A wide-ranging reissue does justice to an important Ysaÿe pupil
The Strad Issue: April 2025
Description: A wide-ranging reissue does justice to an important Ysaÿe pupil
Musicians: Alfred Dubois (violin) Fernand Goeyens, Gerald Moore (piano) Royal Conservatoire Orchestra of Brussels/Desiré Defauw
Works: Eck (attrib. Mozart): Violin Concerto no.6. Handel: Violin Sonata op.1 no.15 HWV373. Kreisler: Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice. Vieuxtemps: Violin Concerto no.5. Ysaÿe: Solo Violin Sonata no.3 ‘Ballade’; works by Leclair, Mozart, Nardini and Vieuxtemps
Catalogue number: BIDDULPH 85049-2
Here is the missing link in the great dynasty Vieuxtemps–Ysaÿe–Dubois–Grumiaux–Dumay. Alfred Dubois (1898–1949) lost some of his best years to the Second World War and died suddenly, just as his career was taking off again. Biddulph has previously featured his duo with Marcel Maas; and a set of the Belgian Court Trio is to come.
The Mozart ‘Concerto no.6’ has always been popular with the Franco-Belgians. It is now known to be by Johann Friedrich Eck but what the ’eck: it is a nice Classical piece and Dubois’s lovely, stylish playing elevates it.
Vieuxtemps’s Fifth Concerto is meat and drink to Dubois and his conductor Defauw, and in their hands you forget the work’s slightly weird construction; the Grétry air is beautifully sung and the virtuosic passages are thrown off with insouciance. Dubois plays the first of the two available cadenzas.
The pleasing Handel sonata with Gerald Moore is from Dubois’s last session in 1947, as is the fine account of Ysaÿe’s solo Ballade – its recording premiere. Four immaculate short pieces with pianist–composer Fernand Goeyens include Vieuxtemps’s Romance. I am grateful to have Kreisler’s solo Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice, so rarely recorded.
A touch of distortion in the Eck apart, transfer engineer Ward Marston has made a good job of maximising the sound quality. The notes place the legendary Artis Quartet (Dubois, Grumiaux, Courte, Robert Maas) after World War II. They flourished during the war but would not play for the occupying Germans.
Coincidentally, Musique en Wallonie has issued a two-disc set of Dubois, well transferred with only three duplications.
TULLY POTTER
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