Elgar's Violin Concerto

Much of the music of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Elgar and Mahler is filled with Angst; it was that period in musical history 1880-1920 when many things were in a turmoil. To my taste, there are two convincing ways of playing angst-rich music: either play it straight, on the grounds all the emotion is already written into the music. Or play it with heart-on-sleeve for all it is worth. In Mahler, take your choice between someone like like Haitink or Klemperer; or someone like Bernstein. In Rachmaninov, take your pick between someone like Rachmaninov himself, or extroverts such as Martha Argerich or Yuja Wang. In Tchaikovsky, the Pathétique Symphony used to please me when played fast and straight by Cantelli or Toscanini, but nowadays I go for heart-on-sleeve Pletnev or Gergiev.

In the Elgar violin concerto to which I have just been listening, those who like the music slobbered over can go with young Menuhin, or with Nigel Kennedy. Those who like the music left to speak for itself can go with Thomas Zehetmair or with James Ehnes, to whom I listened again with admiration yesterday evening.

I have 22 recordings of the Elgar concerto and none of them are bad; the only bad one I had, with Igor Oistrakh all at sea, was deleted from my collection long ago. Apart from the superb Zehetmair and Ehnes modern recordings, I also own recordings by Hugh Bean, Alfredo Campoli, Kyung-Wha Chung, Philippe Graffin, Ida Haendel, Hilary Hahn, Jascha Heifetz, Nai-Yuan Hu, Dong-Suk Kang, Nigel Kennedy, Isabelle van Keulen, Gidon Kremer, Simone Lamsma, Catherine Manoukian, Yehudi Menuhin, Albert Sammons, and Elena Urioste. Quite a line-up, and some surprises such as the impassioned performance by Gidon Kremer, or Kyung-Wha Chung expertly guided by Georg Solti who, for all his faults, was an exemplary no-nonsense Elgarian. My personal favourite reading of all time is Albert Sammons recorded in long-gone 1929; no slobbering there!