Hyperion's series of lost concertos of the Romantic era, first for piano and now for violin, are to be welcomed; there's hardly an item among them that isn't worth at least one more hearing. Consider this release of works mostly by Belgian composer Joseph Jongen, who is remembered, if at all, for a few organ pieces. He was a hot property at the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, winning a prize that took him to Italy, but using the trip to visit Berlin, Bayreuth, and Munich. He encountered the music of Strauss along ...
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Hyperion's series of lost concertos of the Romantic era, first for piano and now for violin, are to be welcomed; there's hardly an item among them that isn't worth at least one more hearing. Consider this release of works mostly by Belgian composer Joseph Jongen, who is remembered, if at all, for a few organ pieces. He was a hot property at the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, winning a prize that took him to Italy, but using the trip to visit Berlin, Bayreuth, and Munich. He encountered the music of Strauss along the way, but there are also epic brass passages that unmistakably suggest that it was Wagner who made the deepest impression. To shoehorn that influence into the three-movement traditional concerto form, as Jongen does in the Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 17, written in 1900, is a nifty trick that nobody else accomplished in quite the same way. The two shorter works by Jongen on the program are both for violin and orchestra; the Fantasia in E major, Op. 12, composed in 1898, preceded...
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