Here are two more formidable additions to the long list of Brahms Violin Concerto recordings, both generously coupled, and both with distinctive young soloists whose readings provide fascinating contrasts. Broadly, one might say that where Zimmermann’s approach is classical and direct, Joshua Bell, in one of his finest recordings to date, is more daring in his expressiveness, often more expansive, using a far wider range of dynamics. Some of the contrasts no doubt stem from the fact that where Bell’s is a conventional studio recording, Zimmermann’s was taken from a series of live performances given at the Philharmonie in Berlin.
Curiously, it is not until the finale, where Zimmermann seems to acquire an extra degree of daring, that the advantages of live recording come home at all clearly. Till then, next to Bell, his performance seems just a little too well-mannered, with his silvery tone pointing a lack of bravura, however brilliant the playing is technically. Yet in the finale not only does the performance take wing, but Zimmermann becomes more individual, less plain in his manners, as in the little commas of expression he inserts each time in the main Hungarian dance theme.
With the string complement of the Berlin Philharmonic reduced, and Sawallisch at his most sparkling, the studio recording of the Mozart is a delight throughout, with a quicksilver lightness in the outer movements very different from the big bow-wow approach that virtuoso violinists used to adopt. More than in the Brahms Zimmermann finds a vein of fantasy, and in the central Adagio he plays with a repose and concentration markedly greater than in his live account of the Brahms slow movement.
Bell’s first entry in the Brahms immediately establishes a different kind of performance, one with none of the reticence of Zimmermann, instantly demonstrating the soloist’s love of bravura display, his gift of turning a phrase individually in a way that catches the ear, always sounding spontaneous, never self-conscious. Regularly one registers moments of new magic, not least when, in the most delicate half-tones, pianissimos seem to convey an inner communion, after which the impact of bravura fortissimos is all the more dramatic. He rounds the movement off with his own big cadenza and a magically hushed link into the coda, rapt and intense.
The slow movement, sweet and songful, gains too from Bell’s love of playing really softly, not least in stratospheric registers. Then in the finale the vein of fantasy is less apparent. Next to Zimmermann and others this seems a little plain, strong and clean but at a relatively modest pace, lacking some of the individuality of earlier, finely detailed and sharply focused as the playing is. With Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra providing both weighty and sympathetic support throughout, the performance remains one of the finest on disc, and the generous coupling of the Schumann Violin Concerto in another commanding performance adds to the attractions of the disc.
There too Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra add to the weight and dramatic impact of a performance that defies the old idea of this as an impossibly flawed piece, with Bell bringing out charm as well as power. The central slow movement has a rapt intensity rarely matched, and the dance-rhythms of the finale have fantasy as well as jauntiness and jollity, with Bell again revelling in the bravura writing. With a full-bodied, well-balanced recording this is a disc which offers an apt and rare coupling in versions unlikely to be surpassed for a long time.'