Brahms - Violin Concerto [Oleg/Pesek-Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra]This is a great coupling of two great Concertos, i wonder why this isn't done more, these recording were made in 1991, the booklet cover is a nice pic of Oleg, nice sky blue background, and a rather reddish brown violin, nice colour combination.
Raphael Oleg is French, born in 1959, he made this recording in 1991 when he was 32.
This time listening to this Concerto, i found the opening movement very compelling, it has a long orchestral intro [up to 2:47 before the violin makes its first appearance], scored in the major key of D Major, and yet Brahms seems to make it sound so dark and turbulent, full of contrasting sweet an sour, Oleg doesn't play the usual Joachim cadenza on the first movement, but rather one that has a lot of similar sounding notes [18:12], but there's no mention of who this cadenza is by, right after the cadenza [21:14-22:41], the Concerto slows down, and there's some of the loveliest moments penned by Brahms, loads of nostalgia and sweet regret, a lovely finish to a mammoth first movement.
Here's Kyung Sun Lee playing the first movement on YouTube.
