Here is a meeting of two unlikely minds: Niccolò Paganini,
the ultimate showman, the first rock star, the man who brought
virtuoso solo playing to new, undreamed-of heights, and Fritz
Kreisler, the suave gentleman with a genius for salon music
and miniatures. And yet Kreisler arranged a series of Paganini’s
works for violin and piano, both works which were originally
for orchestra (like ‘La Campanella’ or ‘Le
streghe’) and works which were originally for violin alone
(like the selected caprices). This is a recital consisting entirely
of such arrangements, and Paganini fans will want to have it,
but its appeal will also extend to violin aficionados generally.
Alongside Hyperion’s “Romantic Concerto” series,
the less evocatively named Naxos series “Nineteenth Century
Violin Music” is one of the greatest gifts to violin enthusiasts
in many a year. Announced in 2007, the series aims to include
major (and, frankly, minor) works by the likes of Charles-August
de Bériot, Pierre Baillot, Rodolphe Kreutzer, Jenő
Hubay, Antonio Bazzini, Jan Kalliwoda, and Ferdinand David,
as well as the complete works of Henri Vieuxtemps and Pablo
de Sarasate. Grammy-nominated violinist Philippe Quint has been
an enthusiastic member of the project, having previously recorded
a slate of Beriot concertos. Now, with the Paganini/Kreisler
transcriptions, he reaches an intriguing medium between the
famous and the obscure. This is familiar music in an unfamiliar
frame.
Some works are more popular than others: ‘La Campanella’
and the twenty-fourth caprice are justly legendary, while the
somewhat long-winded variations on Rossini tunes have been consigned
to the footnotes of music history. Philippe Quint tackles them
all with freshness, dazzling technique, and a tone which is
a little brighter and thinner than I like. He cannot make satisfying
the structures of the variations (which were, frankly, built
to show off Paganini’s skills to best advantage), but
he can dispatch their double stops, multiple extended harmonic
passages, and occasional expressive demands seemingly without
any difficulty. As I write this, I am listening to the Moto
perpetuo and wondering not just how anyone can play this
music, but how anyone can make it sound so easy.
The twenty-fourth caprice is one of the most interesting tracks:
Kreisler could not help but write some variations of his own!
The booklet helpfully explains which of Paganini’s variations
have been replaced by Kreisler’s new inventions, which
are all worthy of joining the originals - and some of them are
tougher to play: try 0:53!. Pianist Dmitry Cogan even gets his
own mini-variation (2:18), a welcome moment at the surface after
spending most of the disc submerged beneath a sea of virtuosic
violin writing. Is it just me, or do the capacious chords of
that little piano solo invoke another composer associated with
this tune: Rachmaninoff?
The Caprice No 20 in D begins as a surprisingly lyrical, lovely
invention thanks to Kreisler’s (and Cogan’s) singing
piano accompaniment, and Quint squeezes every bit of romance
out of the main theme. The central section is still a ferocious
technical challenge for the violin. Le Streghe (“Witches”)
doesn’t sound very devilish until its conclusion, but
it is witty and gives Quint plenty of chances to show off. The
‘I Palpiti’ variations close the recital, beginning
with another chance for Cogan to reveal his sensitive playing
style, before Quint delivers the gorgeous main tune and shrugs
off several minutes of adventures in the violin’s highest
register.
The sound is good, but I have heard some of Philippe Quint’s
other discs on which his violin playing is presented in a more
flattering light. Here the tone is a bit too bright, too thin,
although it got better when I cranked up the volume. There is
one poorly-done edit, at 7:58 on ‘Le Streghe.’ One
more production note: this is one of the first Naxos discs to
not have any white space on the cover. The trend began a few
months ago, with (I think) the Alfredo Casella series, and seems
to be expanding as it goes along. Maybe in a few years’
time the old white covers with little paintings and Times font
will be gone. That really would leave me irrationally nostalgic.
But back to the disc at hand: if you are not very passionate
about Paganini, or the violin in general, I do have to warn
that much of this music originally consisted of brazen showing-off
and Kreisler did not get in the way of that goal. For the mere
casual fan of virtuosic violin pieces, the recital can be hard
to enjoy in one sitting.
On the other hand, if you love the music of Paganini, or if
you are collecting the Nineteenth Century Violin series, you
will definitely want to hear this recital. The best all-around
recital of Paganini music arranged for violin and piano probably
remains Pavel šporcl’s on Supraphon with pianist
Petr Jirikovsky. It features arrangements by a number of tinkerers
and has fuller sound. šporcl has a more genial tone but,
especially as šporcl does not play ‘La campanella’
or the twenty-fourth caprice, there is room for the two albums
on one shelf. Violin aficionados are strongly advised to follow
that course and listen to both.
Brian Reinhart
Philippe Quint (violin); Dmitry Cogan (piano) 
