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Ferenc VECSEY (Franz
von VECSEY) (1893-1935) Caprice fantastique
Morceaux (3): No 1, Rêve (1912) [3:26]
Conte passioné (1913) [5:42]
Valse triste [2:42]
Chanson triste (1913) [2:19]
Morceaux (3): No 2, Menuette (1912) [3:00]
Prelude and Fugue for Violin solo – andante (1914) [4:08]
Prelude and Fugue for Violin solo – allegro (1914) [5:08]
Souvenir for Violin and Piano (1913) [1:56]
A toi (1921) [1:49]
Devant un Tombeau (1921) [8:49] Nuit du Nord (1921) [3:41]
Morceaux (3): No 3, Humoresque (1912) [1:04]
Valse lente (1933) [3:31]
Caprice fantastique (1933) [3:47]
Pourquoi (1921) [3:02]
Caprice for Violin No 2 "Cascade" (1916-17) [3:23]
Chanson nostalgique (1933) [2:18] Max REGER (1873
- 1916)
Schlichte Weisen (60), Op. 76: No 52, Maria Wiegenlied
arranged Vecsey (published 1934) [2:15] Niccolò PAGANINI (1782
- 1840)
Concerto for Violin No 2 in B minor, Op. 7 "La Campanella":
Allegro maestoso arranged Vecsey (published 1934) [6:26]
Vilmos Szabady
(violin), Zsuzsana Homor (piano)
rec. Hungaroton Studio, Hungary, October-November 2005 HUNGAROTON
CLASSIC HCD 32333 [69:47]
Vecsey
was one of the wunderkind who so enraptured the musical world
in the first decade of the twentieth century. A Hubay pupil
and almost exact contemporary of fellow pupil Szigeti, Vecsey’s
meteoric career ended with his premature death in 1934, although
in truth he had limited concert-giving after his marriage
a decade earlier. I’m not aware that there’s a biography
of him though he would make a good study for one. There were
prodigy tours to cities galore – I’m sure all collectors
have come across the Vecsey and Elman regulation sailor suit
postcards of c.1907 – and recordings as well. In Vecsey’s
case he recorded for Fonotipia and allied concerns. He was
lauded by Joachim, lionised by society, toured with Bartók,
travelled to South America, and published his own works.
Which
brings us to this collection of his salon, morceaux and other
compositions, ones that span the years from 1912 to 1921.
The two transcriptions were published the year before his
death from an embolism following a minor operation. Shades
of the botched Feuermann operation.
These
are violinistically assured works strong on salon charm.
There are hints that Vecsey has listened to some contemporaries – possibly
Saint-Saëns in the Chanson triste – and Kreisler in
the Minuette, the third of the 1912 Morceaux. For
the executant he also adds a few in-jokes – listen out for
the brief allusion to Tartini’s Devil’s Trill in the Chanson
triste for instance. Rêve, the first of the Morceaux
is almost a paradigm of the salon style and was written when
its composer was nineteen. A Toi is a beautiful piece,
full of sentiment, and a second cousin of Elgar’s Salut
d’amour. Valse lent hints at rather more advanced harmonies
but Devant un Tombeau (1921) is altogether different – an
almost luridly macabre piece, the musical analogue of Edgar
Allan Poe or the spine chilling tales of M.R. James. The
greatest seriousness of compositional purpose however is
reserved for the Prelude and Fugues I and II, works that
are almost Bachian paraphrases. They don’t obviously have
the transmutational genius of Ysaÿe’s solo works but they
do offer an avenue into the preoccupations of a violinist
who was often viewed as merely a technician parading his
Paganinian wares.
Vilmos
Szabady and Zsuzsana Homormake a fine case for this
collection. That said, for all that Szabady is a fine player
with a string of highly regarded discs to his name, there
were times when I felt he could have sculpted the music with
greater incision. That difficult finger-tester, the Caprice
for Violin No. 2 "Cascade," tends to hang fire.
Vecsey recorded this for Polydor electrically and plays it
with really incisive bowing and rhythmic lift. Similarly
Arthur Grumiaux’s recording of Valse triste is more
detailed, textured and emphatic than Szabady who, not for
the only time, rather hangs fire and lets the piece play
itself.
Still,
this unique disc joins the ranks of those devoted to other
violin-composers who swam in the post-Kreisler age – the
Sammons-Hyperion prominently – and expands our appreciation
of a player now long forgotten.
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