Elgar: Violin Concerto

There are many fine performances of the Elgar violin concerto but this one by Gil Shaham is very special. There is an almost spiritual quality to his playing.Wonderful.

I have several versions of this concerto but this is the one that captures for me its beauty, nobility, intimacy and virtuosity. Wonderful warmth from Shaham with matchless support from orchestra and conductor. I invariably join in the audience applause at the end. A wonderful CD.

I've loved this concerto all my listening life. There are many great recordings-Menuhin with Elgar and later Boult, Kennedy (not MY favourite) etc. My favourite of recent years has been Takezawa with Davis and the Bayerischer Rundfunks Orchestra-great on all counts. The recent James Ehnes with Andrew Davies is superb-and I thought with that particular recording and the dearth of classical recordings in general "the book might have been closed." Then-halllujah!- in the last couple of years, we've had this recording, Znaider/Davis/Dresden and Zehetmair/Halle/Elder-all superb in different ways-I've got them all, but THIS is THE one!! This is pure Romanticism at its best-I cannot get to the end of the second movement without becoming tearful. Shaham has been "sent to us" to play this concerto-I have NO criticism at all. Similarly, Zinman is in complete harmony with the reading and takes away my breath at times with some of his interpretative touches. Needless to say, the CSO is magnificent in a typically American sounding way. If the sound is just a tad dry in the hall where this live concert was recorded, it's not enough to detract from the overall excellence.There is nothing ascetic about this reading, nor should there be.In a catalogue with many superb readings available, this for me surpasses them ALL . I gave a slightly lukewarm review to the recent beautiful Znaider recording-and that was because for me it pales in comparison to this one.Unreserved praise and recommendation as First Choice-Best Buy!! Stewart Crowe.

I turned on BBC Radio 3 to find the last movement of this concerto just starting. The perfomance I heard was quite to my liking, but the sound was not (on either FM or their new HD sound.) I just had to turn it off and put on this disc instead. The one that I had rejected turned out to be the Kennedy/Handley/LPO one:  Elgar - Violin Concerto . I am slighly surprised that I was reasonably happy with the performance, but then it is early Kennedy.On this recording, Shaham has the emotion just right. Perhaps it is something about a live performance that just cannot be created in a recording session.The recording engineers had to choose a compromise between losing some of the hall acoustics and risking too much audience noise. For my taste they chose a tiny bit too much on the side of avoiding audience noise. Nevertheless, they resisted the temptation to bring the soloist excessively forward in the balance. They just placed me in the second row stalls when I would have preferred a seat in the 10th row.The 5 pages of notes by Andrew Neill are excellent and more than make up for the absence of any additional tracks.Eric