Accardo continues his explorations of the lesser-known Paganini. The explorations reveal something you would by no means guess from the works' titles: each one of them is a set of variations. To Paganini this meant one thing only: a tune of minimal importance on which to hang a sequence of variations of maximum difficulty. And of maximum effect, if in the hands of the right player.
Accardo is indeed the right player, or at the very least belongs to a very small group of players of comparable technical mastery. In the circumstances it is perhaps not quite so unkind to report surprise that in both the Varsarvia and Maria Luisa sonatas (not sonatas at all, of course, but sets of variations) there are a few patches of intonation which have gone sour, balanced in the Maria Luisa by some of the most accomplished and beautiful playing on the one string of the violin called for. Even so, perhaps the most devastating sounds come in the Balletto campestre (not a balletto at all, of course . . .), where in the course of its 27 variations there is to be heard, among much else, the most astonishing display of flying staccato that can ever have been put on record.
The accompaniments are beautifully (and patiently!) played, with the scoring, where necessary, very well done by the conductor. Rich and clear recorded quality add to the pleasures; so does an informative sleeve-note (in a field where such a note is of the highest desirability!) by Edward Neill. One minor piece of information, though, wants looking at again: in the Balletto the theme may indeed be inspired by a bal di gob, an assertion I am in no position to dispute; but surely it is the introduction, by no means the theme, which is in 6/8!'