The flood of historical reissues has now reached the point where smaller companies are offering rival versions of the same out-of-copyright material. This new Music and Arts disc pretty well duplicates a Pearl issue ((CD) GEMMCD9447) which I noted briefly last October. Pearl’s disc offers Piatigorsky’s arrangement of a short Weber violin sonata in addition to the Schumann, Beethoven and Brahms works, and that seems a better idea than the inclusion of three encore pieces, as here. On the other hand, Pearl’s transfers, though good, do not quite reach the very high standards of the new disc.
I suggested in October that Piatigorsky played with more generosity of tone and phrase in pre-war years than in the later phase of his career. Certainly his performance of the Schumann Concerto brings out the work’s deeply romantic nature wonderfully well. He plays in a gloriously lyrical manner, but also attends to detail in a most illuminating, subtle fashion, and Barbirolli conducts with much sympathy and insight. In the early Beethoven sonata Piatigorsky shows restraint and discipline, and though he plays in a highly eloquent, expressive fashion his concentration and clear classical vision well complement the intellectual approach of his formidable colleague Artur Schnabel. In the Brahms sonata Rubinstein is at his very best, and this performance has a moving nobility of expression, great insight and much strength.
All I can say of the encore pieces is that they are superbly played, but they are a big anti-climax after the serious and outstanding music-making which has gone before.'