Itzhak Perlman has been one of the world's most recognizable violinists for nearly 70 years, and this collection gives a nice overview of his legacy in the form of his complete RCA and Columbia recording output. (He has made recordings on other labels over the years, too.) Technically, he is, of course, brilliant throughout, and musically he is wonderful when he is doing solo material or in many of the duets. The early work which largely contributed to his growing fame, alas, was done with collaborators who were, to be 100% frank, not in the same musical league as him. Nay, they're not even playing the same sport. This situation contributes to the collection being uneven. No matter, the good outweighs the bad considerably and the collection is well worth listening to.

This month's CCM is the last minute or so of the brilliant firecracker of a work from classical one-hit-wonder, Antonio Bazzini, his La Ronde des lutins. The work, delivered in a dazzling performance, features a slew of showing-off techniques including, among others, rapid double-stop passages, flurries of harmonics, spiccato, and blistering left-hand pizzicato. Sometimes several of these come one after another, such as in this month's excerpt.