FRÉDÉRIC D’ERLANGER: Violin Concerto; Poëme; FREDERIC CLIFFE: Violin Concerto – Philippe Graffin, violin / BBC Nat. Orch. of Wales / David Lloyd-Jones – Hyperion

by | Apr 7, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

FRÉDÉRIC D’ERLANGER: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 17; Poëme in D Major; FREDERIC CLIFFE: Violin Concerto in D Minor – Philippe Graffin, violin / BBC National Orchestra of Wales / David Lloyd-Jones – Hyperion CDA67838, 69:45 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ***1/2:
Moving at a much slower pace than Hyperion’s acclaimed Romantic Piano Concerto series, the Romantic Violin Concerto is up to Volume 10, dedicated to two English composers whose names won’t be familiar even in England. Baron Frédéric d’Erlanger (1868-1943) was a naturalized British citizen, moving from Paris to London as a teenager. Born of a German banker father and American mother, he took up banking as well but having studied composition in Paris with the composer Anselm Ehmant, d’Erlanger produced a more or less steady stream of compositions starting with a group of songs published when he was twenty-one. He wrote a couple of successful operas, including one based on Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles with a libretto in Italian by Puccini’s librettist, Luigi Illica.
So in the early years of the twentieth century, d’Erlanger was a respected composer whose work got first-class advocacy. His 1902 Violin Concerto received its London debut from no less than Fritz Kreisler and the Philharmonic Society. Twenty-some years later, the orchestral version of his Poëm in D Major would be taken up by William Primrose, soon to be famous as a violist.
Deftly orchestrated, sounding a bit more modern than its discmate, the 1896 Violin Concerto by Frederic Cliffe (1857-1931), d’Erlanger’s concerto is a predominantly lyrical work with a high sugar content. Despite a promising opening, with big double-stops from the soloist and loud declamations from the orchestra, the first movement seems dominated by its sweetly singing second subject. Later in the movement, what sound like a couple of gestures cribbed from other famous violin concertos—a snippet from the cadenza of Brahms’s Concerto, a bit of the tutti from Bruch’s First Concerto—inject a bit of drama into the proceedings, but mostly we have sweetness and light. Despite the moments of Germanic bluster, I’m reminded most of Saint-Saëns.
More of the same in the Allegro molto finale, which the notes to the recording describe as a “diaphanous scherzando, all fairy gossamer.” This could just as well describe the finale of the Mendelssohn Concerto, though d’Erlanger’s would have a greater payoff if, as in the Mendelssohn, there was a real contrast between the finale and what had gone before. Pleasant as d’Erlanger’s finale is, the most successful movement is the slow movement, whose long-legged, meandering melodies are like those of late-Romantic song. D’Erlanger’s delicate scoring, with attractive contributions from the winds and horns, is at its most accomplished here as well. The rapturous Poëm shows again that d’Erlanger’s chief strengths lie in lyrical utterance.
Despite the even more atavistic cast of Cliffe’s Violin Concerto, I prefer it. It has a touch more fiber and energy, more emotional range. It’s the work of a composer for whom a great future was imagined when his First Symphony was premiered in 1889. The Daily Telegraph spoke of it as a masterpiece, maybe the greatest Opus 1 ever. Up to this time, Cliffe had been an unassuming professor of piano at the Royal College of Music. A string of commissions soon followed, including the Violin Concerto commissioned by the Norwich Festival. But by the end of the Edwardian Era, Cliffe’s compositional activity trailed off, and so he left just a handful of works before he stopped writing altogether.
I haven’t heard Cliffe’s supposedly earthshaking First Symphony (available, by the by, on Sterling 1055 along with his tone poem Cloud and Sunshine, written for the Philharmonic Society), but after listening to his Violin Concerto, I can surmise why his star set so rapidly.  Like the music of his older colleague Hubert Parry, Cliffe’s doesn’t bring us a moment closer to the twentieth century than the works of Brahms—or for that matter, an inch closer to the British spirit. It remained for Cliffe’s contemporary Edward Elgar to put the true stamp of Edwardian England on symphonic music.
The first movement of the D Minor Concerto is a little subdued, perhaps, but very attractive; its melodic contours remind me of Dvořák. The second movement is a tender song that gives way to a more troubled middle section. Some of the deeper emotions unleashed here tinge the return of the A section.
The finale, after a deceptively quiet opening, is a lively affair in the gypsy style, which again reminds me of Brahms and makes me forget that I’m listening to the work of an English composer, born and bred. Like the other movements, it’s attractive and well written but leaves one with a dispiriting sense of déjà vu.
Violinist Philippe Graffin, whose work in Volume 1 of Hyperion’s series (the three Saint-Saens’ concertos) I’ve admired, plays elegantly throughout, with a prevailingly sweet tone that suits this music. Whether a violinist with a less patrician approach would inject more emotion into our two concertos is doubtful; this is music with much more light than heat, with little tartness to add savor to the sweet, which tends to cloy in spots. There’s lovely music here, well played, beautifully recorded. Can it be recommended? Yes, certainly, with the proviso that I’m fairly sure you won’t want to return to it very often. As I listened in preparation for this review, the law of diminishing returns set in pretty quickly, I’m afraid.
–Lee Passarella

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