On Paganini’s Trail CD in Review
Edson Scheid, period violin
Centaur Records CRC 3735
Recorded September 4, 6, and 8, 2018 at Martin Patrych Memorial Studios, Bronx, NY
Produced and Engineered by Joseph Patrych
On Paganini’s Trail… H. W. Ernst and more, played by violinist Edson Scheid, is a 2019 release on Centaur Records that many musicians will undoubtedly want to hear for several reasons. First of all, Mr. Scheid is a superb violinist and a musician who can handle the fiendish challenges of this repertoire while finding the music in it. Without that fundamental merit, very little else would matter. Secondly, though, it is also a well curated program that promises an interesting glimpse into the world of nineteenth-century violin giant, Nicolò Paganini (1782-1840) including his Introduction and Variations on Nel cor più non mi sento, Op. 38, plus a generous helping of the music by virtuoso Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812-1865) who followed him. He even followed him literally, as the liner notes tell us, renting rooms near Paganini’s to learn from his practice. As a bonus, there is a solo version of Mozart’s Rondo from the Duo in G Major for Violin and Viola, KV 423, crafted by Mr. Scheid himself with techniques that Paganini and Ernst pioneered to simulate multiple instruments. Finally, it is of interest that the entire program is listed as being played on a “period violin” – and one is hard pressed to find other (if any) recordings of these works billed as such.
Most classical music fans these days are familiar with “historically informed performances” (HIP) of Baroque and early Classical music (albeit with mixed responses), but nineteenth-century ones are a different matter altogether. For performance practice studies to creep so close to the present feels almost like an archaeological dig in one’s own closet. Many techniques and varieties of expressiveness from the Romantic era are alive and well today, and quite a few of us musicians (several on staff at New York Concert Review) had teachers who studied with musicians from the nineteenth century. It is natural to ask: what is now considered to define a nineteenth-century “period” violin or violinist?
The liner notes mention that Ernst and Paganini have rarely (if ever) been played on “a period instrument with gut strings and without a shoulder rest.” Apart from the strings and shoulder rest issues, we are not told the make of Mr. Scheid’s instrument or bow (which would be of interest chiefly because of the CD’s billing as “period violin”). We do know that Paganini himself played an Amati and after he lost that, a Guarneri del Gesu (an exact Vuillaume replica of which is played today by a noted violinist who is not part of any historic movement). Ernst himself played a Stradivarius, as do quite a few fortunate artists today, and it seems that the question of luthiers may not to be central to historic fidelity issues – but one is still curious because of the cover words, “period violin.”
One is left assuming that the string type and absence of shoulder rest may be central, and they are certainly important. Gut strings, often described as providing more complex timbres and overtones, almost human-sounding, were largely replaced by synthetic and metal ones in the twentieth century, before the HIP movement really blossomed, though a number of twentieth-century giants – including Heifetz, Milstein, and Rosand – continued to favor them at least for one or two of the four strings. As for the shoulder rest or absence of it, it can affect shifts and technique overall (and depending how big it is even the resonance), but there seem to have been too many approaches to this (sponges, pads, etc.) to allow true historic codifying.
Beyond the abovementioned issues, what Mr. Scheid links to the Paganini-Ernst “period” are performance elements, and he cites two, including more sparing use of vibrato and the greater use of portamento or slides (though there have been historically differing views on the latter as well). Some violinists assert that gut strings feel more pliable, facilitating some of that portamento gliding, so one aspect can relate to the next – but back to the music itself, lest one get lost in jargon.
The disc starts with music of Ernst. Apart from two very famous Ernst pieces, including the Variations on the Last Rose of Summer and the transcription of Schubert’s Erlkönig (both included here), much of Ernst’s output is still relatively underplayed, so it is great to have all Six Polyphonic Studies here (the last being the Last Rose of Summer Variations). Granted, there have been fantastic performances of several Ernst works by Midori, Hillary Hahn, and others, and there have also been notable collections since the turn of the millennium, including a 2008 CD of Ilya Gringolts and Ashley Wass on Hyperion and a complete Ernst cycle with Sherban Lupu and Ian Hobson on Toccata Classics (with its final Volume Six just released in 2019); the elements of curation and historical context, though, set Mr. Scheid’s album apart.
