Salvatore Accardo - 9CD
Paganini's music has long been, and still is, underestimated, and quite a few soloists, no matter how technically perfect and renowned, give readings of it that are stylistically less than perfect. In the piano field no one would even think of performing Beethoven as he would Chopin, or Schumann, or Rachmaninov. In the case of Paganini's music, instead, there is still the widespread concept that the best way to play it is as fast and technically perfect as possible. Many forget that Paganini was a contemporary of Rossini, having in his repertoire - in addition to his own - only the concertos of Viotti, Rode and Kreutzer, three violinists-composers of the great Italo-French late 18th-/early 19th-century school, and that his music cannot be performed as one would that of Sarasate or Tchaikovsky. One of the great merits of Salvatore Accardo, class of 1941, is precisely to have played Paganini in a stylistically appropriate way, and of course with the formidable technique he possesses, ever since 1958, when he won, not yet eighteen, the prestigious Paganini Competition of Genoa.
Accardo is also the musician who has given us many premiere recordings - several of which remain to this day also the only ones - of Paganini's works originally written for violin and orchestra.
In this box-set, alongside Accardo, we find some of his historical partners, musicians with whom he has collaborated for decades, like the pianist Bruno Canino or the double-bassist Franco Petracchi. But Accardo also likes to make music with the protagonists of the future, for example the young violinists who study under his guidance at the master classes he regularly holds at Siena's Accademia Chigiana or at Cremona's Accademia Stauffer.
Since 1959 (when he recorded his first LP dedicated to Paganini, from which we have taken two of the Genoese composer's most famous pieces: Sonata a preghiera and I Palpiti), Accardo has recorded numerous records for the most important international labels (among them DG, EMI and Philips), but he has not shunned to work, when the project was interesting and the partners old friends, also with record companies of more modest proportions like Dynamic, enabling it, with the gracefulness that is one of his characteristic traits, to produce some of the most beautiful recordings of its catalogue. Here they are, for the first time all together in one box-set, to celebrate the Maestro's seventieth birthday a small homage by the people who are not only his editors but his sincere admirers. ( Dynamic )
CD1
Nicolo Paganini
1-3 60 Variations on the Barucaba Theme
(First World Recording) M.S. 71 31:38
4 God Save the King M.S. 56 07:24
5 Sonata a preghiera M.S. 23 07:43
6 I Palpiti M.S. 77 11:13
Running Time 58:02
CD2
Ernest Chausson
1-4 Concert Op. 21
For violin, piano, and string quartet 41:45
Camille Saint-Saens
5-6 sonata No. 1 op. 75
For piano and violin 22:59
Running Time 64:44
CD3
Antonin Dvorak
1-4 QUINTET IN G MINOR OP. 77
For two violins, viola, cello and double-bass 35:51
5-8 TERZETTO IN C MAJOR OP. 74
For two violins and viola 20:57
Running Time 56:48
CD4
Antonin Dvorak
1-4 PIANO QUINTET IN A MAJOR Op. 81 41:39
5-8 ROMANTIC PIECES Op. 75 for violin & piano 16:24
Running Time 58:03
CD5
Giuseppe Verdi
1-4 string quartet in E minor 23:02
Alexander Borodin
5-8 string quartet no. 2 in D major 27:48
Running Time 50:50
CD6
Alberto Ginastera
1-11 violin concerto 26:37
Bela Bartok
12-14 sonata for violin and piano 27:09
Running Time 53:56
CD7
Salvatore Accardo plays Paganini's Guarneri del Gesu 1743
Tartini-Francescatti
Page 1/2
1 Variations on a theme by Corelli 03:08
Nathan Milstein
2 Paganiniana for solo violin 07:41
Josef Suk
3 Love Song Op. 7 No. 1 06:26
Pablo de Sarasate
4 Introduction and Tarantella 04:53
Chopin-Sarasate
5 Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 05:02
Johannes Brahms - Joachin
Hungarian dance No. 7 02:09
Edward Elgar
7 La Capricieuse 04:11
Moszkowski-Sarasate
8 Guitarre Op. 45 No. 2 03:27
De Falla-Kochanski
9 Pantomime (from El Amor Brujo) 03:19
William Kroll
10 Banjo and Fiddle 02:46
Shostakovich
11wo Preludes (Op. 34 Nos. 10 and 15) 03:07
Maurice Ravel
12 Piece en forme de Habanera 02:49
Arthur Benjamin
13 Jamaican Rumba 01:43
Jeno Hubay
14 Zefir (Op. 30 No. 5) 03:30
Claude Debussy
15 Clair de Lune 04:43
Karol Szymanowski
16 Paganini's Caprice Op. 40 No. 20 03:10
17 Paganini's Caprice Op. 40 No. 21 02:41
18 Paganini's Caprice Op. 40 No. 24 07:55
Running Time 74:26
CD8
Nicolo Paganini
three duets for violin and bassoon m.s. 130
1-2 duet no. 1 16:58
3-4 duet no. 2 16:53
5-7 duet no. 3 16:21
Rossini
8 Un mot a Paganini * elegia per violino
e pianoforte in D major 8:10
Nicolo Paganini *
9 Cantabile in D major M.S. 109 04:25
Running Time 63:26
CD9
Alessandro Rolla
Three Duets for Violin and Viola Op. 15
1-4 Duet No. 1 in E flat major 21:30
5-7 Duet No. 2 in A flat major 18:26
8-11 Duet No. 3 in C major 18:07
Running Time 58:14
