MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Barber: Violin Concerto / Piano Concerto / Adagio for Strings

"Isaac Stern's 1964 recording of the Barber Violin Concerto with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic was the recording which belatedly gave this warmly expressive masterpiece the international currency it plainly deserved. The superb performance from Stern and Bernstein can stand comparison with any version since, easily fluent in the two lyrical movements, demoniacally intense in the mot° perpouo finale. Even more welcome, when it has long been unavailable, is John Browning's premiere recording of the Piano Concerto. With Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra on searing form in 1964, this is an interpretation of the highest voltage, the more daring and bitingly intense for having been recorded after a long series of performances on tour, full of bravura, with recorded sound rather fuller and more clean than that of the Violin Concerto."
(Gramophone)

"Apart from the very high standard of performances the recording quality of these 1957-66 original tapings is also consistently very good, sounding much better than the LP originals." (International Record Review Nov 2009)