Črtomir Šiškovič: Pupils of Tartini Vol.3

The Strad Issue: September 2024

Description: A passion project continues, but with questionable historical fidelity

Musicians: Črtomir Šiškovič (violin) Ensemble Dissonance/Janez Podlesek (violin)

Works: Morigi: Violin Concerto in D major op.3 no.2. Naumann: Violin Concerto in A major. Sirmen: Violin Concerto in B flat major op.3 no.1. Stratico: Violin Concerto in D major

Catalogue number: DYNAMIC CDS8041

Črtomir Šiškovič continues his long-standing Tartini-based project with this programme of four concertos by pupils of the maestro. His performances are technically assured, substantially accurate and tonally refined and incorporate imaginative extempore ornamentation; but his cadenzas for the concertos by Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, Angelo Morigi and Johann Gottlieb Naumann are of variable substance and historical fidelity.

Moreover, as noted in my review of Vol.2 (see June 2022), his consistent habit of emphasising the pulse with quasi-martelé articulations, as in the Classical march-like opening movements of Sirmen and Michele Stratico’s works, hampers meaningful phrase-shaping and fragments the overarching melodic lines. The somewhat tedious, mannered effects are intensified by the sparse, uneventful accompaniments written for the solo sections of these concertos’ outer movements; and Šiškovič only rarely realises Tartini’s concept of instrumental cantabile in the slow movements. His expressive rendering of the central Adagio of Stratico’s work is a notable exception.

Šiškovič’s (and Dynamic’s) mission to revive neglected pieces from manuscript sources is of significant historical interest, but, somewhat perversely, his account of Sirmen’s concerto snubs history and omits the orchestral oboes and horns originally prescribed. Recording producer Matjaž Prah laudably brings some unanimity to the spacious recorded sound, captured between 2017 and 2019 in two different venues by three different principal sound engineers.

ROBIN STOWELL