And still they come! This is the fourth new version of Elgar’s Violin Sonata to have come my way since January. Performing on the composer’s own instrument and bow, Marat Bisengaliev forms a sensitive and shapely alliance with Benjamin Frith. They take a less high-powered view of this music than do all three of their comparative rivals, and the finished article possesses a thoughtful intimacy and tender vulnerability to which many Elgarians will rightly respond. If Bisengaliev is neither as commandingly articulate as Vengerov (just occasionally his tuning tends to be fractionally sharp) nor as intrepidly imaginative as Hope, the unvarnished honesty of his playing gives considerable pleasure none the less. Pushed for a single choice, however, I would unhesitatingly opt for Hope, whose abundantly characterful and remarkably concentrated account strikes me as the finest we’ve had for many a moon.
No, the real appeal of this newcomer lies in the chronologically wide-ranging sequence of 13 miniatures preceding the Sonata. Many of these have never made it to disc before, including the teenage Elgar’s uncommonly assured Reminiscences (completed in March 1877, not long after he had begun teaching the violin) and the winsome Allegretto in C major of eight years later. Both the Polonaise in D minor (an amalgamation of two pieces written on March 7, 1879) and Valse on Themes of Elgar (based on a sketch jotted down on Easter Sunday, 1886) were expertly fashioned by Christopher Polyblank (b 1946, a pupil of Rubbra and currently County Music Inspector for Worcestershire). Amongst other nuggets, we also get the Mot d’amour and Pastourelle (respective companion pieces to Bizarrerie and Virelai, both to be found on this team’s previous anthology, 7/99), and there’s a particularly touching arrangement of ‘Dreaming’ (the penultimate movement of the Nursery Suite) by Elgar’s dear friend, ‘Billy’ Reed. I need only add that Bisengaliev and Frith realise all this material to the manner born.
The recording is undistractingly natural, if perhaps lacking just a little in bloom and body (in the Sonata especially the piano at times sounds unhelpfully distant). A delectable anthology, on the whole, excellently annotated by Martin Anderson, and there’s a hotlink to a special website containing extra information as well as a bonus track