The Hungarian-born violinist Endre Wolf (1913-2011) was a pupil
of Hubay in Budapest. In 1936 he became leader of the Gothenburg
Symphony Orchestra, resigning a decade later to begin his career
as soloist and recitalist, often with his wife Antoinette, and
also with his Wolf quartet. British music-lovers came across
him due to his association with the Hallé Orchestra and its
conductor John Barbirolli when Wolf was, for a number of years,
a Professor at the Royal Northern College of Music. He was also
a noted pedagogue in his adopted country of Sweden.
There was a period of a decade, between 1954 and 1963, when
it seemed that no Proms season was complete without Endre Wolf
and André Navarra (Endre and André) giving the public their
Brahms Double Concerto – though ironically when Barbirolli recorded
it, it was Alfredo Campoli who joined Navarra. To check on the
view that Wolf was exclusively associated with JB, I looked
at the Proms playlists and found that, in fact, he also performed
with Basil Cameron and John Pritchard and no, it wasn’t just
the Double – he also played the concertos by Beethoven and Mendelssohn
and the Brahms Violin Concerto.
This two-disc set presents for the first time the entirety of
Wolf’s recordings for the Danish label Tono. This company’s
violin discs were dominated by two émigré Hungarian fiddlers
– Wolf and Emil Telmányi - to whom the repertoire was parcelled
out. Telmányi was famous for Sibelius, Nielsen and Bach, also
Brahms. Wolf was given more central and Romantic repertoire.
Thus we hear his Tchaikovsky and Bruch concertos, and the two
most famous Beethoven sonatas.
His Tchaikovsky (1949) is fast, though bowed with such security
that it doesn’t seem unduly rushed, notwithstanding a cut finale.
There are no particular idiosyncrasies, his trills in the slow
movement are pellucid, his legato excellent and the dynamic
shaping (especially diminuendos) equally accomplished. I think,
though, that even generous auditors would carp at a finale of
this work lasting barely just over six minutes. Also there sounds
like a slightly jarring side join – this was a 78 set – at 4:23
in the first movement: it sounds a bit tentative and, as it’s
on an open violin note seems a strange place to have a turn
over. The efficient conductor is Thomas Jensen.
Mozart’s A major Concerto was self-directed, and I think it
would have been better to employ someone like Jensen or Tuxen.
There are a few imprecisions and a little violin slip in the
finale – possibly (I’m surmising) because Wolf turned around
immediately to direct a tutti passage. There’s also a bit of
a lurch in the playing at around six minutes into the slow movement,
possibly as a result of a side change. Still, the playing is
robust and confident and some fine ‘pathetic’ phrasing from
Wolf illuminates the central movement, and some brisk portamenti
similarly in the finale. Wolf was, by and large, quite a ‘clean’
player and doesn’t seem to have developed the dreaded nagging
Hubay vibrato.
Bruch’s G minor Concerto, recorded in 1949, is kept on a good,
tight rein, and played with sweetness and purity and considerable
charm. Once again he is astute at dynamic variance and at resisting
ear-catching but ultimately gauche finger position changes.
His conductor is the excellent Tuxen. He joins with his first
wife Antoinette for the Spring and Kreutzer
sonatas. They take slow tempi for the first two movements of
the Spring, though Oistrakh and Milstein did too, but
the last two are up to tempo. It’s a relaxed performance, strong
on ensemble quality. The Kreutzer is much more up to
tempo all round but is quite small-scale with a fast and very
leanly phrased variations second movement. I have to say I found
it rather breathless and a touch superficial.
There are some extra smaller pieces. His nimble Flight of
the Bumble Bee can’t survive comparison with Milstein (few
can) but his Aulin Humoreske is a real charmer and
he digs into Szigeti’s arrangement of Bartók’s Hungarian
Folk-Tunes with much of the gusto you’d expect. There’s
also a rare example of his Bach – a single movement, the Sarabande,
from the Partita in D minor.
One of Wolf’s best known recordings was the Brahms Concerto
with the Sinfonia of London and Anthony Collins – a World Record
Club LP - though he’d earlier recorded it with Walter Goehr
for Music Appreciation Records. If you want to discover more
about him these Tono transfers are just the thing. I assume
all are taken from commercial copies and there’s some chuffing
and small damage along the way, none of which is especially
important.
Jonathan Woolf
Track listing
CD 1
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY
(1840-1893)
Violin Concerto in D major Op.35 [29:55]
Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Jensen
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART
(1756-1791)
Violin Concerto in A major K219 [29:16]
Copenhagen Chamber Orchestra/Endre Wolf
Nicolň PAGANINI (1782-1840)
Caprice Op.1 No.5 arr. R. Maciewski [2:47]
Tor AULIN (1866-1914)
Humoreske [2:57]
Béla BARTÓK (1881-1945)
Hungarian Folk-Tunes arr. Szigeti [8:29]
Antoinette Wolf (piano)
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Partita in D minor – Sarabande [2:54]
CD 2
Max BRUCH (1838-1929)
Violin Concerto in G minor Op.26 [23:43]
Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra/Erik Tuxen
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Violin Sonata No.5 in F major Op.24 Spring [23:48]
Violin Sonata No.9 in A major Op.47 Kreutzer [29:48]
Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
(1844-1908)
Flight of the Bumble Bee [1:22]
rec. 1949-51