Not having heard these performances for very many years I found it not too difficult to listen to them as though they were newly recorded and appearing on CD in advance of their LP release. I found astonishingly little that needed making allowances for. The sound is mono, of course, but the balance is so unobtrusively natural that I was unaware of any serious restriction—the sound is not spectacularly clear, but who would want it to be? The orchestral textures are satisfyingly rich, that of the Berlin orchestra especially, and the solo violin is rendered with admirable realism but without that unnatural closeness that magnifies those mechanical sounds that really only the player should hear. Nor did I find that the added directness of CD brought with it any disadvantage, other than a quite steady low hum that in audible throughout the Beethoven—the Piccadilly Line, perhaps (it was recorded in the Kingsway Hall)? It is slightly annoying but I did not find that it distracted me from the performance, which is a magnificent one. It was, no doubt, recorded in several takes, but there is no evidence of this: the work grows as it proceeds, with an objective clearly in view, and a strong sense of absorbed and intent collaborative music-making.
Some may not care, these days, for quite such a massive orchestral sound in the Mendelssohn, but the violin tone here seems to have grown as well, and there is never any imbalance. Menuhin takes a page or two to get into the mood of the slow movement (and the pause after it is surely too long), but the light touch of the finale, at a crisp but unhurried tempo, is enchanting. I have made no direct comparison, but would be well content if these were to be the only performances of these concertos in my collection. They are big performances, with a recorded sound to match, and I did not miss stereo for one moment.'