RECORDING INFO

Violin: James Ehnes
Label: Telarc
Recorded: 1995
Total time: 77"00

James Ehnes, now 20 years old, made this recording last year. He's a most remarkable young violinist (from Manitoba, trained at the Julliard School). What is especially appropriate for Paganini is the boldness of his approach. It's clear that Paganini himself liked to live dangerously, and Ehnes's fearless tempos, plus the sheer confidence of his music making, give us more than a glimpse of the amazement and delight the composer himself inspired.

This boldness is at best in places like the moto perpetuo of the fifth Caprice, but there are many other fine things: the romantic, sensuous playing of the tremolando sixth Caprice, the very fast and mysterious No.12 - sounding like Chopin for the violin.

So I'd certainly recommend this disc as a record of an exceptional young virtuoso, but as an interpreter of these especially demanding pieces he's up against some stiff competition. Midori's version, made when she was 17, makes more of Paganini's many invitations to play delicately - the amoroso of No.21 is one of a number of places where she sounds magical whilst Ehnes misses the mark. Her intonation, too, is amazingly accurate in the fast passages of double-stopping where Ehnes isn't always spot-on. But she's a more careful player, and, for me, her performance is sometimes lacking in verve and excitement. Perlman's 1972 recording doesn't sound so beautiful as the two more recent versions, but his performance often finds more in the music in terms of character, expression and especially humour. So it's difficult to give a clear recommendation - each of these versions emphasizes a different facet of these remarkable pieces.

RECORDING INFO

Violin: Isaac Stern
Piano: Alexander Zakin, Eugene Istomin, Daniel Barenboim, Aaron Copland, Charles Rosen
Label: Sony
Recorded: Various times
Total time: N/A

By far the most interesting box in Sony's 31-volume "Isaac Stern - A Life in Music" is the fourth (12 CDs), which contains Vols.23-31 and includes a number of recordings that are either first-ever releases or new to the UK. The chosen repertory is mostly for violin and piano (Alexander Zakin is the pianist, unless otherwise stated), starting with Vol.23 and lean, firm-toned 1952-3 readings of sonatas by Bach (BWV1016, 1020 and 1023), Handel (the famous Op.1, No.7) and Tartini (Op.1, No.10, Didone abbandonata - a first release). Vol.24 is devoted to the Beethoven violin sonatas with Eugene Istomin, Op.12 No.1 and Op.30 No.2 having been recorded in 1969, the rest in 1983. It's a reassuringly musical set (roughly on a par with Zukerman and Neikrug on RCA, 7/92) but one can't deny that the 1969 recordings find Stern on better form technically. A collection of Schubert works for violin and piano (Vol.25 - the great C major Fantasie, the three Sonatinas, the B minor Rondo and the Grand Duo) was recorded in 1988 with Daniel Barenboim at the piano but here there's a purity of tone and interpretative simplicity that suit the music. The fill-up is Stern's sprightly 1947 recording of Haydn's C major Violin Concerto. Zakin takes over warmly responsive accounts of the three Brahms violin sonatas (Vol.26 - recorded in a single day on December 23rd, 1960), a concert of music by Hindemith (the 1939 Sonata, recorded in 1946), Bloch (Baal Shem and the First Violin Sonata - recorded in 1961 and 1959, respectively) and a 1968 recording of the Copland Sonata with the composer at the piano (Vol.28). This is really superb recital, though I would not want to be without Stern's impassioned readings of the Franck (1959) and Debussy (1960) Sonatas; both appear in Vol.27, coupled with a rather cautious 1967 performance of Enescu's Third Sonata. Prokofiev's two sonatas occupy a rather ungenerous Vol.29 (which lasts a mere 49"12); Stern seems better suited to the affably lyrical Second than to the darkly intense First (where Oistrakh, Kremer and Repin still reign supreme). Both were recorded in 1953, whereas the two Bartok sonatas (Vol.30, which also includes Webern's Four Pieces with Charles Rosen, recorded in 1971) date from 1968 and are more comprehensively perceptive. The last volume is devoted to encores and includes, amongst 24 tracks, first releases of Leclair-Kreisler Sarabande et Tambourin plus Szymanowski's Chant de Roxane, Op.30 (King Roger) and La fontaine d'Arethuse (the first of the Myths, Op.30). Here the playing is ardent, assured and not infrequently brilliant. Tranfers and annotations are first-rate.