at the start of the lyrical second theme, whereas Salvatore Accardo (Philips), Hermann Krebbers (Philips/Royal Long Players), and Josef Suk (Supraphon) all offer greater tonal variety and imagination in their performances. Virgin’s engineering doesn’t give enough prominence to the horns’ important parts in the slow movement, and throughout Tetzlaff himself is given an unrealistically big presence before the microphones.
Lalo’s colorful Spanish symphony goes better. Its more out-going mood is well-suited to Tetzlaff’s temperament, though you’ll miss the endlessly seductive nuances that make Itzhak Perlman’s DG account with Barenboim so infectious. In short, there’s nothing bad here, but there’s also nothing memorable or special that would help this release stand out in a very crowded field for both works.
