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One of the most heartening
aspects of the last decade for violin
fanciers has been the expansion of Jacques
Thibaud’s previously minimal live discography.
Some broadcasts had long been known
and examples had circulated privately
or semi-privately – those three Mozart
Concerto performances with Enescu in
1951 for example – but it had seemed
that the vaults were well and truly
locked until fairly recently. I can’t
say we have had a Milsteinian avalanche
of material – Thibaud was killed in
1953 – but we have had enough to mark
every new such release with anticipation.
In fact newly restored examples of his
live performances from c.1941-53 are
turning up (almost) regularly now and
I’ve seen recently that another Chausson
and the Lalo Symphonie espagnole – different
from the ones here - have surfaced via
French broadcast material. So we live
in good times for Thibaud admirers and
I suppose it’s possible to find a greater
Thibaud admirer than me – but I rather
doubt it.
Regarding the two Saint-Saëns
items I think I should repeat here what
I said in my review of them on a recent
Malibran disc. We are in fact especially
fortunate to have the Saint-Saëns
concerto because, though closely associated
with his music, Thibaud left no commercial
recordings of any of the concertos.
It would be idle to pretend that this
is the Thibaud of old. Recorded a few
scant months before his death in an
air crash he is very much in decline
and those seeking the sensuous tone
and the exotically spiced portamenti
of the young Thibaud will search in
vain because, like many another violinist
(and especially those who famously are
less than scrupulous about practising)
his glory days were over two decades
back. The tone is a shadow of its former
self, intonation wanders and whilst
the portamenti are still quite athletic
and evocative his luxurious, once-in-a-lifetime
vibrato has slaked alarmingly. His trills
are reasonable but not of electric speed
and not quite climactic enough. What
remains is a sovereign sense of phrasing,
his sensitivity in the slow central
panel of the short thirteen-minute work,
and the romantic nuance he can still
manage to impart despite the lack of
tonal projection. In the finale section
his bowing is still reasonably well
sustained with more quick slides and
some rather starved notes. In conception
he is affectionate and triumphant but
one has to take the execution and think
back to the gorgeous liquidity of the
1910s and 1920s to imagine quite what
he could do with this repertoire. In
that sense this is not unlike the later
Elman Vanguards – the vestiges of a
great player who, albeit quite imperfectly,
has something still to teach. In the
Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso his
lower strings are very much less responsive,
the trills slower but there are still
plenty of suave finger position changes
and a surety of conception. Turning
back to his commercial recordings of
the piece – with Armour for Pathé
and, in the orchestral version, with
the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris under
Ruhlmann again for Pathé in 1914
– and we find that his vibrancy and
tonal allure have long since dissipated
by the early 1950s.
The Lalo was taped
two months before the Saint-Saëns
items, this time in Brussels. By one
of those infuriating quirks of recording
history he left behind no commercial
testament of it (the attempts with Landon
Ronald in 1929 and Pierre Monteux in
1930 were never approved for release)
and so it’s fortunate that off-air recordings
survive. APR now have two such to their
name, this Martinon 1953 and the 1941
Ansermet, which is in their double CD
set devoted to the violinist. With Martinon
he opens slowly and cautiously but soon
hits form. There’s plenty of elfin delicacy
and pliancy of phrasing and though his
tone is a shadow of its former sensual
self the Spanishry he finds in the Scherzando
has seldom sounded more naturally evocative
or playful. As ever he discards the
Intermezzo but it’s still bewitching,
in spite of all the limitations, to
hear how he explores expressive intimacy
tinged with a kind of wistful candour
in the Andante. The finale is spirited
and vital though the trills are not
on the button. He is faster in all movements
than he had been in 1941 with Ansermet
and the reason is technical – like most
musicians he would speed up if harried,
or fearing himself to be harried, technically,
and that is undoubtedly the case here.
Similarly his live
1941 Chausson Poème lasts 16.16
whilst his later commercial 1950 recording
with the Lamoureux and Bigot lasts 15.11.
That last made an appearance, I believe,
on one of those maddeningly over-Cedared
Philips issues, all mud and guts and
very little music. In 1950 his bowing
was compromised and unsteady with a
white-ish, thin tone. Here, in 1941,
things were much better. Not only is
the sound full of depth and body – the
1941 survivals have been excellently
treated by Bryan Crimp – but Thibaud
shapes things with far greater piquancy
and tonal allure and romanticised gesture.
This is now the prime Chausson Poème
recommendation for Thibaud admirers.
As I said earlier Malibran
have issued the two Saint-Saëns
items along with some piano-accompanied
pieces with Marinus Flipse taped the
following day – the same composer’s
Havanaise and Mozart’s Rondo from the
Violin Sonata No. 26 in B flat K378.
Malibran seem to have had access to
the studio tapes because they are distinctly
brighter and fuller than APR’s, which
are presumably from a secondary source.
The rest of the Malibran programme consists
of generally well-known studio recordings.
So my recommendation must be to have
both issues. This APR brings us an invaluable
Lalo and an essential Chausson and one
now has the luxury to add still further
to this great musician’s discography.
Jonathan Woolf
APR 5644 [67.09]