The Strad Recommends: James Ehnes: Lalo, Saint-Saëns, Sarasate

THE STRAD RECOMMENDS

The Strad Issue: May 2025

Description: An album to seduce and thrill in equal measure

Musicians: James Ehnes (violin) BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena

Works: Lalo: Symphonie espagnole. Saint-Saëns: Violin Concerto no.3. Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy

Catalogue number: CHANDOS CHAN20333

Having established impeccable credentials in a string of standard-setting recordings of repertoire works, James Ehnes now loosens his tie a little in music that opts to thrill in more instant, visceral ways. Perhaps the highlight of the disc is Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, Ehnes flying through the fiddle acrobatics as if they were no more challenging than a stroll under the Spanish sun.

The other two works are by friends and associates of Sarasate’s. Hear how, for all the dancing grace of Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, it’s the lyrical, singing opportunities that bring out the best of Ehnes. Or in the most substantial piece here, Saint-Saëns’s Third Concerto, how his violin gently weeps through the slower passages. To operate at its best, this music requires not just an innate ability to negotiate the fingerboard but a hefty dose of charisma, too, and Ehnes possesses that in spades. His award-winning Ysaÿe has already demonstrated his thorough identification with previous generations of violinists – the ones most associated for so many years with this music on disc – and that acknowledgement of tradition, coupled with ironclad conservatoire virtuosity and panoramic Chandos sound, pays rich dividends.

A note, too, for Juanjo Mena’s conducting, which brings a touch a Spanish authenticity to proceedings, all but persuading you that he is in charge of an orchestra of temptresses and toreadors on the ramparts of Seville, and not a broadcast band in a studio on the rainy banks of the Irwell. Delicious.

DAVID THREASHER