Vecsey, F: Valse triste

Philippe Graffin is the latest violinist to join ONYX, after several outstanding discs of rare French and English repertoire for labels such as Hyperion and Avie. This new recital brings together the mesmerising intensity of Gypsy violin playing with classical composers’ response to it.

Released to coincide with a notable novel called Hungarian Dances by writer and journalist Jessica Duchen. She explains: “When I asked Philippe Graffin, a treasured friend and colleague, to check the manuscript of Hungarian Dances for violinistic errors, I little dreamed he’d respond by making this recording: a CD inspired by the novel. Yet the novel was partly inspired by a CD – Philippe and Claire’s beautiful recital ‘In the Shade of Forests’, [Avie Records, rave reviews worldwide] evoking the spirit of the archetypal wandering Gypsy violinist”.

Philippe’s recital is loosely based around the book but is also designed to work as a programme in its own right with several pieces chosen only for the recording including rarities by such composers as Von Vecsey, Hubay, Scarlatescu and Arthur Hartmann.

Claire Désert is well-known in France for several solo CDs for FNAC and other labels and here plays both piano and piano luthéal, the ‘prepared piano’ that Ravel had made for Tzigane in 1919 and which imitates the sound of a Hungarian cimbalom to striking effect in many of these pieces.

On this new release, the double bass soloist of the Vienna Philharmonic, Ödön Rácz, born in Budapest in 1981, brilliantly performs the operatic fantasias Lucia di Lammermoor and Beatrice di Tenda by Giovanni Bottesini after the eponymous operas by Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini respectively and the Fantasia on a Theme from the Opera Moses by Rossini by Niccolò Paganini.

Besides Paganini’s fantasia, another extremely virtuoso work that was originally written for violin is the Valse triste in C minor by Ferenc Vecsey. Originating later in the 20th century, there are the Sonata Enigmatica for Double Bass Solo by Gottfried von Einem and the commissioned work Bass Trip, which the Latvian Pēteris Vasks composed for the ARD Music Competition in 2003. It shows bravura from the best side, perfected by the excellent playing of the pianist János Balázs Jr.