Elgar - Violin Concerto, Violin Sonata

Simon Rattle, Renaud Capucon (violin), Stephen Hough (piano), London Symphony Orchestra

There’s something little short of miraculous about this new Elgar disc from French violinist Renaud Capuçon. Much of it is to do with the circumstances: had it not been for the strictures imposed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it might never have happened, but the time made available and the limitations on opportunities conspired to create the conditions for sessions, within just a few days in September 2020, to record the Violin Sonata and Violin Concerto in quick succession in London. And this is the other miracle: the pairing of these two great works – the Concerto conceived in a very personal vein at the height of the Edwardian era, and the Sonata, written just a few short years later but amid the very different atmosphere of the Great War, with the sound of guns across the Channel at times audible in Elgar’s idyllic coastal home in Sussex. They complement one another so perfectly that you wonder why more violinists haven’t opted for this particular coupling. Part of the reason may be that commercial questions more often suggest some of the composer’s ‘lighter’ violin works (the Chanson de matin and so on), but there are also the technical and expressive demands placed on the performers, with the Sonata almost a chamber concerto in itself.

Still, all this is grist to the mill for a soloist of Capuçon’s calibre, and he brings off the feat triumphantly, with the aid of his Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, once owned by Isaac Stern, no less. For many listeners, the main item will be the Concerto, at 51 minutes comfortably more than twice the length of the Sonata. Recorded across two days in LSO St Luke’s, Old Street, with social distancing between the players (i.e. no shared music stands for the strings!), it finds the London Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle in excellent form, no doubt happy to be making music at this level in such strained times. The sound is a little on the dry side, though not overly analytical, happily reminding one of the sort of sound picture familiar from the glory days of early electrical recordings, but with all the benefits of modern digital stereo sound. As ever, Rattle is a master of the fine detail, making every strand and motif clear in the imposing first movement with its extended orchestral introduction; and also in the great third movement, a quantum leap in the history of the violin concerto whereby Elgar made the finale, not the first or second movement, the expressive and musical apex of the work, a positively symphonic transformation that not even Beethoven or Brahms achieved.

It is Capuçon himself, however, with the sweep and poetry of his playing, and the huge range of colours he gets from his instrument, that makes the whole performance hang together. In the central Andante, which at almost 13 minutes is slower by the clock than it feels, he conjures up a dreamlike world, closely partnered by Rattle and the orchestra, that has you holding your breath. He is by turns gentle and ardent, technically supreme, but never losing the underlying momentum. In the first movement, he had already shown tenderness in the way he delivered the ‘Windflower’ theme associated with the work’s likely muse, family friend Alice Stuart-Wortley. In the third movement, however, he caps it all with playing of tremendous stamina and range, culminating in a performance of the accompanied cadenza (complete with ‘thrumming’ from pizzicato strings) that is, quite simply, magical. This is a performance of enormous heart as well as poetry and technical mastery, coupled with a feeling for detail (including tastefully applied portamenti) that consistently sets it apart.

A couple of days earlier, Capuçon had recorded the Violin Sonata in St Jude-on-the-Hill in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Incredibly, he learnt it specially for this recording, yet it has the same sense of interpretative maturity that characterises the Concerto. Working with Stephen Hough for only the second time, this is another meeting of minds, capturing both the music’s passion and also its hints of regret at the passing of an age of innocence. There are great swirls of sound in the demonstrative first movement, and a teasing (or is it fateful?) hesitancy in the central Romance, where again the momentum suggested by the tempo indication Andante is judiciously maintained, blossoming in the central lyrical outpouring before a return of the initial coyness. The mood-switch for the third movement, with its lovely chains of descending figuration in the accompaniment, is perfectly pitched, and there’s a resilience to the violin’s tone that doesn’t push the muscularity too far. Above all, these two players seem to be in complete accord over the fine deployment of rubato, resulting in one of the most affirmative performances this music has received since the days of Albert Sammons in the 1930s. Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in Elgar’s music from European musicians (as there was during the composer’s pre-1914 heyday), and Renaud Capuçon’s ardent championing is sure to win it wider admiration. Congratulations to all who made these recordings happen!