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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HUMMEL AUF NAXOS, 31 Dec 2005
This is a fascinating find. What a marvellous job Naxos do. There is no extant complete score of Hummel's violin concerto, and some of what there is of it is in another hand than his. The conductor here, Gregory Rose, has completed the orchestral parts, and he contributes a liner note, with German translation, that puts many more expensive sets from the 'main' recording outfits to complete shame. In fact Hummel may never actually have completed the score. Beethoven's violin concerto made its debut while Hummel was working on his own, and that could well, as Rose says, have put him off his stroke. Hummel's solo part is quite ambitious and virtuosic, but his own instrument was the piano (as was Beethoven's, of course) and his confidence may have deserted him. I would say that the inspiration, so far as it's possible to judge in a case like this, is not the equal of that in his trumpet concerto, but there is no shortage of performances of that work. I don't know of another performance of the violin concerto, but I hope there may be more now. The other work here is a concerto for violin and piano, a scheme that inevitably brings to mind Beethoven's triple concerto. Like Beethoven in that case, Hummel opts for comparatively simple solo parts; and again like Beethoven he turns out a composition that is agreeable and undemanding on the listener. In this case Hummel provides his own cadenza for the first movement - understandably indeed given the potential for disaster if he had left it to the players - but he either didn't bother in the finale or his cadenza there has not survived, and the invaluable Mr Rose has contributed his own as in the outer movements of the violin concerto. This whole production shows imagination, flair, originality and enterprise. After a lifetime of admiring Beethoven and Brahms I am simply dismayed at every successive new complete set of this or that by them. Good and interesting music that is new to me is what I want, and it will break my heart if issues such as this fail to arouse the interest I feel they deserve. The recording is bright and forward, which I feel suits both the music and the performers, and the Russian Philharmonic, whose work is completely new to me, do very well with what they are given. The soloists are new to me too, and while it is fairly obvious that we are not listening to Khachatryan and Hough they bring the right sense of enthusiasm and freshness to their playing. Give them all your support. They all deserve it.
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~ Johann Nepomuk Hummel
~ Madoka Inui
~ Claudio Gonella
~ Johann Nepomuk Hummel
