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Addendum - Elgar Violin Concerto with Tasmin Little, A. Davis and the RSNO

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on January 29, 2021 at 19:34:35

In Reply to: Just another day or two left for the 30%-off Chandos sale at the Chandos site posted by Chris from Lafayette on January 27, 2021 at 14:42:00:

The sale has been over for a few hours, but I was able to sneak in one last download at the sale price before it ended: the Elgar Violin Concerto, with the particulars listed in the subject line (or as seen on the booklet cover below).

To kind of link up this thread with the jdaniel / John Marks thread about the Elgar Concerto immediately below, let me give my own background with this work. My imprint recording was the High Bean (remember him from Boult's recording of RVW's "The Lark Ascending"?) / Charles Groves / RLPO performance on vinyl. For whatever reason, I didn't have this recording for very long and I don't remember much about it other than thinking that Bean was a very fine violinist. The next recording I had was from "The Artist formerly known as Nigel Kennedy" with Vernon Handley and the LPO, also on vinyl. I liked that one too, but I have to emphasize that my knowledge of the work at that time was still somewhat primitive. The first (and only) CD I got of the Concerto was the Znaider / Colin Davis / SkD.

I've never heard the work performed live, so that's it - the total extent of my knowledge and experience with this work. (Oh - I think I did mention that I got the score about 20 years ago on speculation that I'd be playing it with somebody sooner or later, but that hasn't come about. I have bombed through the piano reduction by sight-reading it a couple of times just for fun though.)

So my reaction to the score is from someone who is relatively inexperienced with it (even though I feel that playing it through does count for a lot, beyond the actual listening). And I have to say that, despite its characteristically Elgarian drama and its lyrical outpourings (e.g., the "Wildflower" theme in the first movement), I'm not entirely satisfied with this Concerto. And, although I'm far from a zealot about the STRUCTURE of a given musical work, I think it's exactly the structure which lets Elgar down in this work.

I'm referring principally to the last movement and that interminable "nostalgia cadenza" starting with the plucked tremolo accompaniments (which, in itself, is an imaginative idea, I admit). In the Little / A. Davis Chandos performance I just downloaded, this starts at 10:20 and we don't get back to the main business of the movement until almost 18:00. IOW, that darned section lasts over 7 and a half minutes all by itself. Now it's certainly possible that I might find this section more compelling if I knew the work better, but at this stage of my experience with the work, I've gotta say that I just get antsy with it about half way through.

So, to return to my previous point, the problem with this movement for me is the structure: I think Elgar relied too much on the beauty of that slow section to keep the interest going. Seven and a half minutes of nostalgia in a 20-minute movement is just too much for me, and I find that the length of that section weakens the structure as a whole. I know all sorts of works which are supposedly structurally weak which still sound stronger (to me at least) than this movement of the Elgar Concerto. Again, it's always possible that, as I gain more and more experience with the work, I could change my mind.

And JM mentioned one of the recognizable differences between the Violin Concerto and the Cello Concerto: the Cello Concerto is WAY more concise, even though it too has a slow "nostalgia section" near the end of its final movement. (I'd guess that both these Elgar Concertos were possibly influenced by the shorter still "slow nostalgia section" near the end of the Dvorak Cello Concerto.) But, to me, this section in the Cello Concerto is more in the right proportion (in terms of time and length) than what I hear in the Violin Concerto. I'm not yet haunted by the Violin Concerto, but I do remember the Cello Concerto MUCH better. (Of course that could result from the fact that hardly a year goes by when I don't perform the Cello Concerto (or record it!). (Well, at least that was true until last March!)

Now what's VERY interesting about this Chandos recording is that, on a separate track, Little performs an alternate version of the "nostalgia cadenza" - one which is a bit tightened up compared to the usual version in the score as we know it. This alternate cadenza comes from Elgar's own 1916 recording with Marie Hall (a recording which might better be termed "greatest hits" from the Elgar Violin Concerto!), and knocks over a minute off the time of the standard cadenza. Very interesting!

Finally, I must tip my hat to JM for his long, thoughtful post about his love for the Violin Concerto. It's certainly a post to be respected, and it's the type of post we could use more of on this forum. Speaking for myself, I sometimes feel that I'm too busy with other items these days to post comments like JM's (although I do get around to it from time to time). And I know we're all very busy, but I certainly enjoy it when we get a post like his.

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