Friedrich Gernsheim - Violin Concertos (Linus Roth)

Information

Composer: Friedrich Gernsheim

• (01) Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 42
• (04) Fantasiestück in D major, Op. 33
• (05) Violin Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 86

Linus Roth, violin

Hamburg Symphony Orchestra

Johannes Zurl, conductor

Date: 2015

Label: cpo

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/friedrich-gernsheim-violinkonzerte-nr-1-d-dur-op-42-nr-2-f-dur-op-86/hnum/8290276

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Review

Friedrich Gernsheim (1839-1916) clings to the footnotes of musical history. A child prodigy (at his Frankfurt debut he was the soloist in Hummel’s A minor Concerto, played a set of variations on the violin and heard the orchestra play his new overture, all at the age of 11), he prospered as a composer and conductor, becoming known as ‘the Dutch Brahms’ – optimistically, but you can see why. His First Violin Concerto, in the same key as the older composer’s, boasts a last-movement subject that is too close for comfort to the finale of Brahms’s, as close as the ‘Ode to Joy’ is to the fourth movement of Brahms’s First Symphony.

Listening blind to the first movement of Gernsheim’s Op 42 (composed in 1880), your reaction might well be the same as mine – how pleasant, how very like Mendelssohn at times and Bruch at others, and what a shame it does not quite have their melodic genius. It’s a delightful work; but when faced with the competition of Goldmark, for instance, Moszkowski or Vieuxtemps, let alone Mendelssohn, Bruch and Tchaikovsky, you can see why it fell by the wayside.

Let me emphasise: it is well worth hearing, as is the earlier Fantasiestück, Op 33 (1876). As the informative booklet observes, ‘a genuinely great qualitative gap between [it] and, say, Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy is not really in evidence’. Linus Roth makes the most of its soaring flights of fancy. Gernsheim’s Violin Concerto No 2 might have been composed more than three decades after No 1 but inhabits the same world, though it is more concentrated in its musical arguments and with more individual touches. At one time it looked as though it might take off when it was championed by Georg Kulenkampff. Here it is given a well-merited second chance in an excellent, focused recording.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Jan/Gernsheim_VCs_7778612.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Gernsheim-Concertos-Hamburger-Symphoniker-Johannes/dp/B01K8NZGRA

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Friedrich Gernsheim (17 July 1839 – 10 September 1916) was a German composer, conductor and pianist. Gernsheim studied with Louis Liebe in Worms, Edward Rosenhain in Frankfurt, and Ignaz Moscheles in Leipzig. was a prolific composer, especially of orchestral, chamber and instrumental music, and songs. His earlier works show the influence of Schumann, and from 1868, a Brahmsian influence is very palpable. Gernsheim taught music at the Cologne Conservatory (his pupils there included Engelbert Humperdinck and Carl Lachmund). In the latter year he became a teacher at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Gernsheim

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Linus Roth (born 1977 in Ravensburg) is a German violinist. He studied with Zakhar Bron and Ana Chumachenco; Salvatore Accardo, Miriam Fried and Josef Rissin have also been important influences. In 2006, Roth received the ECHO KLASSIK Award as 'Best Newcomer' 2006 for his début CD on the label EMI. Roth has made a name for himself internationally, not just with his acclaimed work in core repertoire, but also with his discovery/rediscovery of works that have undeservedly fallen into oblivion. Since 2012 he has been a professor of violin at the Leopold-Mozart-Zentrum at Augsburg University.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Roth

https://www.linusroth.com/

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