Baiba Skride: Britten and Bartok

I have never been a fan of the music of Benjamin Britten, bar a few works. I have just listened to a recording of his double concerto for violin, viola and orchestra (completed from drafts). Except for a few passages in the second and third movements, it seems to me to be music written without passion. It was played (very well) in a recent recording by Baiba Skride, with Ivan Vukcevic (viola) and Marin Alsop conducting the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra. I have only one other recording of the work (Anthony Marwood and Lawrence Power, with Ilan Volkov conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra). Apart from the Bach D minor concerto for two violins, I don't think duo concertos work too well.

How different is Britten's one and only violin concerto, written in 1938-9 and frequently revised. I have many recordings of the piece on my shelves, including violinists such as James Ehnes, Julia Fischer, Augustin Hadelich, Janine Jansen, Simone Lamsma, Arabella Steinbacher, and Frank Peter Zimmermann (the latter with three different recordings). The concerto breathes passion, much like Shostakovich's first violin concerto of a few years later. The Britten concerto has come into its own only recently but, to my mind, it is a better piece of music than the ultra-popular concertos of Mendelssohn and Bruch (G minor).

The Latvian violinist Baiba Skride gives a magnificent performance of the violin concerto, with the same backing as with Britten's double concerto. She brings out all the dark passion of the violin concerto and is technically impeccable. Orchestra, balance and recording quality are all excellent. I recently praised the recording of the work by Kerson Leong. Skride is on the same level.

To complete my Baiba Skride listening, I heard Bartok's two Rhapsodies for violin and orchestra (WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln conducted by Eivind Aadland). Not bad, but not music I will return to often, like most of Bartok's music.

Phillippe Graffin plays Eugène Ysaÿe

Put 100 randomly selected people in a room and ask them about the music of  Eugène Ysaÿe and one can almost guarantee total silence. Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was born in Liège in Belgium and was a wonderful violinist. Like Fritz Kreisler, he wrote extensively for the violin, with many well-loved morceaux for violin and piano. His is not great music, but it's for relaxed listening for those who love the violin and music for violin written by a violinist.

A recent CD from the French violinist Phillippe Graffin gives us two large-scale works for violin and orchestra, and three salon pieces for violin and piano. The Poème Concertant is labelled as a world premier recording. The E minor violin concerto has been pieced together from odds and ends of manuscript. In the orchestral works, the Liverpool Philharmonic plays valiantly, conducted by Jean-Jacques Kantorow.

It's a while since I last heard Philippe Graffin, but he is an excellent violinist and probably one of the very best choices possible for Eugène Ysaÿe's music. The music with orchestra is excellently crafted, but is an exercise in craftmanship rather than a product of emotion and imagination. As might be expected, the violin predominates; Fritz Kreisler was wise to have eschewed trying to compose large-scale works for violin and orchestra. For lovers of violin playing, however, even the concertante works are of interest though, on this CD, I particularly enjoyed the two mazurkas, plus the well-known Rêve d'enfant; the pianist in the three morceaux is Marisa Gupta. Recording quality and balance are excellent.