Lucerne Festival Historic Performances: Nathan Milstein, Igor Markevitch, Ernest Ansermet
Quarterly Critics' Choice 1.2019 - German Record Critics' Award. These brilliant violin concertos in the "Lucerne Festival" edition hold a special connection with the soloist Nathan Milstein. Antonin Dvorak died in 1904, the year Milstein was born. For him and his contemporaries Adolf Busch and Vasa Prihoda, championing the work was still pioneering work. The same applies, of course, to Milstein's performances of the Mendelssohn Concerto (an early testimony is a live recording by Toscanini, who also conducted the founding concert of the Lucerne Festival, which Milstein attended). Here, Milstein plays both violin concertos with the unfathomable lightness of a virtuoso. Rather than losing himself in the technically demanding passages, he magnanimously invites the listener to view the music. (For the jury: Stephan Bultmann)