Virtuosismo: Paganini & Vieuxtemps

Album review

Ning Feng, 1st Prize Winner of the Paganini Competition 2006, brings you Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Vieuxtemps' Violin Concerto No. 4 on his Stradivari ‘MacMillan’, 1721. 'Virtuosismo' is his second recording with OSPA – Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias under the baton of conductor Rossen Milanov. The previous album Apasionado received excellent reviews, Gramophone: “(…) a dazzling left hand and a firm, rich tone which one cannot help but admire (…)”.
Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1
Paganini composed all his pieces for violin andorchestra for his own use, keeping them secretlystowed away. Consequently, most were publishedonly after his death, and some not until recentdecades. The first of his six violin concertos is avirtuosic tour de force, demonstrating not only hisincredible technical command but also his greattalent for melody and drama. It breathes the spiritof Rossini, whose operas were enormously popularat the time. Originally composed in the key of Eflat major, Paganini tuned his violin a semitone upso that he could play in D major, as it were, andthus execute complicated double stops that areimpossible in E flat while producing a brightersound from his instrument. It was partly for thisreason that contemporaries said the concerto was‘unplayable’. Today the work is always performed inD major.
Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No. 4
The next piece was written by the son of a weaver,amateur violinist and violin maker from BelgianVerviers named Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1882).A child prodigy, he enjoyed an outstanding career asa violinist from the age of six, studying in Vienna andParis (with Charles de Bériot) and touring Europe,Russia and the USA. From 1871 he was an influentialteacher at the Brussels conservatory, where hispupils included Eugène Ysaÿe. But within twoyears, in 1873, a stroke caused lameness in hisright arm, and Vieuxtemps was forced to withdrawfrom teaching. He spent his final years composingin a sanatorium in Algeria, where his daughter hadsettled with her husband. Vieuxtemps was greatlyadmired by contempories such as Berlioz andPaganini, whom he met in London. When RobertSchumann heard him in Leipzig in 1834, he described the fourteen-year-old’s playing as magicaland compared him with Paganini.That was during a tour of Germany and Austria,when Vieuxtemps was accompanied by his father.After playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in Vienna,he decided to stay there for some time to studycomposition with Simon Sechter, under whomAnton Bruckner was later to study counterpoint.After his London debut in 1834, Vieuxtemps pursued his composition studies with Anton Reichain Paris, the fruits of which are particularly evidentin his First Violin Concerto, dating from 1836 (andlater published as no. 2).The Fourth Violin Concerto in D minor opus31, on this recording, was Vieuxtemps’ own favouriteconcerto. He composed it when employed as acourt violinist in Saint Petersburg (1846-1851).