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Paganini: Violin Concertos 2 & 5 Music for string instruments is often felt to be calming, enchanting and romantic. Eurydice fell for the charms of Orpheus as he sung and played on his lyre, and David played on the harp to dispel the evil thoughts of King Saul. In many operas and plays, a lover performs a serenade for his beloved, playing skilfully on a guitar or mandolin which appears out of the blue as if by a wave of a magic wand. As far back as the Middle Ages, however, evil powers were attributed to some string instruments. Central to the Danse macabre, for example, is the possessed fiddler, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for diabolical musical skills. Stories like these also went around about the great 19th-century violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini. From his very first and spectacular appearance, the eleven-year-old prodigy took Italy and the rest of Europe by storm. Paganini’s success as a violin virtuoso was due to his mysterious and diabolical appearance and to his unparalleled technique, with countless double stoppings, flageolets, pizzicatos, and pieces played on the low G string. A Viennese critic was adamant that on stage next to Paganini he had seen the devil wielding his bow. In almost all accounts of Paganini, including more matter-of-fact and recent reports, the term ‘wizard’ crops up time and time again. On paper, one can hardly imagine just how difficult the music is; in practice, it is the exclusive domain of just a few exceptionally gifted violinists. It is tempting to attribute the fact that the whole of Europe lay at Paganini’s feet to mass hysteria, as has often been claimed. But among those hysterics were no mere mortals: Schubert, Goethe, Rossini, Chopin, Schumann, Meyerbeer, Liszt and Berlioz. Schumann, who for years was in doubt about whether to become a musician or a man of letters, finally decided to be a composer after witnessing Paganini’s performance at Frankfurt am Main in 1829. And after a concert in Paris, Franz Liszt, completely off his stroke, withdrew from the world and could not be traced for weeks. Frustrated about his own technique and piano-playing, after Paganini’s confronting recital he worked like a maniac to achieve pianistic perfection. Indeed, after having been in retreat for weeks on end, the young Liszt’s piano-playing was completely transformed. Inspired by Paganini’s example, he had developed entirely new technical skills. When Paganini died in 1840, Liszt wrote a poignant obituary in some of the most moving pages ever written by one composer about another. He described Paganini as the inimitable
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‘king of the arts’, whose performance captivated the listener and caused such a sensation that the audience was not satisfied with a ‘natural’ explanation. Paganini’s fourth string, on which he brought forth the most stunning melodies, was said to be made from the guts of his wife, who, it was claimed, he had murdered with his very own hands. It is thanks to Liszt’s admiration for the violin phenomenon from Genoa that we are able to enjoy his Paganini studies, and in particular ‘La campanella’, after Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.2. Schumann even wrote two series of Paganini studies, and Brahms composed the notorious Variations on a Theme by Paganini op.35, known as the ‘Witch’ Variations. Brahms borrowed the theme from the last of the 24 Caprices op.1 by Paganini. Variations on the same theme were written by Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Boris Blacher and Witold Lutoslawski, to mention just a few examples of Paganini’s influence on the course of music history. Naturally, Paganini’s success as a violin virtuoso was due only partly to the incredible, mysterious and diabolical atmosphere which surrounded him. What impressed admirers among his professional contemporaries was his unrivalled technique. Much of Paganini’s musical and technical ability was written down for posterity in his 24 Caprices op.1, dating from 1817, which to our day is seen as the bible of violin technique. All of Paganini’s works for violin and orchestra were composed for his own use, and he put them away in safekeeping in his storage cupboard. Most of his music was not published until after his death, and some only in recent decades. Of his six violin concertos, the second has been the best known from the very outset by reason of the last movement, known as ‘La campanella’ (the little bell). In Paganini’s time it was a real hit and was published immediately in transcriptions called galops, waltzes and fantasias for the piano, the most famous one of all being by Franz Liszt. Paganini wrote this concerto in 1826, after the birth of his only son Achillino. The virtuoso gave a concert with the mother of this child, the young and temperamental singer Antonia Bianchi, in the Viennese Redoutensaal on 29 March 1828, on which occasion he played this Second Violin Concerto. The audience was breathless, and nothing short of a Paganini rage was sparked off, with hats, gloves and walking sticks to match. Franz Schubert, who was to die on 19 November of the same year, attended three of the virtuoso’s concerts. He was full of admiration for Paganini’s slow movement in which he ‘heard an angel singing’. 훿 Clemens Romijn, 2009 /
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