Lots of praise for Philippe Graffin. His recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto (Liverpool Philharmonic, Vernon Handley) is up there with the best in this lucky-on-record concerto. I must do a retrospective of my Graffin recordings. He doesn't get the exposure of Hilary Hahn, Maxim Vengerov, Joshua Bell et al. But he is easily their equal.

A nice thing about buying CDs serendipitously is that occasionally one gets a pleasant surprise. And a good thing about Naxos is that low prices encourage experimentation. I picked up the Elgar CD of 21 year old Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma without any particular expectations. But her playing in this music is a real pleasure. I am not particularly fond of Elgar's sonata for violin & piano (23 minutes without any real inspiration in sight) but I loved Lamsma's playing so much I forgave Elgar. And in the eleven salon pieces that complete the CD, Lamsma shows a real feeling for style, and excellent variation in dynamics and tone colour, and an intelligent appreciation of the need to keep things moving. Even an old warhorse such as La Capricieuse comes up freshly painted.
Yet another really talented young violinist. I'll watch out for her.

Really fallen in love with Sandrine Piau's new CD of Vivaldi cantatas. Old Mr Four Seasons is not normally my cup of tea, but the two cantatas (Laudate pueri, and In furore iustissimae irae) are 100% delight. And what a singer! She takes her place in my current personal pantheon with Carolyn Sampson and Natalie Dessay.

Idyllic concert yesterday in a small church in a lovely Cotsworld village. The violinist played an all-bravura programme that pleased the audience immensely (Vitali, Debussy, Sarasate and Kreisler). And how good to find someone with the courage to present a politically and musically incorrect programme! He was a crowd pleaser and drew warm and enthusiastic applause. Too many fluffs for my liking, however, and too many intonation problems. Double stops brought out his real weaknesses in intonation; Heifetz would prescribe six months of playing scales. Still, the setting, the violinist's enthusiasm, and the programme made the occasion an enjoyable one.

Yesterday evening I actually listened with pleasure to Busoni's second sonata for violin & piano (all 38 minutes of it). First time I've stayed awake and have enjoyed the journey. It was probably helped by the fact that the violinist was Leonidas Kavakos (pianist Denes Varjon). Recorded via streaming audio from the BBC website (concert in Wigmore Hall in mid-June 2006).

I have always been an admirer of Kavakos. In some ways, he often comes over as a 21st century equivalent of Adolf Busch, or Szigeti. He focuses your attention on the music rather than on his playing, which is perhaps one reason I enjoyed the Busoni at last. Also a similar experience with Leila Josefowicz and her new recording that includes the Shostakovich sonata for violin & piano. This sonata's sparse textures have usually seemed somewhat barren to me (as played by Oistrakh and Richter, no less). But it comes off in Josefowicz's hands. The coupling, the first Shostakovich violin concerto, needs another audition, though I did admire the orchestra under Sakari Oramo. To complete an excellent evening, a truly delicious crab (from Fishworks in Bath).

It's an unusual experience to find myself listening to the Beethoven violin concerto with continuing pleasure. To all intents and purposes, it's one of those works I have simply heard too often. However, the new Music & Arts discovery of the 1942 public performance (Carnegie Hall) of the Beethoven with Adolf and Fritz Busch (New York Philharmonic-Symphony) really is a new instant classic. I've always liked the 1942 studio performance by the same team, but this live performance from a few days earlier is far superior (more relaxed and more integrated).
As usual, Busch impresses and entrances by his sheer musicianship rather than by any spectacular feats of fiddling. When Busch is playing, you just listen to the music, and there are no distractions. This must be in the top five recordings of this somewhat difficult concerto over the past 80 years. No mean achievement!

