Paganini

Nicolò Paganini’s Quartets for Strings and Guitar are among his finest chamber compositions. The First Guitar Quartet was a wedding gift from Paganini to his younger sister; and both this and the Second Quartet share neo-classical poise with warmly expressive romantic lyricism. The Ninth Quartet features sweet and melancholy moods containing some of Paganini’s most disarmingly simple melodies, and as the composer himself stated, ‘a very fanciful minuet and a moving trio’.

The Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa is long esteemed in the former USSR as a distinguished soloist, chamber musician and teacher. A prominent student of David Oistrakh, Oleh Krysa won major prizes in such international competitions as the Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky and Montreal, and was the outright winner of the Paganini Competition.

“I have heard an angel sing,” wrote Schubert after he heard Paganini play in Vienna in 1828. Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, juxtaposes and links works by these two violinist-composers, who lived vastly different lives, yet are musically connected. Both found inspiration in the human voice and Frang sheds new light on Schubert’s demands for virtuosity and on Paganini’s sensitive musicality. Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, has assembled a programme that juxtaposes music by two violinist-composers of the early 19th century, Franz Schubert and Niccolò Paganini. While they lived vastly different lives and inhabited diverse aesthetic worlds, there are links to be found between them.

Hilary Hahn - Paganini & Spohr: Violin Concertos
Hilary Hahn, violin - Eiji Oue / Swedish Radio Symphony Ochestra
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 261 MB | Full Artwork: 133 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Grammophon # 00289 477 6232 GH | Country/Year: Germany 2006
Genre: Classical | Style: Classical Period, Violin

"The sound of her violin in both of these dramatic, operatic concertos is like an ultimate contralto voice, ranging from a rich, throbbing alto through a warm mezzo to a light, clear soprano . . . the Swedish Radio Symphony provides polished, robust accompaniment for Ms. Hahn as she sails gracefully through acrobatic passages and unfurls gleaming phrases with sumptuous tone." ~NY Times

Those who still think of Wagner’s Tristan as quintessentially erotic music should definitely reconsider: in the list drawn by The Most Erotic Classical Music of All Time, an album with a provocative cover featuring a woman’s derriere and suspenders, in good company with an obvious Bolero and a punctual isottesque finale and a less-obvious Moonlight Sonata or a Good Friday Spell (all by the German from Leipzig), one finds the Centone di Sonate for violin and guitar by Niccolò Paganini (Genoa 1782 – Nice 1840) and precisely with the opening movement of the Sonata in A minor placed in the opening of the present collection.