When the larger – and later – part of Alfredo Campoli’s recorded legacy for Decca first appeared on Eloquence back in 2018, I observed (in our May issue for that year) that Campoli, ‘like [Fritz] Kreisler, was a gentleman fiddler whose playing combines honesty, urbanity and unexpected bursts of brilliance. I’d thoroughly recommend these superbly remastered recordings to anyone who cares about quality violin-playing.’ There can be no change of viewpoint for this equally desirable ‘Bel Canto Violin’ collection, except that there’s a Pygmalion-like revelation regarding the true origins of this ‘gentleman’, namely among the short and cheerful salon pieces from his era and earlier, copiously represented and expertly transferred from numerous Decca 78s by Mark Obert-Thorn. Had we been treated to the vintage morceaux before the taped bigger works then I could have explained that Campoli’s reputation never quite escaped light-music associations, just as the American violinist Louis Kaufman was forever plagued by accusations that he had sold out by accepting major work in the film studios, even though paradoxically it brought his fabulous playing to countless millions.

Campoli’s achievement was rather more modest, though his trawl of 78s includes a masterly 1948 recording of Bach’s Partita No 2 for solo violin (one of the best from the shellac era, on disc 6), and his agile first recordings of Mendelssohn’s Concerto with the LPO under Eduard van Beinum and Kreisler’s Concerto in One Movement (after Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 1) with the National Symphony Orchestra under Victor Olof, all three presented here in excellent new transfers. Needless to say their taped successors are also included in the set. The shorter works involve Campoli and his Salon Orchestra, his Grand Orchestra, his Concert Orchestra, the Dorchester Hotel Orchestra, the Alfredo Campoli Trio and the Welbeck Light String Quartet as well as vocalists Sam Browne and soprano Olive Groves, with sundry pianists, principally Eric Gritton (also Campoli’s accompanist on various of the LP recordings).

Stylistically, Campoli plied a warm tone with a fairly wide vibrato (wider than, say, Kreisler or Heifetz) but could suddenly fire off at speed, as he does in Kreisler’s Tambourin chinois on disc 1 track 4. Follow through to track 5 on the same CD and nostalgia wells up with Elgar’s Salut d’amour (Campoli’s 1954 recording of Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the LPO under Adrian Boult on disc 13 lays claim to being among the finest ever made). Significant Campoli attributes include wit, charm, a winning lilt and, in the case of ‘Softly awakes my heart’ (Samson et Dalila, recorded in 1933, disc 1 track 19), honest emotional engagement. He never shies away from sentimentality or well-planned entertainment, as you’ll hear on his various medleys and potpourris (‘Strauss Waltzes from Vienna’, ‘Selections from Offenbach’s La belle Hélène’ (arr Korngold), ‘Chopin/Mendelssohn/Liszt Medley’, ‘The Eric Coates Parade’ and so on).

As to the later recordings, the set includes concertos by Beethoven, Elgar, Bliss, Mendelssohn, Bruch (especially the earlier version of the First Concerto under Royalton Kisch on disc 14), Saint-Saëns (No 3) and Tchaikovsky, as well as Handel’s Op 1 sonatas and Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata. All bear witness to Campoli’s exemplary musicianship; and while his later (1976‑78) recordings of Sarasate and Wieniawski with pianist Daphne Ibbott witness an occasional thinning of tone, Campoli the musician remains intact. So again, I extend a thorough recommendation for these memorable recordings. As to Eloquence’s annotations, Andrew Dalton offers a generous appreciation of the musician he describes as ‘the phenomenon that was Alfredo Campoli’ and Mark Obert-Thorn fills us in on Campoli’s 78rpm recordings.

Returning to Kreisler, aside from his priceless violin 78s, he made a handful of recordings as a pianist, mostly accompanying his cellist brother Hugo, but Rhine Classics has come up with a real rarity, a programme of Kreisler piano rolls set down between 1919 and 1927. I have to be truthful and admit that to my ears piano rolls too often sound as if they’re playing the pianist rather the other way round. Even the best of them tend to sound self-consciously formal, aside from flashes of digital brilliance, but whoever has activated Kreisler’s rolls on this particular sequence has seen to it that the Kreislerian lilt is fully realised, whether in the gently extrovert Liebesfreud, the witty Polichinelle or the sentimental morceau Midnight Bells – in all, 14 items that sound as if Kreisler simply sat himself down in front of the keys just for the joy of playing. Then there are the bonus tracks, where Kreisler switches back to the violin in concert for President Franklin D Roosevelt (1940). There are three items: La gitana, Caprice viennois (modestly introduced by Kreisler as being ‘also by me’) and the highlight, a cheeky Schön Rosmarin where Kreisler is on wonderful form. Frank Black conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The disc also includes an off-the-record speech by the president himself. The transfers leave nothing to be desired.

