Sherban Lupu

Belgian violinist, conductor and composer Eugène Ysaÿe (1858–1931) has been recognized as one of the greatest violin virtuosos of the 19th and early 20th centuries; regarded as the 'King of the Violin' by Nathan Milstein, his legacy has inspired generations of musicians. Ysaÿe was also a true avant-garde composer whose works feature revolutionary modern violin technique, unique expressive devices, profound musicality and harmonic originality, which eventually served as the bridge between the era of the Romantic virtuoso and contemporary music.

Although Enescu gave opus numbers to only 33 of his works, he left an enormous number of pieces in varying stages of composition, from sketches and draft outlines to isolated movements and some scores that are almost complete. Working with a handful of composers and musicologists – fellow Romanians with specialist knowledge of Enescu’s style – the violinist Sherban Lupu has produced performing editions of a number of previously unknown works, heard here in the context of other Enescu rarities. One of these ‘rescued’ pieces, hiding behind the modest title of Caprice Roumain, is nothing less than a major violin concerto.

Violin virtuoso and composer Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was well known to audiences and musicians in the middle of the 19th century. At first he was a slavish follower of Paganini, whom he followed from place to place; often, by listening to the Italian master, he was able to reproduce his new works before they had been published or disseminated. But there is a kind of elegant artistry in some of his music that displays his own personality, and Joseph Joachim, the violinist most closely associated with the Beethoven/Brahms line of musical thinking, called Ernst the greatest violinist he had ever heard.

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812–65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim ‘the greatest violinist I ever heard’. But the popular encore pieces by which Ernst is remembered today represent only a fraction of his output. This second CD – in a series of six presenting his complete violin works for the first time – combines brilliant display and expressive melody: the Otello Fantasy and Rossini Variations show Ernst developing Paganini’s inheritance, and the Boléro, Two Romances and Pensées fugitives show why he was such a favourite in Parisian salons.

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812-65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim 'the greatest violinist I ever heard'. But the popular encore pieces by which Ernst is remembered today represent only a fraction of his output. This third CD — in a series of seven presenting all his compositions for the first time — shows the full range of his creativity and charm. The Élégie sur la mort d'un objet chéri is written in his most moving and melancholy vein, and the Airs hongrois variés push the virtuoso violin to its absolute limits. Between these extremes lie the lyricism of the Pensées fugitives, the inventiveness of his treatment of two Halévy operas and the high spirits of his fantasy on a Strauss waltz.

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812–65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim ‘the greatest violinist I ever heard’. This is the fourth CD in a series of seven which will present all his compositions for the first time. It contains some of his most important compositions: an early Concertino with a melancholy slow movement and charming waltz finale; the fiendishly difficult Concerto that had a deep influence not only on Liszt’s Piano Sonata but also on concertos by Brahms and Sibelius; and the late String Quartet, with echoes of Beethoven and Mendelssohn and an inwardness, charm and energy all of its own.

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812–65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim ‘the greatest violinist I ever heard’. This sixth album – in a series of seven presenting all his compositions for the first time – begins and ends with some of the most difficult music for solo violin ever composed: Ernst’s Six Polyphonic Studies and his transcription of Schubert’s song, Der Erlkönig. Between them comes less familiar fare: five Schubertian piano pieces, and two settings of Goethe.