This recording attracts attention every time it resurfaces. Michael Rabin’s healthy cult following is probably due as much to the fact that he died tragically young in a freak accident as to his energetically brilliant technique. When first issued in 1953, choices of alternative versions of the entire set of 24 Caprices were pretty much limited to Ruggiero Ricci’s rough-and-tumble traversal, and Rabin blew it out of the water. The sheer wizardry of his fingers and bow is still pretty impressive, even compared to Itzhak Perlman’s 1972 performance on Angel and Midori’s wunderkind turn on Philips almost two decades later. Perlman usually gets top ranking, but Midori’s velvety tone and wondrous freshness is difficult to ignore.
With Rabin, there is plenty of personality in the interpretation, though not quite as well thought out as Perlman’s. However, sometimes the flying fingers and hair become a blur, as evident in the machine-gun staccatos in No. 1 as in the thrown-away string crossings in No. 12. This is partly because Rabin sometimes seems to be overwhelmed by the demonic aspects of Paganini’s music, and partly because of this new remastering. The instrument was miked extremely close in the studio, and the original LP sound was rather astringent everywhere except in the most legato of passages. Although the presence of the violin was startlingly direct, details often became obscured as incidental sounds that would be lost in a normal acoustic were heard as clearly as the notes themselves. That has been softened significantly in many places in this current incarnation, but with a price. The resonance was enhanced so much that, while giving the violin a little more roundness in tone, we have to accept an almost tiled-bathroom reverb that sounds entirely unnatural.
Still, Rabin is quite captivating amid these fireworks, and his fans will want to get this just to hear the way the instrument sounds this time. If this is the only version you ever own, you’ll be fine, but the real recommendation still goes to Perlman.
