His constant portamento (sliding from one note to another) is more controversial, but is also part of his character and allows a glimpse to practices by some of the late 19th-century violin players. His playing may seem anachronistic to listeners today, yet you can’t deny the utter charm of his humane phrasing, along with his delicate and nonintrusive vibrato.
#Famous violin repertoire full
Most likely, the earliest recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in full was made in 1926 by Fritz Kreisler, who represented an old Viennese style of music-making. Mendelssohn Violin Concerto – The Early Days So let’s dive in, starting with some early attempts at putting the Concerto on record. The complete recording catalog is in the high hundreds, so choosing the best version is a big challenge.Īfter going through many recordings, this guide will settle on three versions that can be recommended as the best recordings of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. In fact, with every evolution of the recording industry, we saw a wave of new recordings released, from the mono to long-play records (LP), stereo, digital, DVD and SACD. When this guide is published (2019), the first known full recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto was made by the legendary Fritz Kreisler in 1926, and every year there are few more versions released, some successful, some less memorable. Violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, for example, recorded a violin and piano reduction of the third movement of the Concerto as early as 1912. Naturally, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto is one of the most recorded works from the classical music repertoire, right from the early days of the recording industry. Although now an almost mandatory piece to have in any violinist’s repertoire, this is far from an easy piece to play, requiring good intonation, vibrato and bow techniques to be adequately performed. Reportedly, Mendelssohn disdained audiences who clap in between multiple-movement pieces, and here he wrote a concerto of 30 minutes that have no breaks in between movements. In a “classical” concerto, the orchestra usually gives the introduction of the main themes, and the cadenza comes later, just before the coda of the movement. Although the first movement is built around the classical sonata form, the violin is ahead of the game, so to speak, introducing the main theme, giving a written cadenza before the return of the main subjects (“recapitulation”) and asks for an extremely demanding technical abilities from the soloist, even in the accompaniment sections. From a compositional standpoint, the Concerto bellies what the audience of the time must have felt was unexpected. The vast popularity of the piece does not mean it’s a simple one, not in its compositional inventiveness nor its technical demands. From the first performances, the Concerto enjoyed extremely positive receptions, and never left the core repertoire. Mendelssohn wrote his Violin Concerto over a period of 6 years, from 1838 to 1844, and it was premiered a year later, in 1845. Mendelssohn Violin Concerto – Composition History
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