Niccolo Paganini - The Legend

Niccolo Paganini - the legend. Paganini lived from 1782 - 1840. He came from a family of amateur musicians, so he was pretty well rounded in many different musical instruments, nevertheless, it was the violin that captured his fancy the most.

Paganini had a questionable career, even accused by some as having served a prison sentence - also numerous love affairs.... Nevertheless, he was idolized throughout the Romantic Period by many composers, some much greater than himself (as a composer - figuratively speaking). Ironically enough, Liszt said in his youth that he wanted to be as great on the piano as Paganini was on the violin, and a great deal of people agree that there has been no one greater on the piano than Liszt. Why did not Liszt say that he wanted to be as great as Beethoven or Weber were at the piano? These two composers were exceptionally gifted pianists, so why not. Well, Liszt saying that he wanted to be as great on the piano as Paganini was on the fiddle, just goes to show you how exceptionally gifted and great Paganini was on the violin; Paganini was also an exceptionally gifted violist and guitarist, and wrote music for both of these instruments. Liszt, to put his money where his mouth was, after it had been deciphered that he was greater than even Sigismond Thalberg at the piano and, finally took his title as Europe’s greatest pianist of all times; Liszt transcribed Paganini’s famous violin piece “La Campanella” for piano and by doing so, started a following amongst many future composers and pianists to come....

Liszt started a Paganini cult, whereby many composers and pianists after him would come into contact with Paganini’s compositions in some form or another. Schumann, Brahms, Rachmaninoff - even Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote variations on the music of Paganini.

As a composer, Paganini was less than impressive, though not totally without merit either. He wrote many concertos, as well as other compositions. Paganini’s instruments were: violin, viola, guitar and mandolin, and he wrote compositions for all of them. And in fact, wrote very unusual quartets for his time. Throughout the Baroque and Classical eras, most string quartets were made up of: 2 violins, 1 viola, and 1 cello. Paganini, being intuitive as he was, decided to replace one of the 2 violins and put a guitar instead, something rarely if ever done before, or even after him. In Paganini’s time, the violin was considered to be amongst one of the finest musical instruments ever built, even superior to the piano by some authorities. The guitar was below par (facetiously speaking of course, because the guitar is a very great musical instrument, and there are many fine classical guitarists today....), and few if anyone would have pitted one against a violin. So, the Paganini quartets were futuristic and quite enlightened, to say the very least....

Marfan Syndrome is a genetic disorder which Paganini suffered from (and supposedly Rachmaninoff as well). People with this disorder usually have very large fingers and furthermore, are unusually tall. Paganini’s very large hands and fingers allowed him to do things which other violinists were not able to do in his day, such as complicated passages and unusual multiple stops. To better explain what a stop on the violin is - even if you don’t know how to play the piano, for example - you can stand in front of one and play two notes at the same time (i.e., white keys), one note with your right hand and the other note with your left hand - fairly easy - virtually anyone can do that. Well, on the violin, this is known as a stop and, it’s not easy. Most people that start to learn how to play violin, don’t even learn how to do stops until a few months after. The only way you can play two notes on the violin is to hold one string (one note), and then hold another string (other note). Triple and quadruple stops (three and four notes at the same time) are very difficult - Paganini did this with as much ease as Liszt could stretch a 12th on the piano, hence making Paganini a virtuoso force to reckon with - all of this because of Marfan Syndrome....

Here's the great Shlomo Mintz performing one of the Paganini Concertos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfRTqAq0Yog&feature=related

Here's some guitar music of Paganini: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58wuYxf1WC0

A Paganini guitar quartet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkfZ_zpSSwc