The enterprising violinist Philippe Graffin – whose recordings for Avie span the world-premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto to the original instrumentation of Ravel’s Tzigane and specially commissioned works by Lithuanian composer Vytautus Barkauskus – comes up with another plum: the Elgar Violin Concerto but as you’ve never heard it before. Here he offers another world-premiere recording, performing from Elgar’s original manuscript.

The story goes that just as Elgar felt he had completed his composition he consulted Kreisler who was to give the world-premiere performance. The virtuoso violinist requested numerous changes to suit his own technique and temperament. Finding the original manuscript in the British Library was for Philippe a “rejuvenating experience, like opening the diary of someone you know well and discovering the reason behind their actions.” A similar story comes with Chausson’s Poème, a work that was greatly influenced by the great Belgian violinist Ysaÿe. On this recording Philippe restores a dozen or so bars that don’t appear in the final published version.

This release continues Avie’s association with the RLPO. Vernon Handley, arguably the greatest conductor of English music, was an inspired choice. His only prior recording of the Elgar was with a certain young man named Kennedy.

REVIEW:

It is thanks to the enterprise of violinist Philippe Graffin that we now have this premiere recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto in its original form. The fact that such a score exists may surprise many if not most Elgarians, but it is well known that Fristz Kreisler as the dedicatee of the concerto was asked for his comments on the solo part at a late stage. What Graffin has done is to consult the manuscript scores of the work, both full score and piano score, held in the British Library, and compare the solo part with what was later published by Novello, as modified by Kreisler. At two points in the first movement brief passagework which originally used triplet quavers was changed in the finished version to semiquaver groups. That is over in a flash each time, but more noticeable is the fact that the double-stopped violin flourish on the final page of the finale is less elaborate than what we know. That change, it seems, is owed not to Kreisler but to Lady Elgar, urging such a change on her husband, who duly responded.

Graffin’s performance with the ever-understanding backing of Vernon Handley and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is most distinguished. I cannot remember one on disc that so magically exploits the range of pianissimo that the score asks for. This is not a barnstorming performance, as so many are with this massive work, but one which in total concentration brings out to the full the tenderness and poetry, not just in the central slow movement (which contains only one difference on the opening phrase of the solo part), but in the other movements too, not least in the accompanied cadenza, which is yearningly beautiful.

The story is similar with the first version of Chausson’s Poème...the performance could hardly be more subtle, with Graffin maintaining the gentlest of dynamics while keeping total concentration.

The sound is first-rate and the disc comes with comprehensive notes, not just those of Graffin but a reproduction of the script of a 1937 broadcast by WH Reed, Elgar’s violinist friend, about the creation of the Concerto. Reed’s input into the development of the solo part, it seems, was from the start even greater than Kreisler’s.

-- Gramophone (Edward Greenfield)