BaL 15.06.19 - Elgar: Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

09.30
Building a Library: David Owen Norris compares recordings of Edward Elgar's Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 and picks a favourite.
During the First World War Elgar dutifully did his king-and-country bit with a succession of tub-thumping patriotic numbers. But Elgar was profoundly affected by the war and as it drew to its end he embarked on a series of three often intimate, restrained and enigmatic chamber works including the Violin Sonata. Technically difficult but not overtly virtuosic, perhaps the subtlety of its emotional world prevented it from becoming a staple of the repertoire until relatively recently and even now it has fewer recordings than most other major late-Romantic violin sonatas.


Available recordings:-

Sergei Bezkorvany, Julian Dawson
Anna-Liisa Bezrodny, Ivari Ilja
Daniela Cammarano, Federico Gardella *
Efi Christodoulou, Margaret Fingerhut
Jonathan Crow , Paul Stewart
James Ehnes, Andrew Armstrong
Benjamin Frith, Marat Bisengaliev
Daniel Hope, Simon Mulligan
Burkhard Hofmann, Alan Newcombe
Clare Howick, John Paul Ekins
Sharon Hubbocks, David Wood
Julia Hwang Charles Matthews
Thomas Albertus Irnberger, Michael Korstick
Isabelle van Keulen, Ronald Brautigam
Nigel Kennedy, Peter Pettinger
Simone Lamsma, Yurie Miura
Vojkan Lazarevitch, Susanne Husson *
Oliver Lewis, Jeremy Filsell
Tasmin Little, Martin Roscoe
Lorraine Mcaslan, John Blakely *
Rupert Marshall-Luck, Matthew Rickard
Yehudi Menuhin, Hephzibah Menuhin
Midori, Robert McDonald *
Lydia Mordkovitch, Julian Milford
Joaquin Palomares, Michel Wagemans *
Elmar Oliveira, Robert Koenig
Nash Ensemble, Ian Brown
Max Rostal, Colin Horsley
Albert Sammons, William Murdoch
Susanne Stanzeleit, John Thwaites *
Louisa Stonehill, Nicholas Burns (Steinberg Duo)
Matthew Trusler, Martin Roscoe
Steven Vanhauwaert, Ambroise Aubrun *
Maxim Vengerov, Revital Chachamov *
Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Huw Watkins

* = download only

[Tony Halstead]

09.30
Building a Library: David Owen Norris compares recordings of Edward Elgar's Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 and picks a favourite.
During the First World War Elgar dutifully did his king-and-country bit with a succession of tub-thumping patriotic numbers. But Elgar was profoundly affected by the war and as it drew to its end he embarked on a series of three often intimate, restrained and enigmatic chamber works including the Violin Sonata. Technically difficult but not overtly virtuosic, perhaps the subtlety of its emotional world prevented it from becoming a staple of the repertoire until relatively recently and even now it has fewer recordings than most other major late-Romantic violin sonatas.


Available recordings:-

Sergei Bezkorvany, Julian Dawson
Anna-Liisa Bezrodny, Ivari Ilja
Daniela Cammarano, Federico Gardella *
Efi Christodoulou, Margaret Fingerhut
Jonathan Crow , Paul Stewart
James Ehnes, Andrew Armstrong
Benjamin Frith, Marat Bisengaliev
Daniel Hope, Simon Mulligan
Burkhard Hofmann, Alan Newcombe
Clare Howick, John Paul Ekins
Sharon Hubbocks, David Wood
Julia Hwang Charles Matthews
Thomas Albertus Irnberger, Michael Korstick
Isabelle van Keulen, Ronald Brautigam
Nigel Kennedy, Peter Pettinger
Simone Lamsma, Yurie Miura
Vojkan Lazarevitch, Susanne Husson *
Oliver Lewis, Jeremy Filsell
Tasmin Little, Martin Roscoe
Lorraine Mcaslan, John Blakely *
Rupert Marshall-Luck, Matthew Rickard
Yehudi Menuhin, Hephzibah Menuhin
Midori, Robert McDonald *
Lydia Mordkovitch, Julian Milford
Joaquin Palomares, Michel Wagemans *
Elmar Oliveira, Robert Koenig
Nash Ensemble, Ian Brown
Max Rostal, Colin Horsley
Albert Sammons, William Murdoch
Susanne Stanzeleit, John Thwaites *
Louisa Stonehill, Nicholas Burns (Steinberg Duo)
Matthew Trusler, Martin Roscoe
Steven Vanhauwaert, Ambroise Aubrun *
Maxim Vengerov, Revital Chachamov *
Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Huw Watkins

