GREAT RECORDINGS phase 15

BRAHMS: DOUBLE CONCERTO* · TRAGIC OVERTURE
BRUCH: VIOLIN CONCERTO No.1
David Oistrakh & *Pierre Fournier
Philharmonia Orchestra/Alceo Galliera
London Symphony Orchestra/Lovro von Matacic

3 45758 2
(Angel: 3 45765 2)
Recorded 1956 & 1954
Stereo/Mono/ADD
71 minutes

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‘In the Brahms, Oistrakh and Fournier make an incomparable team. The eloquence of Fournier’s phrasing and Oistrakh’s golden tone are beyond praise. Helped by a first-class recording and excellent orchestral playing, Oistrakh’s performance of the Bruch is a winner.’
(The Gramophone) Award: Diapason d’Or, France

This CD of two of the most popular late 19th-century string concertos features the distinguished French cellist Pierre Fournier (1906–1986) and the great Russian violinist David Oistrakh (1908–1974), who first met in 1947 in Prague, where they enjoyed an instant rapport. But they did not make music together until 1954, when they played through the Brahms Double Concerto in a Stockholm radio studio.

Fournier, who had just been coaxed back to EMI, immediately contacted the producer Walter Legge to suggest a recording of the Brahms. Full of enthusiasm, Legge set up the sessions in London in February and March 1956. The orchestra was Legge’s own Philharmonia and the conductor the Italian Alceo Galliera, a superb orchestral trainer and accompanist. The original LP coupling was Brahms’s Tragic Overture, which is also included in this reissue.

EMI was always eager to record Oistrakh. An earlier opportunity had come in November 1954, when Oistrakh recorded the contents of a classic LP: this famous performance of Bruch’s hugely popular G minor Concerto coupled with Prokofiev’s Second (which is already available in this series on a disc devoted to Oistrakh’s EMI recordings of Prokofiev’s two violin concertos and his second violin sonata).

Both concertos on this disc have close links with the great 19th-century violinist Joseph Joachim. Brahms wrote his Double Concerto (1887) for Joachim as a gesture of reconciliation after the two men had fallen out over the violinist’s acrimonious divorce, and Max Bruch sought Joachim’s help when writing his First Concerto (1868). Joachim gave the premieres of both works.