Reviews | RH-022 | HENRYK SZERYNG | live in USA

22 April 2023 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | ARTAMAG' - Focus - Le disque du jour | LE CONCERTO RETROUVÉ

Un jour que je discutais à bâtons rompus avec Henryk Szeryng de ses divers enregistrements du Concerto de Brahms, il me coupa. « Vous connaissez le Concerto de Hahn ? Je vais le créer l’année prochaine aux Etats-Unis. »

Il avait fait bien plus, en retrouvant le manuscrit à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Caracas, perçant enfin le mystère de cette œuvre qui n’avait plus été jouée depuis sa création fugitive en 1927, malgré sa dédicace à Jules Boucherit et l’amitié qui liait le compositeur à une autre violoniste, Denise Soriano, avec laquelle il enregistra sa Sonate. Durant ses études à Paris, Szeryng entendit parler de ce « concerto fantôme » par Gabriel Bouillon, son professeur au Conservatoire.

Miracle !, la création américaine de l’œuvre à Atlanta le 20 novembre 1987, la voici, de plus dans un son remarquable, Henryk Szeryng faisant assaut de traits enthousiastes dans le Décidé initial (que le public applaudit), ardant le Chant d’amour, amours probablement interdites. Le Final contraste un Lent élégiaque avec un presto (Vif et léger) qui raille, petite merveille d’esprit très parisien. L’archet est toujours magnifique, la justesse encore certaine, mais Henryk Szeryng se doute-t-il qu’il est à quelques mois de la mort qui le prendra sans prévenir le 3 mars de l’année suivante ?

Rhine Classics ajoute deux échos d’un concert donné au temps de la splendeur du violoniste polonais le 17 janvier 1974 à Boston avec le jeune Michael Tilson Thomas. Plus que pour le Troisième Concerto de Paganini, qu’il aura retrouvé en 1967 dans les archives en désordre de Giuseppina, l’arrière-petite-fille du compositeur, et « arrangé » en s’écrivant au passage une fabuleuse cadence dont il ne fait ici qu’une bouchée, c’est l’estompe du Poème de Chausson qui saisit, témoignage de ce style si spécifique de l’école franco-belge de violon, dont après Henryk Szeryng, seul Augustin Dumay aura été l’ultime récipiendaire.

One day, while I was chatting casually with Henryk Szeryng about his various recordings of the Brahms Concerto, he interrupted me. “Are you familiar with the Hahn Concerto? I’m going to premiere it next year in the United States.”

He had done much more, having rediscovered the manuscript at the National Library of Caracas, finally unraveling the mystery of this work, which hadn’t been performed since its brief premiere in 1927, despite its dedication to Jules Boucherit and the composer’s friendship with another violinist, Denise Soriano, with whom he recorded his Sonata. During his studies in Paris, Szeryng first heard about this “phantom concerto” from Gabriel Bouillon, his professor at the Conservatory.

Miracle! The American premiere of the work in Atlanta on November 20, 1987, is presented here, moreover in remarkable sound quality. Henryk Szeryng unleashes a torrent of enthusiastic flourishes in the opening "Décidé" (which the audience applauds), and ignites the passion of the "Chant d'amour," a song of probably forbidden love. The Finale contrasts an elegiac "Lent" with a playful "Presto" ("Vif et léger"), a small marvel of very Parisian wit. The bowing is still magnificent, the intonation still certain, but did Henryk Szeryng suspect that he was just months away from the death that would take him without warning on March 3 of the following year?

