Pössinger: Violin Concerto

[mikehopf]

Pössinger was a friend of Beethoven and wrote this concerto in 1805.

It's a lively tuneful work much in the Haydn/Mozart mode. Pity about the coupling.

Title: Violin Concertos
Composer: Beethoven | Possinger
Artist: Anton Steck, L'arpa festante, Matthew Halls
Label: Accent

[eschiss1]

Agreed- that happens too often, I think.

I expect the people who decide these things will then blame Pössinger if this neither fish nor fowl coupling fails to sell either to a niche market (which might prefer, say- example only- Krommer's D minor concerto Op.61, at a guess to Beethoven's D major) or to any other. (I agree that the violinist may have made the decision- who wants to learn two new works for a recording rather than one? - well, apparently the people who record for Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series are willing to... but - hrrrmmm.)

This is allegedly in some really odd, tentative, stretching-it!! sense the "original version" of the Beethoven D major - see https://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2247749 for example - but still.

(And I say this as someone who _is_ interested in the earlier versions of Beethoven's piano concertos and - especially!!!! - the revised version of Mendelsson's A major symphony, which has struck me greatly when I've heard one of the recordings.)

[Alan Howe]

My reaction to the excerpts of the Pössinger at jpc is, I'm afraid, 'yuck' - horrible, thin-toned, dubiously tuned violin playing of the sort that sets my teeth on edge. I might have been interested in this, but the soloist rules it out for me. A shame.
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/ludwig-van-beethoven-violinkonzert-op-61/hnum/6155846

[Mark Thomas]

Eeuw, that really is a painful listen! What on earth were Accent thinking? I suppose they commited to releasing the CD before hearing the recording. Beware!

[Alan Howe]

It's this HIP fetish again. Apparently it doesn't matter that the soloist is slithering around all over the place, assaulting our ears, as long as it's authentic.  - and I don't generally do emojis...