Extremes of Paganini: From the Most Basic to the Most Virtuosic!

Hi friends! I'm SO excited to be talking about one of my favorite - and in my opinion, one of the most underrated! - guitar composers: Niccolò Paganini! (And yes, I called him a guitar composer )

Perhaps worth noting is that a few days after this livestream, it is both Paganini's and my own birthday - that's right, we share a birthday on October 27th 

Paganini is widely recognized as the first "star violinist" - one of the earliest musicians in Western history to achieve international recognition as a touring virtuoso. As such, it might come as a surprise to some that he was also an avid guitarist. Having started to play guitar later in life, he found it a challenging instrument, and has been quoted as saying "I am the master of the violin, yet the 6-stringed instrument is my master". His solo guitar output is quite different to his violin oeuvre; it is characterized by the distinct simplicity of its musical character and technical requirements.

 

His 37 Sonatas, written originally for guitar, paint the picture of a very different artist than his violin works. While they are great treasures of the early modern guitar repertoire, they remain largely unperformed in concerts, perhaps due to their perceived technical simplicity. They represent a wonderful learning opportunity for intermediate students and can function as an incredible playground of musical expression for more advanced players. In the first half of this livestream, Head of Guitar Mircea Gogoncea will go over some of the possibilities for enriching this music with our own creativity while staying true to style.

 

At the opposite end of the difficulty spectrum lie the transcriptions of his violin works for the guitar. Already challenging on the instrument they were originally written for, his 24 Capricci require peak technical form to be performed convincingly on the guitar. In the second half of the livestream, Mircea will use Capriccio 5 and 24 to exemplify how to approach Paganini's intensely virtuosic works. He will go over how to choose an appropriate transcription, working directly with the violin manuscript, finding fingerings that work under all circumstances, and tackling the gargantuan challenge of practicing these pieces to achieve peak form.

We are going to be using this thread to gather suggestions and questions!

• What questions do you have on this topic?
• Any particular area you would like me to focus on?