* = download only

Sad to see that the incomparable Hugh Bean recording seems not to have made it to CD format.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sad to see that the incomparable Hugh Bean recording seems not to have made it to CD format.

It has been available in two CD formats before:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elgar-Piano-Quintet-Violin-Sonata/dp/B01N6OD40O

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Violin-Sonata-Concerto-Quintet-Quartet/dp/B0001ZM8VI

... and will probably reappear at some stage. (Not that it should ever be out of the catalogue!)

[pastoralguy]

Sad to see that the incomparable Hugh Bean recording seems not to have made it to CD format.

I've got a copy c/w the piano Quintet with the late, great Mr. John Ogdon on an the EMI Studio label. Alas, it's been long out of the catalogue.

[pastoralguy]

This is a work that won me a scholarship and a Chamber music prize at college! For me, Nigel Kennedy plays it like no one else.

[Bryn]

For me, Nigel Kennedy plays it like no one else.

Is that intended as a positive or negative criticism?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sad to see that the incomparable Hugh Bean recording seems not to have made it to CD format.

I think it was in the 30 CD EMI Collector's Edition.

[LMcD]

I never realized there were so many recordings of this fine work. I have the Ian Brown/Marcia Crayford recording, but I'm sure I could fine space for another one if it doesn't emerge victorious - or even if it does!

[Pulcinella]

Sad to see that the incomparable Hugh Bean recording seems not to have made it to CD format.

I have it in a different incarnation to either of those ferney linked to: a single-CD Classics for Pleasure release of the sonata and the concerto (so one of the CDs that seems subsequently to have been released in a 2CD set).

[Alison]

This is a work that won me a scholarship and a Chamber music prize at college! For me, Nigel Kennedy plays it like no one else.

My first CD of the work and still takes some beating.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This is a work that won me a scholarship and a Chamber music prize at college!

[Stanfordian]

It's a super work. I usually play the account from Daniel Hope and Simon Mulligan on Nimbus. I also like the recording by Tamsin Little and Martin Roscoe on Dal Segno. The Hugh Bean recording with David Parkhouse is one I will make a point of getting out when I return home.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Was a bit shocked to find no CD version on the shelves and just the one LP - the Weiss Duo, Sidney and Jeanne, he a former concertmaster of the Chicago SO, on Unicorn coupled with the Walton sonata. So I shall probably be listening plastic card in hand

The LP sleeve tells me I could also have snapped up the Weisses in a stratospherically un-obvious coupling, the R Strauss Sonata op18 with a Haydn Concerto in F for violin, keyboard and strings Wonder how many of this Unicorn Records sold!

[Barbirollians]

Was a bit shocked to find no CD version on the shelves and just the one LP - the Weiss Duo, Sidney and Jeanne, he a former concertmaster of the Chicago SO, on Unicorn coupled with the Walton sonata. So I shall probably be listening plastic card in hand

The LP sleeve tells me I could also have snapped up the Weisses in a stratospherically un-obvious coupling, the R Strauss Sonata op18 with a Haydn Concerto in F for violin, keyboard and strings Wonder how many of this Unicorn Records sold!

Nigel and Pettinger and Bean/Parkhouse for me .

I have a cassette of the former signed by Nige at the RFH and he told me he was very proud of that recording.

[BBMmk2]

I have Kennedy and Little. Both I wouldn’t be without.