Varna Summer Festival, Bulgaria
The trouble with Paganini and the rest of the cohort of virtuoso violinist composers is that, after a while, a listener’s astonishment gland goes on strike. Having gone ‘wow!’ at the brilliance of the eleven and twelve year-olds, a couple of fifteen year-olds and one player of seventeen, as they rattle off Caprices as if they were tapping out a facebook message, it becomes hard to think sensibly about the music…