Sentimental Work: Philippe Graffin

When I was seven years old I heard my first Yehudi Menuhin record. It was a disc on which he was talking about his life, interspersed with excerpts from some of his most famous recordings. I’d only just begun to study the violin myself, and I became very familiar with all the pieces on the LP but it was the Elgar Violin Concerto that really stood out. I already knew I wanted to be a violinist, but possibly this recording, and the Elgar in particular, put me on the path to becoming a soloist.

When I arrived at the Paris Conservatoire, I found we were expected to play the likes of Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski and Saint-Saëns – no English music, and certainly not the Elgar Concerto. But I was so desperate to play it that I ended up learning it on my own. Then I went to the US to study with Josef Gingold, who’d studied for two years under Eugène Ysaÿe. He told me how Ysaÿe had spent time working with Elgar on the piece, and how he’d given its German premiere in Berlin. He even gave me Ysaÿe’s marked-up version of the score, which I still have. It was interesting to see how often Ysaÿe had written ‘nobilmente’ below the music – one of Elgar’s favourite notations, which obviously meant a lot to him!…