Description
Warner Classics: Beethoven — Violin Concerto & 2 Romances, Midori / Festival Strings Lucerne Audio CD
Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details:
- Product Type: Audio CD
- Brand / Label: Warner Classics
- Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
- Soloist: Midori (violin)
- Orchestra: Festival Strings Lucerne
- Leader: Daniel Dodds
- Cadenzas: Fritz Kreisler
- Release Year: 2020
- Genre: Classical
- Style: Violin Concerto, Chamber Orchestra
- Catalog Number: 0190295179205
- UPC: 190295179205
- Condition: Factory Sealed
Product Features
- Format: CD
- Discs: 1
- Tracks: 5
- Total Runtime: 56:08
- Packaging: Digipak (cardboard sleeve), factory shrink-wrapped
- Manufactured and printed in Germany
Overview
Midori's Beethoven Violin Concerto, recorded with the Festival Strings Lucerne under Daniel Dodds and released on Warner Classics in 2020. The choice of a chamber string orchestra rather than a full symphony ensemble is a considered one: it gives the concerto a leaner, more conversational texture, and Midori responds with playing that is correspondingly intimate without losing any of the work's structural grandeur.
The Violin Concerto in D major Op. 61 is one of the most demanding works in the repertoire — not technically, exactly, but interpretively. The first movement runs nearly 24 minutes and requires the soloist to sustain a singing line and a sense of inevitability across an enormous span. Midori uses the Fritz Kreisler cadenzas, which are among the most performed and most musically satisfying of the many cadenza options available for this work.
The two Romances (Op. 40 in G major and Op. 50 in F major) fill out the disc beautifully — shorter, lyrical pieces that show a different side of Beethoven's writing for violin, gentle and melodically direct. At 56 minutes total, this is a well-proportioned programme. The 2020 recording is clean and spacious, and the digipak presentation gives it a premium feel.
Interesting Facts
- Midori (Midori Goto, born Osaka, 1971) first came to international attention at age 11 when she performed with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic on live television on New Year's Eve 1982.
- Beethoven's Violin Concerto Op. 61 had an indifferent premiere in Vienna in December 1806; it was largely neglected for decades until Joseph Joachim performed it as a teenager in 1844, effectively launching its place in the standard repertoire.
- Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962), whose cadenzas Midori uses here, was one of the most influential violinists of the 20th century; his cadenzas for the Beethoven concerto are widely considered the gold standard and are used by the majority of soloists today.
- The Festival Strings Lucerne, founded in 1956 by Rudolf Baumgartner, is one of Switzerland's most distinguished chamber string orchestras; its size and flexibility make it an ideal partner for concertos of the Classical and early Romantic period.
- Daniel Dodds, an Australian violinist who serves as concertmaster and leader of the Festival Strings Lucerne, led the orchestra from the concertmaster's desk rather than conducting from a podium — a historically grounded approach for this repertoire.
- Beethoven wrote the two Romances for violin and orchestra at the turn of the 19th century, predating the Violin Concerto by several years; they are now among his most beloved shorter orchestral works.
Track Listing
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, Op. 61 (Cadenzas by Fritz Kreisler)
- I. Allegro ma non troppo — 23:37
- II. Larghetto — 8:43
-
III. Rondo — 9:48
-
Romance in G major, Op. 40 — 6:05
- Romance in F major, Op. 50 — 7:53
Total: 56:08
Publishers
℗ 2020 Midori Goto under exclusive licence to Parlophone Records Limited. © 2020 Parlophone Records Limited. A Warner Classics release. Manufactured and printed in Germany.
Just added this to your collection? A short review helps other violin lovers find it.
