Cd01 Barber, Korngold Violin Concerto, Much Ado About Nothing Suite

Andrew Haveron and John Wilson deliver a fresh and intensely idiomatic reading of Korngolds Violin Concerto, coupled with the formidable String Sextet. One of the most sought-after violinists of his generation and a laureate of some of the most prestigious international violin competitions, Andrew Haveron studied in London at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music. As a soloist, he has collaborated with conductors such as Jií Blohlávek, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Roger Norrington, David Robertson, Stanisaw Skrowaczewski, and John Wilson, performing a broad range of well-known and less familiar concertos with many of the finest orchestras in the UK. In 1999 he was appointed first violinist of the internationally acclaimed Brodsky Quartet.

Sibelius studied the violin in his youth, and actively entertained the prospect of a career as a professional violinist for much of his student life. After graduating from the Helsinki Music Institute, in 1890, he went to Vienna to continue his studies, and while there he even auditioned (unsuccessfully) for a place in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. So, it comes as no surprise that the instrument plays an important place in his compositional output. What might be surprising is that he wrote only one concerto – this might perhaps be due to the difficult conception of the work.

A remarkable album of concert works by legendary composers of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The recording features music for violin and piano by Erich Korngold, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, Miklós Rózsa, Robert Russell Bennett, Jerome Moross and Heinz Roemheld. Much of the music is rarely heard and the album features three world-premiere recordings. Australian-born violinist Patrick Savage researched and compiled the programme during COVID lockdowns and performs the works alongside pianist Martin Cousin.

“Superlatives are likely to flow towards this stunning Avie release, not least thanks to the eloquent, emotionally-insightful playing of Austrian violinist David Frühwirth and his Finnish pianist Henri Sigfridsson”. “With a good mixture of musical humor and deep seriousness both the artists make their claim clear to be accepted in the league of international and interesting rising generation of Soloists“

Although Korngold’s ‘complete works for violin and piano’ make up a reasonably full disc, it is only fair to point out that the Violin Sonata is the single work that is not an arrangement from one of his other pieces. Yet this Sonata, written at the age of 15 for Carl Flesch and Artur Schnabel no less, is a fine example of his early style, with its echoes of Zemlinsky and early Schoenberg. The young Dutch violinist Sonja van Beek and German pianist Andreas Frölich negotiate its challenges with ease: as in Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata, the pianist has as tough a role as the melody instrument. Much Ado about Nothing is one of several arrangements of a suite of four movements derived from incidental music to Shakespeare’s play written in 1918, performed here with affection and a silken suavity. The remainder of the repertoire is made up of arrangements of Korngold lollipops, hit numbers from his operas, such as the unforgettable ‘Marietta’s Lied’ from Die tote Stadt, arranged by the composer as salon pieces and popularised by Kreisler and his ilk. Here, the almost vocal qualities of van Beek’s tone come into their own. An essential disc for the Korngold addict.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold is best known for the scores to Captain Blood and other films he wrote in Hollywood after fleeing Nazism in the mid-1930s, but he was also a composer of concert music earlier (and later) in his career. This music was forgotten under the modernist regime but has been revived to great success. Korngold's chamber music, though, still qualifies as neglected, and this superb recording of the composer's Piano Quintet in E major, Op. 15 and String Quartet No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 26, plus a rediscovered string quartet version of his popular incidental music for Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, has been successful right out of the box.

On this disc, the playing's the thing and it is fabulous. Originally made in 1979 and 1980, these recordings capture Perlman at his incomparable peak. The effortless perfection of his technique leaves you gasping in disbelief; even the infamously unplayable passages in the Sibelius Finale are tossed off with easy nonchalance, and he avoids the false accents often heard in the treacherous opening theme. And Perlman's toneis warm, mellow, pure, and constantly expressive; its golden glow is like burnished copper on the low strings, like radiant sunshine up high, and he can vary it instantaneously with bow and vibrato to fit the music.