Interview, María Dueñas on Caprices

María Dueñas's recording of caprices by Paganini and others scooped our Recording of the Week back in mid-February; the combination of a sure-footed and fearless approach to Paganini's technical Himalayas with some delightful choices for the second disc (a varied selection of other composers' works in the same mould) made a real impression on the team here at Presto, and we weren't the only ones; our friends at Gramophone chose it as their Recording of the Month, praising Dueñas's 'multicoloured lyrical imagination'.

Not surprisingly, we were excited to be able to talk to this fast-rising powerhouse of a musician about what went into the mix for her Caprices album - musically and figuratively - and about her friendship with the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz.

What made you want to record Paganini’s Caprices, and why now?

Well, after the Beethoven concerto I wanted to do something quite different, but still presenting myself and what's important to me. So I was thinking about what works would have a personal connection to my career and how I started the violin.

The Paganini Caprices are absolutely one of the basics for any violinist, and I'd played many of them at competitions, and also just for myself, to help me perfect some areas of technique. So I thought it would be something very different yet at the same time still very close to myself.

Didn't Paganini write them for himself as personal challenges, and only later come to publish them? And it sounds like you've been using them in a similar way...

Yes, for sure - he wrote them for himself and for his friends. But nowadays when you play the Caprices at a competition or at any concert (people also play some as encores), it's important to have a different approach. It's not the same, playing them just for yourself and then playing them for an audience. So I tried to highlight this musical aspect of them as well, not just the technical.

The obvious thing that’s different about them, compared to a concerto, is that they’re unaccompanied. What’s it like to perform pieces like this where you’re completely alone?

It's a very different feeling; when you play with an orchestra there are so many factors that are involved - the way of playing, the presence of the audience (I recorded the Beethoven live). But in this case I recorded the Paganini in a studio, so it's more a question of finding the inspiration within yourself. It's a very concentrated process and a very focused one. It was a lot of work, but I came to understand a lot of aspects of how I play - it was a kind of artistic evolution.

Presumably you would normally try to react to the audience quite a lot when you're playing?

Definitely. I was asked if I would rather make the recording in a studio or in a concert, and of course a concert is much riskier. You have far fewer chances to get it right, but  the audience's company makes a difference. Particularly in the Beethoven concerto there are these moments where you can hear they're all holding their breath and are paying as much attention to the music as you are - so in a studio that would have been a very different recording.

What do you think it is about that famous final caprice that has made it such an attractive starting-point for so many sets of variations on its theme?

I don't know, but it's interesting. Paganini took many years to finish the Caprices, so maybe (assuming he wrote them chronologically) in the final one there's a sense of culmination of the whole set. I always think of it as resembling the life of a person - you go through so many different phases and emotions.

But also I think the fact that it's such a simple theme is part of it - while somehow at the same time having a very mature mood to it. Almost sacred.

Can you tell us a little about your connection with the composer Gabriela Ortiz (whose concerto Altar de cuerda was dedicated to you, and whose De cuerda y madera, likewise written for this album, you’re performing here)?

It was a very natural connection; it was the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel who commissioned this concerto for me, and that's how it started. It was a very difficult time - we were in the middle of COVID, so I never managed to meet her before playing the concerto. Everything was online, and she would send me passages of the music.

It was a great collaboration. I think we have very similar personalities and similar roots - she's from Mexico and I'm from Spain - and we really connected very well right from the beginning. The concerto showcases so many aspects of our culture, as well as of the violin in general. So for this album, as well as the Paganini Caprices which are of course the main point, I wanted to have some other caprices. People normally associate the word with more pieces than just the Paganini. I wanted some contemporary pieces like this one from Gabriela, so it was the perfect opportunity to show what she could do in a shorter piece.

Alongside the Paganini and Ortiz, the album features caprices by Berlioz, Kreisler, Saint-Saëns, Sarasate, Wieniawski and Jordi Cervelló. Are there musical aspects that you find are common to them all?

Yes - for me this word 'capricho' has a very important meaning. In Spanish it means something like giving yourself a kind of treat - or some freedom. It doesn't have the same sense of unseriousness as 'capricious' has in English - it's more like taking a liberty, an improvisatory character. And that's something that unites all the caprices - you can experiment so much and you can be really free. They're not very structured pieces, in a sense - there are so many possibilities. They're a bit more like fantasias - that's something that they all have in common.

Can you tell us anything about your future recording plans?

I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say...! I'm interested in some lesser-known violin concertos, as well as pieces for violin solo and violin with piano, so... we'll see!