Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880)
[01:34] 01. Caprice in A minor
[02:07] 02. Obertass-Mazurka, Op. 19 No. 1
[08:41] 03. Polonaise brillante No. 2 in A major, Op. 21
[04:41] 04. Polonaise de concert No. 1 in D major, Op. 4
[04:32] 05. Scherzo-tarantelle in G minor, Op. 16

Itzhak Perlman, violin
Samuel Sanders, piano

Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 14
[15:22] 06. I Allegro moderato
[05:21] 07. II Preghiera. Larghetto
[07:10] 08. III Rondo. Allegro giocoso

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22
[11:20] 09. I Allegro moderato
[05:06] 10. II Romance. Andante non troppo
[05:52] 11. III Allegro con fuoco - Allegro moderato

Itzhak Perlman, violin
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa

Recording: (6-11) 1973, (4-5) 1974, (1) 1977, (2-3) 1979

"Poor Wieniawski!", Tchaikovsky wrote to their mutual patroness Nadezhda von Meek. "I reckon him very gifted. . . . His charming Legend and a few parts of the D minor concerto give evidence of a serious creative talent". When he died, in Moscow in 1880, not yet 45, one of the great talents of nineteenth-century violin virtuosity was lost; he is the link between the Franco-Belgian school and the modern Russians, who have always followed Tchaikovsky in holding him in great honour. He was the first violin professor at Anton Rubinstein's new Conservatory in St Petersburg in 1862; his assistant was Leopold Auer, who followed some of his methods and was the teacher of Elrnan, Heifetz and Zimbalist. His work and his music are directly connected to a style of violin playing we may still hear on our concert platforms today.

The music, too, could do with an occasional airing. The Second Concerto has not lacked enthusiasts to echo Tchaikovsky's admiration; and it is, indeed, easy to see how the easy lyrical line and the gipsy exuberance of the finale would appeal to Tchaikovsky. The First Concerto, in F sharp minor, earns a dismissive comment in the current edition of Grove, I see, which seems less than fair: the middle movement, a Preghiera, is a dark, intense and very beautiful movement and the finale has a lively kick to it, a sense of joie de vivre and of joy in mastery of the instrument. It is obviously very much the music of the man of whom the young Hubay could write (in a translation of a notice written for a Budapest paper in 1877), "Wieniawski is equally far removed from German sentimentality and Italian exaggerated sweetness of which Paganini himself was not free. Even in moments of highest emotion and ardour he never transgresses elegance of style and noble taste".

The latter sentence could well describe Perlman's glowing performances. Even more casual manner, or than Ida Haendel, Concerto (coupled to Kabalevsky's Concerto) with much dash but in somewhat more casual manner, or than Ida Haendel, whose playing is careful and lyrical but lacking in the drive also demanded (her coupling is Glazunov's Concerto), Perlman captures the warmth and fervour and brilliance and the more than slight salting of showmanship which are part of what is also a genuine lyrical gift. This is superb playing of superb virtuoso music, well worth attention from many music-lovers to whom Wieniawski can be hardly more than a name. The recording is suitably warm and vivid. --- arkivmusic.com

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Béla Bartók - Violin Concerto No.2 Sz112
01. I. Allegro Non Troppo 15:58
02. II. Andante Tranquillo 9:45
03. III. Allegro Molto 12:00

Julius Conus - Violin Concerto E minor
04. I. Allegro Molto 5:24
05. II. Adagio 9:53
06. III. Cadenza. Allegro Subito 3:41

Christian Sinding - Suite For Violin And Orchestra, Op.10 A minor
07. I. Presto 1:42
08. II. Adagio 5:41
09. III. Tempo Giusto 5:04

Itzhak Perlman – violin
London Symphony Orchestra (1-3, 7-9)
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (4-6)
André Previn  - conductor

Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2 was commissioned by the Hungarian violinist Zoltán Székely almost thirty years after the first concerto was completed. Bartók at the time would have preferred to write an extended set of variations, but Székely maintained that, seeing as he was paying for the work, he should get what he asked for. Bartók reluctantly agreed – but later pointed out that he had had his way after all, seeing as the central movement is in variation form, and the finale works with variations of themes from the first movement.

Conus was a Russian (actually spelled Konius)who lived in Paris and taught at the Russian Conservatoire of Paris. His concerto is written in a "French" style, using chromatic harmony, but keeps the sweep op big Russian Themes alive at the same time. Technically, it offers great opportunities to develop your coordination, your ear, your sense of rhythmic flow and especially your focused concentration when practicing. Its an excellent piece. The second movement is very beautiful. The concerto is in an unusual form. Essentially, it is in one movement because the first movement is interrupted in the middle by the second movement, then resumes in in the recapitulation. There is an extensive cadenza followed by a page long coda to conclude. Cool piece. --- David Russell, violinist.com

Christian Sinding's Suite for Violin and Orchestra is rarely performed. Inadvertently, the Norwegian-born composer might well have written himself into that no man's land of singular kitsch by virtue of his once fashionably popular "Rustle of Spring," a piano piece destined to show off the newly established technique of intermediate pianists. The Suite, on the other hand, is actually real music, and was a concert favorite of Heifetz and Perlman.

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Disc 1 - In The Fiddler's House (72:16):

1. Reb Itzik's Nign (with Brave Old World) (6:06)
2. Simkhes-Toyre Time (with The Klezmatics) (3:25)
3. Flatbush Waltz (with The Andy Stratman Klezmer Orchestra) (6:15)
4. Wedding Medley (with The Klezmer Conservatory Band) (5:08)
5. Dybbuk Shers (with The Klezmatics) (4:49)
6. Basarabye (with Brave Old World) (6:59)
7. Firn di Mekhutonim Aheym (with The Klezmer Conservatory Band) (5:37)
8. Tati un Mama Tants (with The Andy Stratman Klezmer Orchestra) (5:52)
9. Fisherlid / Klezmatics Khosidl (with The Klezmatics) (6:28)
10. Der alter Bulgar & Forshpil (with The Andy Stratman Klezmer Orchestra) (5:55)
11. Ale Brider (with The Klezmer Conservatory Band) (3:45)
12. Honga (with The Klezmatics) (2:51)
13. Doyna & Skotshna (with Brave Old World) (3:34)
14. Der heyser Bulgar (with The Klezmer Conservatory Band) (3:55)
15. Di Gayster (with The Klezmatics) (1:37)

Disc 2 - Live In The Fiddler's House (76:31):

1. Bukovina 212 (with Brave Old World) (4:31)
2. Lekho Neraneno (with Brave Old World) (5:00)
3. Doina Naftule (with Brave Old World) (2:44)
4. A Hora mit Branfn (with Brave Old World) (3:26)
5. Healthy Baby Girl Hora (with The Klezmatics) (2:16)
6. Golem Tants (with The Klezmatics) (1:49)
7. Honga Encore (with The Klezmatics) (1:35)
8. Nigh (with The Klezmatics) (5:32)
9. Bulgars / The Kiss (with The Klezmatics) (5:09)
10. Meron Nign / In the Sukke (with The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra) (6:02)
11. Sholom Aleykhem (with The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra) (4:34)
12. Khaiterma (with The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra) (2:55)
13. Andy's Ride (with The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra) (2:57)
14. A Heymisher Bulgar / Wedding Dance (with the Klezmer Conservatory Band) (3:14)
15. Kale Bazetsn / Khusidl (Khasidic Dance) (with the Klezmer Conservatory Band) (4:30)
16. Fun Tashlikh (with the Klezmer Conservatory Band) (3:02)
17. A Yingele fun Poyln (A Young Man from Poland) / Di Mame iz Gegangen in Mark Arayn (Mother Went to Market)
 (with the Klezmer Conservatory Band) (5:00)
18. Finale - Processional / Klezmer Suite / Ale Brider (We Are All Brothers) (12:15)

Klezmer, the Instrument of Song, is celebrated internationally now. But back in the mid-nineties when things were beginning to hot up Perlman visited Cracow where he met the band Brave Old World, on tour, and learned the idiom. He ‘felt at home’ quickly. Interspersed with the Polish itinerary we have shots from an obviously convivial New York meal Perlman had with the wisest of the Borscht Belt wiseacres, Red Buttons, who alas died in 2006 and Fyvush Finkel. Finkel is a particular delight. When the time comes he should be stuffed, mounted and his glass cabinet dragged around New York as a memento of all that was best in Yiddish Theatre in that city.

Perlman is shown practising, quipping with fellow Klezmer players – a stellar lot as one can note. We meet his father, in Cracow and both father and son meet one of the great players, Leopold Kozlowski – who speaks Yiddish with Perlman senior. Perlman junior sticks elsewhere to English and German. We have some shots from Perlman’s daughter’s wedding and of course a great deal of that fabled family warmth. The gradual process of absorption of an idiom felt but not truly experienced is rather fascinating to observe. Especially top drawer is the ‘startled chicken’ look Perlman gives when the Klezmatics break out into a really funky groove. ‘What’s happening?’ mouths the delightedly bemused virtuoso as the electric fiddles saw away. When he brandishes one he does so with a concerned dynamism.

