While this recording is wholly welcome, it is less wholly than necessary. Both works are among the handful of great English string concertos, but because there are few recordings of
Britten's Violin Concerto and fewer still recordings of
Walton's Viola Concerto, a great recording of either work would be a wonderful thing. But while
Maxim Vengerov is a very fine player with some outstanding recordings to his credit, neither of these recordings are among them. Both are good enough and anyone who didn't already know the works would be more than happy with either one. But in neither work does
Vengerov do more than turn in a better than average performance. His
Britten concerto is well-played and catches much of the work's lyrical drama, but compared with
Theo Olof's heart-wrenching 1948 recording with
John Barbirolli or
Mark Lubotsky's exquisite 1970 recording with
Britten himself conducting,
Vengerov is an interpretive lightweight. His
Walton Viola Concerto is likewise well-played and grandly melancholic, but compared with
William Primrose's profoundly moving 1943 recording with
Andrew Walton or
Nigel Kennedy's supremely lyrical 1994 recording with
André Previn,
Vengerov is again an interpretive lightweight. Nor is
Mstislav Rostropovich conducting much of an incentive. Never much more than a capable conductor,
Rostropovich is out of his depth in these works and even the superb
London Symphony Orchestra can cover for his sloppy attacks and approximate balances. Nor is EMI's 2002 digital sound an improvement over the superb stereo sound of
Lubotsky's Decca recording or even EMI's own digital sound for
Kennedy.