Nicolò Paganini was music’s first superstar. His career as a violinist was attended by inflated concert prices, mass enthusiasm, even hysteria, rumours of supernatural powers, a pact with the devil, all supported by a superb violin technique, a capacity for daring innovation and a genuine musical gift. All very unlike the quiet life of a classical guitarist.

Yet Paganini was a guitarist too, and a very good one. He wrote: ‘I love the guitar for its harmony; it is my constant companion in all my travels’. He also said, on another occasion, ‘I do not like this instrument, but regard it simply as a way of helping me to think’. It is not a real contradiction: even the most constant of companions can be irritating at times. He chose not to exploit the guitar in the same way as he exploited the violin. Had he done so, the advances in technique the guitar has seen during the last two or three generations might have