Charles-Auguste de Bériot: Violin Concerto No.2 in B minor, Op.32

Charles Auguste de Bériot

Bust of Charles Auguste de Bériot from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles.

(20 February 1802 – 8 June 1870) was a Belgian violinist and composer.

Violin Concerto No.2 in B minor, Op.32

Laurent Albrecht Breuninger (violin), Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Frank Beermann (conductor)
I. Allegro maestoso – 00:00
II. Andantino – 16:25
III. Rondo russe. Allegretto – 23:05

 In 1810 he moved to France, where he studied violin with Jean-François Tiby, a pupil of Giovanni Battista Viotti.
Bériot was performing publicly by age nine. He was later encouraged by Viotti himself and briefly worked with Pierre Baillot but did not embrace all their teachings.

“Bériot’s music is highly engaging and romantic. He flourished at the height of the romantic era, and his music reflects this. His ten violin concertos and the first Scène de Ballet are probably his best known works. In the former he was quite inventive, writing concertos with only one movement, or connected movements (one “official” movement though each of the traditional three movements is visible in the structure), or using themes in more than one movement as a unifying device—fairly new procedures for the time. Bériot also used many of the same techniques that Paganini was also using in his works: harmonics, extensive use of double stops, ricochet bowing. In his concertos, however, Bériot is not after mere technique. All of his violin writing, no matter how much it relies on a formidable technique, is very much “within” the capabilities of the violin.
Bériot was also a dedicated pedagogue and spent a great deal of time on his various studies or caprices designed to create mastery of the instrument. He wrote a Méthode de violon in 1857 and l’Ecole transcendante du violon, Op. 123, among many other similar works. The goal was not just technical mastery, though that was, of course, important. It was to create a well-rounded musician who was as good a communicator as technician.
Certainly Bériot attempted, and achieved, this goal often, as the evidence of the works included here amply shows. The technique and style of Bériot eventually became part and parcel of the violinist’s trade. Building on the French School tradition of his youth, he was a door to a modern conception of violin composition and playing.” (by Bruce R. Schueneman)