Skip to main content

Midori Plays Paganini's 24 Caprices

"Paganini's music is virtuosic for the sake of virtuosity," a relative of mine, a professional viola player, once said, "and it has no musical substance whatsoever."

We return to Paganini's 24 Caprices to hear the renowned violin prodigy Midori try to tackle these preposterously difficult works.
**********************
Midori, violin (b: 1971)
Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840)
Paganini: 24 Caprices
Sony Classical, 1989
**********************
When I listened a month ago to Michael Rabin trying his best to play the Caprices, it was immediately obvious, even to me as a non-violinist, that these works are so technically challenging that even world-class musicians cannot play them cleanly.

Midori, however, with her ferocious technical prowess, attacks these works with more success and better results than Michael Rabin. She may not sound entirely effortless, but she gets these notoriously difficult exercises done with a relatively minimal number of stray and off-key notes, and, quite frankly, she makes Rabin sound average by comparison. And note that Midori was only 17 when she recorded her CD of the 24 Caprices, while Rabin was a comparatively ancient 21 years old when he recorded his Paganini.

And in case you think I'm being overly harsh in my judgment of either violinists' performances, note that both of these CDs are studio recordings--both Rabin and Midori had the opportunity to do take after take of any or all of these caprices until they got them as close to perfect as they possibly could. The fact that almost every caprice on both CDs has stray or off-key notes just proves how impossibly hard this music is to play.

Moreover, it brings into question, arguably, the artistic merit of these compositions. Even after hearing these works played by a much better violinist, I still can't help but continue to call this stuff "boop bleep" music--my personal term for musically bankrupt, ego-crushing etudes designed to torture students until they learn finesse and technical skills on their instruments.

Two more quick points:
1) One of the more amusing reviews of this Midori CD on Amazon mocked Henry Roth in his book Violin Virtuosos for using the word "impeccable" to describe the Michael Rabin performance of the Caprices, suggesting that Roth redefined "impeccable" to mean "being able to play 90-95% of the notes in tune." If two of the modern era's best violin prodigies can't make the Caprices sound effortless or even graceful, then no human can. Ergo, Paganini cannot be human.

2) A final note on comparing these two recordings: it's easy to argue that the Midori performance of Paganini's 24 Caprices is far, far better then Michael Rabin's. In fact, it's even a bit painful to go back to the Rabin CD after hearing Midori's much higher quality work. I had originally thought that Paganini's Caprices were so difficult that Rabin's recording was as good as a human (even a prodigy) could do. Apparently, not all prodigies are created equal.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Does Bach Suck?

It's not often that you see a classical music-related comment that makes you spit out your coffee : "Bach sucks because he was not a true composer. A true composer hears the music before he writes it. Bach composed using a mathematical system of numbers which he tought[sic] his students. After his death one of his students published a book “How to write a menuet[sic] with little or no musical knowledge”. Frankly, the result of his work is not musical, the opening bars always sound musical because he copied someone else’s melody, broke it down into numbers and wrote counterpoint from it. Handel did not even like Bach, because Handel wrote music. Anyone who does like Bach does so because they are told to. For a comparison, listen to music by Frescobaldi, Rameau, or Couperin, then listen to Bach. The difference? Something that is musical throughout the entire piece, and something that is musical for 10 seconds and quickly loses interest." Once I'd finished mopping the co...

Schumann: Second Symphony

I stood by the body of my passionately loved husband, and was calm. All my feelings were absorbed in thankfulness to God that he was at last set free, and as I kneeled by his bed I was filled with awe. It was as if his holy spirit was hovering over me--Ah! If only he had taken me with him. --Clara Schumann, after the death of her husband Robert Schumann We return to George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra's exceptional recording of Schumann's Four Symphonies to hear his Symphony #2. ********************** George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Schumann: Symphonies 1-4; Manfred Overture CBS, 1958/Sony, 1996 ********************** When I sat down to listen to Schumann's Second Symphony, I assumed it would sound as Mozart-like as his First Symphony. I couldn't have been more wrong: these two symphonies sound strikingly different. Listener Notes for Schumann's Symphony #2: 1) You can tell right away that this symphony is far more Roman...

About This Blog

This blog is the result of a New Year's resolution. I have a good-sized collection of classical music at home that has been collecting dust for years, and I wanted to make 2008 the year that I actually made an effort to listen to it. All of it. I have a reasonably thorough musical education, having played trumpet throughout elementary, middle and high school. I was also principal trumpet in my university wind ensemble for two years before I gave up playing. I also have some basic grounding in music theory and composition, although it's gone quite stale through years of disuse. However, there is much that I don't know about classical music, and one of the purposes of this blog is to force me, in a public forum no less, to learn and share thoughts about the discs in my collection as I listen to them. I'll also link to music selections on Amazon.com that are applicable to the composer or composition I'm featuring. Occasionally I'll write posts that hopefully will ...