Elgar: Violin Concerto, Op. 61

With its constant outpouring of interweaving musical ideas and motifs, Elgar’s Violin Concerto is one of the Edwardian English composer’s most emotionally and technically demanding works. As with all major Elgar, however, balances need to be struck between outward grandeur, soulful lyricism, and playful exuberance—a blend that maybe resulted from Elgar’s attempt to rise to the challenge set by the world-renowned violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler to write “something for the violin,” but also from the prospect of the composer knitting into its pages his deep affection for an unnamed love.

On the evidence of the final movement alone, Vilde Frang is an innate Elgarian and displays in its opening seconds a delicious clarity and confidence. Never have the composer’s swirling figurations sounded so wild and free, yet so assured, with Frang’s intonation unwavering in its precision. That controlled abandon continues right through the movement, with a cadenza that is breathtaking in its dynamic and tonal control. The opening of the Concerto is no less impressive, Frang’s entry three minutes into the first movement as impassioned as any account, yet more vivid and vital than most.

Frang’s performance is complemented by the superlative playing of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin who, under the watchful eye of Robin Ticciati, make dramatic sense of Elgar’s capricious work, with its fleet-footed changes in tempo, mood, and dynamics.

Two beautiful miniatures bring us back down to earth: one is a relatively unknown piece by Elgar for violin and piano, the other a beautifully-wrought arrangement for violin and orchestra of a nostalgic flute piece by William Lloyd Webber.