Paganini theme opens Pro Musica Series
By B. K. Lake, Sept 29, 2006

Pro Musica Concerts, Violinist Joseph Gold Saturday & Sunday, September 30 & October 1, 5pm St. Paul’s Church, Cardo 6, 150/50 pesos

Violinist Joseph Gold, a leading interpreter of Romantic music compositions, will present a program with the theme “Paganini, His Friends and Competitors,” at the September 30 premiere concert of the season in the Pro Musica series.

Gold will play five works by Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840), considered one of the all-time great violinists who also composed a series of sonatas, caprices, concerts, string quartets and numerous guitar works. The Paganini compositions will be “Duetto Amoroso,” the adagio from Concerto No. 4, “Sonata No. 1,” “Cantabile in D Major” and “Inno Patriottico.”

Gold also will perform the “Sonata in G Minor” by Pietro Locatelli, an 18th-century child prodigy; Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 5” (the Spring Sonata); “Andante Cantabile” by Camillo Sivon, a pupil of Paganini; and the adagio from the Concerto Militaire by Karol Lipinski, a Polish virtuoso violinist and composer. Lipinski performed with Paganini and was considered his only serious rival.

On October 1, Gold will open with “The Devil’s Trill Sonata” by Giuseppe Tartini, a piece considered difficult even today because of its demanding double-stop trills. An 18th-century violinist and composer, Tartini is said to have started playing the violin when he was 18 and to have hidden in a convent in Padua to escape prosecution for abduction after marrying an older woman who was the favorite of a powerful cardinal.

Ignace Jan Paderewski was an immensely popular pianist for several decades before World War I and also became a diplomat and politician, serving as the prime minister of the newly independent Poland in 1919. Gold will play Paderewski’s “Sonata in A Minor.” 

Next on the program will be the Concerto in the Style of Vivaldi by Fritz Kreisler, born in 1875, whose several pieces for violin in the style of famous composers originally were attributed to Vivaldi, Tartini and others.

“Kol Nidre” is one of more than 200 compositions by Max Bruck, most of them in the German romantic tradition of the 19th century. Gold will close with three compositions by Henri Wieniawski, a 19th-century Polish composer and violinist: “Gigue,” “Mazurka” and “Grand Duo Polenaise,” the latter written with his brother Joseph, a pianist. 

Accompanying Gold will be pianist Miles Graber, who has performed with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Camilla Wicks and Sarah Chang and accompanied master classes by Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg and other noted soloists. 

Tickets are available at La Conexión, Aldama 3; Sierra Nevada Hotel, Hospicio 46; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; and St. Paul’s Church office, weekdays between 11am and 2pm. The number to call for reservations during the same hours is 152-0387. Tickets may be purchased at the door one hour before each concert.

Paganini profile
By Randy Harriman

If you think rock stars—with their groupies, bizarre costuming, satanic associations and oversold concerts full of crazed fans—are products of the late 20th century, think again.

In Genoa, Italy, in 1782, violinist Niccolò Paganini was born, and it was he who became the first of a long line of performers who relied at least in part on legend, shocking personal revelations and special effects to pack his concerts.

It is said that when he played lyric passages, women swooned and men wept, and when he played technically demanding passages, one audience member swore that he saw Satan himself at Paganini’s elbow.

There are, of course, great differences between the Italian violinist and his 20th- and 21st-century rock counterparts: he performed solo, he could actually play beautiful music on his instrument (unlike many of today’s three-chord wonders) and he did not, as far as we know, smash any instruments on stage.

So who was this Paganini character, where did he come from, and what’s the secret of his somewhat scandalous success?

Niccolò was one of six children born to Teresa and Antonio Paganini, the latter described by some as a mediocre mandolin player. Mediocre or not, papa Paganini taught the instrument to little Niccolò. Recognizing his son’s musical talents, he insisted that the boy, at the age of seven, begin taking violin lessons.

When Niccolò was 12 or 13, he was sent to Parma for instruction from professional teachers, but they said there was nothing more they could teach him.

Paganini began his professional concert career at around the same time, and success was hard on him. He started drinking and gambling (lifelong preoccupations) and pursuing—and being pursued by—women (ditto).

