This welcome reissue shows Yehudi Menuhin in a role that’s easily overlooked – as an instigator and performer of new music. His charisma as a player is, perhaps, especially apparent in less familiar music, and it’s notable how strongly he’s able to identify with the emotional tone of all three concertos here. And, on the splendid-sounding digital remasterings of the original EMI Abbey Road recordings, the tonal variety of his playing is striking.
I find Panufnik’s the most original and memorable of the three concertos – the simplicity of the material seems to spur his imagination to produce music of concentrated and intense expression, above all in the central Adagio which Menuhin plays with complete conviction at a daringly slow tempo. On the rival recording Smietana plays the concerto more coolly, with brilliance and, it must be said, more neatly than Menuhin. But I missed Menuhin’s romantic ardour and the recording, though admirably clean and spacious, lacks the bloom of the EMI disc.
Berkeley’s Violin Concerto is in his later, more dissonant style, but it’s a very approachable work, with straightforward rhythmic verve and appealing lyricism. The orchestral contribution is admirably bright and spirited, whilst Menuhin gives a very personal character to the singing melodies – there are places where the world of Berg’s Violin Concerto seems only just round the corner. By comparison, the Williamson, the only work here to use a full orchestra, is more superficial in that it relies on large-scale striking effects. Menuhin’s fierce intensity is just right for the outer slow movements, whilst all the players sound fully involved in the second movement’s manic drive'