Ning Feng and the Paganini Caprices

I appear to have some eighteen different recordings of the 24 Capricci by Niccolò Paganini. I added a new one by the Chinese violinist, Ning Feng, since I greatly admire his playing. Feng is a top virtuoso on the violin and, of course, the Paganini caprices come out note-perfect. I admired Feng's virtuosity, but also his wide dynamic range and his ability to make the caprices interesting musically, as well as extreme virtuosic. There is a wide dynamic range in both playing and recording. The tricky sixth caprice is whispered as is the first theme of the twentieth. Solo violins can be tricky to record, but the Dutch engineers here have done well, with the violin at an intelligent distance from the recording microphones. So far, so excellent.

My only negative thought with Feng's superb playing is with his violin on this recording. There are some truly excellent modern violins around, but the violin by Samuel Zygmuntowicz (2017) is not one of them. It sounds scrawny at times, and lacks sonority throughout the range, sounding a bit new and unbroken-in, needing another decade or so of daily exercise. Feng might even have done better had he borrowed my violin.

Well, eighteen different recordings of the Capricci is probably quite enough, though if the rumour that Alina Ibragimova is also recording them is true, I might have to stop at nineteen. I recently admired the versions by two more young violinists, Augustin Hadelich, and Sueye Park. Enough is enough!