Thomas Zehetmair’s manually overwhelming and thought-provoking ECM recording of the complete sonatas for unaccompanied violin by Eugène Ysaÿe – released in 2004 to great critical acclaim – offered ample proof that alleged virtuoso pyrotechnics can be surprinsingly multi-faceted and complex when approached by a musician with a rare awareness of stylistic layers and expressive traditions. His (long deleted) Teldec version of the Capricci dating from the early nineties quickly won the status of a new benchmark recording. In 2007 he went to the Austrian monastery of St. Gerold to record a second – even more ambitious – interpretation. In an interview with English journalist Ivan Hewett Zehetmair recently explained his ever-growing interest in this particular repertoire: "Every violinist grows up with these pieces, because they are such fantastic technical studies. Paganini sometimes had these showman’s tricks, like playing on only one or two strings. But you know, all the great musicians who heard him, like Schumann, took him totally seriously. These Caprices aren’t just studies, or showpieces. They’re improvised character pieces, so full of poetry and fantasy."
Niccolò Paganini: 24 Capricci
Thomas Zehetmair
- 24 Capricci per violino solo, op. 1
- 1No. 1 in E major, Andante01:55
- 2No. 2 in b minor, Moderato02:51
- 3No. 3 in e minor, Sostenuto - Presto02:39
- 4No. 4 in c minor, Maestoso05:32
- 5No. 5 in a minor, Agitato02:24
- 6No. 6 in g minor, Lento04:33
- 7No. 7 in a minor, Posato03:40
- 8No. 8 in E-flat major, Maestoso02:48
- 9No. 9 in E major, Allegretto02:52
- 10No. 10 in g minor, Vivace02:15
- 11No. 11 in C major, Andante - Presto03:26
- 12No. 12 in A-flat major, Allegro02:21
- 13No. 13 in B-flat major, Allegro01:28
- 14No. 14 in E-flat major, Moderato01:10
- 15No. 15 in e minor, Posato02:41
- 16No. 16 in g minor, Presto01:27
- 17No. 17 in E-flat major, Sostenuto - Andante03:10
- 18No. 18 in C major, Corrente - Allegro02:25
- 19No. 19 in E-flat major, Lento - Allegro assai03:06
- 20No. 20 in D major, Allegretto02:22
- 21No. 21 in A major, Amoroso - Presto02:50
- 22No. 22 in F major, Marcato02:19
- 23No. 23 in E-flat major, Posato02:57
- 24No. 24 in a minor, Tema con variazioni. Quasi presto04:02
Diapason d’or
Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Bestenliste 4/2009
Pizzicato, Supersonic
Zehetmair has the flamboyance required, from the mind-boggling spinato of the opening Andante and the scurrying glissandi which open the Agitato, both pieces blizzards of bowing industry, to the spidery pizzicato which animate Tema, He inhabits these pieces naturally, seeking out the most expressive nuances of touch and tempo in each bar of the music.
Andy Gill, The Independent
Zehetmair has the capacity to bring character and spirit to the music, and to show that there is more to it than mere circus acrobatics.
Geoffrey Norris, Daily Telegraph
Zehetmair geht immer exzentrisch aufs Ganze, scheut nie das Risiko. Das macht sein Spiel so spannend. Technische Höchstschwierigkeiten meistert er rasant, eigene Verzierungen und Variationen lassen seine Interpretation noch zirzensischer erscheinen. Eine sensationelle Aufnahme, nur ganz wenige Geiger auf der Welt können hier mithalten.
Norbert Hornig, Fono Forum
The highest technical hurdles are mastered with utmost command, and some additional embellishments and variations give his approach an even more spellbinding touch. A sensational record; only very few violinists in the world could match this level.
Norbert Hornig FonoForum
So irre hat man Paganini heutzutage wohl noch nicht gehört… Sicherlich spielen bei dem vielseitigen Geiger seine Erfahrungen mit neuer Musik und ihrer schon mal schockierenden Wirkung auf die Zeitgenossen eine Rolle. Aufgewühlt war das Publikum damals, wenn Paganini spielte. Und wenn man Berichte liest, war es wohl vor allem der Ton, der ins Mark ging. Klangliche Nuancen, die weit über das hinausgehen, was im Notentext steht, Dynamik, die das Instrument an die Grenzen bringt – im Forte wie im Piano. All das setzt Zehetmair um: sein Paganini schockiert, er geht wirklich unter die Haut.