As for the playing, Mr. Scheid’s is consistently virtuosic, as it would have to be to navigate this repertoire. Mr. Scheid holds degrees from the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Yale School of Music, and the Juilliard School, where he was a two-time winner of the Historical Performance Concerto Competition, and he has aptly been described by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “both musically and technically one of the most assured and accomplished of today’s younger period violinists.” Beyond this, he is especially adept at coaxing warm and multicolored tones from the gut strings of his violin, and he could probably convert the world’s many historic performance cynics into believers.
The first of Ernst’s Polyphonic Studies (Rondino Scherzo- Con Spirito) has one marveling at how a single violin handles music that would keep even a pianist quite busy. There is a test element at work here – these studies are like Paganini Caprices on steroids – but thanks to Mr. Scheid’s artful touch, the pyrotechnics don’t grow tiresome. The profusion of double-stops (and triple and quadruple – one loses track) can require a bit of beat-stretching, but that stretching never becomes obnoxious in Mr. Scheidt’s hands. The Study No. 2 (marked Con Grazia) is playful, almost coquettish, and the Study No. 3 (Terzetto – Allegro moderato e tranquillo) is imbued with a wistful expressivity. On that topic, the more intimate selections are maximized by beautifully reverberant recording by producer and engineer Joseph Patrych of the Martin Patrych Memorial Studio.
The Study No. 4 (Allegro Risoluto) opens with dizzying speed, and the deeper sound that Mr. Scheid achieves in one register against gossamer arpeggiations in others highlights well the different tiers of sound in a fascinating way (again perhaps with some thanks to those gut strings). The Study No. 5 (Air de Ballet) may be the trickiest to enjoy, as the multiple challenges are simply impossible to downplay. Mr. Scheid handles all of them amazingly, but the acrobatic elements seem intended to delight audiences in live performance, in which one could watch the dazzling “ballet.” Close-your-eyes listening fare this Air is not; the Study No. 6, though, the Last Rose of Summer Variations, lives up to its reputation as virtuosity with a soulful core. The slides or portamenti are indeed more recognizably profuse here than one hears in other performances, but they work well. As for the wildly difficult variations, it would seem the height of gall to criticize the wizardry of anyone able to pull them off. What might induce groans from fine violinists is given an almost “tossed off” feeling here – so bravo!
Ernst’s Grand Caprice for Solo Violin (on Schubert’s Erlkönig) follows chillingly. Its relentless repeated notes, and the hair-raising subject matter behind them (the story of a death ride from Goethe via Schubert), are all fodder for an exciting performance, and that is what we have, with an edge-of-seat suspense.
Only after all of the above Ernst does the CD proceed from “Paganini’s trail” to some actual Paganini, with the latter’s Introduction and Variations on Nel cor più non mi sento, Op. 38. Here the portamenti are profuse and exaggerated to the point where they are almost comical, but that may be part of the point of such over-the-top virtuosity, stagy echoes and all – to bring a smile, while dazzling with bouncing bow, stratospheric range, and endless surprises. Mr. Scheid plays this music brilliantly.
The final work on the CD, Mozart’s Rondo from the Duo in G Major for Violin and Viola, KV 423, caps off the CD and is a delight. While the average listener will enjoy it for the lightness and spirit achieved, the more experienced violin aficionados will enjoy marveling at the techniques employed to simulate two string instruments on just one. Moments here where one senses some unconventional pitch variations simply make the experience feel more live.
All in all, this disc is an admirable and noteworthy new release, which violinists will want to own and many will enjoy.
