Ferdinand DAVID (1810-1873)
Salon-Duet Op.25 (c.1850) [8:11]
Suite, Op.43 [11:13]
12 Salon Pieces, Op.24 (1849-50) [40:07]
Three Impromptus in the form of waltzes [16:07]
Stephan Schardt (violin)
Philipp Vogler (piano)
rec. April 2012, Konzerthaus der Abtei Marienmünster
MUSIKPRODUKTION DABRINGHAUS UND GRIMM MDG 903 1774-6 
[76:00]
Ferdinand David is remembered primarily for his friendship with
Mendelssohn. The decade the violinist spent as concertmaster of
Mendelssohn’s Gewandhaus orchestra - in all David led the orchestra
for fully 37 years - was marked by many triumphs, not the least of which was
Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, which was written for David, as was
Schumann’s Violin Sonata in D minor. David was active in the city - he
was one of the co-founders of the Leipzig Conservatory - but he also
composed. This disc resurrects some of those lighter works that post-date
Mendelssohn’s death.
David’s earlier works were written for violin and orchestra,
which is to say for himself to play at his own concerts. From around 1849/50
chamber works take over. The Salon-Duet was one of the first fruits
of this move away from concertante-type pieces, possibly prompted by
Mendelssohn’s death. It takes a song by Burns, translated into German,
as its starting point, and spins some succulent variations on the theme,
which is then subject to some commanding classical cum romantic virtuosity.
The Suite, Op.43 is for solo violin and the obvious historical
precedent is Bach, some of whose music Mendelssohn had been responsible for
restoring to the city’s concert halls. That said, this is neither
homage to, nor a simulacrum of Bachian procedure. True, each of the five
movements bears the name of a Baroque dance form, but the use to which David
puts them differs significantly from Bach. The central Gavotte is
perhaps the movement that comes closest to what, in other contexts, Duke
Ellington might have called ‘a tone parallel’ to Bach, but as a
whole the work was unusual in presenting a solo work in this way. The heyday
of the solo violin sonata was well into the future.
The Twelve Salon Pieces, Op.24 show how well David had
assimilated compositional models. That said they’re not wholly
digested. Thus the Beethovenian scherzo sounds more than a little like the
same movement from the Spring Sonata, with which David would have
been very familiar. The Romanze could easily be a Mendelssohn Song
without Words, there’s an elegantly turned Schumannesque
Rondo, a refined Davidian Ballade, and a pawky little March.
That David had a pronounced sense of humour can be divined from this set,
and in particular Ständchen. The last work in the programme is
the undated set of three Impromptus in the form of waltzes. These are
ingeniously done, and pay particular regard to the balance of material of
both instruments. There’s plenty of melodic and harmonic matter for
violin and piano to project, and for repeated phrases to run between them.
The central Andantino is very refined and beautiful. It also sounds
to me strangely like a French chanson of the 1930s!
This well-planned recital has been well played and recorded, in
SACD, and has a full set of notes in German, English and French. Stephan
Scardt plays with regard to stylistic niceties and is a communicative
player, and Philipp Vogler is not afraid to assert himself in the
Impromptus
Jonathan Woolf
