STANFORD
Suite Op.32
Violin Concerto Op.74
Anthony Marwood (violin)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchesta/Martyn Brabbins
Recorded 2000
HYPERION CDA 6720 8
[66.40]
The Romantic Violin Concerto -
2
Crotchet
I have particularly enjoyed this disc, being much involved as I am with such
turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th that is) music and
musicians, indeed only next month (December 16th) I am conducting
the violin concerto featured here together with another long-forgotten gem,
Frederic Cliffe's Symphony No.1. The works are right up Hyperion's street,
and as a result of this fine disc the concerto at least should hopefully
find its way back into the concert hall from which it had disappeared as
long ago as 1918. Stanford wrote quite extensively for the violin and was
well-connected to such players as Joachim, Kreisler, Rivarde and the Spaniard
Arbos, who was a colleague on the staff of London's Royal College of Music
where both men taught. Stanford was also an experienced orchestral conductor
and knew the violin concerto repertoire from Mendelssohn to Brahms, so he
understood 'the ethos of the grand Romantic concerto' as Jeremy Dibble puts
it in his richly-informative booklet notes (he is currently working on a
biography of Stanford). Stanford, aged 36 in 1888, was enjoying huge success
with three operas and an equal number of symphonies (including the popular
'Irish'), a serenade, choral works (including a Birmingham Festival commission
'The Three Holy Children'), chamber music, church music and songs already
to his credit. His fame had also spread to Europe, and to Germany in particular.
Joachim did as much for him in Berlin as Stanford had done for his friend
in London and Cambridge, where back in 1877 the two men had put on an
unforgettable Brahms concert. A concert was planned for January 1889 in Berlin
devoted entirely to Stanford's music, and the composer wrote his Suite Op.32
for Joachim to play at this event.
The Suite is in five movements which juxtapose antique music with modern
(i.e. 18th with 19th centuries) perhaps taking a leaf
from suites by Grieg (Holberg) and Tchaikovsky (Mozartiana),
yet the work is also a musical portrait of Joachim himself, written in homage
to the championing by the violinist of music from Bach to Brahms. It has
a striking start, an extended solo as if it were an unaccompanied work by
Bach himself with strongly double-dotted rhythms, the Tambourin and the
Allemande, both short interludes, have shades of Mendelssohn (Joachim played
that composer's concerto under his direction), the Ballade brings it 'up-to-date'
to Brahms.
The concerto was written a decade later in 1899 and dedicated to Arbos with
whom the composer premièred the work in Bournemouth in March 1901,
and it is a grand work in the best sense. The substantial first movement
is tightly structured, the Canzona with its gloriously Bruch-like melodious
second subject is revelatory, the Irish jig (marked 'Gaelic air' in the score)
to conclude is perhaps too short and trivial after two such fine movements
(Parry considered the concerto among Stanford's finest works). Why it did
not establish itself remains a mystery, but thank Heaven there are the Jeremy
Dibbles, Lewis Foremans, Ted Perrys and Hyperions of this world to rediscover
this rich period of British music.
Recorded in Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh the weekend after a studio broadcast
in Glasgow on Radio 3 and before an invited audience, Anthony Marwood plays
both works wonderfully, with fervour and commitment. I had the pleasure of
conducting this gifted violinist in a competition performance of the Mendelssohn
concerto (with which he won) back in the 1980s when he was a student at the
Guildhall School of Music, and he now leads the successful Florestan Trio,
winners of this year's Royal Philharmonic Best Ensemble Award, as well as
following a solo career, but we need to hear and see more of him. He is ably
supported by excellent playing from the BBCSO under the sensitive conducting
of the ever-versatile Martyn Brabbins, the spacious sound of Hyperion's recording
is to their highest standard.
Christopher Fifield
Performance
Recording
