Friday 16 January 2009

The violin concertos of Ludwig Spohr are well worth a detour to listen to. Melodious, agreeable, unchallenging and "hummable". The new Naxos CD with Simone Lamsma and the Sinfonia Finlandia is an excellent disc, with Lamsma not interposing herself between Spohr's music and the listeners' ears. Praise also to the Sinfonia Finlandia which is just the right size for this pleasant music; we do not need a full-blown Bruckner-type symphony orchestra.

Once again, thanks to St Klaus Heymann; thank goodness he married a violinist! It was a lucky day for lovers of violin music.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree with your comments. an excellent CD. However, Spohr's violin concertos are anything but unchallenging. Although stylistically distinct from Pagannini's concertos they are equally as difficult from a technical viewpoint and probably this is why they are avoided by the majority of today's violinists.

Harry Collier said...

Good comment; I've never seen the music for the violin part for these concertos, but I'll take your word for it. My "unchallenging" referred to the process of listening, rather than playing.