Vilde Frang Plays Paganini and Schubert

“I have heard an angel sing,” wrote Schubert after he heard Paganini play in Vienna in 1828. Violinist Vilde Frang, partnered with pianist Michael Lifits, juxtaposes and links works by these two violinist-composers, who lived vastly different lives, yet are musically connected. Both found inspiration in the human voice and Frang sheds new light on Schubert’s demands for virtuosity and on Paganini’s sensitive musicality.

“It’s the contrasts that appeal to me,” Frang says.

The album includes variations that Paganini wrote on themes from operas by Rossini (Tancredi) and Paisiello (La molinara), and the ‘grand caprice’ that the violinist Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst – considered Paganini’s greatest successor – based on one of Schubert’s most thrilling songs, Erlkönig.

Paganini, born in 1782, achieved enormous success as a virtuoso performer. He lived until 1840, 12 years after Schubert’s death at the age of just 31. “There is an extreme contrast between Paganini, who became a living legend, and Schubert, who tragically did not achieve the fame he deserved,” says Frang.

Here is Ms. Frang in the Paganini Caprice based on Schubert’s “Erlkoenig”: