By a quirk of the record industry this outstanding version of Beethoven's Violin Concerto has only previously been available through Reader's Digest and Chandos is warmly to be congratulated on issuing it now, particularly on a mid-price label where its claims could not be higher. Horenstein in his last years made a number of recordings of standard repertory works which were not issued on regular labels. RCA rescued the superb series of Rachmaninov piano concerto recordings with Earl Wild as well as an excellent version of Dvorak's New World Symphony, but this is at least as valuable, when Horenstein's Beethoven, much admired in the early days of LP, has latterly been poorly represented.
I have listed three versions above, all excellent at full price, but none is strictly a direct competitor. The Ronald Thomas version (CRD) presents a fresh, direct reading on a modest scale with a distinguished orchestral leader as soloist, while Perlman's and Mutter's readings, the finest of recent versions, both represent the spacious approach, more meditative than dramatic (HMV and DG respectively). Gruenberg and Horenstein by contrast take a clean, fresh, athletic view of the outer movements, so intensifying the inward meditation of the central Larghetto. Horenstein sets the pattern in the opening tutti, beautifully detailed but not fussy, while Gruenberg reveals his purely orchestral allegiance (at various times he was leader of the LSO and RPO) with a cleaner, tighter vibrato than is common for a soloist.
My direct comparison was a version which I still treasure very highly indeed, the recording which Herman Krebbers, the former concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, made with his colleagues under Bernard Haitink, and the contrasts are most revealing (Philips 6580 115, 2/76—nla). Krebbers has a fatter tone but keeps his bravura passagework far more in tempo than is common, while Gruenberg's clean tone goes with a freer, more volatile view of the bravura, which yet never gets in the way of Horenstein's clear-cut over all control. An admirable illustration comes after the cadenza (the Kreisler, excellently done) where Gruenberg does not indulge in the usual device of adopting a speed slower than the basic tempo but yet at basic tempo brings out the full hushed beauty of the passage. That leads on to a finely poetic view of the Larghetto, where the most inward moment of meditation is at bar 45; here the lovely third theme enters for the first time. Gruenberg and Horenstein achieve a genuine pianissimo, and the beauty is enhanced by the natural balance of the soloist, where the Krebbers is slightly marred by the violinist's forward balance. Interestingly, Gruenberg is deliberately less hushed when that theme returns later with embellishment, and Beethoven's markings can be taken to justify that. In the finale Gruenberg's light, exhilarating approach is again helped by the natural balance, and the recording here and throughout, though it must date from around 1970, is well-balanced and clearer than many a more modern one. The flute ornaments for example in the first tutti of the finale add delightful point. Particularly after Gruenberg's recent set of the Beethoven Violin Sonatas (CRD CRDD1115/9, 8/84) I warmly welcome this issue, certainly the budget version I would currently choose first.'