Renée Chemet (violin)
The HMV Recordings
Marguerite Delcourt, Ivor Newton, Harold Craxton, Gerald Moore (pianos)
rec. 1920-26, HMV studios, London
Biddulph 85064-2 [82]

Renée Chemet (1887-1977) was a characterful French violinist who enjoyed a strong European reputation, toured America, where she was tagged as the ‘French Kreisler’, and was particularly appreciated in Japan. She performed in Berlin with Nikisch, in Vienna with Mahler, in Cologne with Steinbach and in London with her British advocate, Henry Wood. It was a career that began early in the century – she played her first London Prom in 1904 – and lasted until just before the Second World War, though a MeloClassic disc has disinterred a wartime Parisian broadcast that shows that she was not entirely forgotten.

She was a stylish performer with a compelling sound but there are elements of her playing that mark her out as a violinist very much of her time and though they are inconsistently applied modern listeners will probably be shocked at her lavish portamenti, her intensely nagging vibrato, and an ethos of over-indulgence. More sympathetic auditors will, conversely, accept these personalised traits and enjoy the vitality of her playing.

The selected works in this disc – a CD of her American Victors is forthcoming – were recorded for HMV in London between 1920 and 1926 and of them, roughly two thirds were recorded acoustically. If you start with the first item, Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro ‘in the style of Pugnani’ you’ll be in for a shock as it’s one of her more extreme performances, replete with queasy old-school slides, with the Praeludium subject to metrical comings-and-goings that would have infuriated orchestral players. It’s a veritable seismograph of personalisation. The Allegro is better, because faster, and offers less chance for perversity. It’s a world away from the contemporaneous recordings by Sammons and by Busch.

This comes from her first HMV session in July 1920 but thenceforth things improve. She plays Tartini’s Violin Sonata in G minor, Op.1 No.10 ‘Didone abbandonata’ with much greater tact as to the employment of slides and though she tends to exaggerate upper and lower string voicings she shows an admirable approach to this work and, generally, to baroque repertoire. Her Vivaldi slow movement is nobly conceived and the two movements from Handel’s Sonata No.1 in A are strongly expressive, if one can listen past her naggingly insistent vibrato and her see-sawing slides in the Allegro second movement. Strangely, HMV only allowed her two movements from the sonata whereas six weeks later they allowed Isolde Menges to record the whole sonata. I think by now it was pretty clear where HMV’s money lay and it’s true that Menges, pure, dignified and free of mannerisms was more the way forward than the idiosyncratic, personalised, defiantly late nineteenth-century Chemet.

Most of the remainder of the recordings are encore pieces and sweetmeats – her Hummel Valse in the Burmester arrangement is especially suave – though there is a strong representative French selection as Lalo and Saint-Saëns were central to her repertoire. Clearly, the piano-accompanied Symphonie espagnole – only thirteen minutes here covering three of the movements with Harold Craxton accompanying – can offer only a snapshot of her affinities but her playing is piquant and she plays with much Gallic charm though, as ever, she slides heavily. One can nevertheless intuit what Henry Wood saw in her, as he kept re-engaging her for his London concerts. Her Fibich is too quivery for my tastes but her Saint-Saëns’ Serenade, with Gerald Moore (one of his earliest recordings) and Introduction and Rondo capriccioso are better – exaggerated, yes, but once more characterful and packed with personality.

The last handful of works come from three sessions in August 1926 with accompanist Marguerite Delcourt and are some of her most effective, evocative and yet queasy recordings. The best of them is a lovely Berceuse by Gabriel Grovlez which she plays with delicious understanding. Then there are two movements from Falla’s Suite Populaire espagnole in Kochanski’s arrangement. El pano moruno is a fervid, overwrought approximation of Spanish style but Jota is a bit better. Her catch-me-if-you-can rubati are strongly in evidence in this selection, not least in Drdla’s Souvenir.

The fine copies have been transferred by Raymond Glaspole.

Chemet was a personable, idiosyncratic player with an arsenal of expressive devices that ensure that everything she plays is alive and lively even if one objects fundamentally to what she does. She is a real talking-point player, unignorable, and anachronistic in the extreme – but great fun, often stylish, and artistic.

Jonathan Woolf    

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Contents
Kreisler: Praeludium and Allegro ‘in the style of Pugnani’
Tartini: Violin Sonata in G minor, Op.1 No.10 ‘Didone abbandonata’
Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op.3 no.6
Handel: Violin Sonata No.1 in A. I Andante II Allegro
Haydn: Minuet from Symphony No.96
Hummel, J: Valse, Op.91arr.Burmester
Weber: Waltz, J.147 arr. Burmester
Lalo: Symphonie espagnole, Op.21 – 3 movements
Lalo: Romance from Violin Concerto in F, Op.20
Fibich: Poème, Op.41 Bk IV No.14 arr. Kubelik
Achille Simonetti: Madrigale
Saint-Saëns: Sérénade, Op.15
Saint-Saëns: Introduction & Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28
Wieniawski: Polonaise brillante No.2 in A, Op.21
Chabrier: Feuillet d’album
Grovlez: Berceuse
Falla: Suite Populaire espagnole: No.1 El paño moruno No.6 Jota arr. Kochanski
Poldini: Dancing Doll arr. Kreisler
František Drdla: Souvenir