Paganini: 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1—excerpts; Cantabile in D; Sonata a preghiera, “Moses Fantasy.” Tomás Cotik, violin; Monica Ohuchi, piano. Centaur. $15.99.
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II. Christopher O’Riley, piano. Navona. $16.99 (2 CDs).
Beautifully played but peculiarly conceptualized and programmed, a new Paganini-focused CD featuring violinist Tomás Cotik is a recital in search of an audience. Cotik quickly establishes his bona fides in Paganini’s ever-fascinating set of 24 Caprices – but performs only 17 of them, and in a decidedly strange and well-nigh inexplicable sequence: Nos. 6, 20, 21, 1, 17, 9, 11, 16, 2, 13, 14, 23, 22, 10, 5, 18, and 24. Well, thank goodness that at least No. 24, the capstone of the series and the most difficult of all, appears at the end – but it is actually not quite the end of this Centaur CD, since these excerpts from Paganini’s Op. 1 are bookended by two of the composer’s violin-and-piano works: the Cantabile in D (one of Paganini’s violin-and-guitar duets, although this violin-and-piano version is more often performed) and the Moses Fantasy on the G string (tuned scordatura to B-flat, a minor third higher). This last work, with Cotik joined by pianist Monica Ohuchi, is the conclusion and highlight of the disc, played with tremendous panache and every possible Romantic-era nuance available in the music, which is a set of variations on the aria Dal tuo stellate from Rossini's Mosè in Egitto. A display piece par excellence, this fantasy not only shows Paganini’s extraordinary skill at creating a thoroughly engaging work performed on a single string (hard to imagine without hearing it!) but also gives the violinist ample opportunity to display a combination of technical virtuosity with emotive ability. Cotik holds forth beautifully here, and indeed his partnership with Ohuchi is a fine display of complementary temperaments not only in this piece but also in the Cantabile in D, wherein both players extract from the music all of its superficial but highly attractive lyricism. However, the majority of the CD is devoted not to these two delightful pieces but to the odd assortment of excerpts from the famous Op. 1 sequence. There is nothing to complain about in Cotik’s handling of these pieces: he takes the full measure of every one of them, exploring their intricacies with considerable skill and not hesitating to bring forth the oddities of their expressiveness – notably, for instance, in No. 13 in B-flat, “The Devil’s Laughter,” which takes on a suitably sarcastic edge, and No. 10 in G minor, which slides hither and thither as if it is going out of control but (of course) never actually does. And Cotik nicely emphasizes the Romanticism underlying Paganini’s approach through his own willingness to vary tempos here and there, as with considerable rubato at the start of No. 24. But although it is all very fine and very enjoyable, it is also very strange. What audience is there for this disc? It cannot be anyone’s first choice for the Caprices, since it does not offer all of them and proffers the ones it does present in meaningless order. It certainly can be a first choice for the two violin-and-piano works, especially the Moses Fantasy, but how many listeners will be interested in acquiring a complete CD for a seven-minute work, no matter how well played? Anyone who gravitates to first-rate violin playing will appreciate and enjoy what Cotik displays here, but the oddity of the selection and presentation of the music makes this at best a limited-audience release.
Limited in a different way and for different reasons, the new Navona recording of Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier by Christopher O’Riley shares more than a little of the Romantic orientation of Cotik’s handling of Paganini. And that is exactly the problem. Putting aside the never-ending debates about playing The Well-Tempered Clavier on a modern piano – those are likely to remain never-ending in perpetuity – it does seem distinctly old-fashioned, if one does play the music on a contemporary concert grand, to use the instrument to extract substantial emotionalism from Bach’s work. Indeed, the question is whether the emotive material is extracted from what Bach wrote – or is imposed on the music and introduced into it at O’Riley’s behest. Certainly Book II contains intricacy and technical complexity that is generally beyond the purview of the better-known Book I, but that does not make it any less of a Baroque work; and O’Riley’s determination to use the resources of the piano to present the material sonorously and in thick textures, with considerable pedal use and emotion-emphasizing rubato from time to time, seems more reflective of an old-fashioned approach to Bach than of any new insight that can be brought to The Well-Tempered Clavier through use of a keyboard instrument with capabilities far different from those of Bach’s time. O’Riley’s essentially Romantic approach to the music is pervasive: the C minor Prelude glows with warmth even as its flow is repeatedly interrupted by rubato; the D major Prelude starts with a clarion call that soon becomes a rhythmically softened exercise in lyricism; the gentle F major Prelude slows down so much that it sounds like a proto-Chopinesque nocturne; and so forth. In the fugues, where regularity of pacing and careful attention to contrapuntal principles are crucial, O’Riley’s approach is even more distant from anything remotely historically informed: the blending of lines in the E-flat major, determined focus on the right hand over the left in the F-sharp minor, strong attacks on downbeats in the G minor, delicate interweaving of lines in the A major – these effects and many more show a consistency of approach throughout that indicates that O’Riley has carefully thought through what he wants to say about The Well-Tempered Clavier and how he wants to say it. The result is a performance of thoroughgoing cohesiveness from start to finish, one with much more warmth than is usually heard in this music – and one that, at least from a historical perspective, is entirely wrongheaded. That does not mean wrong, since the music is very well-played throughout and there are so many matters of opinion (and performance) when it comes to Bach that it would be the height of arrogance to label a particular reading “correct” or “incorrect.” But it does mean that O’Riley’s handling of the music has something a bit fusty about it, reflective of a time when it was thought that Bach needed to be “modernized” and presented on up-to-date instruments with up-to-date emotional expressiveness. This is a recording filled with warmth and sensitivity – which, however, are more reflective of what O’Riley inserts into the music than of what Bach put into it.
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