MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Buy through MusicWeb
for £10.50 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

Heinrich Wilhelm ERNST (1812-1865)
Complete music for Violin and Piano - Volume 2
Fantaisie brillante sur la Marche et la Romance d’Otello de Rossini Op.11 (1837-38) [13:31]
Boléro Op.16 (1842) [7:29]
Deux Romances (1841) [5:55]
Souvenir du Pré aux Clercs, written with Charles Schunke (1834) [17:32]
Pensées Fugitives Part 1, written with Stephen Heller (1839-42) [17:38]
Variations brillantes sur un thème de Rossini Op.4 (1829-30) [17:37]
Sherban Lupu (violin)
Ian Hobson (piano)
rec. October 2010, Foellinger Great Hall of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC 0138 [79:56]

Experience Classicsonline




 
I reviewed the first volume in this comprehensive, pioneering series with great pleasure and feel the same way about the second release. As before, the fully idiomatic and nerveless duo of Sherban Lupu and Ian Hobson take the honours — for expressive variety, technical excellence and ensemble assurance.
 
Each work has some defining feature or features to compel interest, though maximum interest will, I think, be focused on violin fanciers whose range of experience will be richly enhanced by the three works that have never been previously recorded. The first of that trio is Souvenir du Pré aux Clercs, written with Charles Schunke (1801-39), who had been appointed pianist to the French queen. The two men fashioned something out of Ferdinand Hérold’s last work, an opera premiered in 1832. It’s been securely presented by Toccata which allocates a separate track to the introduction, theme, series of variations, cadenza, andante and finale. This is a work where the piano part proves to be every bit as formidable as that for the violin, if not more so. Technical difficulties begin to accumulate as the variations develop, and there is a droll quality to the writing too, and a joint cadenza in which ensemble pitfalls are manifold, and a finale full of élan, lightning fast left hand pizzicato and lashings of audacity.
 
Pensées Fugitives Part 1, written with Stephen Heller (1839-42), is another premier recording. The Hungarian pianist Heller based himself in Paris, and shunned virtuosic music after an early breakdown. Ernst’s philanthropy — he wanted to help Heller financially — was laudable and the joint work reflects the sense of lyricism and romanticism that Heller sought in composition. The six charmers are character pieces, somewhat reminiscent of Mendelssohn — though Mendelssohn equally knew of Heller and Ernst, so it’s by no means one way traffic. Songful and charming they are performed with impeccable attention to detail.
 
The last of the previously unrecorded works is Variations brillantes sur un thème de Rossini which was probably Ernst’s first published work. This is a real Paganinian blockbuster with coruscating technical demands; the second variation is an especially arduous test of intonation, which Ernst himself must have passed heroically; and there’s bravura aplenty in the fourth variation as well. After the Last Rose of Summer variations the Fantaisie brillante sur la Marche et la Romance d’Otello de Rossini must be Ernst’s most recorded work. David Oistrakh and Ruggiero Ricci recorded it. Lupu loses little in comparison, keeping things alive timbrally and expressively throughout — his sense of colour shading is exemplary, and Hobson’s pianism outstanding. This feast of articulation, finger position changes, mastery of colour, and subtlety of vibrato usage exemplifies all that is best in Ernst’s writing and indeed in these performances. Note how Lupu’s vibrato widens and intensifies for the ‘pathetic’ sensibility summoned up in the Romance section. As if this were not enough, we have the luxury of the Boléro with its amiable warmth and the two Romances, where cantabile warmth and lilting lyricism are the names of the game.
 
Top notch recording quality and an outstanding booklet note complete this exemplary offering.
 
Jonathan Woolf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.