Nicolo
Paganini (1782 - 1840)
Violin
Concerto No.1 in D Major, Op. 6
Violin
Concerto No.2 in B Minor, Op. 7
Paganini's
popular reputation rested always on his phenomenal technique as a violinist, coupled with
a showman's ability to dominate an audience and to stupefy those who heard him by
astonishing feats of virtuosity. His playing served as an inspiration to other performers
in the nineteenth century, suggesting to Chopin, in Warsaw, the piano Etudes, and to Liszt
the material of the Paganini studies that he w rote in 1838. The very appearance of
Paganini impressed people. His gaunt aquiline features, his suggestion of hunched
shoulders, his sombre clothing, gave rise to legends of association with the Devil, the
alleged source of his power, an association supported by the frequent appearance by his
side on his travels of his secretary, one Harris, thought by some to be a familiar spirit
or a Mephistopheles watching over his Faust. Stories of a pact with the Devil were denied
by Paganini himself, who, with characteristic understanding of the value of public
relations in a more credulous age, told of an angelic visitation to his mother, in a
dream, foretelling his birth and his genius.
Paganini
was born in Genoa in 1782 and was taught the violin first by his father, an amateur, and
then by a violinist in the theatre orchestra and by the better known violinist Giacomo
Costa, under whose tuition he gave a public performance in 1794. The following year he
played to the violinist and teacher Alessandro Rolla in Parma, and on the latter's
suggestion studied composition there under Paer. After a return to 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 until1828 that he made his
first concert tour abroad, visiting Vienna, Prague and then the major cities of Germany,
followed by Paris and London in 1831. His international career as a virtuoso ended in
1834, when, after an unsatisfactory tour of England, he returned again to Italy, to Parma.
A return to the concert-hall in Nice and then, with considerable success, in Marseilles,
was followed by an unsuccessful business venture in Paris, the Casino Paganini, which was
intended to provide facilities equally for gambling and for music. With increasing ill
health, he retired to Nice, where he died in 1840.
The six
surviving violin concertos of Paganini, part of the stock-in-trade of a travelling
virtuoso, were published posthumously, the last of them relatively recently. In general
they follow the form of the romantic virtuoso concerto as developed by the violinist
Viotti and by Spohr, allowing the soloist music of operatic virtuosity, an opportunity for
technical and musical display. Concerto No.1 in D major,
written, in fact, in E flat major, but generally transposed in performance to D major, was
probably written in 1817, at a time when Paganini was enjoying enormous success in his
native Italy, while arousing jealousy and suspicion in even measure from rival musicians.
The concerto allows the soloist to demonstrate a high degree of technical proficiency,
both in the handling of the bow, with its flying staccato, and in the demands made on the
left hand, at the same time it shows a very Italian gift for melodic invention. Concerto No. 2 in B minor was written in 1826, a year
after the birth of Paganini's only child, Achille Cirio Alessandro, known to his father as
Achillino. In 1823 or 1824 Paganini had met the young singer Antonia Bianchi, who appeared
with him in concerts in these years, but was later induced, for a consideration, to leave
him. Her temper, jealousy and unpredictability caused her partner increasing difficulties.
Both of them appeared, however, in Paganini's first concert in Vienna, given in the
Redoutensaal on 29th March 1828. On this occasion he played his B minor Violin Concerto
and his Napoleon Sonata, a work for the G string of the violin only, and a set of
variations on a rondo from Rossini's opera La
Cenerentola. He made an immediate impression on the Viennese, always eager for
novelty, and a fashion began for anything à la Paganini, whether bread, hats, gloves or
walking-sticks. Paganini stayed four months in Vienna, amazing the public by his
virtuosity and by the price of admission to his concerts. His playing, however, was
appreciated by a more discerning public, and Schubert, now in the last year of his life,
attended three of the concerts, praising Paganini's Adagio, in which, as he said, he heard
an angel sing. There is no doubt that Paganini's music, like his playing, could appeal at
two levels, to the public at large for its miraculous elements of display, and to others
for its clear musical qualities.
Ilya
Kaler
The
Russian violinist Ilya Kaler was born in 1963 in Moscow and studied there at the
Conservatory under Leonid Kogan and Victor Tretyakov. In 1981 he won the Grand Prize at
the Genoa Paganini Competition and in 1985 the Gold Medal at the Sibelius Competition in
Helsinki, with a Special Prize for his performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. The
following year he won the Gold Medal at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition. He has
appeared as a soloist with the most distinguished Russian orchestras and abroad with
orchestras of Eastern and Western Europe and in the United States, while as a recitalist
he has performed in the major cities of Europe, in the Far East and throughout the former
Soviet Union.
The
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Katowice (PNRSO)
The
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Katowice (PNRSO) was founded in 1945, soon
after the end of the second World War, by the eminent Polish conductor Witold Rowicki. The
PNRSO replaced the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which had existed from 1934 to 1939 in
Warsaw, under the direction of another outstanding artist, Grzegorz Fitelberg. In 1947
Grzegorz Fitelberg returned to Poland and became artistic director of the PNRSO. He was
followed by a series of distinguished Polish conductors - Jan Krenz, Bohdan Wodiezko,
Kazimierz Kord, Tadeusz Strugala, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Stanislaw Wislocki and, since 1983,
Antoni Wit. The orchestra has appeared with conductors and soloists of the greatest
distinction and has recorded for Polskie Nagrania and many international record labels.
For Naxos, the PNRSO will record the complete symphonies of Tchaikovsky and Mahler.
Stephen
Gunzenhauser
Stephen
Gunzenhauser, a graduate of Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory, served Igor
Markevich and Leopold Stokowski as assistant conductor before becoming executive and
artistic director of the Wilmington Music School in 1974. In 1979, he became conductor and
music director of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. He records exclusively for Naxos and
Marco Polo and his recordings include works of Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Vivaldi,
Mozart, Gliere, and Liadov. In 1989/90 he recorded all nine Dvorák symphonies with the
Slovak Philharmonic, as well as the three Borodin symphonies with the Slovak Radio
Symphony Orchestra.