It is a matter for welcome when an issue such as this one featuring two British violin concertos of our century comes from the Soviet Union. It is true that from the time of the Frank Bridge Variations in Salzburg in 1937 Britten has proved eminently exportable, but that has not always been so with Elgar; yet ideally the 'Britishness' of the great Edwardian should not itself be a barrier to understanding outside his country any more than, say the Bohemian aspect of Dvorak. Indeed, I possess an LP version of the Second Symphony under Svetlanov on EMI (nla) and have admired Kyung Wha Chung and Solti in their thoughtful and eloquent account of the Violin Concerto for Decca, to say nothing of the young Menuhin recorded over half a century ago with the composer (reviewed on page 1010).
Having said all that, I do not feel that in this performance of the Elgar Concerto (which comes first on the disc) the skilful Igor Oistrakh and his sympathetic partner Valentin Zhuk with his Moscow Symphony Orchestra have fully mastered the shape and contour of Elgar's thought in this discursive yet often passionately concentrated work. The delivery sometimes unfolds a bar at a time where the listener looks for a longer-breathed utterance; and while this Russian performance certainly deserves good marks for effort I do not feel it to be as inside the music or as technically competent as those by Chung and Solti, or with the same orchestra and finely recorded, Nigel Kennedy and Vernon Handley on EMI. For accomplishment and total commitment to the style, the latter must be the best current version, but their account of the finale is a good deal more spacious than that of the alternative versions (three minutes longer than this new one). It is just possible anyone who prefers Elgar with less lingering sentiment would find Oistrakh or (preferably) Chung worth investigating before committing themselves to the deservedly praised EMI performance.
Written at a time when Britten was highly aware of Russian composers and perhaps in this case especially Prokofiev, his Concerto is probably more accessible stylistically than the Elgar to a violinist from Eastern Europe, and Boris Gutnikov brings skill and commitment to the piece. In some ways his performance is not unlike that of Mark Lubotsky on Decca, and like him he is warm and sensitive but unable to sail easily through the difficulties of a solo part that even Heifetz wanted changed in the interests of practicability. (Britten resisted, and as far as I know Heifetz never played the work.) The scherzo has the most notorious passages, and on the whole Gutnikov makes a convincing showing here, while elsewhere he is often distinctly moving. The Leningrad Philharmonic under Dmitriev are quite acceptable too, but here and there—for example in the finale— they sound less than wholly at ease with the idiom. Altogether, this is a generously filled CD worth having at medium price, especially if the main interest is in the Britten (the Elgar Concerto of Kennedy and Handley comes uncoupled, and at well over 50 minutes not unreasonably so the Chung/Solti issue has just two short fill-ups), but otherwise it cannot compete with the best alternatives, remembering Britten's own participation in the mid-price Decca CD that also includes a fine Richter performance of Britten's Piano Concerto.'