The Cadenza in Szeryng's Beethoven Con. Rec.

February 22, 2005 at 01:59 AM · Greetings,

Ashkenazia, was/is a -very- great violnist. But he does suffer from nerves and is perhaps not really the ultinmate super soloist temperamnet. Thus he became the leader of the Vermeer quartet . What other hats he wears I have no idea.

Cheers,

Buri

February 22, 2005 at 02:41 AM · Hi,

Unless Szeryng played a different cadenza, he usually plays the Joachim Cadenza, I think. As for Ashkenazi, he is amazing. The late Beethoven quartets by the Vermeer are a must. The purity of the intonation among other things is nothing short of utterly mind-blowing!

Cheers!

February 22, 2005 at 05:00 AM · Does anybody know what cadenza Kogan plays in the Beethoven concerto recording on Testament?

February 22, 2005 at 06:11 AM · I cannot find the Kogan recording on my shelf, but I heard him play it live in the mid 1970's and he played the Joachim cadenza.

February 22, 2005 at 09:44 PM · Ashkenazi recorded my favorite ever paganini 1 and 2, he had the same teacher in isreal as zukerman and mintz

February 22, 2005 at 11:47 PM · Thanks Joey. I'm still trying to decide which cadenza to play.

June 12, 2005 at 07:47 PM · Mr. Szerying did play the Joachim Cadenza. I just watched his DVD and the cadenza is attributed. He

played it quite nicely.

However, my taste inclines toward Fritz Kreisler's

cadenzas. His cadenzas sum up the thematic material in the concerto better than any others, even polyphonically intertwining two separate motifs at points. Zino Francescatti plays them outstandingly in his DVD of the Beethoven under Jean Fournet. The audio quality in the DVD is better than most music DVDs, too. I cannot recommend that DVD too highly since, even at 71,

Mr. Francescatti was still at the height of his powers, unlike Heifetz at the same age or even a year or two younger, who was slipping in technique when he did his Scottish Fantasy video in 1970.

The video was filmed in color in 1973 but does not look dated at all. The picture and audio are quite sharp and Francescatti is not buried by orchestra or bad acoustics as Mr. Heifetz was.

June 12, 2005 at 08:05 PM · Another thought:

Why don't you youngsters write your own cadenzas? That's why Beethoven left those blanks!

It would be wonderful if we had violinist-composers again. Fritz Kreisler was really the last one, even though Jascha Heifetz and Mischa Elman and Efrem Zimbalist did a lot of transcriptions.

There you go! Start your composing by writing transcriptions and go on from there. I want to hear new cadenzas and new transcriptions from you.

I'm old, but I'd like to hear something new from you youngsters. After all, it's been 111 years since Fritz Kreisler wrote his cadenzas at age 19. How about it? I challenge you.

Let's begin a new age of violinist-composers. The

Repertoire is rather thin, don't you think? How

many versions of this-or-that must I suffer? How

many versions of Zigeunerweisen? You just keep playing the old stuff (yes, I agree with Heifetz about much of the new stuff --- he played it so that the composers would know how bad their music was). But you can do better. You've advanced the art of violin playing, no doubt; but go to the next step.

June 12, 2005 at 08:06 PM · Note:

In the BRAHMS concerto, Ruggiero Ricci made a CD of it and gives you 16 different cadenza tracks to choose from. It would be fun if some other violinist did that for the Beethoven since there are so many cadenzas for it. Hearsay tells me that Vecsey wrote a beautiful one, though I've never heard it. It may have been Vasa Prihoda, I can't remember.

June 12, 2005 at 09:16 PM · Adolf Busch wrote a great cadenza for the Brahms concerto. You can hear it in his own recordings of the Brahms. It's also available in the CDSheetMusic concerto collection. I don't know whether he wrote a cadenza for the Beethoven, but I wouldn't be surprised. Anyone know?

June 12, 2005 at 11:48 PM · Best and worst cadenzas for the Brahms IMO: Best would certainly be Franz Kneisel's. Worst, Joshua Bell's.

Best Beethoven would be Vieuxtemps. Worst would be Spohr's.

Writing your own cadenza can also be fun and will make you certainly more intimate with the piece.