Il Cannone
Paganini's Violin
Francesca Dego (violin)
Francesca Leonardi (piano)
rec. November 2019, Genoa Town Hall, Palazzo Doria-Tursi, Italy
CHANDOS CHAN20223 [64:03]
In his will Paganini bequeathed his constant companion since 1802, the 1743 Guarneri that he nicknamed
‘Il cannone’, to the city of Genoa. It’s only in exceptional circumstances – war has proved one – that it has left the city and the chances for performers to play on the instrument are severely rationed. Restoration has afforded a chance to Francesca Dego to perform and record a programme for Chandos, very appropriately in the city’s Town Hall. One of the few previous fiddle players to have been allowed to play the instrument was Salvatore Accardo, a Paganini Competition winner in 1958, and someone with whom Dego has worked in masterclasses (see review).
Dego has selected her programme astutely, freely mixing Paganini compositions with those inspired by him or by his music. La Clochette, as it’s known in Kreisler’s arrangement of the finale of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 2, is played with subtlety and colour as well as deft lightness one doesn’t always hear in other performances. It usually takes violinists a long time to get to know the vagaries and qualities of their chosen instrument but Dego had very little time to play herself into Il Cannone and to bring out its salient qualities, which she does with some flair. Originally written for violin and guitar, Paganini did leave behind a violin and piano version of the Cantabile but in this recording the piano part is provided by Carlo Boccadoro. It certainly draws the ear – in fact the piano writing draws the ear rather more than the soulful violin lyricism as the work opens but later on things are more evenly distributed though I still feel the violin soars over string accompaniment more eloquently than over the piano.
Boccadoro has written the solo violin Come d’autumno, of which this is the first recording, and dedicated it to Dego. Its autumnal title is reflected in its largely withdrawn, melancholic element. The other work by a living composer is John Corigliano’s The Red Violin Caprices (1997), largely drawn from his music for the film, and which he wrote for Joshua Bell. There’s plenty of Gypsy ethos and some slow expressive writing in this exciting, technically demanding work. Kreisler’s well-loved solo violin Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice is somewhat more withdrawn than more extrovert readings, but Il Cannone’s lower string warmth can be savoured in the Scherzo-Caprice in particular. Rossini crafted what is, in effect, an operatic aria in Un mot à Paganini and Dego plays it as such, finely supported by Francesca Leonardi who – as the Masterclass DVD with Accardo showed - is a responsive and imaginative partner. Schnittke’s A Paganini is famously peppered with brief quotations from Paganini’s Caprices and Dego unshowily shows her ultra-fluent bowing as she meets the music’s dramatic propulsion head-on. Szymanowski limited himself to three Caprices in his 1918 work, two of which are dedicated to his greatest violin champion, Kochanski. Much the longest is the last, which uses the famous 24th Caprice as an opportunity for Szymanowski to unleash a battery of virtuosic demands, harmonic wit, variation of texture and, not least, athleticism.
Excellently engineered, this disc allows Dego - and Leonardi, in the four pieces they play together – to savour the hall’s acoustic and to project Il Cannone to its fullest advantage.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents:
Niccolò PAGANINI (1782-1840)
La Clochette; La campanella, Rondo Finale from Concerto No 2 in B minor, Op 7 for Violin and Orchestra arr. c.1905 for Violin and Piano by Fritz Kreisler (1826) [6:35]
Cantabile in D major, for Violin and Guitar, Op 17 (1823, arr. piano accompaniment by Carlo Boccadoro, 2019) [5:07]
Fritz KREISLER (1875-1962)
Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice, Op 6 (c.1911) [4:33]
John CORIGLIANO (b. 1938)
The Red Violin Caprices (1997) [8:10]
Carlo BOCCADORO (b.1963)
Come d'autunno (2019) [4:31]
Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
No 4 from Péchés de viellesse, Vol.9; Un mot à Paganini, in D major (c.1865?) [9:06]
Alfred SCHNITTKE (1934-1998)
A Paganini (1982) [10:42]
Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
Trois Caprices de Paganini, Op 40 (1918) [14:47]
