More from Vilde Frang

A good friend sent me a new CD from Vilde Frang, a violinist I much admire. The CD is a somewhat unhappy mixture of violin pyrotechnics, and solid music. So Paganini variations mixed with Schubert's Fantasie in C major, and Rondo brillant in B minor.

When it comes to pyrotechnics, I can happily skip Paganini's Paisiello variations with which Ms Frang chooses to open her CD. We all know that for a violinist, playing extended passages in harmonics is a real challenge, and that playing extended passages in double-stopped harmonics is a supreme challenge, as is extensive pizzicato with the fingers of the left hand. Supreme challenges even for a virtuoso: yes. But of real musical interest? Rarely. As a retired violinist, and a lover of the violin, I am somewhat exasperated by violinistic circus tricks with little musical content.

I greatly admire Ms Frang, but I am not really convinced by her pianist, Michail Lifits who is no Rudolf Serkin, or Clara Haskil. Ms Frang is not always lucky with her partners -- I still resent her Mozart concertos with Jonathan Cohen and his group of “authentic” scrapers and blowers in ye olde style. On this new CD, Mr Lifits is better when accompanying, as in the Paganini pieces, rather than as an equal partner, as in the Schubert works.

It's difficult to pinpoint what I don't like about much of the recorded sound. Is it that the pianist often plays too loudly and is apt to thump a bit? Or did the engineers miscalculate the dynamic range? Or did the balance engineer not reckon on the difference between a piano, and a violin playing pianissimo? All I know is that if I adjust the volume so that the piano playing does not occasionally blow my socks off, then a lot of the softer violin playing is hard to hear. And that is listening through headphones; listening via loudspeakers, that always tend to favour the bass and thus the piano, things would have been even more unsatisfactory. The worst affected is Schubert's lovely C major Fantasie for violin & piano which is nowhere near as enjoyable to listen to here compared with the all-time classic recording by Adolf Busch with Rudolf Serkin (1931). The piano (as recorded) just hogs the limelight too much of the time. And Lifits does bang a bit, on occasions.

To my surprise, I quite took to Ms Frang's rendition of Heinrich Ernst's take on Schubert's Erlkönig. Not a piece I like normally, but here the different voices are brought out admirably, and the pyrotechnics coped with effortlessly. The piece lasts for under four and a half minutes, but never outstays its welcome (unlike the two Paganini variations included on this CD).

So a bit of a curate's egg. Ms Frang would have been better to stick with a lot less Paganini, or with more Schubert. She remains, however, an excellent violinist.