Jenö Hubay

This week has been something of a Jenö Hubay week, not a composer who is often talked about these days, outside of his well-known Hejre Kati for violin & piano (always called “Hairy Katy” by a friend of mine). But here I was listening to multiple versions of his four violin concertos, plus a CD of short pieces for violin & piano. And I was very happy to do so.

The CD of short pieces was played by Ferenc Szecsödi with Istvan Kassai as pianist (Hungaroton) and is one of thirteen CDs recorded by the pair comprising Hubay's music for violin & piano. First surprise was the quality of the music; one hour of “best of Hubay” is probably of equal stature to one hour of “best of Kreisler”, but guess who has always had the greater fame and exposure? Hubay's Carmen Fantasy is as good as Sarasate's, and a lot better than the flashy piece by Franz Waxman, but guess again who gets the greater exposure?

Second surprise was the violin playing of Ferenc Szecsödi; my first reaction was: “the Léner String Quartet”, since the string sound is very similar to that 1930s sound. Jenö Léner and his violin and viola colleagues were all pupils of Hubay (the cellist was a David Popper pupil in Budapest). Szecsödi's sound, like that of the Léners, is intensely smooth, with low bow pressure and sparing vibrato, and is immediately identifiable as “school of Hubay”, though Hubay, who died in 1937, would not have taught Szecsödi, of course. Szecsödi's technique is impeccable in these pieces I listened to.

On to the four violin concertos by Hubay, very rarely played or recorded these days, for some inexplicable reason. Jenö Hubay was born in 1858, so his musical language is very much end of nineteenth century. The first concerto is excellent; the second and third highly enjoyable; I don't like the fourth much, since it was written “in the old style” and comes over as a kind of eighteenth century pastiche, coming from the head rather than the heart. Hubay's slow movements are strong points, with long singing lines, and he also had the important gift of being able to write memorable tunes, melodies or themes .... unlike so many of his twentieth century competitors. I find the last movement cadenza of the third concerto over-long (I don't like long cadenzas).

I listened to the first two concertos played by Chloë Hanslip, Vilmos Szabadi and by Hagai Shaham. All were excellent, but Hanslip disqualifies herself by taking the two slow movements far too slowly, a common defect by many modern players trying to squeeze maximum feeling out of slow music and ending up killing it. Hanslip's liner notes for the first concerto's slow movement term it adagio ma non tanto and she drags it out for 11' 33”. Szabadi's and Shaham's sleeve notes term it andante ma non tanto and they take 8' 26” and 8' 57” respectively; quite a difference. Similarly, in the second movement larghetto of the second concerto, Hanslip crawls along at 9' 13”, whilst the two competitors do 6' 49” and 7' 02” respectively. Stopwatches only tell part of the story, of course. But Hanslip needs to learn that playing too slowly induces boredom; music needs to flow like a stream, or it becomes stagnant.

Szabadi has the North Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, Shaham the BBC Scottish Orchestra, and Hanslip the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Both Szabadi and Shaham are good buys, though at a pinch I think the Hungarian team with Szabadi comes in just before the Israeli-Scottish team since the music seems to flow even more naturally with the Hungarians. High time there was a Hubay renaissance.