Pierre de Bréville
was born in Lorraine in 1861. His most
famous teacher was Franck with whom
he studied counterpoint, fugue and composition
and whose memory he revered for the
rest of his life. Like a number of French
contemporaries he paid the obligatory
Bayreuth pilgrimage (in 1882 where he
met Liszt and Bruckner) and again in
1888 with Fauré and Debussy amongst
the Gallic contingent. His largest scale
music was operatic and vocal – though
his only completed opera was Eros
vainqueue and it had a chequered
performance history – but he did write
quite an amount of chamber music.
The Violin Sonata of
1918-19 was to be followed by those
for cello in 1930 and for viola in 1944
but it was the violin that touched him
most; in all he wrote five sonatas for
the instrument between 1919 and 1947.
The first was premiered by George Enescu
and one of the doyennes of the Parisian
Piano School and later the Catalan,
Blanche Selva, in March 1920. It’s a
big four-movement work lasting about
thirty-eight minutes. The opening has
a real lyric curve, strongly Fauréan,
with an extremely busy piano part. The
violin writing is nicely and richly
characterised and de Bréville
ensures that the player has plenty to
do as he swoops between the upper and
lower strings, soaring acrobatically
one moment, descending to more guttural
introspection the next. This kaleidoscopic
turbulence is a recurrent feature of
the sonata though the tolling motif
at the end conjures the aggressive intimations
to come. I should also mention the ultra
glorious melody at the core of the first
movement. The second movement, marked
Gai, is lissom and lively topped by
a pizzicato jaunt but the slow movement
bears the weight of the sonata. Rolled
chords and a sense of isolation and
lament runs throughout (the work was
dedicated to the memory of Lieutenant
Gervais Cazes). The piano picks up the
earlier tolling, pealing theme before
a new lyric theme emerges for the fiddle,
beautiful but ultimately impermanent.
The martial and tense finale may remind
one glancingly of Alkan but much more
of Franck, both procedurally and melodically.
The piano part also sounds unremitting
and fiendish, another tribute to his
teacher’s own Violin Sonata which must
be on of the most awkward and difficult
in the book. The two players fling themselves
into these demands with real power and
conviction. Pascal Devoyon is unremitting
with the piano part whilst Graffin is
full of colour and glint; maybe too
much so indeed. There were a few occasions
in the first movement when his lower
strings sounded rather bulgy and out
of scale, due mainly to over-intensified
vibrato usage.
Canteloube’s Suite
was, by contrast to de Bréville’s,
a prentice work. He sent it to his teacher
d’Indy (by correspondence, Canteloube
lived in the Lot and couldn’t meet him)
and d’Indy sent back some bracing, practical
but encouraging advice. Taking advantage
of d’Indy’s perception Canteloube refined
the suite further till it met approval
and was published in 1906 – though there
was a second edition in 1933. It’s a
half-hour four-movement suite and full
of freshness and colour. Rippling piano
figuration animates the opening movement
and an elegant, simply songful violin,
a more animated central section with
trilling and then hoarse throated fiddle
writing. Subtle colouration courses
through the second movement, Le Soir.
From chordal depth to filigree the
piano supports the fiddle’s firefly
trills with acumen and a certain degree
of wonder, evoking night with warmth.
Canteloube never shies away from native
folk influence and he douses the third
movement in plaintive folksy music.
The most obvious influence in the finale
is impressionism, from its verdant rustling
opening we hear the emergence of the
melody made famous in Chants d’Auvergne
— this is where it started! Wonderfully
simple and effective it is too, in this
version. Throughout the two musicians
play with great felicity though again
I must register (perhaps a solo) reservation
about Graffin’s queasy bowing and on/off
vibrato which gives way to isolated
cases of over vibration for expressive
effect.
Martin Anderson’s booklet
notes are a model of their kind and
though we don’t discover exactly where
Graffin and Devoyon were recorded Hyperion
has accorded them a marvellously apposite
sound.
Jonathan Woolf
for details
Philippe Graffin (violin) 
