Violinist Ruggiero Ricci’s “Showpieces”

from the Amazon.com Web page for this recording

My listening activities have now advanced me to the third of the three box sets in the 1918–2018 Ruggiero Ricci Centenary Edition, released by RHINE CLASSICS. Those who have been following this site regularly know that I have already written about the collections for concertos and sonatas. The “subtitle” for the remaining box is “showpieces,” which I originally took as “a euphemism for ‘encore favorites.’” This anticipation turned out to be faulty. However, like the other two collections, this box is based on remastered “discovered tapes,” previously unreleased recordings from both concert and studio settings made between 1946 and 1986. For those following this journey into Ricci’s recorded repertoire, 1946 the earliest start date of the three boxes; and 1986 is the latest end date.

Personally, I am not sure that I would classify some of the recordings in this collection as “showy.” Indeed, there is a bland, if not tedious, quality in Ricci’s performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Suite italienne. This is the suite for violin and piano of arranged excerpts from the score for the one-act ballet “Pulcinella” that Stravinsky prepared in 1933, working with violinist Samuel Dushkin (not to be confused with the suite for cello and piano that Stravinsky prepared with Gregor Piatigorsky, which has the same title). The recording was taken from a Carnegie Hall recital given on October 5, 1947; and, curiously, Ricci chose to omit the Scherzino movement. Given his technical skills in taking on Niccolò Paganini’s Opus 1 caprices, it is hard to imagine that he would have passed on the Scherzino for being too difficult.

Indeed, Paganini can be found on each of the four CDs in this collection; and he may be the motivating force behind the “showpieces” label. The booklet enumerates the aforementioned six audio recordings that Ricci made of Opus 1 in its entirety, as well as the two video documents. The fourth CD in this collection bumps the audio count up to seven. The recording was made at the Teatro Communale in Monfalcone on November 21, 1986. For the record, my own recording from among these options is the one produced by Vox in 1973, which includes the premiere recording of the “Caprice d’adieu” (farewell caprice), a set of variations on an original theme. Sadly, from a technical point of view, the 1986 concert recording comes nowhere near the polish of the 1973 studio document.

At the end of the day, the greatest satisfaction will be found in Ricci’s performance of Paul Hindemith’s third solo violin sonata (Opus 31, Number 2), composed in 1923. In terms of my own personal listening, this made for a welcome complement to Hindemith’s 1935 sonata in E major for violin and piano, which I had recently encountered on the RHINE CLASSICS collection of recordings of the violinist Ivry Gitlis. Perhaps the “showpieces” collection was conceived simply to tie up any “loose ends” in the recordings that RHINE CLASSICS had discovered. However, much as I admire completeness, that “showpieces” collection has little to show of Ricci at his best.