Play List:

Beethoven – Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24, “Spring”; Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Major, Op. 47, “Kreutzer”; Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61

Berg – Violin Concerto

Brahms – Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77

Debussy – Violin Sonata in G Minor

Enescu – Violin Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 25

Ravel – Tzigane

Schumann – Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 121

Five violin sonatas, three violin concertos, and one bonus piece. Seven composers. Over four hours of listening throughout four discs. One Great Violinist.

French violinist Christian Ferras achieved classical music stardom throughout a thirty-five-year career that began when he was 14 and was tragically truncated by his suicide at the age of 49.      Ferras played symphonic engagements and solo recitals throughout Europe, Asia, South America and the United States, performing with orchestras under the batons of Michael Gielen, Hans Müller-Kray, Herbert Blomstedt, Karl Böhm, Charles Munch and Herbert von Karajan, among many others. Ferras played in recitals usually accompanied by his longtime collaborator, pianist Pierre Barbizet. He made chamber music with Yehudi Menuhin, Pablo Casals, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Wilhem Kempff.

Ferras, a violinist to the manner born and an artist of prodigious prowess, subordinated the merely technical to a temperament of intense emotional gifts hallmarked by a kind of romanticism that he could equally inject into the late Classicism of Beethoven and the early 20^th century atonality of Alban Berg, while always remaining true to the letter and spirit of the composers. His recordings for Decca, Telefunken, and EMI, are all collector’s items, most out of print. It is with gratitude that listeners welcome the Naxos release of Christian Ferras – The SWR Recordings (SWR19114CD) on the SWR label.

Rafael de Acha © 2022