Graffin Unearths Original Elgar Score

Philippe Graffin goes back to Elgar's original score for this winning recording.

Composer: Elgar
Repertoire: Concerto in B minor Chausson Poème
Artists: Philippe Graffin (violin), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley
Rating: 5/5

Genre: Instrumental

Label: AVIE AV 2091

Even bearing in mind classic accounts from the young Yehudi Menuhin and his protégé Nigel Kennedy, this new recording of Elgar’s Violin Concerto is that extra bit special. Elgar’s own opinion was that ‘It’s good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional... but I love it’ and that’s exactly how Graffin plays it – not as a heart-rending sob-fest, but as music so intensely personal that at times it almost hurts to speak its deeply felt language. What makes this disc a real winner is that Graffin plays Elgar’s original manuscript version and also includes a glowing account of Chausson’s Poème which restores around a dozen bars omitted from the published version.