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Paganini Sonatas
for Violin and Guitar

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NICOLÒ PAGANINI
1782-1840

Centone di Sonate [M.S. 112]
(Fascicolo pimo)

Sonata prima
1. Introduzione (larghetto)
2. Allegro maestoso (tempo di marcia)
3. Rondoncino (allegro)

Sonata terza
4. Introduzione (prestissimo)
5. Larghetto cantabile

Sonata quarta
6. Adagio cantabile
7. Rondò (andantino allegretto)

Sei Sonate op.3 [M.S.27]
Sonata seconda
8. Adagio (con dolcezza)
9. Andantino (scherzoso)

Sonata sesta
10. Andante (innocentemente)
11. Allegro vivo e spiritoso

Sonata Concertata per violino e chitarra [M.S.2]
12. Allegro spiritoso
13. Adagio assai espressivo
14. Rondeau (allegretto con brio, scherzando)

Sonata a preghiera su un tema dei Mosè [M.S.23]
(Rev. di G.Grano)
15. Introduzione (adagio)
16. Tema (tempo alla marcia)
17. Variazione prima
18. Variazione seconda (allegro)
19. Variazione terza

20. Cantabile in Re maggiore [M.S. 109]

[00:50]
[03:45]
[03:10]

[00:44]
[04:09]

[02:59]
[05:29]

[03:37]
[02:12]

[01:42]
[01:49]

[05:59]
[03:43]
[02:47]

[03:09]
[01:09]
[00:37]
[00:42]
[01:00]

[03:36]

from the CD booklet: The violin and the guitar: the two great passions of
Niccolò Paganini

"There was a man, a Spanish guitarist, who travelled a lot with Paganini: it was before the age of the great official glory of Paganini. The two of them led a sweet vagabonds' life of gypsies, travelling musicians, people without family and without a native country. The two players, violin and guitar, gave concerts wherever they happened to be. For some time they wandered about like this, round different countries."
So goes the legend, in homage to the romantic mythe of the "wanderer", as described in the pamphlet Of wine and of hashish printed by Charles Baudelaire in 1851. This episode, among the many which are glittered by the biographies of Niccolò Paganini, often fluctuating between novel and anecdote, introduces us to the repertory for violin and guitar contained on this disc. The great violinist cultivated such an instrumental partnership, even accomplice, a youthful infatuation for the guitar in the course of his life.
In Niccolò Paganini's musical production the guitar plays a parallel role and is often intermingled with the violin - and has a place of great importance. It is still a mystery open to various conjectures as to how and where Paganini learned the rudiments of this instrument. In actual fact he never alluded to his young apprenticeship on the guitar.

At the same time, we know that he learned the mandoline before the violin from his father as he himself said in the Notice Autobiografique published in Paris in 1830. Already in 1795, at the early age of 13, Paganini publicly performed his first composition for the violin and guitar duo, the Carmagnuola with Variations. It is strange that this first opera and the last two compositions, the Variations on the Barucabà and the Allegro vivace with perpetual motion, both completed in 1835 were seen as a violin and guitar formation - fated proof of the constant favouritism of the Genovese maestro for this instrumental combination. Such a repertoire was perhaps intended for private performances as H. Berlioz reminds us in his influential testimony on Paganini when he wrote in Les Soirèe de l'orchestre: " In other moments when his violin tired him out too much, he took from his bag a collection of duets for violin and guitar composed by himself and in the company of a dignified German violinist Sina, who is still playing professionally in Paris, he played the part of the guitar drawing out extraordinary effects from this instrument. So played the two, Sina, the modest violinist and Paganini, the incomparable guitarist, privately, during the long evenings, without a third person, even the most worthy, would not be allowed to come in." [...]

Giovanni Grano has performed on the guitars: Josè Ramirez 1974 and Kolya Panhuyzen 1994.
Vadim Brodsky has performed on the violin Gennaro Gagliano 1747.

Recorded at Zero Point Recording Studio (Kramsach/Austria) on July 1994
Engineered and produced by: R. Romagna
Cover painting by: Ch. Grederer (Schwaz/Austria)
Artistic Photo by: G. Butturini (Brescia/Italy)
Photo of Paganini violin by the courtesy of Comune di Genova / Italy
Photo of Paganini Guitar by the courtesy of Museè Instrumental / Paris
Paganini original photo by the courtesy of Prof. Settimia Moretti (Conservatory of Pesaro)
Design and layout by: Ch. Grasl and W. Zeindl (Schwaz/Austria)

Contact adress: zero point records
A-6233 Kramsach 216c /Austria
Tel.: (+43)1(0)5337164992

Digital tape and harddisk recorder used during session recording, mixing, editing and mastering.

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Unauthorized copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this record prohibited.
Made in Austria 19934

Manufactured by Sony DADC/Austria

Printed in Austria 1993. Copyright 1993 by zeropoint records, Zeindl & Romagna GnbR/Austria.