Sibelius/Elgar: Violin Concertos

Sibellus' Violin concerto is technically formidable but "Korean soloist Dong-Suk Kang negotiates it with ease and produces a strong and lithe performance ably supported by the CRS Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Leaper. A fine recording but I would recommend it even more highly if it included a second concerto rather than four pleasant, but musically slight, Norwegian violin rhapsodies."
- Hi-Fi Review (UK) - February 1991

"even if it were at full price it would feature quite high in the current lists"
- Penguin Guide

The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was born in 1865, the son of a doctor. The language and culture of his family was Swedish, but Sibelius himself was to enter wholeheartedly into the world of Finland, with its different linguistic and literary traditions. It was this world that he translated into musical terms in his remarkable seven symphonies and in a series of tone poems that echo the ancient sagas. He was trained as a musician at first in Helsinki, then in Berlin and Vienna, and had early ambitions as a violinist, at a time when the first professional orchestra in Finland was being established. Narrowly failing to win the position of Professor of Music at the University of Helsinki in 1896, he was awarded a government stipend for ten years, converted thereafter info a pension for life. This was never enough to meet his needs, hardly tempered by a certain inherited improvidence. His father had had a gift for extravagance, and had left his family bankrupt at the time of his early death. For the last twenty-seven years of his long life Sibelius virtually ceased to work as a composer. His position was unassailable, but he felt himself out of tune with the contemporary world of music, as it had developed.

Sibelius completed the first version of his Violin Concerto in 1903 and it was first performed in Helsinki with indifferent results. The concerto was revised and successfully performed in Berlin in 1905 by Karl Halir, under the direction of Richard Strauss. The choice of soloist, however, offended the violinist Willy Burmester, who had originally been promised the work. The earlier version of the concerto was technically ambitious, and as a violinist Sibelius had needed no help with the lay-out of the solo part, although this presented technical difficulties that were beyond his own command. The later version made necessary revisions in the solo part and it is in this definitive form that the work has become a standard part of the solo repertoire.