You Can Tell the Fiddler by the Cover

Maybe it has something to do with the way it is played, the way the body of the performer seems connected to the sound emanating from the instrument; or maybe it is simply the physical posture of the player, head thrust, back arched, chest out, right arm in expressive motion. The violin has always been the sexiest of instruments--or was until the electric guitar came along.

The first superstar performer, Paganini, was a violinist. And though it wasn’t long before the second superstar, pianist-composer Liszt, was driving the proper 19th century ladies into a swoon, there can be only one Elvis, and Paganini was classical music’s.

With the classical music industry in a current frenzy of star manufacturing, violinists have never been more marketable, especially if they are young and attractive. The gamut runs from the genuinely gifted, such as young Siberian fiddler Maxim Vengerov, to child prodigy turned pouty pop star wannabe Vanessa Mae. Many have been prominently on display lately, with the former opening the Hollywood Bowl last week, the latter a headliner in the entertainment extravaganza in Hong Kong for the hand-over festivities. Meanwhile, Thursday night the Bowl will feature yet another young star on the rise, American violinist Gil Shaham (see accompanying story).

Now three new CDs offer pointed examples of the elaborate efforts going into the marketing of violinists. Two of them happen to be women with local connections. But their releases couldn’t be more different, one as frothy as a summer Hollywood movie with blockbuster hopes, the other as stern as an Eastern European black-and-white art film.

The frothy one is the latest Leila Josefowicz CD. Her label, Philips, seems almost desperate to make a flashy superstar of this Long Beach teenager, who possesses a pretty face and plenty of technique. The serious one is by Michelle Makarski, a violinist who lives in Santa Barbara and who won a number of major competitions in the 1980s.

The images projected by the violinists on their new releases are fascinating polar opposites. Josefowicz’s “Bohemian Rhapsodies” attempts to be pure teenage, bodice-ripping gothic-romance fantasy. The photos of the fold-out CD booklet show the violinist in various states of tepid abandon; the disc itself is decorated with a couple in passionate embrace. In the liner notes, Josefowicz, who begins the recital with Sarasate’s “Carmen Fantasy,” cites her admiration for Carmen’s “uninhibited sexuality and insurmountable emotion.”

On the other hand, Makarski’s painstakingly produced and packaged CD on the ECM New Series appears as artsy and uncompromisingly severe as Josefowicz’s is a commercial come-on. It has a difficult title, “Caoine” (the Irish word for dirge that is usually rendered phonetically in English as “keen”). The CD booklet cover is a stark black-and-white photo of what appears to be an Irish bog; another strong landscape makes up the careful outer package. The lengthy liner notes from a German writer deal with the social and philosophical aspects of programming a recital program. For example, “Caoine” contains a series of pieces for solo violin that explores the variations principle; the notes compare composers’ impulse to develop large structures from small musical motifs in the 19th century with that of business accumulating capital.

But whatever one thinks of such Marxist music history, Makarski is a riveting and direct player, and her recital of unaccompanied violin music does, indeed, make a great deal out of little. She plays a wide range of works, beginning and ending with Baroque pieces (a passacaglia by Heinrich Biber and Bach’s Partita No. 1). In between comes American music. The title piece is a deeply moving study of a caoine by USC composer Stephen Hartke, and there is a selection of modern-day flashy technical etudes by George Rochberg. The centerpiece is a chaconne movement from one of Max Reger’s stern solo violin sonatas. All the music is complicated, full of striking violin effects, and all of it is performed with impressive and deeply satisfying rigor. But this is clearly an uncompromising disc intended for the connoisseur.

Josefowicz, by contrast, leaves nothing alone or to the imagination. She takes fat music and tries to make it ooze with emotion, usually with diminishing returns. With the surprising collusion of Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, she gamely draws out phrases, as if a little calculated play in the musical line will indicate impetuosity.

There is almost nothing authentic-seeming about “Bohemian Rhapsodies”--not even the music, which is neither “Bohemian” in the sense of coming from historical Bohemia (the area surrounding Prague) or in the anti-establishment sense. At best, there is a nod to Gypsies from Sarasate and Ravel. But “Bohemia” has been essentially watered down to mean popular romantic music, such as Massenet’s “Meditation” from “Thais” or Chausson’s “Poeme.”

The third violinist is Gidon Kremer, with a new CD on Teldec. Kremer, who turned 50 this year, has long been regarded as one of the world’s finest violinists. He has a flashy side, and he even once convincingly played the role of Paganini in a European feature film about composer Robert Schumann. But there also exists no better model today for a young player who wants to build an important public career through a serious devotion to music. His latest CD is a perfect example of that, bringing to light terrific music from earlier this century that has been, for no good reason, overlooked.

The disc is titled “Impressions D’Enfance” (Impressions of Childhood), but it too explores Bohemian rhapsodies--the real thing. The title comes from a sonata for violin and piano by Georges Enescu (a composer and violinist who conveyed just the Gypsy style that Josefowicz tries so hard to re-create) that is a series of 10 vivid musical vignettes of his childhood in Romania. It is hard to believe that this is its first major recording.

Kremer follows with an actual Bohemian, Ervin Schulhoff, whose Sonata No. 2, written in 1927, is a hothouse of jazz, experimentation and expressionism. And he concludes the CD with Bartok’s modernist folk-styled Sonata No. 2.

The playing, including the lively accompaniment by Oleg Maisenberg, is extraordinary. Kremer’s technique and sense of musical structure are made from the strongest steel, but he uses that technique and structure as nothing more than a skeleton. His blood is hot, his playing fleshy and fantastical. This, indeed, is one of the most exciting, illuminating and surprising recordings of the year so far. And it even has the best cover photo, which catches and holds the eye with nothing more than pair of baby feet popping out of a pram.

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