Nigel Kennedy, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley - Elgar - Violin Concerto (1984)

EMI has several recordings of Elgar' lushly romantic Violin Concerto in their catalog including the implicitly definitive 1932 recording with the young Yehudi Menuhin as the soloist and the composer himself on the podium. So guess which one was released on the "Great Recordings of the Century" imprint in 2006? Not the Menuhin/Elgar: the 1983 recording with the young Nigel Kennedy as the soloist and the mature Vernon Handley on the podium. As it turns out, they made the right decision. At the time, Kennedy had a strong career in Britain plus some good continental gigs, but with this astounding recording, he instantly became an international violin superstar. It's true that his later orbit did spin more eccentrically than most superstars -- his disc of Jimi Hendrix covers was a stretch, although his flaming virtuosity made it work -- but in this recording, Kennedy is the ultimate advocate for Elgar's Violin Concerto.

His playing is brilliant, a bit rough at the edges in the fast passages but all the more exciting because of it; and his tone is bright, a bit raw in triple stops but all the more thrilling because of it; but, best of all, his interpretation is intimate, ecstatic, virtually vocal, and overwhelmingly passionate. Elgar conceived the work as a musical portrait of an illicit love affair, and the young Kennedy's ardent performance seems far deeper under the emotional skin of the concerto than the young Menuhin's lovely but ever so slightly precious performance. Vernon Handley, the protégé of venerable English conductor Adrian Boult, leads the London Philharmonic in a powerfully symphonic performance of the accompaniment that challenges and cajoles Kennedy as much as it supports him. While Handley and the LPO's strings recording of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro from 1984 is an appropriate coupling, Handley's conducting seems rushed and brusque and the LPO's strings sound scrappy and not always together. Nevertheless and despite the existence of the implicitly definitive 1932 Menuhin/Elgar recording, the 1983 Kennedy/Handley recording is indeed one of the great recordings of the twentieth century. EMI's early digital sound is as good as its late stereo sound: clear, open, deep, and warm.