Henri Wieniawski

Listening to a performance of Henryk Wieniawski's Scherzo-tarantelle Op. 16 for violin and piano -- an electrifying, virtuosic walk on a tight-rope -- it is not hard to believe the stories of hard drinking and heavy gambling that have always surrounded the brilliant Polish-born violinist-composer: here is a piece of music whose every measure fully lives up to Wieniawski's personal motto, "Il faut risquer" (I must risk it). Life by that motto was not always kind to Wieniawski, and the rise and fall of both his career and his health were just about as rapid as the left-hand fireworks contained within this four-and-a-half-minute showpiece. Just 21 when Scherzo-tarantelle was first published (1856), Wieniawski was already the well-known author of over a dozen charming salon pieces for violin and piano, and very possibly the most famous violinist of the post-Paganini generation. But just six years later he would peak as both performer and composer (with the fabulous Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22), thereafter starting a long decline towards his premature death.

With Scherzo-tarantelle, Wieniawski proves himself a master of miniature. Neither profundity of thought nor musical innovation were of any real concern to the composer (though with the Second Concerto he managed to achieve a good bit of both); he instead put his considerable skill towards impeccable craftsmanship and, most importantly, potent, immediate expression of all the violin's myriad characters.

After the violinist has plowed his or her way through an opening Presto filled -- as one expects in the traditional Italian tarantella -- with hectic, running eighth notes, there is an immediate change to the major mode for a Tranquillo whose sweeping, voluptuous violin melody is immediately restated by the piano, now accompanied by the violin. After a brief reunion with the music of the opening section, the composer reaches once again into his well-stocked bag of melody for a graceful cantabile. Scherzo-tarantelle is rounded off with a reprise of the Presto, now truncated and reshaped at the very end to hint, tantalizingly but insincerely, at a change to G major.