Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari; Niccolò Paganini - Violin Concertos (Francesca Dego)

Information

Composer: Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari; Niccolò Paganini

1. Paganini - Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 6, MS. 21: 1. Allegro maestoso
2. Paganini - Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 6, MS. 21: 2. Adagio espressivo
3. Paganini - Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 6, MS. 21: 3. Rondo (Allegro spiritoso)
4. Wolf-Ferrari - Violin Concerto in D major: 1. Fantasia
5. Wolf-Ferrari - Violin Concerto in D major: 2. Romanza
6. Wolf-Ferrari - Violin Concerto in D major: 3. Improvviso -
7. Wolf-Ferrari - Violin Concerto in D major: 4. Rondo - Finale

Francesca Dego, violin
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Daniele Rustioni, conductor

Date: 2017
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/cat/4816381

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Review

DG has a good track record with Paganini’s First Violin Concerto: five different recordings by different artists currently available on the label, which, considering the current paucity of public performances, is remarkable. The best known of these – and for many Paganini lovers still the benchmark – is Salvatore Accardo’s first recording with the LSO and Charles Dutoit.

This newcomer, good as it is and with plenty to recommend it, does not displace Accardo. The photogenic Francesca Dego (the booklet goes to some lengths to show just how photogenic) clearly knows her compatriot’s recording, even if her slow movement is nearly a minute faster (a decision that beneficially intensifies its operatic narrative). She plays the score without any cuts, has the full measure of Paganini’s myriad technical challenges and uses Accardo’s version of the Sauret first-movement cadenza, executed with great brilliance and aplomb. The one thing she does not do is send a tingle up the spine in the way that the 18-year-old Menuhin/Monteux, Vengerov/Mehta and Accardo/Dutoit do.

What might very well sway you is the imaginative coupling. If you like Bruch’s violin concertos, there’s every probability that you will like Wolf-Ferrari’s, a late work without any hint of its being written in 1944. If the concerto’s themes are not quite as strong as Bruch’s, Dego’s sweet-toned advocacy shows the work in the best possible light. This is a live performance (attentively conducted, again, by Daniele Rustioni, who happens to be Dego’s husband), which compares favourably with that of the concerto’s dedicatee, Guila Bustabo, with Rudolf Kempe in 1972.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Nov/Wolf-Ferrari_VC_4816381.htm
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=15069
https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/paganini-wolf-ferrari-violin-concertos-francesca-dego-city-of-birmingham-so-daniele-rustioni/
https://www.allmusic.com/album/violin-concertos-paganini-1-wolf-ferrari-mw0003114860

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Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (January 12, 1876 – January 21, 1948) was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna (1909). As well as his operas, Wolf-Ferrari wrote a number of instrumental works, mainly at the very beginning and very end of his career. He also wrote Idillio-concertino (essentially a chamber symphony), various pieces of chamber music. Wolf-Ferrari's work is not performed very widely although he is generally thought of as probably the finest writer of Italian comic opera of his time. His works often recall the opera buffa of the 18th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermanno_Wolf-Ferrari

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Francesca Dego (born 17 March 1989 in Lecco) is an Italian violinist. Dego's teachers include Daniele Gay, Salvatore Accardo, tzhak Rashkovsky, and Shlomo Mintz, among others. She has performed with many major orchestras, in Italy and abroad, and has collaborated with renowned conductors and musicians. Winner of numerous competitions, in 2008 she was the first Italian woman to enter the final at the Paganini Competition in Genoa since 1961. Dego plays a violin made by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona 1697) and a Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù ex Ricci (Cremona 1734).
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Dego
https://www.francescadego.com/

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