{"id":3172,"date":"2020-09-08T15:05:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T20:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/?p=3172"},"modified":"2022-02-02T13:28:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T19:28:02","slug":"niccolo-paganini-1782-1840-the-guitar-behind-the-violin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/niccolo-paganini-1782-1840-the-guitar-behind-the-violin\/","title":{"rendered":"Niccol\u00f2 Paganini (1782-1840) \u2013 The Guitar Behind The Violin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Pascal Proust<\/h2>\n\n
\"A

A portrait of Paganini playing his Stradivarius<\/p><\/div>\n\n

Niccol\u00f2 Paganini (whose first name is also spelled Nicol\u00f2 or Nicolo) is definitely one of the greatest musicians of all time, first renowned as an outstanding violin virtuoso and a tremendous entertainer on stage, but also as an innovative and creative artist who inspired lots of musicians and artists beyond the boundaries of the violin world. His 24 Caprices for solo violin remain his most famous works and are certainly among the most challenging works ever written for violin. There is no doubt that Paganini was a gifted musician, with a unique technique and a remarkable charisma, making him an unrivaled virtuoso of the violin. Besides his talent for the violin, he also played the guitar, for which he showed a lot of interest as he composed many pieces for this instrument. However, even if Paganini is first remembered as a great violin performer and composer, his guitar works do deserve to be brought to the foreground. [Caprices written for guitar Vol 1<\/a> and Vol 2<\/a>]<\/p>\n

By the turn of 19th century, and quite all along Paganini\u2019s life, the guitar was a very trendy instrument, which was particularly en vogue in bourgeoisie and aristocracy in Europe. The lutherie of the instrument evolved to look almost like the modern classical guitar, equipped with six strings but with a tinier body (today, this type of guitar is called romantic guitar). The guitar became more powerful, more expressive and its playing techniques, notation and tuition improved. Therefore, it became one of the instruments of a “good education” \u2013 which could be a reason why Paganini learned how to play it as a child along with the violin. All these new qualities and features changed the guitar into a charming and entertaining solo instrument, largely thanks to great guitar virtuosos at the time such as Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, Ferdinando Carulli, Matteo Carcassi or Dionisio Aguado.<\/p>\n\n

Illustrations from La Guitaromanie<\/p><\/div>\n\n

Paganini was brought up in a modest family of music enthusiasts in Genoa, Italy (Republic of Genoa at the time). Little Niccol\u00f2 started studying music on the mandolin at the age of 5, taught by his father, Antonio Paganini, a docker running a shipping business and also an amateur mandolin and violin player. Due to his son\u2019s remarkable abilities for music, Antonio Paganini decided to teach him the violin two years later. 7-year-old Niccol\u00f2 may have had no consciousness of his outstanding gift for this instrument, and he had no choice but to obey anyway. Indeed, his father was an avaricious, austere and severe man who forced his talented son to study and practice the violin more than enough for a young child. Besides, due to the Paganinis\u2019 financial troubles as the family was struggling to run his trading business properly, Antonio Paganini put all his hopes into his gifted son in order to make him a professional violin virtuoso. But he would be rapidly outrun by his little prodigy. “When I attained my seventh year, my father, whose ear was unmusical but who was nevertheless passionately fond of music, gave me my elementary lessons on the violin; in a very few months, I was able to play all manner of compositions at sight” Niccol\u00f2 Paganini would state later, remembering his childhood. After two years of home lessons, lots of tutors followed one another, many of them being unable to teach the young Paganini the usual way, feeling kind of overwhelmed by his highly advanced abilities. There is no actual evidence the young Niccol\u00f2 studied the guitar at that time. However, it seems that he certainly did as music tuition included the study of various instruments besides the main one, in order to learn matters such as harmony and composition for example, and as the guitar was part of good education. What is sure is that the young virtuoso was bound to favor the violin anyway, although he wouldn\u2019t leave the guitar aside in the long run as a performer and a composer.<\/p>\n\n

\"Small

Small violin on which Niccol\u00f2 Paganini studied<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n

Paganini\u2019s precocity for music was due to a brilliant intellect but also to uncommon physical skills. He had indeed morphological predispositions as his hands were extraordinarily flexible. This characteristic, in addition to his fragile health all along his life, have made many people think Paganini may have actually suffered from Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the body\u2019s connective tissue, and some symptoms of which are ligament hyperlaxity and highly flexible joints. Besides, it seems Paganini had also a very accurate hearing. Therefore, despite his weak condition, the young Paganini took advantage from his intellectual and physical abilities in order to develop an outstanding virtuosity very early. His skinny and pale appearance \u2013 probably due to Marfan syndrome too \u2013 made him look somewhat intriguing and attractive on stage. By the way, compared to the guitar, the violin would then be a better concert instrument than the guitar, strengthening Paganini\u2019s stage character, allowing him to move around to capture the audience even more.<\/p>\n\n

\"This

This image of Paganini is not a true Daguerr\u00e9otype<\/p><\/div>\n\n

Nevertheless, during his concerts, Paganini played the guitar along with the violin very often as a soloist or in duet, in particular with Italian guitarist Luigi Legnani (1790-1877) \u2013 who was also called \u201cthe Paganini of the guitar\u201d by the way. Paganini and Legnani met in Genoa in 1835 and performed a few concerts together. Both were very much acquainted as Paganini composed his Grand Sonata (MS 3) in A major for guitar with violin accompaniment, which he dedicated to Legnani. This piece in three movements is certainly one of Paganini\u2019s most relevant guitar works, in which the guitar is brilliantly leading, discreetly accompanied by simple violin parts. This feature allowed Paganini and Legnani to swap their instruments in concert in order to perform this piece: as a basic violinist, Legnanani could then easily accompany his friend playing the guitar.<\/p>\n\n