Finally, it got to the point at which, when the violinist was around the age of 20, a woman took him to her estate, where he spent three years recovering, perfecting his skills on the violin and learning to play the guitar. 

After Paganini emerged from his self-imposed isolation he began touring in earnest: a six-and-a-half-year tour that took him all over the continent and to England and Scotland as well. His tours brought him great wealth, but his gambling, drinking, womanizing and generally extravagant spending kept him on the brink of bankruptcy. 

On one occasion he was forced to pawn his violin. With a concert coming up, he asked a wealthy French merchant if he could borrow the Guarnerius instrument that the merchant owned. The Frenchman agreed, and then, after hearing the young Italian play, told him to just keep the violin. (At the time of his death, Paganini owned 11 Stradivari, two Amati and four Guarneri violins as well as a Stradivarius cello and double bass—rather like having a garage full of Maseratti, Mercedes-Benz and Rolls Royce automobiles.)

Paganini’s technical skills were fearsome, and they enabled him to employ techniques that, although unattainable by other violinists of his day, were to become part of the standard tools of those who followed. Techniques such as detuning one or more strings on the instrument; “ricochet” bowing, in which the bow is bounced rapidly on the strings; left- and right-hand plucking of the strings (“pizzicato”); playing on multiple strings at the same time; and playing a whole piece using just one string—all these and more were part of his bag of tricks.

Oddly enough, the thing that made such digital dexterity possible for Paganini was an affliction, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, that loosened the cartilage in his joints, giving his hands enormous flexibility and “stretch.”

As if superb playing weren’t enough, Paganini was a savvy showman and was quite willing to exploit his satanic reputation. He would arrive at concerts in a black carriage pulled by black horses. Clad in black, he would appear on stage late, flip his long black mane and begin to play—from memory, which was unheard of at the time and regarded as further evidence of his close ties to the Devil.

By 1828, when he had lost all of his teeth (one of those little 19th-century things we don’t often think about), his devilish look was further heightened by his sunken cheeks.

Paganini was a composer as well as performer, producing, among other pieces, 12 sonatas for violin and guitar; six violin concertos; six quartets for violin, viola, cello and guitar; and his best-known composition, the fiendishly difficult “24 Caprices.” 

Some musicians say that the orchestral parts he wrote to accompany the solo violin are too simple, but the composer knew which part he wanted to shine, and it was not that of the orchestra!

After 1834, Paganini made few public appearances, but he continued to play the violin privately. Some reports have it that he could be heard improvising on his instrument the night before his death from cancer of the larynx on May 27, 1840.

One commentator has compared Paganini’s impact on the 1830s musical scene to that of the Beatles in the 1960s, and then goes on to say that perhaps the violinist’s career more closely resembles that of Elvis Presley, whose popularity waned in his later years but whose influence continues to the present day.

Whatever his reputation, Niccolò Paganini single-handedly created the idea, the image and a large proportion of the standard skill set of today’s virtuoso violinists, and for that we owe him a great debt of gratitude, whether or not he really did sell his soul to the Devil.

Randy and his wife Suzie, and their two cats, split their time between San Miguel and Austin, Texas. He was the program director of Austin's classical music station, KMFA, but has since retired from that and currently writes classical music preview articles for the Austin American-Statesman.








Heart without borders

Concert by Francisco Martínez “Heart Without Borders”, Saturday, October 7, 7:30pm Teatro Santa Ana, Reloj 50, 80 pesos

Accompanied by his guitar and keyboard, bohemian musician Francisco Martínez presents his new musical production “Corazón sin Fronteras” (Heart Without Borders), also the name of his latest CD. A nomadic musician for over 20 years, Martínez has traveled and sung through a number of countries, including Canada, the United States, Portugal and Germany. His vagabond experience has taught him that music as well as love and romance are universal. His concert last year here in San Miguel was a great success, and in this program of 18 songs he performs such classic romantic pieces as “I Giorni dell’Arcobaleno” by Nicola Di Bari from Italy, “Anita’s Song” by John Denver and “Eu quero amigus” (I Want Friends) by Roberto Carlos from Brazil, along with some great folkloric-romantic Mexican pieces.