It can be an interesting experience, putting on a new Bach cantata recording for the first time. In the case of one of the CDs I brought back from Paris, the experience was great, and a new "classic recording" was born. Selected pretty well at random from the shelves of the FNAC (St-Lazare), the three cantatas conducted by Philippe Pierlot with the Ricercar Consort give enormous pleasure. For Bach, you need a) the composer at his best b) expert singing c) expert instrumental playing d) good recording and e) good overall direction. This CD (Mirare) has them all. The cantatas concerned are Gleichwie der Regen and Schnee vom Himmel fällt (BWV 18), Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (BWV 106) and Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (BWV 150). I plan to establish a "top 10" rack, since recordings such as these all too often become buried in the collection and forgotten.

A second CD, part of Sigiswald Kuijken's new programme to record all the Bach cantatas, still awaits a listening. It will have to work hard to equal Pierlot's forces!

A last listen before shelving to Irina Muresanu (violin) and Dana Ciocarlie (piano) playing the sonatas of Lekeu and Magnard. 70 minutes of lovely music and gentle melancholy. Pretty bad that these two sonatas aren't aired more often, instead of hour after hour of the sonatas of Franck, Ravel, Beethoven, Brahms and a few others.

The performances are not ideal and no way displace Ferras (Lekeu) or Dumay (Magnard). There is more than a touch of Emanuel Bay to the playing of the pianist, and one's ear stays pretty much with the violinist all the time. It would be good to hear these works played by Berezovzky and Repin, or Akiko Suwanai and Paul Crossley, for example. However, the two works make an ideal coupling here.

Much pleasure from a CD from de Haas: Steven Staryk (solo violin) playing études-caprices by Kreutzer, Fiorillo, Dont, Paganini, Wieniawski, Sevcik, Mazas, Dancla, Rode, Locatelli, et al. 34 pieces on the CD, and not much lasts longer than two minutes. But a veritable feast of attractive music (and violin playing) for violin lovers. Much enjoyment.

Also recorded Leonidas Kavakos playing the Brahms Violin Concerto (Andrew Davies and BBC SO). Predictably good, but I am really played out with the Brahms concerto, after 50 years of frequent listening (starting with Oistrakh and Saxon orchestra under Konwitschny in around 1956). Kavakos is a very fine violinist; I just wish these very fine violinists would be allowed to play something else, from time to time (such as, the études-caprices of Wieniawski, Fiorillo, Dont, etc).

All was not lost; at the market in Tetbury on Wednesday I bought what was probably the best crab of my life. What a magnificent beast! Hopefully, the first of many from the same source.

Evergreens. I enjoyed Rachmaninov's second piano concerto played by Boris Berezovsky (Urals Philharmonic). Boris's playing has always appealed to me; it's strong and fluent, but also sensitive and intelligent. He doesn't storm the barn in Rach 2, but lets the music speak for itself (never a bad thing to do in emotion-charged Russian pieces). It comes over similar to Rachmaninov's own performance. No higher praise.

I also much enjoyed Philippe Graffin's recording of the Elgar violin concerto (coupled, very appositely, with Chausson's Poème). Again, no nonsense from Graffin, no wallowing, no meandering; the Elgar concerto doesn't need it. A lucky concerto on disc, and Graffin's is one of the best. Nice to find so many younger violinists keeping the piece in the repertoire (Isabelle van Keulen and Hilary Hahn, recently).

Bravo Isabelle Faust! Her Schubert recital disc really is exceptional (Fantasie D 934, Duo Sonata D 574, Rondo Brilliant). Like Adolf Busch or Joseph Szigeti, she draws attention to the music, not to her playing. Alexander Melnikov (piano) provides real, virtuoso partnership. An exemplary CD.

Sviatislav Richter in Schubert; that Brilliant Classics box (Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt) was quite an acquisition. I really enjoyed two Schubert sonatas this evening, and am beginning to conclude that Handel and Schubert are my two principal choices when it comes to music listening.

And, on the same subject (?), the improvisation on cooking squid this evening was also a major success!

Very taken with three CDs featuring Ion Voicu. Lovely to hear the classic, pre-war Central European sound (with a Romanian flavour to it). And great to hear real trills played as they should be. Voicu was a major violinist, but it must have been tough for someone from the East to become internationally known in the 1940s and 50s. He did get to make an LP (Mendelssohn and Bruch) with the LSO in London in 1963, however. And his Paganini first concerto is quite impeccable. I'll have to have a Voicu hunt and get some more recordings by him.

