Here's why you should get to know the Elgar Violin Concerto....
Yes, Elgar's Cello Concerto is wonderful, but...
Think of Elgar and it's a fair bet you'll think of his brooding, mournful and ultimately wonderful Cello Concerto. And how could you not? When the soloist's bow bites into those stark E minor chords, it's like a summons - and not to cocktails and a gossip. Rather Elgar began writing it towards the end of the First World War, as his Edwardian world was falling apart. And with such magnificent advocates as legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who met her own very tragic end, the work cannot help but be highly romantic and passionate.
Here's why you should get to know the Elgar Violin Concerto
But despite the Cello Concerto’s greater popularity today, Elgar considered his Violin Concerto to be among his best works. ‘It’s good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it,’ he once declared.
It was Fritz Kreisler who, in 1905, persuaded Elgar to compose his Violin Concerto. Over the next five years, Kreisler and London Symphony Orchestra concertmaster William Henry Reed made recommendations as the sprawling, 50-minute work took shape.
Kreisler declared the finished article the ‘greatest violin concerto produced since Beethoven’s’ and premiered the work in London, with Elgar conducting, in November 1910. It was an immediate success, and although there were plans for the two to record it, these eventually fell through, and Elgar instead recorded the Concerto with a young Yehudi Menuhin in 1932. So popular was Menuhin's recording that it has remained in the catalogues since it first went on sale.
The Violin Concerto is not only beautiful, but incredibly difficult...
Not only epic in length, the Violin Concerto has a reputation for being enormously challenging for the soloist, with its constant multiple stoppings and rapid string crossings.
According to Vilde Frang, who has just made a dazzling recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto: ‘It requires a lot of stamina because you are playing a lot. When you reach the third movement, you’re already exhausted and then you have all its hurdles to get through until you come to the cadenza.'
She continues: 'You don’t know the Concerto until you have kicked yourself on stage once. Only then do you know where the land lies. There are so many questions that you don’t get the answer to in the practice room, but that you get in the concert hall in the moment of performance. It’s a baptism of fire.’
Despite this, various artists have squared up to the work, including Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Nigel Kennedy, Thomas Zehetmair and Tasmin Little. The prize for the slowest and most indulgent recording goes to Ida Haendel, whose recording with Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic clocks in at over 55 minutes.