Ossy Renardy’s career was cut tragically short by a fatal car accident in 1953. But in 1948 he made a recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto that can still be counted among the finest on record, and which at the time of issue was compared (to advantage) with versions by Neveu, Szigeti, Heifetz and Menuhin (with Furtwangler). Apart from the spontaneous lyrical inspiration of the solo contribution, Renardy was fortunate in having Munch as his partner, who sets the scene in the opening movement with a splendid combination of Brahmsian energy and breadth. Renardy matches the rhythmic bite of the superb Concertgebouw violins in his crisp bowing (7'36'') and later he is to follow the lovely oboe melisma of the Adagio equally sensitively, and produce an exquisitely ecstatic climax (track 2, 5'48'' and onwards). It is this lyrical playing that makes the performance so memorable – as he takes up the secondary theme of the first movement (3'57'' to 4'04'') or again gently and rapturously at the end of the cadenza (18'49''). (One is reminded here of Schneiderhan in the Beethoven concerto.) The finale has plenty of life, but is perhaps less striking. Decca’s ‘ffrr’ recording made full use of the warm Concertgebouw acoustics, and Dutton has managed to take off that thinness above the stave in the violins that haunted some of Decca’s early mono recordings made in that sometimes intractable hall. Indeed both artistically and soundwise this is first-class.
Alas, I cannot say the same for Furtwangler’s Brahms Second, preserved on a subfusc recording made at the Kingsway Hall, after the conductor had rejected John Culshaw’s normal combination of six microphones, leaving just one. Mike Dutton does his best, but there is not enough immediacy or internal clarity for him to work with. The performance too, although in some ways endearing, is too often rhythmically slack in the first movement, while Furtwangler characteristically dallies by the wayside in the Adagio. The music-making finally wakes up in the finale, as if someone had switched on the aural lights, and that gorgeous secondary tune in the middle strings is wonderfully warm and resonant. The delicate solo oboe in the Allegretto is also a highlight, but otherwise this is not the LPO on top form: they sound somewhat dispirited, like the conductor. If you want a mellow reading of the Second, go to Bruno Walter on Sony, who is given excellent recording; but the Renardy performance of the Concerto is well worth the disc’s modest price.'