Christian Ferras - Bando: Concerto hongrois pour violon et orchestre (Remastered) (2020) [Hi-Res]

Wrote the critic M.M. in his review for the April 1965 issue of The Gramophone: “Gyula Bandó was once a member of the Gertler Quartet; and he has pursued through Belgium, Hungary, France, Holland, and Venezuela a career as a conductor. You would therefore expect a violin concerto of his to declare a love for the sound of soloist and accompanists alike; and this Concerto Hongrois most certainly does so, offering in fact a gloriously rich sound in both directions. You would expect, too, a Hungarian composer writing a Concerto Hongrois to sound as if he meant the ascription, even in 1958; and Bandd does that, too, with fiery music which has its resemblances both to early Bartok and to the folk music from which both these idioms originally stem.

“The concerto is exciting, helped to that end by a splendid performance on the part of Ferras and the orchestra alike. The Paris Conservatoire Orchestra has always had most of the virtues; here it adds to them the extremely unwonted one of steady brass playing, horns, trumpets and trombone alike. Yet another strong contribution to the sound is made by the recording, which (in mono, all I have heard) is rich, brilliant and sonorous. And so perhaps it should be, with one side of the twelve-inch disc playing for just ten minutes; the whole concerto, both sides, is only just over 27. But they are twenty-seven minutes well spent.”

Christian Ferras, violin

Digitally remastered