Maria-Elisabeth Ranft, hr2 „Klassik-Zeit“
Er profiliert sich nicht als Schöntuer. Er meidet konsequent alles jubilierend Glatte und lässt keine Honigsüße aus den Terz- und Sextparallelen tropfen. Ihn interessiert vielmehr das Gefährdete, das Waghalsige und Krankhafte, das in den Stücken rumort. Zehetmair entdeckt den Verzweiflungston in den Capricen: Hier improvisiert ein Getriebener berserkerhaft gegen eine große Leere an. … Er setzt dem Virtuosentum die gezackte Wahnsinnskrone auf. Er überdreht die Tempi, die Springbogenexzesse rückt er in die Nähe des surrealen Gefuchtels, die hohen Töne pfeifen wie vom Jenseits her. Was nicht bedeutet, dass Zehetmair die Stücke nicht bewältigt, im Gegenteil.
Claus Spahn, Die Zeit
Zehetmair avoids all smoothness; no honey-sweetness is dripping from his parallel thirds and sixths. He is interested in the risky, the audacious and even delusional aspects brewing in these pieces. Zehetmair discovers a sound of despair…: As if a haunted person was improvising against the great void…
Claus Spahn, Die Zeit
Zehetmair employs an astonishing dynamic range, articulated by a glittering array of lifted and legato bow strokes that tickles both the ear and the imagination. He relishes the music’s manic virtuoso chuckling, and even throws a few extra tricks of his own into the mêlée.
Julian Haylock, BBC Music Magazine
Die Einspielung mit Thomas Zehetmair eröffnet … spannende und längst überfällige neue Perspektiven. … Er spielt die Ausdrucksextreme aus und vermittelt mit seiner vielfältig variierten Tongebung und seiner dynamischen Schattierungskunst ein doppelbödiges, differenziertes Bild einer zugleich dämonisch-entfesselten und fragilen Musik. Und nicht zuletzt verhilft Zehetmair dem improvisatorischen Charakter der Capricci wieder zu seinem Recht. … All dies ist nicht nur klug gedacht, sondern auch geigerisch brillant umgesetzt – ein „Ohrenöffner“ ersten Ranges.
Felix Meyer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Thomas Zehetmair’s recording opens exciting and overdue new perspectives…He underscores the expressive extremes and, with his most varied tone and his art of dynamic shading, conveys an ambigious and differentiated image of this both demonic and fragile music. Not least he reveals the improvisational character of these caprices… All this is not only intelligently conceived but also, on the violinistic level, executed in a most brillant way. An ear-opener of higest calibre.
Felix Meyer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Zehetmair addresses blazing exclamations at his unsettled listeners, he preaches permanent rebellion. …Zehetmair doesn’t approach Paganini from a rich or even sweet tone but rather from the unrest of our present time which he captures in his sonic shadings.
Reinhard J. Brembeck, Süddeutsche Zeitung
Zehetmair deals with the musical text like a real sorcerer thereby demonstrating a kind of command that by far exceeds technical detail. The violinist has literally internalised these pieces.. The acoustics of the Austrian church and Manfred Eicher’s production don’t blur the rendering but rather add a sonic envelope that underscores the character of Zehetmair’s approach. The sound makes for an even greater disc.
Stefan Drees, klassik.com
Zehetmair brings all his love of danger and modernity to Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin – early 19th-century pieces fiendish enough to have been written by the Devil. … Each in the set brings its own revelations and beauties. … Zehetmair is Vulcan, the god of fire.
Geoff Brown, The Times
Jede der Capricen erscheint als Charakterstück. Zehetmairs furchtlos unkonventioneller Blick auf diese Musik gewinnt an Zauber nicht in strahlend aufpolierter Virtuosität, sondern in fahlen Zwischentönen, einer oft bizarren Zerrissenheit. … Kann sein, Paganini klingt bei anderen Geigern manchmal „schöner“. Hier findet man Wahrheit.
Martin Wilkening, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
So steht hier, trotz fulminanter Instrumentaltechnik, nicht Zurschaustellung von Leistung im Vordergrund – Zehetmair nutzt die unerhörte Aufgabenstellung für ein großes instrumentales Theater, das sein Publikum mit Suggestion und Dramatik in ihren Bann schlägt. Der Held jubelt und droht, haucht und seufzt, er stößt sich, wenn es der Moment erlaubt, ab vom strengen Text und wird ihm in der freien Rezitation doch nicht wirklich untreu. Ganz im Gegenteil: Könnten wir zurück in Paganinis Zeit, wir würden uns nicht wundern, den Italiener so spielen hören wie hier seinen deutschen Kollegen.
