Sir Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
Violin Concerto in B minor, Op 61 (1910) [47:45]
Sospiri, Op 70 (1914) [4:10]
Salut d’amour, Op 12 (1888) [3:09]
Chanson de nuit, Op 15 No 1 (1897) [3:41]
Nicola Benedetti (violin)
London Philharmonic Orchestra /Vladimir Jurowski
Petr Limonov (piano)
rec. 2019/20, Henry Wood Hall, London; Studio 1, Air Lyndhurst, London
DECCA 4850949 [58:45]
Nicola Benedetti had given a number of concert performances of the Elgar before she made this recording toward the end of 2019. There have been numerous fine readings of the work over the last few years but in terms of tempo relations her reading doesn’t sound much like those of James Ehnes or Tasmin Little, to take two leading examples, much less the very expansive Rachel Barton Pine. In fact Benedetti most reminded me of Ida Haendel’s live 1986 Prom performance with John Pritchard and the BBC Symphony, which has been preserved on BBC Radio Classics (to be distinguished from Haendel’s over-lingering account in the studio with Boult). There’s a similar sense of adventure and purposeful commitment, an avoidance of self-consciousness in transitions, full-blooded tonal resources and an awareness of the music’s syntax.
Benedetti clearly fashions a fine partnership with Vladimir Jurowski who is similarly unwilling to allow scenic detour to derail the journey. Those who are apt to notice prominent orchestral counter-themes will find that they are audible and make sense functioning with the solo line. Benedetti is an artful soloist, constantly using her bowing arm to vest the music with shades of colour, and varying vibrato speed with passion and drama. With this, sometimes, comes the suspicion that these multi-variegated inflexions are sometimes a little too calculated, that she heightens the expressive climax of phrases with great intensity and beauty – but that overall, in the first movement most prominently, it sounds a little unrelieved. She widens her vibrato appreciably in the slow movement, and here her open heartedness pays real dividends, taking the music as she does at a persuasive tempo with deft and sensitively contoured pianissimos. In the finale there is a great deal of flair, the cadenza being negotiated with assurance and imagination. Throughout one finds a performance of dignity and nobility with an avoidance of pomposo elements.
In her recording Barton Pine coupled the Elgar with the Bruch G minor Concerto. In his, Ehnes sat out and Andrew Davis completed the disc with Elgar’s Serenade. Little cleverly added the alternative cadenza Elgar wrote for Marie Hall’s 1916 recording and Andrew Davis (him again) then conducted two orchestral pieces, one of which, Polonia, is extensive. Other soloists find different solutions; Hilary Hahn chose The Lark Ascending, Philippe Graffin went off piste with Chausson’s Poème, Thomas Albertus Irnberger coupled it with the Violin Sonata, whilst Thomas Zehetmair stood aside for Mark Elder to complete the disc. For Nikolaj Znaider the Concerto was enough and nothing else was added. Benedetti has gone for three piano-accompanied pieces. Sospiri is notable for the harp-evoking accompaniment of Petr Limonov, though it’s a less overtly expressive reading than that of Nigel Kennedy and Peter Pettinger. Salut d’amour and Chanson de nuit are ably done but I can’t help feel this triptych is a bit thin and that something more robust could have been selected.
Those fortunate enough to have heard Oscar Shumsky in this concerto will remember the experience with huge joy and may also be waiting, perhaps forlornly, for a David Oistrakh broadcast to turn up (he performed it during a couple of his monumental concerto series). For more recent performances Benedetti’s strikes me as the polar opposite of Hahn’s glacial reading; strong, richly textured, imaginatively phrased, sometimes a little arch.
Jonathan Woolf
Previous review: John Quinn
