The violin at `a thousand miles per hour'.

Byline: Fred Crafts The Register-Guard

NICOLO PAGANINI'S Violin Concerto No. 2 is so breathtakingly virtuosic that Eugene Symphony Orchestra conductor Giancarlo Guerrero simply cannot believe what he is seeing and hearing.

"When I heard this on the recording the first time, I said, `I have to see how that's done,' ' Guerrero recalls.

He got his chance a few years later, when he conducted the work with the Minnesota Orchestra and guest violinist Eugene Fodor, a winner of the Paganini Competition.

"I would be next to him and I would see him play and I would tell him, `Would you please do that again, in slow motion?' ' Guerrero says with a grin.

"When we did this piece in Minnesota four years ago, you could actually hear people in the audience gasp. It's so unbelievable what this guy can do the with the instrument."

Fodor brings exemplary credentials to the project. In 1972, he won first prize in the International Paganini Competition in Italy, and two years later he won the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. In January 1999, he won the Prix European du Soliste.

Fodor has performed for two presidents at the White House. His concert career has taken him to all 50 states and nearly every country in Europe, Africa, Asia, Central and South America.

Guerrero calls him "unreal."

The work they will perform together involves fingering and bowing gymnastics that have bedeviled violinists for two centuries.

Perhaps the greatest violinist who ever lived, Paganini (1782-1840) was such a virtuoso that he found little difficulty in the literature of his time, and he wrote his own pieces to challenge himself. When he did that, he set the bar extremely high for others.

Only a handful of players have been successful with his compositions.

For those such as Fodor who have mastered the piece, the impact can be extraordinary.

"You're there pretty much to see the violinist go up and down the fingerboard at a thousand miles per hour," Guerrero admits, obviously relishing the thought.

Electrifying speed may be the drawing card, but Fodor points out that Paganini also perfected such innovations as "ravishing multiple stopping at dazzling speed, astonishing bow technique, dozens of consecutive rapid plucked notes (left hand pizzicato), fiendishly difficult double harmonics, and expressive, dramatic variation of tonal colors in all registers."

Fodor believes "his fame will never be equaled, and his gift to creative imagination can hardly be fully appreciated. His compositions provided technical solutions which were utilized in nearly every great successive violin concerto."

Still, there are critics who insist that Paganini's music is all style and no substance. Fodor says that is a bogus charge.

"Without a rock-solid basis of rhythmic consistency, it does indeed fall flat," he says. "The tremendous variety of figuration gives way to the impression of technical display only, when passages are not unified with precisely the same tempo. I have heard this often."

However, Fodor says, "Instead of being shallow, as some critics ignorantly characterize Paganini's compositions, these works can be recognized - when played with technical mastery, rhythmic precision, enthusiasm and musical maturity - as powerful resources of inspiration for better interpreting the other great masterpieces of the solo violin repertoire."

Just as Paganini's concerto is a showpiece for the violin, the final movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 is a showpiece for the orchestra.

"It's like a Mack truck, pushing forward with all this energy," Guerrero says. "It's a tour de force. I've heard orchestras crash and burn on that last movement - it's so virtuosic.

"There's an unbelievably difficult part for the clarinet and bassoon that's very, very fast. If you don't have a good clarinetist or bassoon player, you might have to take the symphony at half the tempo you really want to," he says.

Guerrero promises that that will not be the case here, noting that "Mike Anderson (clarinet) and Mike Curtis (bassoon) are tremendous players who are going go be up to the challenge.

"In my tradition of taking things to the limit, I will make sure that we push it as far as we can, tempo-wise."

This is the fourth - and last - Beethoven symphony that Guerrero has programmed this season, the first of a two-year investigation into all of Beethoven's symphonies.

It begins with woodwinds (``very still''), then opens up.

"The second or slow movement is absolutely glorious," Guerrero says.

"It's got one of the most beautiful, lyrical lines he ever wrote. He just captivates you for 10 minutes," Guerrero says.

Then comes a scherzo that Guerrero feels is "almost as if you're riding a horse, and is very funny."

Finally, Beethoven lets it rip at the end.

"I can't wait," he says.

Fred Crafts can be reached at 338-2575 or fcrafts@guardnet .com.

PAGANINI SHOWPIECE

What: Eugene Fodor plays Nicolo Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero; program also includes Richard Wagner's "Rienzi" Overture and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 4

When: 8 p.m. Thursday

Where: Silva Hall, Hult Center, Seventh and Willamette streets

How much: $14 to $38, through the Hult Center box office (682-5000)

Preview: Guerrero will discuss the program in a free lecture at noon Wednesday in the Hult Center's Studio One

Roseburg concert: Thursday 's concert will be repeated at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Umpqua Community College's Jacoby Auditorium (Tickets: 541-672-4320)

GuardLine: To hear the music, call GuardLine at 485-2000, category 3733

CAPTION(S):

Eugene Fodor dismisses those who criticize Nicolo Paganini's music, saying his work offers ``inspiration for better interpreting the other great (violin) masterpieces.'' Violin: Virtuoso defends importance of Paganini's music Continued from Page G3 Virtuoso Eugene Fodor will join the symphony for a Paganini concerto that few have mastered Please turn to VIOLIN, Page G4