Notes and Editorial Reviews
SOLO TURBAN
•
Ingolf Turban (vn)
•
TELOS 072 (60:16)
PAGANINI
Variations on “Nel cor più non mi sento.”
SIVORI
Caprice.
KALLIWODA
Caprice.
SAINT-LUBIN
Lucia di Lammermoor:
Sextet.
SOLDAN
Quartet for Solo
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Violin.
KREISLER
Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice.
GRIEG
Schmetterling.
BIZET
Carmen
Caprice.
TRAD
Spanish Ballad.
RODRIGO
Capriccio.
ACHRON
Oh, Du lieber Augustin.
MENDELSSOHN
Wedding March.
MERSSON
Bravura Variations
In the 1970s, Ruggiero Ricci issued in his LP
Bravura
a collection of the kind that Ingolf Turban has now attempted in expanded format—temporally if not technically. In addition, some of Ricci’s works in this vein have been issued by One Eleven on URS-91010, which includes the
Lucia Sextet
, the
Spanish Ballad
, and the Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice.
Turban’s program begins with Nicolo Paganini’s famous variations on Giovanni Paisiello’s aria “Nel cor più non mi sento,” this time in a super-virtuosic arrangement by Vá?a P?íhoda (as if Paganini’s version—whatever its authenticity—doesn’t raise enough hair by itself). Turban, who has played programs of Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst’s music, doesn’t seem to find Paganini’s set of variations perhaps even so challenging as Ricci did. His crackling staccatos sound like P?íhoda’s (the arranger recorded the version, made available on an old Biddulph CD—LAB 135,
Fanfare
20:4). By contrast, Camillo Sivori’s Caprice, an
Andante religioso
, taps a less virtuosic but more expressive vein, and Turban displays his affinity in it for the lyricism that Sivori perhaps inherited from his teacher, Paganini.
Johannes Wenzeslaus Kalliwoda’s variations on the well-known march from George Frederick Handel’s
Judas Maccabeus
explores the kind of technical range by now familiar from sets of variations by Paganini, Ernst, and Henri Wieniawski; once again, as in Paganini’s set, Turban makes the variations sound manageable, although they most certainly aren’t. Léon de Saint-Lubin’s paraphrase on the Sextet from Gaetano Donizetti’s celebrated opera
Lucia di Lammermoor
sounds, in its technical armamentarium, much like the scintillating virtuosity in works by Ernst. Ricci imparted to this blockbuster more forward momentum that made it seem not only difficult but urgently communicative.
Otto Soldan’s quartet requires the violinist to loosen the bow’s hair and place it over the strings, with the stick underneath the instrument, in order to achieve continuous four-part harmony. Jazz violinist Joe Venuti used to play this way as a sort of trick, but Soldan’s piece—and Turban’s performance—suggest a more serious intent, and Turban actually achieves a surprising amount of expressive nuance despite the limitations the technique imposes. Fritz Kreisler wrote his Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice for Eugène Ysaÿe (who would return the compliment more than a decade later in his Fourth Solo Sonata); it embodies Ysaÿe’s style almost as successfully as do the older violinist’s own works. Ruggiero Ricci played this work, as have others, but hardly anyone more successfully than Turban, including Zino Francescatti, who brought to it an electrifying excitement that even Jascha Heifetz hardly matched.
To demonstrate that the river of technical violinistic invention hasn’t dried up, there follow several more modern arrangements: Turban’s friend Jochen Brusch arranged Grieg’s
Schmetterling
for him; Turban transcribed melodies from
Carmen
, inspired, he claims in the notes, by a performance by pianist Arcadi Volodos; and Ricci arranged the traditional
Spanish Ballad
(it has been published by Schirmer) with arpeggios reminiscent of those in Pietro Locatelli’s
Harmonic Labyrinth
(played with equal crispness by Turban, whose headlong performance almost makes Ricci’s sound careful—an accomplishment of the magnitude of making Arnold Schwarzenegger appear like David Niven). Joaquin Rodrigo’s Capriccio, subtitled “Offrande a Sarasate,” breaks free from the palette from which the preceding pieces drew their harmonic colors and makes its effect by means more nearly equal musically and technically. Its spiky dissonances pay tribute to the consummately—and consistently—elegant Pablo de Sarasate more in suggestion than in imitation.
Jascha Heifetz (another student of Leopold Auer) and others of his school and generation, adopted several pieces by Joseph Achron. But none of those pose such a wide range of technical challenges as do his variations on
Oh, du Lieber Augustin
, which, like many of the sets in the collection, draw upon Paganini’s devices, in many cases surpassing them. But no matter how far anyone pushes the technical limits in these pieces, Turban seems able to follow.
Turban wrote his version of Felix Mendelssohn’s
Wedding March
for an actual wedding between two of his friends and presented it to them as a wedding present. It resembles in its treatment of the theme Ernst’s similar elaborations of
The Last Rose of Summer
. Boris Mersson’s bravura variations on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s
Brüder, reicht die Hand zum Bunde
brings the program to a close with a pyrotechnical bang.
The headnote says it all: For those who like this kind of thing, this will be the kind of thing they like. Ricci didn’t play this repertoire with such consistent success; he always scraped a note or missed it. Still, given that nobody at the time played this kind of repertoire, his headlong, vibrant performances could raise goosebumps—as they did, quite literally, when I watched him live. That almost surreal vibrancy and devil-may-care aggression may still go a long way for many listeners toward making the effect he created seem to surpass Turban’s more clinical approach. But it’s clinical only compared to Ricci’s. Urgently recommended.
FANFARE: Robert Maxham
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Works on This Recording
1.
Introduction and Variations on Paisiello's "Nel cor più non mi sento", Op. 38 by Niccolò Paganini
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Romantic
Written: ?1820
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 9 Minutes 57 Secs.
2.
Caprice for violin in B major, Op. 25/5 by Camillo Sivori
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Romantic
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 4 Minutes 11 Secs.
3.
Caprice for violin in G major, Op. 87/3 by Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 3 Minutes 37 Secs.
4.
Fantasy on the sextet "Chi mi frena in tal momento" from Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor", for solo by Leon de Saint-Lubin
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1844
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 4 Minutes 49 Secs.
5.
Quartett für die Violine allein G-Dur, Op. 2 by Otto Soldan
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 3 Minutes 1 Secs.
6.
Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice for Violin solo, Op. 6 by Fritz Kreisler
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1911; Austria
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 4 Minutes 37 Secs.
7.
Carmen Caprice, for violin by Ingolf Turban
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 1 Minutes 57 Secs.
8.
Spanische Ballade in d minor, for violin by Ruggiero Ricci
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Modern
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 1 Minutes 58 Secs.
9.
Capriccio for violin by Joaquin Rodrigo
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Modern
Written: 1944; Spain
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 6 Minutes 32 Secs.
10.
Plaisanterie musicale sur l'air populaire "Oh, du lieber Augustin" in G major, for violin, Op. 19/2 by Joseph Achron
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Post-Romantic
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 6 Minutes 57 Secs.
11.
Hochzeitsmarsch (after F. Mendelssohn), for violin by Ingolf Turban
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 4 Minutes 16 Secs.
12.
Bravour-Variationen im klassischen Stil über das Thema "Brüder, reicht die Hand zum Bunde" nach W.A. by Boris Mersson
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 5 Minutes 12 Secs.
13.
Schmetterling, for violin in A Major (after E. Grieg) by Jochen Brusch
Performer:
Ingolf Turban (Violin)
Period: Contemporary
Venue: Telosmusicstudios, Mechernich-Floisdorf
Length: 2 Minutes 21 Secs.
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