Itzhak Perlman, LPO, Daniel Barenboim - Dvorak: Violin Concerto; Romance (2015) [HDTracks]

Antonín Dvorák had about as much luck with the dedicatee of his violin concerto, the great Joseph Joachim, as Tchaikovsky had with his, the no less illustrious Leopold Auer. Although Joachim agreed to do a critical analysis of the first draft — resulting in a radical reworking of the piece – he did not give the premiere of the finished article, that privilege instead falling to the young Czech violinist František Ondrícek (1857–1922), in Prague on 14 October 1883. Acclaimed from the outset by both performers and audiences, the work soon took a place of honour among the great Romantic concertos, if without achieving quite the same level of celebrity as the Brahms or the Tchaikovsky. That said, there are today more than fifty official recordings available: before Perlman, all the stars of the violin world, with the exception of Heifetz, who never recorded it, had left their stamp on it. Yehudi Menuhin recorded the concerto as early as 1936, and was followed by Georg Kulenkampff (1941), Váša Príhoda (1943), David Oistrakh (1949), Nathan Milstein (who became the work’s champion, with three versions, in 1951, 1957 and 1966), Johanna Martzy (1953) and Isaac Stern (1965). This performance by Perlman, on one of his earliest albums, revealed the depth of his affection for Dvorˇák’s music — he would go on to record the Sonatina and Four Romantic Pieces as well (see volume 36). His choice to couple the Concerto with the delightful Romance in F minor underlines his particular fondness for the latter, a work he had already recorded for RCA in 1967, and which he would return to again years later, this time for Sony in 1993. The Romance is Dvorák’s 1877 violin arrangement of the slow movement of his String Quartet, Op.9, later published as his Op.11. Brimming with gentle languor and delicate charm, the arrangement works perfectly for the discreetly sentimental Romantic solo instrument. While there is also a version with piano accompaniment, it is more frequently recorded with orchestra, and the versions set down by Josef Suk (1960) and Isaac Stern (1966) in this form probably inspired the young Itzhak Perlman to follow suit.