This is very good second-rate music. Frédéric d’Erlanger was a count, or baron, or something like that, and he wrote fastidiously aristocratic, sentimental, lovely music full of attractive tunes. His D minor Violin Concerto is very, very pretty, but it lacks backbone. The scoring is diaphanous (nice harp part) and never gets in the way of the soloist, but it also never sounds like a true dialogue between violin and orchestra. The Poeme offers more of the same. Frederic Cliffe’s concerto has a beefier orchestral part, and a very appealing finale in the Hungarian style, though it does absolutely nothing original and might not linger long in the memory.
The performances, however, do much to make a good case for the music. Philippe Graffin hasn’t a true romantic virtuoso’s tone, but his polish and accuracy, particularly in double stops, conveys the meticulous craftsmanship of both works quite well. He could have quite a success in concert with d’Erlanger’s concerto, I have no doubt. David Lloyd-Jones and his Welsh forces offer able support, and Hyperion’s engineering is, as usual, very good. There’s plenty to enjoy here for fans of the romantic concerto repertoire.
