Violinist
Philippe Graffin
, in his notes to this
Avie
release, states that violinists have long wished that composer/virtuoso
Eugène Ysaÿe
had written a concerto. It turns out that he sketched one, which has been assembled from various sketches by musicologist
Xavier Falques
, and here receives its world premiere. There is also a
Poème concertant
, listed as "orchestrated by
Erika Vega
" (it is not quite clear what the original form of this work was). A good deal of musicological labor went into this album, from coordinating the sketches of the
Violin Concerto in E minor
to editing and reproducing the letters
Ysaÿe
sent to
Irma Sèthe
, the dedicatee of the
and the composer's mistress at the time. What propelled the album onto classical best-seller charts in 2024, though, was not musicological thoroughness but the chance to hear new music by
, a composer whose popularity has been increasing ever since it once again became permissible to enjoy the pleasures of virtuosity. The violin concerto is not quite in a league with the unaccompanied sonatas from later in
's career (these are both early works), but especially in the finale, one can hear him developing the language of those, and it is quite a ride.
Graffin
is a fine exponent of the Belgian style who has played
before, and he is an expert in the kind of brilliant clarity the music demands. He gets strong support from the
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
under conductor
Jean-Jacques Kantorow
and from pianist
Marisa Gupta
in the small pieces that round out the album. Anyone who likes
should hear this newly reconstructed music. ~ James Manheim