The Sunday Telegraph June 20, 1999
the Russian violinist Marat Bisengaliev gives a formidable performance, their bristling difficulties seeming to give him little trouble. But we rarely hear such delicious miniatures as the Romance Op. 1, and the Idylle, once loftily dismissed as salon music but now more accurately regarded as tributaries of the main Elgar river. Bisengaliev, with Benjamin Frith as the excellent pianist, deserves praise for learning music which must be unfamiliar to him and he plays some of it with tendernes and elan
Gramophone July 1999
Rediscovered Works for Violin. Marat Bisengaiiev (violin); Benjamin Frith (piano).
Black Box BBM 1016 (67 minutes: DDD)
Romance (with its striking echoes of the finale from Schumann's Fourth Symphony) immediately reveals, these artists bring an affectingly uncloying totally unforced naturalness of expression to this charming repertoire. Even such well-worn nuggets as the two Chansons and Salut d'amour emerge with a new-minted freshness
while the ferocious difficulty of the five solo Etudes characteristiques of 1878 has long put off any potential champions on disc (and Bisengaliev rises to the challenge with fearless aplomb)
balance within the generous church acoustic is generally excellent. Lovely stuff
AA
Hi-Fi News & Records Review August 1999
ELGAR:
Works for violin & piano
Marat Bisengaliev (violin/Benjamin Frith (piano)
Black Box BBM 1016
(66m 36s) dist. Complete Record Co
His own performance is a real tour de force
Each piece casts its own emotional spell, and the performances feature some of the finest rich-toned string playing and piano accompaniment I have heard in years - this is musicianship far removed from [the young] Nigel Kennedy and Peter Pettinger on Chandos
Bill Newman A:1
BBC Music Magazine August 1999
ELGAR
Works for violin and piano
Marat Bisengaliev (violin)
Benjamin Frith (piano)
Black Box BB/Vt 1016 mins £££
Bisengaliev, as we know from his Naxos recordings, is a sensational player of intense musicality and tonal splendour. He delights in the nostalgia and demand of these pieces, bringing them glowingly alive, finding depth where others see only charm. You can't fault the technique, the finish, the emotional charge
listen to the risks they take with the rubato world of La capricieuse
an absolute winner.
Ates Orga
PERFORMANCE *****
ELGAR
Re-discovered works for violin
Marat Bisengaliev (violin); Benjamin Frith (piano)
Black Box BBM1016
The notes quote approvingly the New York Times1 critic's comments on Marat1 s Carnegie Hall debut that has taken to heart a style of playing that was a hallmark of violin virtuosity early in the century and is only now coming back into favour after several decades in the shadow of a more drily rational style1. How true this is, and it is with a sense of rediscovery that one hears, among other things, such familiar fare as the Chanson de Matin, Chanson de Nuit, and Salut d1 Amour presented here with freshness, vigour, and a sense of emotional charge and even danger born in very different soil from ours. Those for whom these pieces should be presented with the reticence that gets characterised as English1, or carry the whiff of faded Edwardian aspidistras, are in for quite a shock
Hearing that in this context instantly makes one realise that a Bisengaliev performance of it might be very special indeed
the Etudes Characteristiques of 1878, a veritable Grand National of fiddler's hurdles that even Menuhin apparently declined to traverse. Elsewhere on the disc Marat's prodigious technique is plainly not greatly stretched by the mainly easy, melodious music, with the result that his characteristic intensity almost gives the sense of a cat playing with a mouse. The Etudes Characteristiques, however, demand all the resources of such technique if they are not to sound ugly and effortful. They get them here, and the result really is an Elgar we did not know before, not so much rediscovered as discovered for the first time. These are for solo violin
In his youth Elgar practised hard at the violin and actually cherished ambitions of becoming a professional virtuoso. He had his first lessons with his father and by the age of nine he was sitting next to his father in the second violins in the orchestra of the Worcester Glee Club. By the age of twelve, Elgar was also a proficient violist. In 1876, when he was nineteen he began a long arduous career as a violin teacher, an occupation he hated. In 1877 he travelled to London for a series of lessons with Adolphe Pollitzer who, like Joachim, Ernst and Auer, had studied with Joseph Bφhm. This twelve-day visit cost Edward £7-15-9 of which £3-12-6 was spent on the rail fare. At one lesson Pollitzer asked Elgar which study he had prepared and was astonished when Edward replied - "All of them!"
"Do you compose?" asked Pollitzer. "I try", replied the budding composer.
Thereafter Pollitzer saw whatever Elgar had with him and in due course gave him an introduction to August Manns director of the orchestra at the Crystal Palace.
Pollitzer discerned exceptional musicianship in Elgar and pleaded with him to return for a full course of lessons. Elgar did so intermittently travelling up and down from Worcester, living on two bags of nuts a day. But finally, he came to realise that his tone was not full enough to realise his ambition of becoming a soloist and so he gave up the idea and therefore the lessons.
However, during his time with Pollitzer he composed solo violin studies himself to stretch his technique. In 1878 he composed the outline of an Stude-caprice (on this disc) which W.H. 'Billy' Reed completed over sixty years later. The same year Edward wrote his five Studes Characteristiques for solo violin (that conclude this programme) and dedicated them to Pollitzer. They are less melodies than exercises for the violin: crossed strings, double-stopping and difficult arpeggios etc. They present almost insurmountable technical hurdles. In fact even Yehudi Menuhin whose interest was strong enough to request a copy of the music; baulked at the idea of performing them in public. On this album virtuoso Marat Bisengaliev throws them off with seemingly effortless ease.
Bisengaliev gives relaxed and polished silken performances of these charming tuneful little works; salon pieces which must have been immensely popular around the turn of the century. In fact Schotts made a fortune out of Salut d'Amour which Edward sold to them for perhaps £5. This little gem is also included (in a rather too cool reading) together with such other well-known favourites as Chanson de matin and Chanson de nuit. La Capricieuse was once a fairly popular repertoire piece, counting Heifetz among its champions. By 1901 Elgar's reputation secured him payments of 50 guineas for pieces like the delightful May Song. Carissima, written for small orchestra in 1913, soon appeared in his own arrangement for violin and piano and it was the first Elgar work that the great man conducted in a recording studio. Late in life, in 1932, he submitted the Adieu and Serenade to publishers Keith Prowse in sketch form. The publishers commissioned arrangements for violin and piano from Joseph Szigeti no less!
Elgar often disparaged the piano but his writing for the instrument as accompaniment to these violin pieces is equally assured as Benjamin Frith's sympathetic and unobtrusive, but beautifully controlled and phrased playing demonstrates.
The packaging for this CD is excellent - tasteful design and typography on beautiful substantial white art paper. Martin Anderson's notes are authoritative and entertaining.
Ian Lace
