Romantic Violin

After beginning a three-album Bruch series with the little-known Violin Concerto No. 3, Op. 58, Liebeck here takes up one of the composer's most famous works, the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26. The rest of the program, though, advances the aim of Hyperion's Romantic Violin Concerto series, which is to recover forgotten works of the period. The little Romance in A minor, Op. 42 and the Serenade in A minor, Op. 75 both got started as concertos, but never came to full fruition.

Johannes Brahms - Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Ginette Neveu, violin / Sinfonieorchester des NDR / Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 202 MB | Full Artwork: 43 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Acante # 43 314 | Country/Year: Germany 198_, 1982
Genre: Classical, Historical Recording | Style: Romantic, Violin

Ginette Neveu (11 August 1919 – 28 October 1949) was a famous French classical violinist who was killed in a plane crash at the age of 30. At age 16, Ginette Neveu achieved worldwide celebrity status when she won the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition over 180 contestants, including the future virtuoso David Oistrakh, who finished second, and Henri Temianka, who finished third. Édith Piaf wrote of Neveu in her autobiography: "I would have traveled thousands of miles to hear the great Ginette Neveu…."

After establishing his name with THE complete Paganini violin concertos on DG in the early 1970s Accardo migrated freely between record companies. His Collins coupling of the Elgar and Walton concertos remains a highlight for me and is now reissued on the budget Regis label. The sojourn with Philips also bore healthy fruit.

Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915) composed his last orchestral work, the Concert Suite for Violin and Orchestra, in 1909. Though modeled on the Baroque-era suite, it nonetheless has the feel of a big, Romantic violin concerto, even if it’s not particularly distinctive melodically (especially considering he was a pupil of that great tunesmith Tchaikovsky). The work begins with a prelude featuring Bach-like violin recitatives, and then moves on to a charming Gavotte followed by a beautiful and deeply felt interlude titled Fairy Tale.

A beloved trio of Romantic violin sonatas in the passionate and assured hands of an exciting Italian violinist near the start of her career: an auspicious debut on Brilliant Classics. Winner of the 30th edition of Michelangelo Abbado violin competition held in Milan in 2009, Germana Porcu Morano studied in Bergamo, and has gone on to win several other national and international prizes included a scholarship funded by Claudio Abbado. She has performed as a soloist and in chamber ensembles across Europe and in China. She is a member of the Paganini String Quartet, with plans afoot to record the completequartets by Paganini.

This has the look of a career-making recording from Scots violinist Nicola Benedetti, putting her up against difficult repertory that diverges from the crowd-pleasing fare that formed the basis of her career up to this album. It would have been hard to predict just how well she pulls off her task here; few could have heard the profound interpreter of Russian music in the Italia and Silver Violin collections from earlier in the 2010s. The Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 99, is an emotionally thorny work in five movements anchored by a tense passacaglia in the middle. The composer withheld it from publication during the period of renewed Stalinist repression in the late 1940s. It was premiered in 1955 by David Oistrakh, and in endurance and elevated tone even if not quite in lyrical grandeur, Benedetti brings that master to mind. Sample the Stravinskian "Burlesque" finale for a sense of how Benedetti gets outside herself here. The Glazunov Violin Concerto, Op. 82, is a more stable work, rooted in pre-WWI conservatory traditions, and Benedetti's reading is nothing short of letter-perfect.

Best known for his Variations on a Nursery Theme for piano and orchestra, the Hungarian composer Ernö von Dohnányi also wrote two published Symphonies, two Piano Concertos and two Violin Concertos, all of which have been undeservedly neglected. The rarely heard Violin Concerto No. 1, notable for its Brahmsian slow movement, combines virtuosity and lyricism. Written in the mould of the great Romantic violin concerto, and with an unmistakably Hungarian flavour, the superbly orchestrated and remarkably inventive Violin Concerto No. 2 (1949-50) is worthy of being ranked alongside the Concertos by Barber and Korngold.

Antonio Bazzini, born in Brescia in 1818, was one of the great violinist-composers of the 19th century. After encouragement from Paganini following an encounter in 1836, he lived the life of a touring virtuoso for many years. Though he composed in larger forms, he is best remembered as the composer of numerous salon pieces for violin and piano, the most famous being La Ronde des lutins (The Dance of the Goblins), but also including many character pieces of various descriptions. Eventually returning to Italy, he was appointed first professor and then director of the Milan Conservatory and was a teacher of Mascagni and Puccini.