24 AMERICAN CAPRICES | GRAMOPHONE - REVIEW

STEWART 24 American Caprices

August 2026

By Donald Rosenberg

Curtis Stewart is something of a 21st-century Nicolò Paganini: virtuoso violinist and composer, and now creator of a collection inspired by his 19th-century Italian predecessor.

The pleasure of these capricious works lies partly in the ways Stewart salutes the sources and then takes the material in surprising directions while employing every violin technique in the book.

Each of the performers is an exceptional violin champion who appears to find Stewart’s demands all in a day’s work. But these artists go well beyond acrobatics to pinpoint the eloquent substance at the heart of the music. Among the moving creations, and the album’s most expansive selection, is Amazing Grace, inspired by the hymn with verses attributed to the 18th-century British poet and clergyman John Newton and later a favourite in the US. As played by the astonishing Maxwell Brown, who was 14 at the time of recording, the piece speaks volumes for the expressive power a solo violin can command, even amid gazillions of notes.