Stressful days. Fortunately, I took delivery of a CD of Handel duets sung by Carolyn Sampson (hurrah!) and Robin Blaze. The singing is perfection, as is the recording (very well done, BIS). Yet another Handel disc to listen to over and over again. I am beginning to think that Georg Friedrich may well be my favourite composer; his music is inexhaustible and constantly enchanting.

I was also pleasantly surprised by a "Heifetz Transcriptions" CD (Naxos) from 16-year old Su Yeon Lee. The 18 tracks are a real pleasure. Lee may not have too much experience, but she brings freshness and enthusiasm to these pieces. If only someone would tell her to listen to Heifetz, Kogan and Milstein and learn not to play slower pieces too slowly (a bad modern trend). But most of the pieces on this super CD are not slow, fortunately. To be replayed many times.

Excellent concert in Portsmouth last week. James Ehnes played the first Shostakovich violin concerto (Marin Alsop) then Alsop conducted Elgar's second symphony.
Technically, there has probably never been a finer performance of the Shostakovich. Ehnes really is a master violinist. In particular, the scherzo and the burleska sounded quite superb. Perhaps the notturno and the passagalia could have done with a little less head and a little more heart. But it was a very fine performance. I do, however, prefer the Sarah Chang / Simon Rattle performance; Chang also has an impressive technique, but she also has more heart, which this concerto certainly needs.
Alsop's conducting of the Elgar impressed me; speeds were swift and the music had plenty of backbone (which Elgar -- like Delius -- really needs in performance). It was all a glorious 55 minutes of Edwardian colour and didn't sound a minute too long. The audience really enjoyed it (and also listened to Ehnes's pianissimo passages and pauses in the Shostakovich concerto in rapt silence).

My first (all alone) Tom Yum soup (Thai bouillabaisse). Excellent! The 800 gms of baby squid were hard work, but it was all worthwhile. I forsee this becoming one of my staple dishes (as long as the supplies of fresh squid, mussels, scallops and clams hold up). Paste supplier secured via the Internet (Wing Supplies, a Chinese outfit).
Otherwise, it was Bach today; 77 minutes of contrapuntal arrangements played by Fretwork (consort of viols). Sadly, apart from my sister Iris, I cannot think of anyone who could possibly share my love of this esoteric, cerebral music. If ever I am exiled to Mars, I shall take with me a) the complete works of Bach b) the complete works of Handel and c) many, many cases of Crémant de Loire.

Very much Back to Bach, the last few days. Specifically, I bought Volume 19 in John Eliot Gardiner's Soli Deo Gloria series of Bach cantatas. Somewhat hesitantly, I admit, since I have never really enjoyed JEG in Bach or Handel in the past; too hectoring, to my taste.
But, with the two hours on these two CDs, all is forgiven. The music is Bach at his best (although somewhat lacrimose, in the wrong mood). The playing and singing are exemplary. And the recording is how such things should be, but rarely are. All in all, a rave success. As someone with over 170 Bach cantata recordings on his shelves, I am not easily impressed. But I certainly am, this time round. And Gardiner seems to have improved with age.

Janet Baker and John Barbirolli in Mahler; a happy coupling. I have had enormous pleasure from the "Great Recording of the Century" reissue of the Kindertotenlieder, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and the Fünf Rückert Lieder. A really beautiful CD; three stars all the way (despite the slow tempi in the Kindertotenlieder). I am not an uncritical admirer of Mahler. But this is music to live with.

My curiousity aroused by a review, I bought a CD of Joyce Hatto. Her playing of Schubert's B flat major sonata D 960 really is something. Reminds me of the phrase "velvet paw". I am not usually conscious of a pianist's touch, but I certainly am here. Since she has made 116 CDs (it is said) I may have a lot of listening to do. The Schubert CD I bought also contained a sampler, so this will be interesting.