In these difficult times it is perhaps one's duty not to beat about the bush and pretend that a release should be given the benefit of the doubt, just because it is a new product. I would love to claim that Szabadi's version of Ysaye's demandingly intellectual Six Sonatas is on a par with those of Shumsky (Nimbus) and Mordkovitch (Chandos), but I cannot. Shumsky has an imperious authority and Mordkovitch an extraordinary sensitivity in responding to the inspiration behind the material which Szabadi is unable to compete with.
But I am not saying that this version should be written off. At his best, as in the Sixth Sonata, where he convincingly captures the improvisatory style, the young Hungarian is very good indeed—he gets right into the required passionate intensity. However, in other places I thought him too rigid and almost academic in his approach (though the latter not underpinned by a convincing intellectual grasp). The crazy obsessiveness of the opening movement of the Second Sonata, with its quotations from Bach and Paganini, is glossed over: Szabadi ploughs through the piece in etude mode. What is more, Les furies, which ends this work, lacks real bite and violence.
Dating from 1924, and dedicated to six violinists whom Ysaye knew and admired, the Sonatas for Solo Violin are remarkable on the one hand for their eclecticism, and on the other for their undoubted skill of composition (remarkable, since Ysaye can hardly be ranked as a great composer). The one-movement Third Sonata, subtitled Ballade, is the most frequently played, but in his performance Szabadi, despite impeccable intonation, cannot rise above the dutiful. The chordal episodes, which should emerge as arresting and dynamic, fall flat. It is when the music comes closest to pastiche that he is heard to optimum effect. The coda of the finale from the Fourth Sonata (dedicated to Kreisler), for instance, comes off with first-rate rhythm and articulation. A very closely recorded CD, I was at times distracted by frog-like croakings as the violinist moved his fingers up and down the strings.'