Renaud Capuçon: Chausson

The Strad Issue: July 2026

Description: A warmly consoling tribute to a much-missed artist

Musicians: Renaud Capuçon (violin) Nicholas Angelich (piano) Ébène Quartet, Brussels Philharmonic/ Stéphane Denève

Works: Chausson: Concert; Poème

Catalogue number: ERATO 2685456552

Chausson’s Concert, written in 1888–91 when he was breaking away from German influences, came only a few years after he had travelled to Bayreuth to worship at Wagner’s altar. More than in the later Poème for violin and orchestra, the Concert owes a debt to César Franck, not least in its chromatic harmony and cyclic form. Franck’s spirit also hovers over the first movement’s brooding mystery. Nicholas Angelich brings supple fluidity to the web of gothic arpeggios (he also revels in the porcelain upper register of his piano) and Renaud Capuçon brings fearless playing, whether in the heroic first theme or at the point when the second theme appears in octaves. His sweet tone in the Sicilienne brings a pastoral lift, while the Ébène Quartet gently babbles and surges. The Grave is the highlight, Capuçon creating intimacy with reduced vibrato and matching the mood of Angelich’s slowly snaking chromaticism. At the movement’s end the music drifts magically away to remoter depths.

Capuçon sustains a narrative quality in the long singing lines of the Poème, while also playing with confident flair. The passages of Bach-like implied counterpoint are beautifully clean. This is an effective pairing featuring high-class playing, and also a fitting tribute to the late Nicholas Angelich, with whom Capuçon had worked since the 1990s.

EDWARD BHESANIA