Brahms with Ossy Renardy and Charles Munch

Ossy Renardy was one of the many "might-have-beens" of his generation - musicians who died very young, before the full bloom of their maturity. I am thinking of such artists as Ginette Neveu, Noel Mewton-Wood, Kathleen Ferrier, Dinu Lipatti, Guido Cantelli, William Kapell and Dennis Brain - supreme talents who all perished before their 40th birthdays.

Renardy was an Austrian-born American violinist who lived from 1920-1953. Although wonderfully talented, he made relatively few commercial recordings - including only this one concerto. In the Brahms concerto, he is partnered by Charles Munch (here Münch; he later dropped the umlaut). The recording dates from September 1948 (per Gray) and was made in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, with the resident orchestra.

Charles Munch

In an appreciation that appeared in the March 1954 edition of The Gramophone (see below), Peter Ford notes that Renardy "seemed destined to don the mantle of his compatriot Kreisler, whose style of playing was not dissimilar." Ford adds that the Brahms concerto, "though well played and superbly accompanied, was ill-served in the recording where Renardy's tone was made to sound dead and hard." I have attempted to address the sound in this transfer, with some success, I hope.

I also hope this recording gives lie to the notion that conductor Munch had little affinity for German music. To provide further evidence, I have remastered two of his rarest recordings - RCA monos of Schumann's Symphony No. 1 and Schubert's Symphony No. 2, both of which appeared here a number of years ago. The Schumann, in particular, is a glorious performance. Please follow the links above to the original posts.

The Gramophone, March 1954 (click to enlarge)