A Life in Music, Volume 13: Isaac Stern  (Audio CD) 
by Samuel Barber

Barber's concerto is rightly one of his best-known works. Largely written in the post-Romantic idiom familiar from his Adagio for Strings, it eschews complexity for the simple, lyrical writing that was always the composer's strong point. The first movement is moderately fast, expressive and melodic, and it is followed by a lyrical slow movement which gradually gains in emotional intensity as it builds to a dramatic climax. The finale has always struck me as the weak link in the concerto, not so much for its brevity but for its rather loose connection to the rest of the concerto--being rather more vigorous and dissonant than the rest of the work.

Where Barber's concerto is simple and tonal, Maxwell Davies' is complex and atonal, yet they do share a focus on lyricism and the same three-movement form. The first movement of Maxwell Davies' concerto takes up over half the work's half-hour duration, and it is a dense yet strongly melodic creation, full of complex atonal counterpoint yet clearly drawing some of its strength from traditional models. (The closest thing I can think to it would be the corresponding movement of the Schoenberg concerto.) The slow movement is the emotional heart of the work. Based on a bagpipe melody written by the composer (though clearly inspired by Celtic folk music) it was intended to evoke the barren Scots moorland. The finale recommences the complex development that characterised the first movement, but its coda returns to the music of the slow movement, and the concerto ends quietly.

This is a slightly curious compilation, as I would imagine many listeners would want either one or the other of these concerti, but not both. Nonetheless, it has considerable merits: Stern's 1964 recording of the Barber concerto has long since been a repertoire staple and still stands up very well, while the Maxwell Davies--a somewhat uneven but distinctly underrated work--has not, as far as I know, been recorded by anyone else.

3 of 4 found the following review helpful:

Great Stern, but Shame on Sony  Aug 31, 2003
Volume 13 of the "Isaac Stern: A Life in Music" series focuses on two 20th Century Violin Concertos -- those of Samuel Barber and Peter Maxwell Davies. Albert Spalding with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy premiered the Barber, the better known of the two, in 1941. Stern's account is a 1964 stereo recording with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra commissioned the Maxwell Davies in 1985, which was dedicated to Stern and it was he who gave the first performance on June 21, 1986. Two days later, Stern entered the studio with Andre Previn and the RPO to record the performance featured on this disc. Despite the fact that these recordings are separated by more than twenty years, the sound (even though one is analog and the other digital) and Stern's playing on both are remarkably consistent and thoroughly enjoyable. My only problem with this CD is that this very same recording of the Barber VC is included on the Barber title in the Bernstein Century series. I know that Stern's series and Lenny's series are apples and oranges, but serious collectors are bound to get both and as a result have unwanted and unnecessary duplication. Shame on you Sony -- you could have come up with a better solution!