An English Violin
Geneviève Laurenceau (violin), Jean-Frédéric Neuburger (piano), Orchestre de Picardie / David Niemann
rec. Auditorium de Vincennes & Théâtre du Chevalet, Noyon, France
NoMadMusic NMM130 [59]

It’s not every day that a barely known (albeit recorded) British Violin Concerto is recorded by a French soloist with a relatively youthful regional French orchestra, and directed by a German conductor, but such is the nature of this disc. The Concerto is Guirne Creith’s, composed between 1932 and 1934 and premiered in 1936 by its dedicatee, Albert Sammons, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra directed by Constant Lambert.

The Concerto is richly romantic and shows some Delian traits that might almost be machine-tooled for Sammons, the dedicatee of Delius’ Concerto, and that are fluidly threaded in the score with skill. Creith’s writing privileges the musing and freely lyric in the first movement and is especially compelling in the Tranquillo section before the quiet Adagio close. Geneviève Laurenceau and David Niemann take more time here than Lorraine McAslan and Martin Yates in their world premiere recording of 2008, on Dutton Epoch CDLX7221 as they do in the central slow movement, which allows them greater opportunities for some freewheeling lyrical impulse – decidedly Old School but charming and attractive. The finale is the most obviously ‘English’ movement and it manages to balance light-heartedness with renewed lyricism. There’s nothing reminiscent in this concerto, though, of British Pastoral, so nothing of Vaughan Williams’ Lark or Finzi’s Introit.

Laurenceau makes a compelling case for the work though she and Niemann take a bluffer stance than McAslan and Yates, an impression heightened by the recording, which puts the Orchestre de Picardie at something of a distance. I’m not sure if this is because of their size, which is stated as 37 regular performers but must have been stiffened for this concerto recording. Other than McAslan and Laurenceau the only other performer that I know of who has performed this work is the composer’s cousin, Tamsin Waley-Cohen.

Rather than enlist the orchestra to accompany another concerto, Laurenceau is accompanied by Jean-Frédéric Neuburger in a sequence of small-scaled works. Four are by Elgar. She essays some piquant slides in Chanson de matin, is more tonally robust and overtly expressive, understandably so, in the companion, Chanson de nuit whilst her Sospiri has a stately reserve that I rather like, even though Nigel Kennedy’s version is still the one for me. The pair catch the quicksilver impressionistic evocation of Rebecca Clarke’s Midsummer Moon which they astutely contrast with Lullaby, an introspective work notable here as much for its melancholy as its consolation. They end their Clarke selection with Chinese Puzzle, a chic voguish piece drenched in pizzicati, exploiting the fetish for gamelan and chinoiserie.

The disc ends with Walton’s Two Pieces, the Canzonetta and Scherzetto of 1948-49. I wish I could hear much Walton about them but they’re rather anaemic though at least the latter gets motoring and is crisply vivacious. They’re certainly well played.

Though the recording location is given, the performances are all undated. My money would be on the Dutton disc because of its greater concerto variety – it offers concertos by Richard Arnell and Thomas Pitfield – and for a slightly more incisive and characterful performance of the Creith but Laurenceau is a most able protagonist.  I can even forgive her cover picture, in which she delicately holds aloft a cup of tea. After all, British soloists aren’t photographed wearing berets when they play Debussy.

Jonathan Woolf

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Contents
Guirne Creith (1907-1996)
Violin Concerto in G minor (1932-1934)
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Chanson de matin, Op.15 No.2 (1897)
Chanson de nuit, Op.15 No.1 (1897)
La Capricieuse, Op.17 (1891)
Sospiri, Op.70 (1914)
Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Midsummer Moon (1924)
Lullaby (1918)
Chinese Puzzle (1921)
William Walton (1902-1983)
Two Pieces: Canzonetta; Scherzetto (1948-1949)