Paganini: 24 Caprices, Op. 1

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Cat No: 8550717

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030507173

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: PAGANINI

Description
Nicolo Paganini (1782 - 1840)Twenty-Four Caprices, Op. 1 Paganini's popular reputation rested always on his phenomenaltechnique as a violinist, coupled with a showman's ability to dominate an audience and tostupefy those who heard him by astonishing feats of virtuosity. His playing served as aninspiration to other performers in the nineteenth century, suggesting to Chopin, inWarsaw, the piano Etudes, and to Liszt the material of the Paganini studies that he w rotein 1838. The very appearance of Paganini impressed people. His gaunt aquiline features,his suggestion of hunched shoulders, his sombre clothing, gave rise to legends ofassociation with the Devil, the alleged source of his power, an association supported bythe frequent appearance by his side on his travels of his secretary, one Harris, thoughtby some to be a familiar spirit or a Mephistopheles watching over his Faust. Stories of apact with the Devil were denied by Paganini himself, who, with characteristicunderstanding of the value of public relations in a more credulous age, told of an angelicvisitation to his mother, in a dream, foretelling his birth and his genius.Paganini was born in Genoa in 1782 and was taught the violinfirst by his father, an amateur, and then by a violinist in the theatre orchestra and bythe better known violinist Giacomo Costa, under whose tuition he gave a public performancein 1794. The following year he played to the violinist and teacher Alessandro Rolla inParma, and on the latter's suggestion studied composition there under Paer. After are turnto Genoa and removal during the Napoleonic invasion, he settled in 1801 in Lucca, where,after 1805, he became solo violinist to the new ruler of Lucca, Princess Elisa Baciocchi,sister of Napoleon. At the end of 1809 he left to travel, during the next eighteen years,throughout Italy, winning a very considerable popular reputation. It was not until 1828that he made his first concert tour abroad, visiting Vienna, Prague and then the majorcities of Germany, followed by Paris and London in 1831. His international career as avirtuoso ended in 1834, when, after an unsatisfactory tour of England, he returned againto Italy, to Parma. A return to the concert-hall, in Nice and then, with considerable success, inMarseilles was followed by an unsuccessful business venture in Paris, the Casino Paganini,which was intended to provide facilities equally for gambling and for music. Withincreasing ill health, he retired to Nice, where he died in 1840. Paganini published relatively little of his music, most ofwhich was kept for his own exclusive use during his career as a travelling virtuoso. TheTwenty-Four Caprices for solo violin, however, were published in Milan in 1820 as thecomposer's Opus 1. They were written very much earlier, probably in 1805, the year ofPaganini's first employment under the newly installed Princess Elisa Baciocchi at Lucca.The Caprices are a remarkable compendium of Paganini's technique as a performer, whileavoidi
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