Fournier first performed the Elgar Concerto in 1949. His recording
with the Berlin Philharmonic and Wallenstein was made in 1967
and in between came numerous performances, amongst them this one,
taped in Cologne in 1955. The conductor was Hans Rosbaud, a superb
and still under appreciated, dedicated musician. Fournier represented
the noble strain of the French School in this work, in which expressive
gestures were at the service of architectural and structural goals
– never a means in themselves. The most internationally famous
French player of the concerto was Tortelier, who had studied it
at college where it was taught, but Fournier’s natural aristocracy
offered a valid alternative; Navarra’s rougher-toned but no less
important place in this Trinity offered three great and fruitfully
divergent approaches.
Since I’ve never
made much of a secret of the fact that Franco-Belgian string
players are probably closest to my heart it’s always a particular
pleasure to encounter a broadcast such as this. That said Fournier
is on slightly fallible form and pedants will want to note these
slips. Intonation is certainly not infallible – Fournier was
no Gendron when it came to matters of intonation – and he takes
a little while to settle. Dignity and a refusal to linger are
hallmarks of Fournier’s Elgar. He’s slightly broader in the
slow movement here than in the Berlin recording but fractionally
tighter in the first movement, takes exactly the same tempo
in the Adagio; half a minute quicker in Cologne than in Berlin
in the finale.
Rosbaud accents
finely; the layering of the string choirs is frequently masterly,
though he can’t have been that familiar with the work at the
time. He certainly ensures shifting bow weights in the strings’
entries and attacks. Fournier makes a few finger slips in the
Scherzo and seems to tire in the finale slightly where intonation
occasionally suffers again. For those who prefer a lingering,
long drawn out catharsis in this work French players are not
your first port of call. I’ve always been more drawn to their
way of thinking and to Anthony Pini’s – so, despite the blips,
this is a treasurable reading.
Its companion sees
Fournier teamed with a hero of the Dvořák discography –
not least in this work – in the shape of George Szell. His talismanic
recording with Casals in 1938 is irreplaceable but he and Fournier
clearly enjoyed a sympathetic collaboration. Neither gave in
to syrup. They recorded the work in Berlin in the early sixties;
other Fournier performances have survived of course – there’s
a fine broadcast disc in Prague with Georges Sebastian directing
the Czech Philharmonic in 1959.
Fournier is on better
technical form here. There’s no second subject wallowing, but
nor is there the brutish stupidity of Toscanini’s account of
this work – an abject disappointment – in which every subtlety
and nuance is sacrificed to the dictates of speed. This conversely
is a well structured, strongly argued, warmly expressive account
all round. It’s certainly faster than the commercial recording
made at around the same time but not worryingly so. The proportions
of the piece are intact and the noble edifice of the slow movement
and the culminatory reflections of the finale find noble interpreters
in the two men. I must also note the very distinctive Cologne
flautist. As a pendant there’s a witty performance of the Twelve
Variations on ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’ from Mozart’s Die
Zauberflöte with pianist Franz Holetschek.
Both the concerto
performances are worthy adjuncts to, though not replacements for,
Fournier’s commercial recordings.
Jonathan Woolf
Pierre Fournier
(cello) 