The recordings

The Bel Canto Violin

Alfredo Campoli (Decca Eloquence)

American Portrait - Complete Ampico Piano Rolls 1919-1927

Fritz Kreisler (Rhine Classics)

Grand dames of the piano

The French pianist Madeleine de Valmalète is of interest on a number of counts. In 1911 she was admitted to Isidor Philipp’s advanced class for women at the Paris Conservatoire (co‑ed piano classes at the Conservatoire weren’t launched until the middle of the First World War), alongside the likes of Yvonne Lefébure and Marcelle Meyer. Saint-Saëns wrote to Philipp praising ‘another beautiful, magnificent talent that you have trained’. Melo Classic’s collection of Swiss Radio recordings dates from 1957. The main work included is Schumann’s Carnaval, which arrests attention right from the brilliant ‘Préambule’ opening, through the question-and-answer first piece, ‘Pierrot’, where de Valmalète subtly eases the pace for the ‘answer’ response, to the proud affirmation of the closing ‘Marche des “Davidsbündler” contre les Philistins’. Her considerable technical prowess is never self-serving: only the music matters, flexibility with tempo and among dynamics being important priorities. A Fauré group opens with the gaily dancing F minor Impromptu, continues with the Debussian F sharp minor and closes with a limpid performance of what is surely the loveliest of Fauré’s Nocturnes, No 6 in D flat. Scarlatti is represented by two sonatas, the Iberian-sounding A major, Kk39, and the more familiar E major processional, Kk380, both turned with imagination and a feel for the idiom. Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 10 has something of Cortot’s flamboyance.

Peter Ziegler writes in his excellent booklet note: ‘After the war, France orchestrated a vibrant cultural initiative … presenting various French artists including Valmalète and Monique Haas.’ Haas, a more familiar player, at least in the UK, is the other featured pianist in this invaluable double-pack, her recordings for DG long prized by collectors. Her natural artistry is well illustrated by 1960 radio recordings of, among other pieces, Debussy’s Images, Book 1 (‘Hommage à Rameau’ is exquisite), Milhaud’s L’automne, music from Messiaen’s Vingt Regards (try ‘Regard du Père’), a chipper reading of Haydn’s Sonata in F, HobXVI:23, and Schumann’s Kreisleriana (1970), which suggests something of Horowitz’s blend of capriciousness and profound feeling.

The recording

Legendary French Pianists

Madeleine de Valmalète, Monique Haas (Melo Classic)

meloclassic.com

The greatest cellist of all?

Anyone who claims a cellist to have been ‘the greatest of all time’ is courting controversy if that cellist isn’t Pablo Casals. And yet that was precisely Arthur Rubinstein’s assessment of Emanuel Feuermann, a viewpoint more or less echoed by Jascha Heifetz and such stellar musicians as the cellist János Starker and pianist Franz Rupp, who once wrote that although Feuermann was far from easy company, he was the greatest musician he had ever worked with. Listening is believing, and these miraculous RCA recordings from the last phase of Feuermann’s career (he was just 39 when he died in 1942) testify to a tone of molten gold, seamless phrasing, spellbinding virtuosity and watertight ensemble work, the latter best exemplified in what is surely the greatest recording ever made of Mozart’s Divertimento (String Trio) in E flat, K563, with Heifetz and viola player William Primrose – now sounding fresher than ever, unlike previous transfers, which struggled with distracting patches of distortion – and Dohnányi’s dazzling Serenade in C with the same collaborators. Rubinstein joins Feuermann and Heifetz for trios by Beethoven (Archduke), Schubert (B flat; just try Feuermann’s sound at the start of the Andante un poco mosso second movement – there are no words to adequately describe it) and Brahms (B major, Op 8). Recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra – Brahms’s Double Concerto with Heifetz and Strauss’s Don Quixote, both under Eugene Ormandy and Bloch’s Schelomo under Stokowski – remain unequalled to this day but perhaps greatest of all is Mendelssohn’s Second Cello Sonata with Rupp, the middle two movements especially. You could say that, brilliance aside, ‘less is more’ lies at the hub of Feuermann’s art, a little like it does with Grumiaux. Don’t pass on the opportunity to acquire this set because once deleted it’ll be impossible to track down. So my thanks to producer Robert Russ in collaboration with Marika Hughes for a wonderful collection.

The recording

The Complete RCA Album Collection

Emanuel Feuermann (Sony Classical)

The art of Alfred Dubois

Another superb string player, one who we rarely hear about nowadays, was Brussels-born Alfred Dubois, Arthur Grumiaux’s principal teacher (the two players often sound remarkably alike), and himself a one-time pupil of Ysaÿe. Dubois had a gorgeous sound: he plied a quick, sweetly expressive vibrato and had an impressively agile left hand. His 1931 Columbia recording of the work known as Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 6 – though nowadays it is ascribed to the Mannheim-born composer and violinist Johann Friedrich Eck (1767-1838) – demonstrates Dubois’s strengths well. Mozart or not, the concerto provides a wonderful vehicle for the violinist’s touchingly eloquent playing, as does the far better-known Concerto No 5 by Henri Vieuxtemps (recorded 1929). In both concertos Dubois is supported by the Royal Conservatory Orchestra of Brussels under Désiré Defauw. Also on the CD, Ysaÿe’s Sonata No 3 (Ballade), Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo, Handel’s Sonata No 6 in E and music by Nardini, Leclair and some genuine Mozart. There’s more where this came from, so hopefully Biddulph will oblige.

The recording

Mozart. Vieuxtemps Violin Concertos

Alfred Dubois (Biddulph)