This is how I, and
one suspects many, learned the Moeran
Concerto. Georgiadis and Handley trod
a sweetly affectionate path balancing
reticence and folkloric dynamism whilst
exercising fine judgement. The LSO was
on excellent form for its soloist-leader
providing him with vibrant and well
balanced support. Handley’s shaping
of cantilena is often magical and Georgiadis
explores the crest of the work’s lyrical
and furtive heart with considerable
sensitivity. He is noticeably successful
at heart-stopping pianissimos and at
his deft interplay with orchestral principals.
Handley too, abetted by the Lyrita engineering
team, brings out the bold bass writing
and those moments of percussion dash.
It all adds up to a distinctive and
distinguished reading, one that still
excites admiration.
Of course things have
changed in the Moeran discography. We
may now never get to hear Arthur Catterall
in the work but we can hear Sammons
on Symposium. Catterall would almost
certainly have played it with a certain
classicist restraint though without
hearing it this must remain moot. Sammons
offers a master class in romanticist
credentials – swift ones too as was
ever the way with him – and in Boult
he had an accompanist tactician of the
highest class. The recent appearance
of the Campoli on Divine Art, again
with Boult has taken most of us by surprise.
This dramatic rendering is a must-hear
though very different from, and stylistically
inferior to, the 1946 Sammons. In its
time the Georgiadis was rather eclipsed
by the next commercial recording by
Handley again, this time with Lydia
Mordkovich taking soloistic honours.
Along the way performances on radio
or concert or both have included one
by Tasmin Little, whose Elgar concerto
performance, incidentally, should have
been recorded by now.
Beautifully shaped
though the Georgiadis/Handley is it
does cement the work rather too rhapsodically.
The qualities of tensility and biting
drama that Sammons found are not really
to be found in the Lyrita, which is
altogether a more clement reading. The
soloist’s tone, firmly focused and of
concentrated sweetness, is also not
quite the vehicle to blossom and bloom
with radiance. Certain colours are therefore
missed.
The Violin Concerto
was originally issued without any coupling.
It’s now been joined by two of the Rhapsodies.
The Rhapsody No.2 is an especially distinctive
and attractive piece, full of youthful
fire, revised seventeen years after
its composition. Two years later Moeran
finished the Third Rhapsody, in which
John McCabe once more reveals his credentials
as an ardent champion of the native
muse. As with the Violin Concerto the
Lyrita Rhapsodies have been better known
in the Chandos inscriptions and mighty
fine they are. But it’s been highly
instructive to hear Handley’s mentor,
Boult – hero of the off-air Violin Concerto
performances - reprise his eloquence
in No.2 and also to hear that ferreter
out of obscure things, Nicholas Braithwaite,
do similarly with the later work.
Clever programming
ensures this is a very viable contender.
Of the commercially recorded Concerto
twosome Mordkovich’s is the more ardent
performance; in the case of the off-air
survivors Campoli plays it like Bruch
(not such a bad idea) and Sammons plays
it better than even Moeran can have
hoped.
Jonathan Woolf
See also review
by Rob Barnett
Lyrita
Catalogue
for details
John Georgiadis (violin) 
