Violin Concertos

Album review

The young violinist Francesca Dego, of Italian and American background, has made a splash in the mid-2010s not only with virtuoso repertory but with Beethoven's violin sonatas. This recording, her fourth for Deutsche Grammophon, marks her concerto debut. The Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 6, is marked by seemingly unthinkable chains of double-stopped thirds for the soloist in the outer movements. Dego, as you might expect, handles these just fine, but the performance's attractiveness resides as well in a less commonly noted factor: the orchestral accompaniment. Whether or not this is because the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is conducted by her husband, Daniele Rustioni, the performances here crackle with an unusual level of coordination and suppressed humor. Dego, a student of, among other players, Ruggiero Ricci, has the right mix of technical equipment and fire to carry off real virtuoso repertory. The only chink in her armor at this point is melodic, lyrical material, where she's fine but not as rich as her mentor Ricci. This is too bad, for performances of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 26, are not abundant. Again the sweep of the work and the meshing of soloist and orchestra are impressive; the inward melodies of the piece, reflective of a doomed love affair between the 70-year-old composer and a 27-year-old student, are less persuasive. It is nevertheless good to have the Wolf-Ferrari concerto, and the Paganini is a great deal of fun.
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