A few months ago I listened with much pleasure to Tanja Becker-Bender’s recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices, admiring her security, polish and fine tone. Thomas Zehetmair takes a very different view – more extreme and avant-garde. In approaching the more alarming difficulties he doesn’t exercise caution but drives straight ahead, not minding too much about rough tone. This results in some extremely exciting playing; the middle section of No 23, with its unexpected cross-rhythms, is just one of many examples. Unlike Becker-Bender, he doesn’t seek to “explain” Paganini’s more complex music: the chromatic presto section in No 3 sounds rich and strange as she performs it but utterly amazing in the Zehetmair version. He typically makes wide variations in dynamics and tone colour (in contrast to Becker-Bender, who is concerned to preserve a smooth, rounded tone quality). In the “tremolo” Caprice, No 6, he produces a wonderfully poetic effect, mysterious and almost impressionistic.

There are aspects of the recording I’m less happy about: Zehetmair omits nearly all the repeats, and the loss of some shorter repeated sections, in particular, harms the musical sense. Where he has to repeat, he often decorates or even re-composes the text; some of these elaborations are most imaginative but in general I find it more satisfying to experience the unaltered return of an idea. And Zehetmair’s devil-may-care attitude results in some very harsh chords and inappropriately fierce accents. For all that, it’s a disc full of remarkable violin-playing and presents a powerful, individual view of the music.