<<  -- 3 --  Robert Anderson    A SALAD-DAYS GENIUS

The playful rhythms that start the finale give place to a passage as catchy as it is wayward and vulgar. Like Elgar, and indeed Dvorák, Coleridge-Taylor was a violinist. Philippe Graffin manages a clean-cut precision throughout the work and clearly relishes this idiomatic finale [listen -- track 3, 8:12-9:26]. The Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Michael Hankinson accompanies alertly and with a weighty commitment that occasionally threatens to overwhelm the soloist. It is a fascinating disc, and the coupling is ideal. If it has to be admitted that the Coleridge-Taylor is not his finest work, the same can be said of the Dvorák. Like other composers fated to die young, Coleridge-Taylor hurried to produce his best and proved a salad-days genius.

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