Symphony In D Minor / Violin Concerto / Lucerne 1954

Description

Two concert recordings from the International Music Weeks of Lucerne (now the Lucerne Festival), published here for the first time, pay tribute to the Belgian conductor who made France his adopted homeland. In the summer of 1954, at the helm of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Cluytens drew a remarkable palette of colors and emotions from César Franck's Symphony in D minor, transforming its austere tempos into a captivating symphonic drama. He was joined by the young violinist Igor Oistrakh, then 23 years old, who performed Aram Khatchatourian's Violin Concerto, one of the emblematic works of his father, David Oistrakh. His interpretation combines breathtaking precision with idiomatic expressiveness of the lyrical themes and includes a solo cadenza of great scope, surpassing, in its technical virtuosity, not only Khatchatourian's original but also the version typically performed by his father.