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Get it? It's a violin! With shaving cream! Because the composer's last name is Barber!
I'm really starting to love the folks at Westminster Gold. Pity the label isn't around anymore.
Anyway, Happy New Year. In order to post delightful albums more frequently I'm dispensing with lengthy commentary (yay!) and giving you instead some samples from the records I find, as well as links to find the recordings if they're still out there.
Today's featured artists are Samuel Barber and Frederick Delius. Barber wrote just one violin concerto, commissioned in 1939 for a Philadelphia patron. When the violinist for whom it was written complained about it, Barber took the only appropriate action: He said screw you, bought back the rights for the first performance and in 1941 allowed Albert Spalding and the Philadelphia Orchestra to perform it.
The violinist who complained? That name, so far as I know, is lost to history. And Samuel Barber's concerto has enjoyed multiple recordings, some without shaving cream-covered violins on the cover.
The Westminster Gold recording features Robert Gerle on violin, with Robert Zeller conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra.
The site ReDiscovery.us has the recordings of Robert Gerle performing both the Barber and Delius works available on CD. But if you're not particular about who plays it, you can also find separate recordings here
for Barber, and here
for Delius (a $6 CD, at that.)
