Romantic Violin

These sparkling performances of Saint-Saëns' violin concertos are a fitting start to Hyperion's new series of Romantic Violin Concertos; a follow on from the highly successful Romantic Piano Concerto series.

Ferdinand David is principally known today as the dedicatee of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto; he gave the premiere of the work in 1845. But in his time he was also celebrated as a composer, and Hyperion is delighted to present this disc of world premiere recordings as Volume 9 in the Romantic Violin Concerto series.

In this volume of Hyperion’s Romantic Violin Concerto series, we journey to Poland (in the company of a conductor from that country) for two concertos by Młynarski and two works for violin and orchestra by Zarzycki (who will be familiar to Romantic Piano Concerto collectors).

Hyperion’s record of the month for May heralds a new collaboration with the brilliant young British violinist Chloë Hanslip, the former child prodigy famously signed to Warner Classics at the age of just fourteen. Here, she lends her now-mature talents to the second release in Hyperion’s overview of Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concertos and Volume 12 of the burgeoning Romantic Violin Concerto series.

Václav Hudeček ranks among the most gifted violinists, not only on a Czech but also an international scale, to have graced a 20th-century concert stage. Following his debut in London (at the tender age of 15!) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, he appeared at the most prestigious concert venues (Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall, Osaka Festival Hall, Sydney Opera) with worldrenowned orchestras (Berliner Philharmoniker, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, NHK Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhaus Leipzig, etc.). David Oistrakh, who immediately recognised Hudeček’s exceptional talent, was his teacher and mentor, and on several albums accompanied him as a conductor too.

The Romantic Violin Concerto series reaches Belgium and the music of Joseph Jongen, a composer more celebrated for his organ music now, but who was equally admired in his day for his orchestral and chamber works. Jongen studied at the Liège Conservatoire where he heard the great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe and composer-conductors Vincent d’Indy and Richard Strauss.

Hyperion’s Record of the Month for April is the fourth volume in the burgeoning ‘Romantic Violin Concerto’ series. The central work on the disc is Moritz Moszkowski’s C major Violin Concerto, a full-blooded Romantic work which demands exceptional virtuosity. An increasing number of recordings, many on the Hyperion label, of this composer’s music have done much to lift his reputation beyond that of the ‘trifling miniaturist’, and the Ballade in G minor amply demonstrates how even a small canvas can aspire to advanced heights of pyrotechnic wizardry.

Hyperion’s Romantic Violin Concerto series reaches volume 8 and the music of the Belgian composer Henry Vieuxtemps, himself widely considered the finest violinist in Europe after the death of Paganini. Listening to the repertoire recorded here, he certainly deserves to be ranked among the most important composers for the violin in the mid-nineteenth century. Vieuxtemps never indulged in sheer virtuosity for its own sake; instead in his concertos and chamber works he brought a more classical dimension to the violin repertoire in place of the technically brilliant variations and fantasies on popular operatic themes that were so popular with audiences.

Bruch, Strauss and Busoni one would think that the works of such famous composers have all appeared on recordings. There are still a number of gaps, however, which come to light time and again. These three violin concertos are absent or only weakly represented in current recording catalogs; one can rightly speak of them as discoveries. Bruch’s Second Violin Concerto, although much more interesting than his Concerto in G Minor, has long remained in its shadow.

Hyperion has brought together two fetching, large-scale pieces by Charles Villiers Stanford for its “The Romantic Violin” series. Both are mature works, written in 1888 and 1899 during Stanford’s “high noon”, when the Cambridge-based Irishman was winning acclaim at home and abroad as a leading British composer. The earlier Suite was written for his mentor, the great German violinist Joseph Joachim. It’s a piece of considerable beauty, both an homage to past musical styles and a tune-filled example of highbrow populism that repays multiple hearings. It begins with a nod to Bach’s solo violin music, and the titles of some movements (as well as their music)–such as Allemande and Tambourine–continue the Baroque-style tribute. Though longish (just shy of half-an-hour), it never overstays its welcome.