Grieg, Elgar and Sibelius: Music for Violin and Piano

Album review

Isabelle Van Keulen & Ronald Brautigam: Music for Violin and Piano -- Grieg, Elgar and Sibelius is based on a rather hokey premise; that 2007 is the 100th anniversary of Grieg's death and the 50th of Sibelius' death and that it is the sesquicentennial of Elgar's birth. "This is generally a good reason for bestowing extra attention," remarks annotator Paul Janssen. Okay, by that same token, we should also be looking forward to the release of a disc combining the music of Joseph Joachim, Cecile Cheminade, and Ralph Benatzky by the end of 2007 -- point made. All public radio-like programming considerations aside, there is a connection between these three in that Grieg and Sibelius are Nordic and that Elgar, though he composed a piece called In the South, is at least "Northern" in his orientation. In ancient times, the ancestors of these composers enjoyed a close, if somewhat rumbustious, relationship, as then the Anglos and Brits of old were constantly attempting to repel Vikings and other Nordic invaders. Throughout this program, a mixture of white-hot romanticism and emotional chilliness pervades in the music, though not in Isabelle van Keulen's playing, which is everywhere warm-blooded, full-throated, and pregnant with emotion. Brautigam, better known as a soloist, nevertheless has invested his efforts into many recordings as an accompanist and chamber musician, and here he plays with equal parts drama and sensitivity. He is not helped by Challenge Classics' recording, which, although crystal clear, tends to favor the piano at the expense of the violin, at times sounding as though off to the side in the aural perspective. Despite the annotator's corny presupposition and the slight dislocation of the soloist, these world-class artists do considerable justice to this slate of familiar post-romantic violin and piano works. Despite the power of the Nordic marauders, the Anglo Elgar comes across best of the three through a cracking reading of his Sonata in E minor, Op. 82, and van Keulen's superbly expressionistic account of his wispy and brief Sospiri, Op. 70.
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