Arthur Grumiaux (violin)
Live - Volume 2
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Violin Concerto No. 1 in B flat major K207 (1775) [17:53]
Chamber Orchestra of Belgian Radio/Edgar Doneux
Violin Sonata No. 35 in A major, K526 (1787) [20:11]
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Violin Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 96 (1812) [24:06]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 100 (1886) [18:14]
Hans Altmann (piano)
rec. Brussels, 1973 (Concerto); Munich Radio, 1952-55 (Sonatas)
DOREMI DHR-8080 [80:34]
In terms of repertoire there’s nothing new to Grumiaux’s discography in Doremi’s second volume devoted to his live performances, but none of these items has been released on disc before so far as I’m aware.
The most recent is the Mozart Concerto, taped in 1973 with the Chamber Orchestra of Belgian Radio directed by Edgar Doneux. It’s in perfectly decent sound. In the first two concertos Grumiaux almost invariably employed his own cadenzas, as he had for Paumgartner and Colin Davis in his studio collaborations, and as he does here. As ever he displays the utmost in digital clarity and stylistic purity, added to which there is natural buoyancy of rhythm that makes even this concerto, hardly one of Mozart’s imperishable masterpieces, seem alive with vitality. Doneux takes the orchestral introduction to the slow movement at quite a lick, and though Grumiaux relaxes the tempo on his opening entry, it’s still a fast basic tempo, then or now. The finale is appropriately elegant and reminds me strongly of the collaboration with Davis in their early 60s complete cycle. Some applause is retained.
The remainder of the programme focuses on Grumiaux’s visits to Munich in the 1950s. The house accompanist for the city’s broadcasting company was Hans Altmann, a most effective collaborator in these three examples which span the years 1952 (the Brahms) to 1955 (Mozart) by way of 1954 (Beethoven). He recorded the Mozart sonata commercially in 1956 with Clara Haskil and a broadcast of their performance of it in Strasbourg has also been preserved and can be found on Meloclassic. Even so, the version with Walter Klein in 1981 may still be the best-remembered if only for the superior sound quality. Fortunately, Munich Radio’s studio recording was typically fine, and it’s notable that he and Altmann take a tempo for the slow movement almost equidistant between those for Klein and Haskil. With solicitous concern Grumiaux ensures his accompanying figures never drown Altmann; not all star fiddlers are quite so musical in this respect.
Beethoven’s Op.96 Sonata is somewhat faster than the Haskil recording in the outer movements and this vests a slightly greater urgency to the music-making. Ensemble is good and one can hear how, and to what expressive purpose, Grumiaux exploits quick slides. He was a notably ‘clean’ player in that respect so it’s invariably up to the listener to appreciate just how adept he was employing this expressive device. But of all the pieces here it’s Brahms that I enjoyed most. Grumiaux was a beautiful performer of the sonatas. His cycle with Sebők is exemplary and he also left behind a famous recording of the sonata under review, the A major, in which he played both parts, overdubbing (he was a fine pianist), now on Eloquence. I suppose his ideal performance must be the one in which he played both roles, in which case this 1952 broadcast veered from the ideal by virtue of the adrenalin of a live reading. Both outer movements are, in the context, significantly faster than both studio recordings and the losses in pinpoint accuracy are outweighed by the gains in emotive candour and vivid communicative warmth. You never find a ‘break’ in Grumiaux’s application of vibrato; it’s seamless. The only problem is the rather echo-laden studio acoustic which imparts a more edgy tone than one is used to with Grumiaux. So, it’s by no means a first port of call for him in this work, but it does represent a fascinating addition to his surviving broadcast recordings.
Jack Silver supplies a brief biographical sketch and there are pictures of both musical collaborators, Doneux and Altmann.
Surviving examples of this great artist’s work are invariably valuable and this one is no different.
Jonathan Woolf