Live in the Fiddler’s House was recorded at Radio City Music Hall about a year later. There is plenty of variety both in the bands and therefore instrumentation and in their approach – whether more traditional, or more challenging. Perlman negotiates the boundaries nimbly. I took to the loping waltz of Flatbush Waltz by The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra in a big way but there are pleasurable moments throughout, not least in the vital clarinet-led pyrotechnics of The Klezmatics, the command of tempo of Brave Old World or the virtuosity of The Klezmer Conservatory Band. But really all the bands contain all these elements in profusion. Whether as orator, Cantor or obbligatist Perlman lends his classical, Klezmer infiltrated genius to all tempos and moods. Klezmer and Fado, two very different musics, share an ability to summon up place, and evoke a rich emotional response. They both have their long lineage and their controversies. You’ll need Lisbon for Fado. But you can evoke something of the excitement of Klezmer, mid-1990s style, in this set, in which Perlman’s Prodigal returns to his roots. --- Jonathan Woolf, musicweb-international.com

Brave Old World; Kapelye; The Klezmatics; The Klezmer Conservatory Band; The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra; Red Buttons and Fyvush Finkel and Leopold Kozlowski.

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1. Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 28: I. Allegro moderato 
2. Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 28: II. Andante 
3. Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 28: III. Moderato - Allegretto 

Itzhak Perlman – violin
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
André Previn – conductor

The Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 28, by Karl Goldmark is his most frequently performed and recorded work. It is certain, however, that only the gripping virtuoso interest afforded by its rich and rewarding solo part has accorded the concerto a public status which now outstrips that of other formerly popular Goldmark's works, like his Rustic Wedding Symphony, and his operatic masterpiece The Queen of Sheba. The concerto was written in 1877 and received its first performance in Nuremberg (or Bremen, according to some sources) one year later.

A violinist by training, Goldmark knew well how to exploit the instrument's full potential, and in this work he created one of the nineteenth century masterworks of the violin repertory, deserving (on paper at least) to take its rightful place beside Romantic concertos by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Bruch, and others. As Benjamin Folkman writes, "the violin is very much a conciliator" in the opening movement (Allegro moderato) which begins with an abrupt-sounding march figure for the orchestra in angular, urgent dotted rhythms. This returns in more lyrical and reflective style with the first appearance of the soloist, to whom the luxuriant and expansive second subject group is also predominately entrusted. The development section is an ingenious fugato transformation of the first theme, now dispersed throughout the orchestra. The Andante in G major has a touching hymn-like quality, especially at the outset where the wind instruments provide an organ-like chordal accompaniment to the eloquent solo line. The devotional atmosphere is interrupted toward its close by a horn-call, and the violin immediately takes up the lively Allegretto theme of the finale. Stated a fourth lower, it re-establishes harmonic links with the idea given out at the very start of the concerto, but it has a completely different, more outgoing character, and its technical complexities (harmonics, double-stopping, and brilliant bow work) are of true virtuoso difficulty. A more songful second subject idea follows, but the cadenza (usually heard in the first movement) only appears after another fugato-like orchestral development. The concerto ends with a further affirmative reprise for orchestra of the powerful opening figure of the concerto, thus giving the whole convincing structural unity. ---Rovi

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Violin Concerto In D, Op. 35
1. A1 Moderato Nobile (08:30)
2. A2 Romance (Andante) (08:14)
3. A3 Finale (Allegro Assai Vivace) (07:11)

Julius Conus: Violin Concerto In E Minor
4. B1 Allegro Molto - Adagio - Cadenza - Allegro Subito (18:59)

Itzhak Perlman – violin
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Andre George Previn – conductor

Erich Korngold, the son of an influential music critic, made an early splash as a child prodigy. By the time he was in his thirties, he was a successful opera composer and teacher in Vienna. For all his European triumphs, he is best remembered for his work as a film composer, which began in 1934 when Max Reinhardt, the Austrian director, invited Korngold to Hollywood to adapt Mendelssohn’s music for a new film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For four years, Korngold shuttled between Vienna and Hollywood, composing scores for such films as Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which both won Academy Awards for best score. Drawing on his operatic background, Korngold reshaped the art of film scoring by applying the principle of leitmotif, wherein memorable snippets of music accompanied particular characters or ideas.

Korngold was in California when the Nazis annexed and occupied Austria in 1938. From then on he made Hollywood his home, taking American citizenship in 1943. He ceased composing “serious” music for the duration of the war, although he continued to produce film scores. In the spring of 1945, he finally acquiesced to his friend Bronislaw Hubermann, who had been urging Korngold to write him a violin concerto. The work stalled after a young violinist gave a disastrous reading of a draft, leaving Korngold to wonder if the violin part was too difficult; meanwhile, Hubermann balked on scheduling a premiere, hedging until he could see a finished score. The impasse broke when Jascha Heifetz’s manager learned of the situation, and arranged for his star violinist to look over the concerto. Heifetz loved it, and actually encouraged Korngold to make the solo part more virtuosic. Korngold soon finished the work, and Heifetz gave the premiere performance in St. Louis. Heifetz’s many subsequent performances, plus his 1953 recording, helped establish Korngold’s concerto as standard repertoire for violinists. ---content.thespco.org

Conus was a Russian (actually spelled Konius)who lived in Paris and taught at the Russian Conservatoire of Paris. His concerto is written in a "French" style, using chromatic harmony, but keeps the sweep op big Russian Themes alive at the same time.

