Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst: Complete Music, Volume Three

Catalogue Number: TOCC0163
EAN: 5060113441638
Release Date: 3 December 2012
Duration: 80:56

Introduction et Variations Brillantes, Op. 6
Élégie sur la mort d’un objet chéri, Op. 10
Introduction, Variations et Final, Op. 26
Pensées fugitives, Nos. 7–12
Souvenirs de l’Opéra La Juive
Airs hongrois variés, Op. 22

Sherban Lupu, violin
Ian Hobson, piano

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812–65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim ‘the greatest violinist I ever heard’. But the popular encore pieces by which Ernst is remembered today represent only a fraction of his output. This third CD – in a series of seven presenting all his compositions for the first time – shows the full range of his creativity and charm. The Élégie sur la mort d’un objet chéri is written in his most moving and melancholy vein, and the Airs hongrois variés push the virtuoso violin to its absolute limits. Between these extremes lie the lyricism of the Pensées fugitives, the inventiveness of his treatment of two Halévy operas and the high spirits of his fantasy on a Strauss waltz.

Booklet texts (PDF)