Elgar & Finzi Violin Concertos

Ning Feng (violin) & Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Carlos Miguel Prieto

The violin was Edward Elgar’s own instrument and his Violin Concerto is almost like a personal confession: it was ‘too emotional’, Elgar admitted, adding that he loved it nonetheless. The solo part is one of the most exhausting in the repertoire – a veritable compendium of bravura violin techniques. In an interview, Fritz Kreisler, to whom the Violin Concerto is dedicated, ranked Elgar with Beethoven and Brahms. Elgar met the challenge: his Violin Concerto combines the singing quality of Beethoven’s with the symphonic drama of Brahms’s.

The London-born Gerald Finzi was in many ways more English than Elgar and his teacher Ralph Vaughan Williams. As can be heard in his Violin Concerto, a well kept secret from 1927, that had its first performance after the premiere only in 1999. The work lasts twenty minutes: a six-minute Allegro, a superb central ten-minute Molto sereno, and ending with a four-minute Hornpipe Rondo. It is difficult to understand why Finzi was dissatisfied with his two fast movements. The first combines beauty with energy. Through its sheer romantic beauty, the Molto sereno is one of those pieces where the hairs stand up on the back of the neck.

Elgar:
 Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61

Finzi:
 Violin Concerto

"Ning Feng delivers all these demanding works with the fire, ice, and sugar, in different measures, that they require. His technique is beyond cavil, of course, but he also plays with a purity and sweetness of tone rare among the current crop of virtuosi."
Audiophile Audition

"Feng is a technically immaculate player: the rat-a-tat multi-stopping at the conclusion of the opening movement of Elgar’s Violin Concerto is pin-point accurate and tingles with focused intensity. But Feng is a poet too…His deeply considered account of Elgar’s Concerto is the real reason for buying this disc. Not a bar of it is uninvolving, and the recorded sound is excellent.
BBC Music Magazine - February 2019 ****(Performance) / ***** (Recording)

"The way Ning Feng shapes the opening phrases of the Elgar Concerto, I’m fairly certain he’s given careful study to Yehudi Menuhin’s fabled 1932 recording with the composer conducting. Even Feng’s lightly throbbing tone seems closely modelled on Menuhin’s…however, it becomes clear that Feng’s performance, while technically brilliant, operates within a significantly narrower emotional band."
Gramophone Magazine - January 2019