Technically, it offers great opportunities to develop your coordination, your ear, your sense of rhythmic flow and especially your focused concentration when practicing. Its an excellent piece. The second movement is very beautiful.

The concerto is in an unusual form. Essentially, it is in one movement because the first movement is interrupted in the middle by the second movement, then resumes in in the recapitulation. There is an extensive cadenza followed by a page long coda to conclude. ---David Russel, violinist.com

Erich Korngold, cudowne dziecko z Wiednia, stał się twórcą tzw. „hollywoodzkiego brzmienia”, poprzez swój koncert skrzypcowy, który wykorzystano w wielu ścieżkach dźwiękowych do filmów. Żaden inny solista nie oddaje lepiej emocjonalności tego utworu i jego poruszającej nostalgii, niż Itzhak Perlman. Dzieło Korngolda połączone jest na płycie z niezwykle melodyjnym koncertem rosyjskiego kompozytora – Juliusa Conusa – pochodzącym z 1898 r. Porywający, dowcipny, energetyzujący… o Itzhaku Perlmanie słyszał niemal każdy. Ten legendarny artysta jest bez wątpienia jednym z najwybitniejszych skrzypków naszych czasów. Jego niezwykle bogaty repertuar, obejmuje zarówno „żelazne” pozycje skrzypcowe, jak i rzadko wykonywane dzieła klasyczne, ale też jazz, muzykę klezmerską, a nawet muzykę filmową. Trudno opisać wkład Perlmana w historię wiolinistyki, co więcej fantastyczny charakter, błyskotliwe poczucie humoru i charyzma, czynią zeń fascynującą osobowość o bardzo wyrazistych rysach zarówno z artystycznego, jak i czysto ludzkiego punktu widzenia. ---dalga.pl

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

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Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Op. 35
1. I. Allegro moderato		17:59	
2. II. Canzonetta (Andante)		6:27
3. III. Finale (Allegro vivacissimo)	9:57	

Itzhak Perlman – violin
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Zubin Mehta – conductor

4. Sonata for Violin and Continuo in G minor, 'Devil's Trill'	13:52	
5. Liebesleid		3:16
6. The Love for Three Oranges: March	1:46
7. Baal shem: 2. Nigun		6:33	
8. 8 Etudes-Caprices Op. 18: A minor (arr. Kreisler)		1:43
9. String Quartet No. 1 in D Op. 11: Andante cantabile		4:57	
10. La Ronde des lutins Op. 25		5:03

Itzhak Perlman – violin
Janet Goodman Guggenheim - piano

Perlman is not my favorite violinist, although he is definitely up there. I think there are others, such as Gil Shaham and Hilary Hahn, who are more consistently exceptional. However, Perlman has a few recordings which simply cannot be topped. This is one of them. I have listened to many recordings of the Tchaikovsky concerto (Shaham, Bell, Heifetz, and others) and seen it live a couple times, but no performance I have heard tops this one.

It must be said that the sound engineering is not the best. There is some light hissing noise throughout and the audience is quite loud (not to mention that it claps after the first movement of the concerto). However, the musicianship that shines through all this noise is simply astounding. If I could choose one word, it would be "gritty." Perlman's unique, intense sound is perfect for this piece. His amazing vibrato is warm in the 2nd movement and thrilling in the fast sections. His articulation in the virtuosic passages sounds like machine-gun fire, incredibly accurate and clean. His glides tenderly caress the music, particularly in the initial statement of the first movement and throughout the second movement. He is showy, but never self-indulgent, tender, but never sappy. I cannot say enough good things about this performance. The orchestra under Mehta is always excellent as well, although the recording does not always flatter it. Regardless of the recording deficiencies, though, in my experience, this is THE definitive Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto recording.

As for the Tartini and the encores, I have not heard as many recordings of them, but they also are excellent. Perlman's technical fireworks in the Tartini and the Bazzini are simply astounding. The Wieniawski and Prokoviev are excellent as well. The Bloch, Kreisler, and Tchaikovsky Andante Cantabile are all gorgeous. The pianist also is very good, and he and Perlman make an excellent team.

In summary, this is, in my opinion, a must-have CD. Whether you are a violin enthusiast, classical music connoisseur, or even a newcomer, you cannot go wrong buying this CD. --- John Robert Swedberg, amazon.com

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