\"One

One of the numerous caricatures of Paganini playing the violin.<\/p><\/div>\n\n

The guitar part of this Grand Sonata<\/a> is rich, complex, technically demanding, and requires some mastery to perform it. Therefore, as Paganini used to play it, this shows us that he was indeed a very good guitarist too. Of course, although he may not have reached the same virtuosity as on the violin, there is no doubt he had great skills for the guitar to play it at quite a high level.<\/p>\n\n

\"Luigi

Luigi Legnani (1790-1877).<\/p><\/div>\n\n

In addition to stage performance, Paganini also showed an obvious interest for the guitar given the very large number of the works he composed for this instrument. Though most of his pieces for guitar solo are somewhat simple, his Grand Sonata along with all his chamber music works for guitar and strings are definitely brilliant and worth the interest.<\/p>\n

Once Paganini passed away, the craze for the guitar declined dramatically. Guitar concerts were less and less organized, and even guitar sheet music was getting rare as many publishers were no longer interested in pieces for this instrument. Moreover, after Paganini\u2019s death in 1840 in Nice, France, the manuscripts of his guitar works were given to the Italian government, who kept this collection locked in for many years. But, even if Paganini\u2019s guitar works were shelved for a very long while, they did survive him however.<\/p>\n\n

\"Manuscript

Manuscript fragment of guitar pieces written by Paganini.<\/p><\/div>\n\n

If we look at his full list of works, we can notice that Paganini actually wrote a lot of compositions comprising the guitar. Among the 134 opuses listed in Moretti and Sorrento\u2019s catalog (MS numbering from Catalogo tematico delle musiche di Niccol\u00f2 Paganini, Genoa, 1982) 77 of them include the guitar, totalizing more than 200 pieces for solo guitar, mandolin and guitar, violin and guitar, and guitar and strings. Paganini\u2019s passion for the guitar was genuine besides his works, as shown for instance by his Jean-Nicolas Grobert guitar given to his friend, famous French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) after Paganini passed away. Berlioz played the guitar too \u2013 \u201cThe guitar is a small orchestra\u201d he wrote in his famous book Trait\u00e9 d\u2019instrumentation et d\u2019orchestration \u2013 and admired Paganini very much.<\/p>\n\n

\"Guitar

Guitar that belonged to Paganini and then to Berlioz, made by Jean-Nicolas Grobert (1794-1866) in Paris, France, ca. 1830. Mus\u00e9e de la musique of Paris. Photos by Richard Lambert.<\/p><\/div>\n\n

In 1866, Berlioz gave this guitar \u2013 autographed by Paganini and himself \u2013 to the Mus\u00e9e instrumental du Conservatoire of Paris and is now displayed in the Mus\u00e9e de la musique of the French capital city, among lots of prestigious and remarkable period guitars. Nowadays, most of Paganini\u2019s guitar works are reissued by publishers and a lot of guitarists keep performing and recording them. For sure, guitar music composed by Niccol\u00f2 Paganini is very much far from being left over behind his violin virtuosity, to our greatest delight.<\/p>\n

“The violin is my mistress, but the guitar is my master.” \u2013 Niccol\u00f2 Paganini.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
 <\/p>\n

\n\n
\"Pascal

Pascal Proust<\/p><\/div>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

Mainly slef-taught, Pascal Proust (b. 1974) started to play the guitar around the age of 6, with his father\u2019s classical guitar, on which he learns his first chords. Around the age of 14, he gets to learn the guitar more seriously, through all the ranges of this instrument, on acoustic and electric guitars, while going deeper in the learning of music theory and harmony with various books. All along his teenage he studies lots of styles of music like blues, jazz, rock, folk music, and then discovers ragtime and Latin-American music later on. Years later, thanks to composers such as Heitor Villa-Lobos and Ernesto Nazareth, he decides to focus mainly on classical music and classical guitar. Beyond playing the guitar, Pascal Proust is fond of transcribing and arranging, and besides music he has also worked in electronics and now teaches English for aeronautics. Since December 2015, Pascal Proust has been writing reviews for French magazine Guitare Classique, and he also has three books of arrangements for guitar published by \u00c9ditions L\u2019Empreinte M\u00e9lodique : Scott Joplin \u2013 Trois ragtimes (2018, transcriptions for three guitars) and Ernesto Nazareth \u2013 Trois tangos de Janeiro (2019, transcriptions for solo guitar, performed in concert by French guitarist Nicolas Lestoquoy) and Scott Joplin \u2013 Trois Valses (2020, transcriptions for solo guitar).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Pascal Proust Niccol\u00f2 Paganini (whose first name is also spelled Nicol\u00f2 or Nicolo) is definitely one of the greatest musicians of all time, first renowned as an outstanding violin virtuoso and a tremendous entertainer on stage, but also as an innovative and creative artist who inspired lots of musicians and artists beyond the boundaries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sheet-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3172"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3293,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3172\/revisions\/3293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}