Among the hallmarks of Fritz Kreisler’s inimitable self-interpretations on disc include his vibrant, beefy tone, communicative ease, and enough charm to melt hearts of stone. By contrast, virtually no charm and a bit too much effort affect the 20 selections violinist Thomas Füri has chosen for his all-Kreisler recital. Füri’s full-bodied sonority turns metallic, dour, and sometimes wobbly when swelling on a sustained note or launching quick down-bow strokes. Scurrying figurations like the graceful Scherzo’s triplets or the runs in Tambourin Chinois fizzle like flat seltzer, while Füri’s earnest attempts to inflect certain melodic shifts by means of “Kreislerian” portamento sound uptight and uncomfortable. Pianist Gérard Wyss, in fact, imparts more natural lilt and singing impulse to the proceedings, and even a sense of “sliding” from one note to the next when shaping the counterlines in Liebeslied and Liebesfreud. In contrast to Füri’s stiff phrasing, Wyss understands the ragtime idiom that characterizes Syncopation. How plain and lifeless Füri’s Kreisler sounds next to Perlman’s elegance, stylistic affinity, and discrete pinches of schmaltz, let alone in comparison to Kreisler’s own recordings. The engineering, though, is excellent.
