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Violin Concertos

Could you recommend the best violin concerto recordings (performance & sound quality) you have ever heard by the following composers-Dvorak, Beethoven, Paganini, Mendelssohn, and Saint-Saens. Also, if there is any chinese audiophile on this forum, please recommed violin concerto Liang-Zhu (Butterfly Lovers). To me this is one of the most beautiful violin concerto, but I haven't seen any famous violinist recorded it. I have two copies, one by Yu Li-na, one by Sheng Zhong-guo. None of the sound quality is good.
aliu

Showing 3 responses by kweifi

kweifi
46 posts
 
There are many good recordings of the major violin concertos: I like Stern in the Dvorak, there are many for the Beethoven, I like Michael Rabin in the Paganini 1st, etc. For the "Butterfly Lovers" there was a recording put out by Hong Kong (HK-1003) with Takako Nishizaki as soloist. It won the Hong Kong Gold Disc Award in 1981. The sound quality is good. Nishizaki is a very fine violinist who was "tied for first place" with Pinchas Zuckerman for the Leventritt Award in 1964.
kweifi
46 posts
 
I meant to add some other concerti as well: I have always enjoyed the Mozart concerti (there is a pretty good low price set available with Arthur Grumiaux playing); there are the two Bruch Concerti (actually one is the Scottish Fantasy) with Heifetz; Heifetz' recording of the Prokofieff and the Sibelius are memorable; I also like the Brahms with Christian Ferras; the Bach concerti with Oistrakh, and the Wieniawski D minor with Rabin.
kweifi
46 posts
 
I second Route9's recommendation. I think that Hilary Hahn's Beethoven is very nice as well.
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