Rhine Classics adds two recordings from a concert given during the Polish violinist's heyday on January 17, 1974, in Boston with the young Michael Tilson Thomas. More than for Paganini’s Third Concerto, which he rediscovered in 1967 in the disordered archives of Giuseppina, the composer’s great-granddaughter, and “arranged” by writing himself a fabulous cadenza in the process, which he makes short work of here, it is the subtlety of Chausson’s Poème that captivates, a testament to that very specific style of the Franco-Belgian school of violin, of which after Henryk Szeryng, only Augustin Dumay was the last recipient. [JCH]

March 2023 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | "Trésors d'archets" | CLASSICA n°250 p.83 | SZERYNG live in USA [☆☆☆☆☆ - Coup de coeur]

December 2021 | Martin Cullingford | GRAMOPHONE (p.7) | Editor's Choice | Henryk Szeryng - live in USA Polish violinist Henryk Szeryng was a class act, writes Rob Cowan in Replay this month: discover why on this archive album of music by Chausson, Paganini and Hahn. (Review on p.121)

Szeryng was a class act. Rhine Classics’ beautiful disc opens to two significant items where Szeryng is sensitively supported in 1971 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas: Chausson’s Poème; and Paganini’s Third Concerto [...]. The unique quality of this particular performance is the way it conjures the music’s affinity with the world of operetta, bubbly but openly sentimental, too. The disc's real highlight, though, is the Violin Concerto that Reynaldo Hahn composed in 1927. Szeryng's approach to this unaccountably neglected work is both radiant and, at times, imbued with a spirit of laughter. [...] Szeryng's bowing is incisive and crisp; he draws from his instrument both warmth and a brand of virtuosity that borders on sounding balletic. [...]

December 2021 | Jean-Michel Molkhou | DIAPASON No.706 (pag.111) | Henryk Szeryng - live in USA

5 October 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Henryk Szeryng - CHAUSSON, PAGANINI, HAHN live in USA

Two works new to Szeryng’s studio discography makes this an appetising release.

Whilst live performances by Szeryng are not uncommon it’s always exciting when hearing him perform works he never recorded commercially and that’s the case with Chausson’s Poème and Reynaldo Hahn’s Concerto. [...] The Chausson receives a vivid, masculine reading which vests the music with a real sense of drama far removed from some rather more evanescent performances. Though oriented toward the Franco-Belgian school, Szeryng here marries tonal purity with expressive breadth and a real sense of theatrical flair. The orchestra, invariably tagged as the most Gallic of American ensembles, plays its role too as does Tilson Thomas whose accompaniment matches Szeryng’s in boldness, drawing out the music’s full complement of romantic fervour. There’s no question that Szeryng’s rich vibrancy is gloriously on show here. [...] The music’s fearsome demands are surmounted with evangelical bravura by Szeryng, and he and Tilson Thomas relish Paganini’s explicitly Rossinian élan. Rhythmically the results are biting and exciting, and Szeryng is just as fine in the graceful cantabile of the slow movement, as the violin spins its succulent line over accompanying orchestral pizzicati figures, as in the magnificently bowed Polacca finale, with a full array of soloistic colour. [...] The Hahn is an exceptional rarity on disc. Szeryng is especially effective in the intermezzo-like lyric beauty of the slow movement, where Hahn’s orchestration is both apt and precise, as he is in the vif et gai pirouetting of the acrobatic finale. Though he is on less Olympian form than in the Paganini and Chausson works, this is a fortunate survival as Szeryng was to die just over three months later.
Some applause and tuning (both cut short) have been included, the recorded sound in both concerts is very fine indeed, and the notes are good. Presenting two works new to Szeryng’s discography should prove to be a particular draw, not least in such handsomely accomplished readings.

12 September 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | Henryk Szeryng - CHAUSSON, PAGANINI, HAHN live in USA A fiddle player of sovereign instrumental mastery, refinement and artful musicianship.

[...] the second concert, dated 20 November 1987, features the Violin Concerto of Reynaldo Hahn. Szeryng’s crisp, incisive bowing adds spice and sparkle to the proceedings. These are live recordings and the applause has been retained to evoke the live concert experience. The sound quality cannot be faulted, and one can only assume that Emilio Pessina, the producer and audio restorer, has had access to fine source material. The booklet is written by Gary Lemco who discusses both Szeryng’s art and the background and context to the works performed. It’s certainly a disc to treasure.