Beriot: Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 8 And 9

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Charles-Auguste de Bériot (1802-1870)Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 16Violin Concerto No. 8 in D major, Op. 99Violin Concerto No. 9 in A minor, Op. 104Charles-Auguste de Bériot was born in Louvain on 20th February 1802. He was to become one of the most distinguished violinists of the Belgian school, to be followed by players such as Vieuxtemps, Ysaÿe, Hubert Léonard, Massart, Marsick, Prume and César Thomson. Bériot played a Viotti concerto in public at the age of nine and after the death of his parents in 1812 became the ward of his teacher Jean-François Tiby. He took some lessons from André Robberechts, a pupil of Viotti, and in 1821 played for Viotti in Paris. On that occasion he was advised by the master to try to perfect his style, to listen to all talented players but to imitate none, counsel that he seems largely to have accepted. In 1819 Viotti had taken up the position of director of the Paris Opera, after the failure of his wine business in London. He was to resign in November 1821, but at the time of Bériot’s appearance in Paris was busily involved with his official duties. The boy was able, however, to take some lessons from Baillot, who had for some years been teaching at the Conservatoire. By 1824 Bériot had embarked on a career as a virtuoso that brought him, in 1826, the title of chamber-violinist to King Charles X and thereafter the position of violinist to King William I of the Netherlands. His meeting with the distinguished soprano Maria Malibran, daughter of the tenor Manuel Garcia and sister of Pauline Viardot, was to lead to a partnership from 1829 and finally to marriage, after the annulment of her first marriage to Eugène Malibran, initially contracted in the hope of escaping paternal exploitation. From 1832 they spent their time chiefly in England and Italy, eventually marrying in March 1836, three years after the birth in Paris of their son Charles-Wilfrid, who was to make a name for himself as a pianist. Maria Malibran died in Manchester during the Festival there in September 1836, six months after her marriage, as the result of a fall from a horse while she was pregnant. A few years later Heine was to observe that the soul of Malibran continued to sing through the melting and sweet tones of her husband’s violin. In 1838 Bériot undertook concert tours in Austria and Italy with his wife’s sister, and appeared in the major cities of Germany with the pianist Thalberg. Two years later he married Marie Huber, the daughter of an Austrian magistrate and in 1843 accepted the position of principal professor of the violin at the Conservatory in Brussels, preferring this position to comparable employment in Paris, where he was offered the succession to Baillot. He now reduced his concert engagements and was able to enjoy the performance of chamber music with members of his Cercle des arts at his house at Saint-Josse-te