Rare French Wks For Vln/Orch

I guess an easy rejoinder would be that these French violin works are all rare for good reason. And that wouldn't be entirely fair, though truth to tell, you won't have missed any overlooked masterworks if you miss this disc. Actually, "rarity" is a relative term as well since the Saint-Saens work has been pretty widely available on disc over the years, and Lalo's Fantaisie norvegienne will be immediately familiar to any fans of that composer, it being the first version of his semi-popular Rhapsodie norvegienne.

Speaking of the Saint-Saens piece, it's a pretty strong one, I've always thought, even if it will never rival the Introduction and Rondo Capriccisoso or Havanaise in popularity. In fact, since it was originally projected as the first movement of Saint-Saens' Third Violin Concerto, no one could argue that its replacement movement isn't a much finer piece.

So it goes. The two best pieces on the disc, the Saint-Saens and the Lalo, were actually improved on by their composers in later reworkings. Of the others, the Canteloube is the most ambitious and attractive, though a bit schmaltzy for my taste. The Faure, first movement of a never-completed concerto, is not very characteristic of the composer at all and was probably abandoned because he had much better things to do. The Guiraud work won't stay with you long, and the Lalo "Guitarre" is an early salon piece orchestrated by Pierne--nice, but....

In fact, that sums up all of this music. Nothing indispensible here.

The performances are very good; both Graffin and Fischer revel in out-of-the-way repertory and almost succeed in making it sound important. However, my favorite piece, the Saint-Saens, is curiously lacking in energy in their reading. It's been treated to better performances elsewhere on disc.

So there you have it: four-star performances of two-star music. My rating splits the difference.