GREAT RECORDINGS phase 14

BRAHMS & SIBELIUS: VIOLIN CONCERTOS
Ginette Neveu
Philharmonia Orchestra /
Issay Dobrowen & Walter Susskind

4 76830 2
(Angel: 4 76831 2)
Recorded 1945 & 1946
Mono/ADD
71 minutes

Back >>

‘These great performances are recommended with all possible enthusiasm. It can be doubted that there is another artist who has, in addition to the outstanding gifts of all virtuosi, such ardour and fire, such a capacity for embracing us all in the sweep of her bow.’ (Gramophone)

Award: Diapason d’Or, France

The French violinist Ginette Neveu is another of those artists (like Dinu Lipatti, Fritz Wunderlich, Kathleen Ferrier and Jacqueline du Pré) whose early death deprived the musical world of a truly great talent. Born in Paris in 1919, Neveu was a child prodigy who made her concerto debut (playing Bruch’s First Concerto) at the age of seven. After studies with George Enescu and Carl Flesch, she triumphed at the 1935 Warsaw Wieniawski Competition.

Her developing international career was interrupted by the Second World War, which she was obliged to spend in occupied Paris. But in 1945 she was able to travel again. A sensational London debut recital, a tour of Britain and this Sibelius recording in 1945 were followed by more successes in the UK, including the EMI Brahms sessions, in 1946. For most of 1947 she toured North and South America, and in 1948 travelled to Australia, returned to the United States and visited several European cities, including Vienna, where she performed the Beethoven Concerto with the Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan.

In 1949 she appeared at the Edinburgh Festival and on 28 October was en route to America for another tour when her plane crashed on an island in the Azores. She and her brother Jean, her piano partner, were both killed. She was just 30. Fortunately, her legacy includes a handful of recordings, including these famous performances of the Brahms and Sibelius Concertos, which serve as a testament to her remarkable musical spirit.