Alina Ibragimova impresses in Paganini

Pretty well everyone who records the 24 capricci by Paganini takes 75-79 minutes. Alina Ibragimova takes over 104 minutes and no, she does not noticeably play more slowly than the others, but she does repeat much of the music many times over, and some of the caprices — such as the fourth— go on for over nine minutes. Too long, for familiar material, often invoking thoughts of “oh no, not again!”

Ibragimova has a superb technique, and a wonderful sense of intonation, noticeable in the many passages where Paganini writes the music to be played in octaves. She is an intensely musical violinist, and she brings out the best of Paganini's music in the capricci. I just wish she didn't repeat so much of the material so often. The recording is good, though if you want to enjoy the lovely pianissimo playing on these CDs you will need occasionally to put up with some rather raucous fortissimo passages. The dynamic range is rather wide and occasionally taxes my faithful Sennheiser headphones. The sixth caprice has some lovely pianissimo playing; it's a caprice I could never imagine being able to play beyond the first bar, but it's wonderful in Ibragimova's hands.

The older generation of violinists rarely ventured into the caprices on record, and then only usually with a piano plunking uselessly away. So little or nothing from Kreisler, Heifetz, Oistrakh or Milstein. The first recording of the complete 24 was by Ruggiero Ricci in 1949. Nowadays there are plenty of sets on offer, including those by Sueye Park, James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, Rudolf Koelman, Michael Rabin, Itzhak Perlman, Leonidas Kavakos, Ning Feng, and Thomas Zehetmair. Tianwa Yang recorded the complete 24 when she was thirteen years old!

One does not normally think of Ibragimova in the Paganini-Sarasate repertoire; she is usually a violinist for the more serious repertoire. But in the capricci she shows that she has a real virtuoso side to her. A pity about all the repetitious material; when I come back to the set – as I will – it will be with a frequent use of the skip-to-the-next-track button on my remote control when a passage comes up for the sixth time round. If this is your first encounter with the 24, you may find this recording quite entrancing. If, like me, it's the 100^th time you hear these works, you may well find the amount of repetition annoying. Whatever. The performances are superb.