A Ricci triple decker arrives from Decca Eloquence, the Australian
arm of the company with a wide-ranging and frequently unerring
eye for important discographic statements. Here for instance we
have six discs in total, part of the outstanding legacy committed
to disc by the indefatigable and seemingly indestructible Ruggiero
Ricci.
The first twofer is devoted to Romantic Concertos and leads with
the Beethoven in the 1952 traversal with Boult. This is not a
work one associates with Ricci and the only other surviving example
known to me is an obscure Bulgarian State performance on One-Eleven
URS 91050. Boult was always a good accompanist and he is on incursive,
strongly etched and accenting form. With a less spiky player,
such as Oistrakh, he was more resplendent, but here he responds
to Ricci with appropriate masculinity and drama. Crisp tuttis
abound. Ricci plays with vitality and in the slow movement with
silver nitrate tone and a quick vibrato. Hardly seraphic in orientation,
it’s nevertheless a galvanic sort of performance. And though the
orchestral strings now sound somewhat bleached one warms to the
disciplined sincerity of the collective responses.
The Mendelssohn is with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
and Jean Fournet in 1974 – this isn’t the earlier LSO/Gamba, though
their association is marked elsewhere. Ricci seldom conquers by
stealth, and that’s true of this performance. Instead his communicative
sinews are fully stretched, remaining muscular in orientation
and in projection. He would hardly espouse the raffiné in this
or any repertoire but he does capture plenty of the fun and caprice
of the writing. Incidentally he’s quoted briefly in the notes
saying that during the rehearsal a member of the orchestra (‘an
idiot’) remarked on his fast tempo for the first movement and
so Ricci modified it for the recording. Amazing that he should
feel so inclined! The Bruch sees the teaming of the two youthful
figures of Ricci and Gamba. This 1957 meeting witnesses a commanding
display from Ricci, his sound quite astringent, when one considers
the somewhat gestural warmth so many players bring to it. One
or two expressive finger position changes stand out in the slow
movement, whilst the finale is buoyant and replete with resinous
down bows. This may not be the ideal or expected sound world for
this concerto but the playing is certainly fascinating.
The final concerto in this first twofer is that of Dvorák with
Malcolm Sargent. His
St
Louis recording with Walter Susskind is probably the better
known of the two and supplanted this earlier take on it. In my
review of the other performance I spoke of the violinist’s ‘febrile,
coiled and intense’ tone and his occasionally sentimentalised
way with the concerto, qualities that do exist to a significant
degree in this earlier performance. But the sound is vivid with
a bit of an echo to boot and it captures a good degree of detail
for the time. There is virtuosity and panache aplenty but it’s
not as rhythmically convincing or as lyrically opportune as it
could be. Sargent is an impressive collaborator, giving the basses
their head in the slow movement and the wind theirs in the finale.
The second set moves from the Romantic to the Virtuoso. As one
can tell these titles are merely hangers on which to hang the
performances and not necessarily to be taken too literally. The
Sibelius starts things off, the 1958 recording with the LSO and
Øivin Fjeldstad. I know there are at least two other examples
of Ricci’s way with the concerto – on Turnabout with the Bochum
Symphony and Kuntzsch, and the other a live Helsinki performance
under Mikael. But realistically this early recording on Decca
is the one to have. There’s noticeable tape hiss here, rather
more so than in some of the companion works. Don’t expect a wizened,
white toned opening, mysterious and aloof. This is Ricci, big
of vibrato, meaty of response, ballsy and masculine. The performance
naturally falls onto the side of chewy intensity rather than anything
more variegated emotionally speaking but its rugged intensity
is undeniable. There is an equally big response from the brass,
which really lets rip when called for, once or twice rather startlingly.
Of the 1961 Tchaikovsky it’s probably appropriate to say relatively
little. This was a remake of the
earlier
recording he’d made in London, again with Sargent and it shares
the extrovert and virtuosic qualities of the predecessor. The
tuttis are powerful and marshalled with exemplary panache by Sargent.
Ricci’s vibrato-conscious playing, not always attuned to the romantic
repertory in other contexts, here finds a hugely suitable vehicle.
His changes of tone colour in the central movement attest to his
thinking musicianship and the finale displays his vibrant but
unflorid control. The
Sérénade mélancolique and
Souvenir
d’un lieu cher round out a powerfully persuasive disc. These
qualities continue in the companion disc which gives us the expected
brace of Sarasate and Saint-Saëns flag wavers, all four of which
are dispatched with rapier like legerdemain by the fabulous Ricci.
The balance of interest then falls on the Khachaturian Concerto,
in which Ricci remembers that the conductor, Fistoulari, insisted
on beating three, not one, in the finale, thus slowing things
up, to the violinist’s intense indignation. The recording was
one of those Decca winners with a great deal of space and detail
audible; note the lower brass and percussion in particular. Ricci
is on strong, songful form. It’s not the most evocative playing
ever, but it is lyrically intense. The slow movement too is touchingly
done, ripely as well when necessary, but it’s not really much
of a match for the earlier Oistrakh recording with the composer
on the rostrum.
The last set focuses on something of a Ricci speciality, solo
sonatas, with the pleasurable addition of a collaboration with
Carlo Bussotti in Prokofiev. He recorded the complete sonatas
and partitas of Bach twice over, and some individual works and
individual movements exist from the days of 78 onwards. These
two Decca performances of the first two sonatas preserve his curvaceously
phrased and richly toned approach, one that however remains over-vibrated
especially in the lower two strings. One can cite the
Siciliana
of the former and the powerfully intense
Allemande of the
latter. Some of the bowing in the
Chaconne is truly Napoleonic.
The Bartók sonata offers some splendid examples of his resinous
and theatrical sense of projection. Volatile and virtuosic it
offers a combative alternative to the visions of Menuhin and it
remains superior to the less sweeping panache of Rostal.
There is a moving simplicity and directness to his playing of
Stravinsky’s Élégie, a performance that launches the second disc.
The two Hindemith sonatas that follow reveal Ricci at his best.
The dance patterns and motifs are strongly etched, control is
nimble and acute, there is sufficient warmth of tone and finger
dexterity is perfectly adequate to deal with the fiendish locutions
of the Prestissimo finale of the Op.31 No.1, as much as the pizzicato
placements of the third movement of the companion sonata. Similarly
his Prokofiev solo sonata parades his affinity with the vernacular.
In the brief notes he tells of just beating Szigeti to the American
premiere. His playing here is lithe, occasionally febrile – but
in a just cause – and wholly convincing in its own way. The Op.94a
sonata for violin and piano – the one originally for flute - was
recorded in Ricci’s own house in New Jersey, though Decca claimed
it was in their habitual West Hampstead studios. Actually the
sound is not brilliant, despite the violinist’s claim, but the
performance is.
It ends six well filled discs, availably in twos. Gaps have been
plugged very nicely and Ricci’s many admirers will want to investigate
this temptingly priced selection of his Decca outings.
Jonathan Woolf
Ruggiero Ricci (violin) 
