What lovers of violin music would do without Naxos, I can't imagine. Vieuxtemps, de Bériot, Sarasate, Ysaÿe, Spohr, Sauret, Rode ..... and many other violin composers have poured forth from Naxos over the decades, and many excellent modern violinists have been able to make their voices heard on disc, often for the first time. A kind friend has sent me a new Naxos CD of music by Henri Vieuxtemps, recorded by Alexander Markov (the son of Albert) and the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach. Everyone on the disc plays with great enthusiasm and expertise, and Naxos gives us its usual excellent recording quality.
The new CD is nice to have, but it has to be admitted that much of the music is of a somewhat slender quality, chosen mainly, I suspect, to provide a show-off vehicle for Alexander Markov. We can assume nowadays that every violinist and his or her dog can play any pyrotechnics to order; probably even double harmonics with simultaneous left-hand pizzicato and ricochet bowing. So what made ears tingle in the time of Paganini or Vieuxtemps occasions less tingling nowadays. I am not a fan of pages of violin pyrotechnics. Here, the Variations on Beethoven's Romance No.1, the Fantasie in E major, and the Variations on a theme from Norma, are not going to bear repeated listening, though good to have heard them at least once. The first movement of the 8th violin concerto (orchestrated from the piano score by Chrisoph Baumgarten) makes one regret that Vieuxtemps died before he could finish the work. The concerto was dedicated to Vieuxtemps' star pupil, Eugène Ysaÿe and the first movement contains some excellent music.
The Scène de Ballet from the third act of Vieuxtemps' opera La Fiancée de Messine gives the orchestra a chance to show its paces under its conductor, Markus Huber. Attractive music with which to round off 69 minutes of music, some of which shows signs of barrel scraping.
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