Christian Ferras, Vol. I = MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64; MOZART: Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219 “Turkish”; TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D Major, OP. 35; MARTINON: Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 51 – Christian, Ferras, violin/Orchestre National de l’ORTF/Carl Schuricht (Mozart)/Orchestre National de l’ORTF/Wolfgang Sawallisch (Mendelssohn) /Orchestre Philharmonique de l’ORTF/Charles Bruck
Doremi DHR-7880/1 (2 CDs) 62:10; 64: 40 [Distr. by Allegro] *****:
For at least a solid decade or so, c. 1964-1974, the French violin virtuoso Christian Ferras (1933-1982) reigned supreme, enjoying a good contract with EMI — featuring his chamber music work with pianist Pierre Barbizet — and an even more prestigious relationship with Herbert von Karajan and DGG for a series of inscriptions devoted to the mainstream concerto repertory. Connoisseurs, moreover, appreciate Ferras’ work with Yehudi Menuhin in Bach, along with many fine chamber music collaborations with Gendron and Kempff. An extremely polished performer, Ferras combined a lavish tone with a rasping often pungent attack that jarred one’s sensibilities with the force of his personality. A tragic combination of manic depression and substance abuse led to his untimely suicide in 1982.
The Mendelssohn Concerto from Paris (25 May 1965) proves a viscerally sumptuous experience, sensitive emotionally and technically brilliant, especially in Mendelssohn’s demanding runs and frequent changes of registration. The Andante seems to be held in some kind of pure stasis, a refined, arioso moment of exquisite beauty. His high elbow position of the bow arm worked for him, so far as he sustains the singing line with an unbroken tension. Whether one accepts his tendency to slide notes remains moot, given the sheer beauty of his execution. The last movement rather deftly reveals Ferras’ arsenal of virtuoso effects, including the ability to invest fluttering and spiccato passages with sultry energy, perfect for the playing of Sarasate and Saint-Saens. Sawallisch contrives a forceful orchestral part, light-footed and marvelous agile, given Ferras’ rather free approach to the bar line. The inflamed last pages burn the house down, the Paris audience thoroughly fanatical in their response.
Charles Bruck (1911-1995), the Hungarian-French conductor whose EMI work with violinist Leonid Kogan earned high praise, leads the Tchaikovsky Concerto in Paris (3 January 1968). Ferras immediately thrusts himself into the solo part, investing the rocking phrases at the opening with nervous momentum that urges us upward and outward, a force of destiny. The secondary theme a heart-rending intensity, as noble in phraseology as it is intimately projected. Yet the scale of the performance is heroically huge, easily on a par with the esteemed commercial version by Francescatti and Mitropoulos. The cadenza sends us reeling, a combination of fierce technical wizardry and searing emotional commitment: Ferras may well be playing Tchaikovsky and thinking Bach! The final peroration must have fallen from asbestos heavens, the intensity explosive enough to send the most inured Tchaikovsky auditor to the stratosphere. The opening of the G Minor Canzonetta sounds church-inspired, and Ferras can be found in solemnly sweet meditation. The interplay of violin and flute bespeaks a purity of tone and of heart. As per expectation, the Allegro vivacissimo rasps and sings with gypsy fire, Ferras rather standard in his omission of rhetorical repeats. The Russian dance element spits and springs in colorful bravura, incendiary and nostalgic at once, Ferras’ one violin ablaze with gypsy balalaikas. After one half hour of rapt silence, the Paris audience waxes ecstatic.
It was with Carl Schuricht (1880-1967) that Ferras inscribed his marvelous Brahms Violin Concerto for Decca in 1952. Their Paris collaboration in the Turkish Concerto of Mozart (2 February 1955) enjoys the serene youth of Ferras’ twenty-two-year old persona, a youthful knight playing music from Music’s own angel. The tender humanity of the opening phrases–Allegro aperto–lyrical, buoyant, and eminently vocal, simply defies verbal analogy. Schuricht keeps the woodwinds bouncing and strings heaving just underneath the plastic figures from his soloist. Each phrase-landing maintains the logical continuity effortlessly, the musical periods dovetailing one to the other in ingenuous symmetry. The Adagio complements the “aperto” designation of the first movement, an indication of the score’s eminently vocal style. Each application of Ferras’ trill urges the melodic content to another stage of rapturous, expressive reverie. The last movement Rondeau opens ingenuously enough, winds and horns scuttling along under the sailing arioso by Ferras. His demure approach at first testifies to the Menuhin influence, but the transition to the minor-key Janissary materials enjoys that savage precision Ferras commands, a suavely, tragic innocence alternately exuberant and emotionally combustible. Schuricht, too, has caught the magic spark, and his pointed accompaniment–col legno cellos–rattles sabers and scimitars along the corridors of the seraglio. The work ends with a marvelous diminution of energies, a broken chord that dissolves gently into galant rhetoric.
Jean Martinon (1910-1976) composed his Violin Concerto No. 2 between 1960-1961 for Henryk Szeryng, who premiered the piece with the composer in May 1961. This realization with Ferras and Charles Bruck from Paris (6 December 1968) captures its two main impulses: a modal melancholy lyricism traceable to the influence of the Berg Concerto, and a rough-edged martial element we might ascribe to Bartok or Stravinsky. In its darker contours, the music resembles that of Honegger. A violinist himself, Martinon insists on certain challenges from his soloist, including double-stops, glissandi, impressive chromatic leaps, and sudden shifts in registration. The first movement cadenza resembles most the unaccompanied Bartok Sonata. The Andantino-Adagio movement moves in quasi-parlando fashion, reminiscent again of Bartok but now influenced by Berg’s nervous lyricism. Suggestive of a twelve-tone row, the angular melody line slides in and around tonal centers, the dominant affect espesssivo. Shimmering percussive figures mark the last movement Vivace, into which the violin mumbles and prances in figures that owe metric and percussive debts to Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat and Prokofiev‘s G Minor Violin Concerto.
–Gary Lemco
