Hyperion’s ongoing series of Romantic piano concertos has restored many fine works to international currency. Here’s hoping this new project does the same for the violin. It will be a tougher job, not just because violin concertos are much harder to write than piano concertos, but because so many of them are truly terrible. Most composers are pianists; very few actually master the violin (though many play it casually). Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky all sought the advice of major violinists when composing their concertos, and it’s no accident that they only wrote one apiece. Even Sibelius, a violinist by training, gave his single concerto a complete overhaul. So you would think that when a composer of Saint-Saëns’ facility comes along and writes THREE violin concertos, they would get played more often. After all, even if they aren’t staggeringly great music, you know that they will be both well written, and at the very least tasteful and attractive. The First Concerto is a slight work, scarcely 15 minutes long in a single movement, just like the popular First Cello Concerto. Violin Concerto No. 2, however, is a big piece fully as effective and appealing as the more popular Third Concerto, and it’s given a good workout by Philippe Graffin who plays all three works with maximum charm and fluency. A strong first entry, then, in what promises to be an interesting series of recordings.
