I was a little
concerned listening to my newly arrived CD of James Ehnes and
Andrew Armstrong playing César Franck's sonata for violin and
piano; my interest kept wavering throughout all four movements. Was
it my head, preoccupied with other matters? Or was it the playing?
Surely it wasn't fatigue with Franck's sonata?
So I embarked on
listening to the sonata four times in 24 hours. First: the
Ehnes-Armstrong. Second, the classic Thibaud and Cortot
from 1929 (excellent restoration by Mark Obert-Thorn for Pristine
Audio). Third, from the new recording by Renaud Capuçon and
Khatia Buniatishvili about which I enthused recently. Then,
finally, back to Ehnes and Armstrong.
Tempi in all four
movements by all three duos are pretty similar. I really enjoyed
listening to Thibaud and Cortot again, and was equally enthusiastic
with Capuçon and Buniatishvili; a real favourite, and perhaps the
recording of the 55 (!) I have of this work that currently I most
enjoy. Then, for my fourth listening, back to Ehnes and Armstrong.
Ehnes is extremely good, as one might expect. The flaw is the
pianist: Armstrong is just not in the same class as Cortot or
Buniatishvili. He plays well, reminding me of Brooks Smith, Heifetz's
long-term accompanist. But listen to Cortot, or listen to
Buniatishvili, and the competitive bar is set very high indeed. Ehnes
seems not to favour big-name partners in violin and piano sonatas;
this matters less in the (excellent) account of the Strauss sonata
also on the CD. But for the Franck, he would have been better advised
to play with Yevgeny Sudbin, Hélène Grimaud, Xiayin Wang, Marc-André Hamelin, Lise de
la Salle or a host of the other first class pianists of whom there is
no lack at the present time. The recorded balance favours the piano; not a good thing in these two sonatas, where Ehnes often sounds like a voice off stage whilst the piano plonks away in front of our noses.
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