Born in 1949 in Paris and a pupil of Roland Charmy and Arthur Grumiaux,
Augustin Dumay has been playing the violin beautifully on record for
decades. For years he was an EMI Classics artist. Then he had a spell with
Deutsche Grammophon and now he is with Onyx. They are allowing him to set
down some of his interpretations as a conductor, in addition to revisiting
old repertoire and catching up with some works he has not previously
recorded. This attractively packaged double album, in the book format that
is becoming popular, features him as soloist, conductor and chamber
musician. As a rule, I am not a believer in violinists’ ‘family trees’, but
there is no denying the continuity in the teacher-pupil line of Eugčne
Ysa’e, Alfred Dubois, Arthur Grumiaux and Augustin Dumay – for all four,
beauty of tone seems to have been the first consideration.
France has an honourable place in the history of Beethoven interpretation.
Usually Joseph Joachim is regarded as the man who revived the Violin
Concerto, in 1844 but in truth the first Paris performance, given on 23
March 1828 by Pierre Baillot, was quite a landmark. It was so successful
that he had to repeat the work later in the season. Paris was one of the
first cities to appreciate the string quartets, and many Franco-Belgian
violinists have followed Baillot’s lead in playing the D major Concerto.
Having said that, not many of them have recorded it effectively. Jacques
Thibaud and Lucien Capet were never asked to do it, and in 78rpm days only
Henri Merckel achieved it. Grumiaux was a fine interpreter of it, yet in
recent years the only French recording that has stuck in my collection is
that by Jean-Jacques Kantorow, a much underrated artist.
Augustin Dumay, who gave us a very fine set of the Violin Sonatas on DG,
with Maria-Joćo Pires, has set himself a further challenge in the Concerto
by both playing the solo violin and conducting. Adolf Busch used to do it,
on tour with his American chamber orchestra, but he preferred to have a
sympathetic conductor. Dumay sets a good tempo for the
Allegro ma non
troppo and directs an excellent tutti. When he enters, he plays as
beautifully as ever, always keeping the solo line airborne. The strange
thing is that each time there is a tutti, he makes it really vigorous and
slightly increases the pace, as if the conductor Dumay is disagreeing with
the soloist Dumay or even admonishing him. The G minor episode, where a
Busch or a Kogan or a Perlman can catch your breath with the
Innigkeit of his playing, rather passes by as if Dumay has enough
to do, just keeping himself and the orchestra together. As soon as he
reaches the Kreisler cadenza and has no other responsibilities, he plays
superbly, and the end of the cadenza, leading into the re-entry of the
orchestra, is really magical. In the
Larghetto, he opts for the
rhapsodic approach, which for me is always a disappointment. Readers will be
aware that in this sublime movement, there are two passages marked
cantabile, to be played on the lower strings. The three violinists
mentioned above make these passages into a double holy-of-holies, almost
disappearing into themselves with the intensity of their playing –
incidentally, Perlman is best heard in his recording with Barenboim. Dumay
makes no impression with the first passage and in the second, he actually
plays rather loudly and plainly. I am sure it is intentional, done for
contrast, but for me it does not work at all. He has no problems with the
Rondo finale although, for the first time in my experience, the long
Kreisler cadenza feels a little long-winded, which tells me that a certain
amount of spontaneity is lacking. My overall impression is that, linked with
a sympathetic conductor, Dumay could have given us a great Beethoven
Concerto. As it is, like legions of others, his effort falls short of his
potential.
Rather to my surprise, I enjoyed the live performance of the Eighth
Symphony much more. Apparently Dumay has been conducting the Kansai
Philharmonic of Osaka regularly since 2008, and this recording was made on
one of their trips to Tokyo. He sets a good tempo for the
Allegro vivace
e con brio and it receives an exciting performance, with splendid
impetus and a good range of dynamics. A very quiet audience betrays its
presence only by a few rustlings between movements. The
Allegretto
scherzando ticks along pleasingly, the Minuet is very agreeable, with
the tempo of the Trio nicely related to the main tempo, and Dumay again
finds the
tempo giusto for the final
Allegro vivace. I did
raise an eyebrow at the rather wide vibrato of the solo bassoon, but
otherwise the orchestral playing is excellent.
Brahms’s First Sextet, which comes as a bonus disc – you pay just the
price of one CD – is a very friendly performance, beautifully played.
Dumay’s colleagues are a mixture of youngsters and veterans, of whom I have
previously encountered only Miguel da Silva, formerly with the now-disbanded
Quatuor Ysa’e. The opening
Allegro ma non troppo struck me as being
quite broad, even leisurely, but as soon as I started making one or two
comparisons, I ran into trouble. The version by the Kocian Quartet with two
members of the Smetana Quartet (Denon CO-2141), for instance, feels faster
and more coherent. However, if you factor in the exposition repeat, played
by Dumay and Co. but omitted by the Czechs – probably so that they can get
both Sextets on to the same disc – the overall timing is virtually
identical. When you start comparing the other movements, you find a variety
of differing approaches which all seem to work – I have at least eight other
performances on my shelves. So I shall simply report that Dumay and his
friends play the pizzicato passage near the end of the first movement very
well. They set an excellent tempo for the Variations but then vary the pulse
a good deal and end the movement very sensitively. They provide a nice
springy Scherzo and they again vary the tempo considerably in an easy-going
final Rondo, taking some of it quite slowly and then perking up, according
to the nature of the music. Most listeners will enjoy this performance
which, like the others in the set, is very well recorded.
Tully Potter
