Although this new Denon record is very truthfully recorded, in some ways the orchestral sound of the older analogue DG disc is preferable, with the spacious acoustics of Barking Town Hall giving a more attractive concert-hall ambience. The Maison des associations de St Gene's Champanelle has a slightly studioish feeling, and affords a somewhat more confined effect to the bass end of the orchestral spectrum. There is a hint of boominess (especially when the bass drum underlines a tutti). But the violin—beautifully balanced—is completely natural; indeed I have seldom heard a solo violin so truthfully captured on record. This is absolutely essential in Paganini, where the busy bow on the strings can easily seem to make scraping noises, with upper harmonics tingling painfully in the ear: but not in this instance. Salvatore Accardo on DG is also very naturally caught, but the microphones are a little nearer; on Denon their placing is exactly right. Jean-Jacques Kantorow has a pleasingly full and well-focused timbre and he plays superbly; he shapes the famous lyrical secondary theme in the first movement of the First Concerto with disarming warmth and charm, and he makes Paganini's fiendish upper tessitura sound angelically easy—though not too easy: one is still agreeably dazzled. (Just try his re-entry at 12'09'' in the same movement of the D major Concerto or listen to the harmonics at 5'25'' in the finale.) At first I thought that his timing of what one could call the rhetorical pauses at the beginning of the First Concerto was a little mannered, but a second hearing proved very convincing—there is nothing unspontaneous here. I think, however, Accardo gains from having a highly imaginative conductor to guide the orchestral accompaniment and the LPO plays splendidly; but one assumes Paganini would have directed the orchestra himself, so what Kantorow does is authentically convincing and the Orchestre d'Auvergne do not let him down.
The first movement of Op. 6 takes almost four minutes longer in the DG version, but almost all the difference comes in the first movement cadenza. Accardo plays a long and elaborate one by Emile Sauret; Kantorow uses a much shorter one by his teacher, Benedetti, not necessarily to disadvantage. In both slow movements Kantorow moves the music on more than Accardo, and in the Adagio of the B minor I felt Kantorow's choice was the tempo giusto—the melody, sweetly timbred, soars beautifully over its pizzicato accompaniment, but some may like Accardo's greater serenity. In the famous La campanella finale, the playing of both artists is a delight, but here the balance of Denon recording is a plus point: the actual sound of the violin is a joy in itself.'