Barcelona’s Museu de la Música has established that the first musician to record the ‎complete violin concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven, Max Bruch and Felix Mendelssohn was ‎the Catalan violin virtuoso Joan Manén (1883-1971).‎

This finding is the result of four years’ research that has been carried out by Jaume Ayats, ‎director of Barcelona’s Museu de la Música and its librarian and documentalist Sara Guasteví, ‎with the participation of the sonologist Enric Giné. ‎

‎Collaboration with other European institutions ‎
The physical copies of the records are at various European institutions. At Barcelona’s Museu ‎de la Música we have three specimen copies of Beethoven’s concerto, one record that was ‎available for purchase of the three that complete Mendelssohn’s recordings (1921 version), ‎and two of the three of Bruch’s.‎
In Barcelona, the Biblioteca de Catalunya conserves a digitalised recording of parts 3-4-5-6 ‎‎(two discs) of Beethoven’s concerto, but not the physical records they were taken from. The ‎specimen copies conserved at the Museu de la Música have completed the digitalisation of ‎parts 3-4.‎

Copenhagen’s Statsbiblioteket conserves the full version of Mendelssohn’s concerto, which ‎was recorded in 1931 in Hayes, whilst Bruch’s concerto is at Leipzig’s Deutsche ‎Nationalbibliothek. This is a 1921 recording that was also made in Hayes. ‎

You can view the full study here.‎


‎About Joan Manén ‎
The Museu de la Música houses a valuable collection of objects and documents of the ‎Barcelona composer Joan Manén (1883-1971), who was also greatly admired as one of ‎Europe’s early 20th-century virtuosos of the violin. As well as original scores and manuscripts, ‎Manén’s legacy includes the violin with which, in 1904, he embarked on his successful ‎international trajectory as a soloist. In 1964, Manén himself donated this violin to the ‎Museum, made by Étienne Maire Clarà around 1890.‎

Essentially self-taught, when he was seven years old he gave his first violin recital. That recital ‎was the start of an extensive musical career that would see him deliver brilliant renditions at ‎major music venues and where he would play alongside the likes of Pau Casals, Richard ‎Strauss, Antonin Dvořák and others, and work with conductors such as Bruno Walter and ‎Clemens Krauss.‎

In 1900, he began his career as a composer, writing a considerable body of work that included ‎operas, orchestral music, chamber music and sardanas. This work was strongly influenced by ‎post-German Romanticism, and especially by the music of Richard Strauss. In 2011, the ‎Associació Joan Manén was founded, to promote and champion his work.‎