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Beethoven & Britten Violin Concertos
 
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Beethoven & Britten Violin Concertos [CD]

Janine Jansen Audio CD
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
Price: £9.93 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Beethoven & Britten Violin Concertos + Mendelssohn/Bruch - Violin Concertos; Romance + Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
Price For All Three: £29.19

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Product details

  • Orchestra: Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, London Symphony Orchestra
  • Conductor: Paavo Järvi
  • Composer: Ludwig von Beethoven, Benjamin Brittten
  • Audio CD (5 Oct 2009)
  • SPARS Code: DDD
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: CD
  • Label: Decca (UMO)
  • ASIN: B002GJ3MRQ
  • Other Editions: MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 72,291 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Samples
Song Title Time Price
Listen  1. Violin Concerto in D, Op.61 - 1. Allegro ma non troppo22:57£2.99
Listen  2. Violin Concerto in D, Op.61 - 2. Larghetto - 8:20£0.79
Listen  3. Violin Concerto in D, Op.61 - 3. Rondo (Allegro) 9:25£0.79
Listen  4. Violin Concerto, Op.15 - 1. Moderato con moto 9:30£0.79
Listen  5. Violin Concerto, Op.15 - 2. Vivace 8:35£0.79
Listen  6. Violin Concerto, Op.15 - 3. Passacaglia; Andante lento14:29£1.89


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Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Very special 28 May 2010
Format:Audio CD
Janine Jansen plays the Beethoven concerto very freshly and with great confidence and poise. Her generally direct, lively approach has plenty of space for beauty of tone and poetic interpretation. The Larghetto is played flowingly and the finale has a great range of expression: energtic, musing and, above all, dancing. The rapport with the Bremen orchestra is very special. Their period style, with limited use of vibrato, contrasts with her more romantic style with plentiful but varied use of vibrato but this works very well. The ensemble is superb with a real sense of the performers playing as though they are chamber musicians. The orchestra under Paavo Jarvi bring energy and character to the piece especially the finale. Listen out in particular for the way the strings play the main theme with such zest and individuality and for the splendid bassoon playing. The Britten concerto is possibly even finer. There have been a number of recordings of the work in recent years including a ripely romantic version from Maxim Vengerov and a gritty (even scratchy) one from Daniel Hope. Jansen's version is searingly well played bringing out the disturbing pain as well as the beauty and energy of the piece. Again there is very special orchestral support, this time from the London Symphony Orchestra and Jarvi, and the recording quality is outstanding.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This disc attracted a number of highly conflicting reviews on Amazon.com but not so here in the UK (so far). The US reviews went to great lengths to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the performances on this disc. In reality these issues are often best left to the listener as one man's meat is another man's poison. I certainly don't possess the musical training to analyse these performances from an academic perspective. However, I have been purchasing classical recordings for nigh on 30 years and as such feel equipped to make a decent stab at a review.

Janine Jansen is without doubt a wonderful violinist and well up to the technical difficulties of both of these works. My main reason for buying this cd was to sample Janine Jansen's Britten performance which I believe is a very good one. Her Beethoven is not one that I am likely to return to very often and that is not due to her performance. The reason I have not given this disc 5 stars is not due to issues of artistic merit but merely due to the recording balance which I found unattractive.

My main problem with the recording is the fact that the soloist is very much in your face. Such practice was very common with certain artists in the past, particularly of the superstar variety. Thankfully, I have found that the practice is less common these days. In this case, I believe things have gone too far when the breathing of the artist becomes such an integral part of the performance. As a regular concert goer, I have never heard a soloist in such an artificial manner. While I don't want the soloist drowned out by the orchestra, I certainly don't want to the performer effectively detached from them either.

Some people may find this appealing on the basis that they have paid to listen to the star performer rather than the ensemble cast. However, I prefer a more natural balance in the recordings that I listen to. As a comparison I sampled Jansen's Beethoven recording against that of Lisa Batiashvili with the same orchestra on Sony Classics. I found the latter to provide a much better balanced recording as well as being beautifully played.

I found listening to the recording of Jansen to be tiring at anything other than very low volumes. Anything above a quarter turn on my volume control resulted in a very shrill tone to the soloist. I also found the recording of the orchestra in the Beethoven to be a little two dimensional. This is not an issue with the Batiashvili recording although it's the same orchestra they are recorded in different venues. While Jansen is still spotlit in the Britten I found this recording had at least more depth to it.

In summation, if you like performers to be upfront and spotlit then this disc could be for you. If you prefer a more balanced approach then you may wish to try elsewhere.
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Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Though not a musician nor having a musical education, I am an old music lover and have been familiar with this work for decades, long enough for most hearings on Radio 3 to seem fairly run-of -the-mill. I do, however, love to make my own assessments from reviews such as BBC Radio 3 Building a Record Library.

It was on Radio 3 that I first heard Janine Jansen playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto. The reviewer of several recent recordings, though making another recording his first choice, placed Jansen a close contender. For me, however the Jansen version was a revelation. It was like listening with new ears. One section, late in the long first movement moved me so much that I appreciated for the first time what a truly magnificent work I was hearing, perhaps approaching the first movement of Beethoven's 3rd symphony in musical quality. I listened again and again. There was no doubt that for me Jansen's musical interpretation made me feel I was hearing more of the masters real intention than ever before. I had to have it! Obviously I recommend it very highly indeed. Thank you Miss Jansen. I am pleased to say that the recorded quality is also first class.

I bought via Amazon.co.uk. Low price and excellent service made the whole deal a bargain!
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