If you love the art of
Nathan Milstein, you probably already own his canonical studio recordings of most of the concertos on these discs. And if you really love the art of
Nathan Milstein, you probably can't wait to hear how he handles them in live performances. But even if you love the art of
Nathan Milstein with a love that's real and true, you might still have a hard time adjusting to the fairly terrible playing of the Orchestre National de l'ORTF (a.k.a., the French National Radio Symphony). Because while
Milstein's playing is as elegantly passionate, as deeply moving, and as technically impeccable as ever, the ORTF is amazingly insensitive, astonishingly sloppy, and astoundingly out-of-tune. Listen just to the opening bars of Bach's A minor Concerto: did the French string players actually watch for conductor
Antal Dorati's downbeat, or did they just jump in any old time they felt like it? And the same could be said of the other two performances here; even in Lalo's très French Symphonie Espagnole, the musicians sound like they simply could not be bothered to form a coherent ensemble. While in his 1959 recording of Beethoven's concerto
Milstein is accompanied by the dapper
Eugene Ormandy and the wonderfully cogent
Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the results are as good as the best ever made, the remainder of the performances on this two-disc set will be enjoyed only by fans of the violinist who can ignore the ORTF. Music & Arts' sound is just about adequate.