Raoul Mörchen, Rondo plus
Thomas Zehetmair’s second reading demonstrates greater technical assurance and musical maturity; even the most challenging passages are mastered with pleasing tone and intonation and with the various voices astutely balanced. It also cultivates a remarkable flexibility of expression with telling use of rubato… Occasional improvisatory additions, particularly in some of the da capo reprises, also give these interpretations a new creative individuality.
Robin Stowell, The Strad
Conductor, chamber musician, ardent pioneer of contemporary composition and an adventurous soloist, Thomas Zehetmair is equally at home with violin concerti from Mozart to Karol Szymanowsky, and from Schumann's chamber music to Heinz Holliger's most recent works. In addition, as his thought-provoking 2004 ECM recording of the complete sonatas for unaccompanied violin by Eugène Ysaÿe proved, virtuoso pyrotechnics can be surprisingly multi-faceted and complex when tackled by a musician with a rare awareness of stylistic layers and expressive traditions. Zehetmair now brings a similar dazzling approach to the Caprices for solo violin by Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), a set of 24 hair-raisingly difficult studies which, when first published in 1820, immediately established new standards of violin technique.
Zehetmair's (long deleted) Teldec version of the "Capricci" dating from the early nineties quickly won the status of a new benchmark recording and in December 2007 he went to the Austrian monastery of St. Gerold to record a second - even more ambitious - interpretation. Its improvisational freedom conveys all the demonic and haunting aspects of the music. Zehetmair: "As a violinist you grow up with the Caprices; like the cycles by Bach and Ysaÿe, they are one of the main challenges you have to face as a violinist - and a creative musician," says Zehetmair in the CD booklet liner notes. "I've often performed the complete cycle in concerts, and I also enjoy combining the Caprices with solo works by other composers. In order to recreate something of that intensity in the recording, I played the complete cycle twice in three days. The second performance was to an audience. While these live versions are the backbone of the recording, I also recorded the Caprices in groups of four to six per day."
Zehetmair's tempi are always flexible, his array of sound-colours is uniquely imaginative and in the "Da-capo" repeats he offers stunning variations and embellishments. "I really do think that there is scope for this kind of interpretation. Modifications of this kind and a greater level of virtuosity can add a whole new dimension to what would otherwise simply be literal repetition. Sometimes I just feel like taking the game to an even higher level. There's no getting away from it, in Paganini's music there has to be something of the circus ring. The Caprices are absolutely wonderful improvisations; they all very much have a character of their own. But they don't hit the mark unless there's also that hint of the circus." Although Zehetmair's enormous stylistic scope certainly informs his interpretation of Paganini's Caprices his basic approach is marked by gripping physicality. "Above all I approach them as a violinist, this is where the violinist is in his element."
Zehetmair's (long deleted) Teldec version of the "Capricci" dating from the early nineties quickly won the status of a new benchmark recording and in December 2007 he went to the Austrian monastery of St. Gerold to record a second - even more ambitious - interpretation. Its improvisational freedom conveys all the demonic and haunting aspects of the music. Zehetmair: "As a violinist you grow up with the Caprices; like the cycles by Bach and Ysaÿe, they are one of the main challenges you have to face as a violinist - and a creative musician," says Zehetmair in the CD booklet liner notes. "I've often performed the complete cycle in concerts, and I also enjoy combining the Caprices with solo works by other composers. In order to recreate something of that intensity in the recording, I played the complete cycle twice in three days. The second performance was to an audience. While these live versions are the backbone of the recording, I also recorded the Caprices in groups of four to six per day."
Zehetmair's tempi are always flexible, his array of sound-colours is uniquely imaginative and in the "Da-capo" repeats he offers stunning variations and embellishments. "I really do think that there is scope for this kind of interpretation. Modifications of this kind and a greater level of virtuosity can add a whole new dimension to what would otherwise simply be literal repetition. Sometimes I just feel like taking the game to an even higher level. There's no getting away from it, in Paganini's music there has to be something of the circus ring. The Caprices are absolutely wonderful improvisations; they all very much have a character of their own. But they don't hit the mark unless there's also that hint of the circus." Although Zehetmair's enormous stylistic scope certainly informs his interpretation of Paganini's Caprices his basic approach is marked by gripping physicality. "Above all I approach them as a violinist, this is where the violinist is in his element."
