Schumann's Violin Concerto is still a vastly underrated work, but even so it is surprising that Telefunken's historically important first recording should have had to wait until now for reissue on CD. That two versions of the performance have arrived almost at the same time is less surprising, since fate always seems to work with record companies in this fashion. Hard luck on the collector, too, who might want both the Sibelius and the Mendelssohn, and will thus have to duplicate the third piece.
Kulenkampff recorded the Schumann less than a month after he had given the much belated first performance with the BPO under Karl Bohm in November 1937. Bohm was an Electrola artist, and so Schmidt-Isserstedt was engaged to conduct the studio sessions. The orchestral accompaniment is in fact strong and very committed, but also very sensitive: it forms an ideal backcloth for the soloist's lyrical, tonally beautiful and technically secure playing throughout the Concerto. Kulenkampff brings a very inward, rather gentle, caring quality to the slow movement which is particularly affecting. The basic tempo of the finale is a little on the fast side, but both the music and the performance still come to life in an extremely attractive, positive fashion. Original matrices no longer exist and both transfers were made from commercial pressings. Dante Lys's dubbing has a few rough edges, but possesses greater life and presence than Teldec's more refined, but slightly dimmer presentation.
Kulenkampff's live performance of the Sibelius Concerto was recorded on the newly developed tape medium by German radio. It is now known that some LP transfers of German wartime material were copied from older LP issues rather than the original tapes. That is obviously the case here, too, for there are tell-tale stereophonic surface crackles throughout the performance (it would have been better for Dante Lys to mono the pickup signal at source). The sound-quality is thus rather less good than one would expect from the original tapes, and there is a fair amount of distortion. None of this, however, seriously dims the power of the performance. In these live conditions Kulenkampff's intonation occasionally suffers, and there are some precarious moments between him and Furtwangler in the finale, but both artists bring an extraordinary freedom of expression, strength and intensity to the work as a whole. Here is inspired music-making very much caught on the wing.
There were several outstanding recordings of the Mendelssohn made during the 1930s, but Kulenkampff's performance is as good as any. His approach is positive, fresh and outgoing and once more, as in the Schumann, there is a particularly caring affectionate manner in the way he shapes the phrases. His natural elegance and sweetness of tone are also much in evidence. Schmidt-Isserstedt and the BPO are again sympathetic partners. Teldec's transfer is not ideally clear, and there is some roughness in the sound.'