Dmitry Cogan is an excellent partner and not merely an accompanist, and the sound recorded at the CBC’s Glenn Gould Studios is very good. This would be a worthwhile acquisition for anyone interested in looking at the work of one master from the point of view of another from a later time.

To read the complete review, please visit American Record Guide online.

Fritz Kreisler made a rather large number of arrangements of Paganini’s music, and a great deal of them appear in Philippe Quint’s collection. In addition to these, Kreisler arranged the First Concerto’s first movement in a version that he himself recorded (though not until 1936, when he had entered his 60s—it’s the only Paganini he recorded), as, later, would Alfredo Campoli and Guila Bustabo. August Wilhelmj also arranged the first movement of that concerto, snipping here and there, reorchestrating, and adding romantic transitions—but Kreisler’s version bears the imprint of both Vienna and his own personality. While Heifetz, early on, reportedly played Wilhelmj’s arrangement with piano (Váša Příhoda recorded it that way), I’m not aware of a tradition of performing Kreisler’s version. So this roster of works arranged for violin and piano seems pretty much complete.

Quint begins with the finale of the Second Concerto, often played as an encore. He possesses not only the agility to make the harmonics tinkle (the movement’s subtitle, “La campanella,” suggests the ringing of bells) but the stylistic sensitivity and adaptability to play the occasional passage as though it had been written by Kreisler rather than Paganini (and the accompaniments—Kreisler, like Heifetz, played the piano almost as well as he did the violin—indulge Kreisler’s tendency to gemütlich chromaticism). Occasionally here, as in other pieces, Kreisler simplifies or omits, but the excisions and emendations hardly ever disfigure the torso he’s left. And Quint plays with such authority that it’s hard to hear these arrangements as anything but definitive, though inspection reveals otherwise.

Paganini’s variations showcase many of his most difficult technical innovations (there’s nothing in the caprices, for example, to equal the accompanied pizzicatos or double harmonics of the variations on God Save the King). They’re difficult enough to make a dazzling impression even when some of the terrors have been shorn, as in Kreisler’s arrangements. He certainly didn’t blanch at the double harmonics that figure so prominently in the Variations on Non più mesta, and neither does Quint, though they’re not 99 and 99/100 percent pure in his reading.

The young Jascha Heifetz and the young Michael Rabin made electrifying impressions, each, in the Moto perpetuo. If Quint doesn’t bite as deeply into the string as they did even at their lickety-split tempos, he still manages to make a lively impression; his reading takes 4:11, with Heifetz’s (1918) and Rabin’s (1960) and Ricci’s, 3:59, 3: 13, and 4:00, respectively, but Rabin didn’t repeat the first section. It’s impossible to distinguish the difficult passages from the easy ones. Next in Quint’s program come the three caprices Kreisler arranged for violin and piano (Heifetz used to play the 13tmore....

Review By Paulino Toribio,Ritmo,January 2011

Aunque pertenecientes a diferentes centurias, Kreisler y Paganini tienen en común el haber dedicado sus vidas íntegramente al violín, Kreisler realizó numerosas adaptaciones para violín y obras propias en estilo de diferentes compositores. Algunas de ellas pasaban como obras originales de otros autores. En este disco se nos presentan adaptaciones para violín y piano de temas de Paganini, extraídos unos de conciertos para violín y orquesta y otros de caprichos para violín solo. En el caso de los caprichos se pierde un poco la vigorosidad y fuerza además de emplear tempos muy lentos en pro de una música más amable al estilo de la música de salón; ya sabemos que Kreisler era un especialista en pequeñas piezas de este tipo. El arrebato del violín solo, su inmensa capacidad para mostrarnos por sí mismo la fuerza expresiva que posee, quedan amortiguadas con las armonías del piano que en definitiva no hace más que un simple acompañamiento. Aquí es donde Paganini fue más honesto, en sus caprichos para violín solo, y no quiso que otros músicos se aburrieran acompañando los fuegos de artificio de un violín exultante.

Nuevamente escuchamos al violinista Philippe Quint en el sello Naxos y nos alegra este nuevo trabajo.

Only a virtuoso would dare take on these pieces, composed by Nicolò Paganini and arranged by Fritz Kreisler—violinist Philippe Quint is fully equal to their challenges. Trained in his native Russia and in New York, where he now lives, he has performed worldwide on stage, radio, and television.

Two of his recordings, which include concertos by Ned Rorem and Miklós Rózsa, have received Grammy Award nominations.

This record concentrates on bravura display that leaves no violinistic resource unexplored: harmonics; left-hand pizzicato; double-, triple- and quadruple-stops; staccato; ricochet; and, of course, running passages at hair-raising speeds, especially in the Moto perpetuo.

Philippe Quint’s approach favors a bit more romantic expressivity as he glides through Kreisler’s violin and piano arrangements. Included here are two-large scale sets of variations based on themes of Rossini operas, La campanella and several Caprices. There’s more sonic variety in Kreisler arrangements but also a schmaltzier quality that might seem dated to some listeners. Still, the real point of comparison comes in No. 24. Quint’s version has a certain period charm but also power: the control of the bow in staccato runs is breathtaking.

The effectiveness of Philippe Quint and Dmitriy Cogan should not be doubted for a moment...Fritz Kreisler’s revisions of Paganini’s works were designed to highlight Kreisler’s own distinctive style of violin virtuosity at the expense of many of Paganini’s innovations. Kreisler, for example, was fond of artificial harmonics, which he introduced into several of the pieces heard here. He was not fond of scordatura, which was a primary Paganini technique (most famously in his Violin Concerto No. 1), so Kreisler simply took it out when making these arrangements. There is plenty of virtuosity here—Moto perpetuo, in particular, is astonishingly well played, with Quint continuing at a breakneck pace no matter how often it seems that he cannot possibly keep it up. And there is some interesting treatment of the three more-extended works on the CD: Introduction and Variations on “Non più mesta” from Rossini’s “La Cenerentola,” Introduction and Variations on “Di tanti palpiti” from Rossini’s “Tancredi,” and—most of all—the simply titled but notoriously difficult Le streghe (“The Witches”). Still, most of the interest lies in what Paganini created, not in what Kreisler did to modify the earlier master’s work. This is even truer in the shorter pieces, which include three of the 24 Caprices, Op. 1 (Nos. 13, 20 and 24) and the “La Campanella” finale from Violin Concerto No. 2. Quint plays everything extremely well—he must be quite something to watch when doing works like these in concert—and Cogan backs him up admirably even though, in truth, he does not have much to do (Kreisler gave the piano accompanist only minimal chances to shine). It is certainly understandable that Kreisler, who performed mainly in the 20th century, would want to put his personal stamp on music created by one of the greatest violinists of the 19th.