Carla paganini biography

His violin technique, based on that of his works, principally the Capricci, the violin concertos, and the sets of variations, demanded a wide use of harmonics and pizzicato effects, new methods of fingering and even of tuning. In performance he improvised brilliantly. He was also a flamboyant showman who used trick effects such as severing one or two violin strings and continuing the piece on the remaining strings.

Carla paganini biography

His other works include 6 violin concertos, of which the first, in D major, is especially popular; 12 sonatas for violin and guitar; and 6 quartets for violin, viola, cello, and guitar. The influence of his virtuosity extended to orchestral as well as to piano music. His influence on Franz Liszt was immense. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 May. Accessed 13 July From to he lived in Lucca, serving from in the orchestra of Prince Felice and Elisa Baciocchi. Here he first explored the possibilities of writing for the G-string alone, producing the Sonata Napoleone. Temperamentally unsuited to the restrictions of the court, he left Lucca, and from to led an itinerant life as a concert violinist, interspersed with periods of relative inactivity due to illness, amorous affairs, gambling, and dissipation.

A series of concerts in Milan in , featuring his new variations on Le streghe, established him as the leading violinist of his age. In the following years he developed a close association with Gioacchino Antonio Rossini — , whose melodies he favored as themes for concert variations and whose opera Matilde de Shabran he conducted in In the early s his health showed a precipitous decline, apparently from venereal disease, that plagued him the rest of his life and left his body emaciated.

He nevertheless continued to concertize, often with his lover, the singer Antonia Bianchi, who gave birth to his son and only child, Achille, in In , armed with two newly written concertos, Paganini launched his legendary European tours with a wildly successful series of concerts in Vienna. Over the next six years he concertized constantly in Bohemia, the German Confederation, Poland, France, and England, accompanied only by his son, whom he adored and treated with immense affection, and occasionally by a travel companion who kept track of his books.

He earned enormous sums of money. His concerts usually featured one of his lengthy concertos, one or two of his variation sets with orchestra, and an extended work for solo violin, intermingled with short orchestral fillers and arias by guest singers. His reclusive lifestyle, ravaged body, dark looks, and his unusual performing posture, together with the sometimes bizarre sounds he was able to call forth from the instrument, gave him a mysterious, demonic presence on stage that riveted audiences and led to a whole series of rumors about his past and personal life.

Journalists steeped in the literary style of Romanticism, especially in Germany, invented fantastic tales and constructed his image as the protopyical Romantic virtuoso. An amorous scandal in England provoked Paganini to retreat from public concerts in , and he remained between Italy and France until his death five years later. At Parma he reorganized and conducted the ducal orchestra for a short period, and in he tried to establish in Paris, together with an entrepreneurial friend, a "Casino Paganini," but it soon foundered.

Paganini's compositional output can be divided into three categories: the twenty-four Caprices for solo violin; concert pieces for violin and orchestra, including both concertos, variation sets, and solo violin pieces; and chamber music for strings and guitar or mandolin. The Caprices, dedicated "to the artists," constitute his main compositional legacy, although he considered them studies and did not play them in public.

They are indispensable builders of technique for aspiring. The concert works feature an extremely high level of virtuosity and usually assign a minimal role to the orchestral part. The chamber pieces are mostly for amateurs and accordingly are light and pleasant in tone. Paganini's playing combined the fire and virtuosity of the Italian virtuoso school with the elegance and melodic focus of the French violin school.

His principal technical innovations in writing for the violin include the extensive use of harmonics high-pitched tones produced by touching the strings lightly rather than pressing them against the fingerboard , left-hand pizzicato plucked notes , the polyphonic mixture of pizzicato, legato, and harmonic tones in rapid alternation, composition for the G-string the lowest-pitched one alone, and a bowing technique that helped project a strongly impassioned or tragic melody.

His legacy was taken up most explicitly by the violinists Ole Bull — , Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst — , and Henri Wieniawski — The Italian violinist and composer Niccolo Paganin inaugurated the century of the virtuoso and was its brightest star. He laid the foundation of modern violin technique. Niccolo Paganini was born on Oct. At the age of 9 he made his debut playing to an enthusiastic audience his own variations on La Carmagnole.

He studied with Giacomo Costa. When Niccolo was taken to the famous violinist Alessandro Rolla, the latter declared he had nothing to teach him. Nevertheless, Niccolo did study violin for a while, as well as composition and instrumentation. At the age of 14 he freed himself from his father. Paganini's career was checkered: gambling, love affairs, rumors of his being in league with the devil, and rumors of imprisonment, which he frequently denied in letters to the press.

In love with a Tuscan noblewoman, he retired to her palace, where he became completely absorbed in the guitar from to On returning to the violin he performed a love duet by using two strings of the violin and then surpassed this by playing a piece for the G string alone. In Paganini appeared in a "contest" in Milan with Charles Philippe Lafont and later remarked, "Lafont probably surpassed me in tone but the applause which followed my efforts convinced me that I did not suffer by comparison.

Similar triumphs followed in Paris and London. In he invited Hector Berlioz to write a piece for him for the viola; Harold en Italie was the result. Paganini played frequent concerts for the relief of indigent artists. In he became involved in a Parisian gambling house; government interference led to bankruptcy and permanently damaged his health.

He died on May 27, , in Nice. Even when Paganini was playing Mozart and Beethoven, he could not restrain himself from brilliant embellishments. The violinist made innovations in harmonics and pizzicato and revived the outmoded mistunings. Although he took a giant step forward in scope of technique, he paradoxically did this while holding the violin in the low 18th-century style and using a straight bow of the late Mozart period, which the Parisian violin maker Jean Baptiste Vuillaume persuaded him to give up.

Although it is generally assumed that the modern technique is far "superior" to that of the 19th century, this is belied by the fact that many passages in Paganini are still scarcely playable. His first recorded public performance was at a church on May 26, , when the boy was not yet 12 years old. So, the boy moved on to Alexandro Rolla in Parma, who was so impressed with the prodigy that he felt the wisest course for him was composition.

After an intensive course of study, Paganini returned to Genoa and began composing and performing, primarily in churches. He also set his own schedule of rigorous training, sometimes 15 hours a day, practicing his own compositions, which were often quite complicated, even for himself. By , Paganini, who was used to touring with his father by this time, went to Lucca to perform at the Festival of Santa Croce.

His appearance was a rousing success, endearing himself to the town. But he had a weakness for gambling, womanizing and alcohol, reportedly having a breakdown early in his career due to the latter. Post recovery he returned to Lucca, earning the favor of Napoleon's sister, Princess Elisa Baciocchi, and securing the position of court violinist. He eventually grew restless and returned to the life of a virtuoso, touring Europe, amassing wealth by enchanting audiences with the ferocity or sensitivity of his playing — audiences were said to have burst into tears at his execution of tender passages.

One patron was purportedly so moved by a performance that he gave Paganini a coveted Guarnerius violin. The young Robert Schumann had heard Paganini play in Frankfurt in early April , an experience to be reflected in his later music. There followed tours to Paris and, in May , to Great Britain, where he gave concerts in England, Scotland and Ireland over the following months.

His international career as a virtuoso ended in , when, after an unsatisfactory tour of England, he returned again to Italy, to Parma, invited by the Archduchess Marie Luise of Austria to re-organize the court orchestra. In he became involved in an unsuccessful and short-lived business venture in Paris, the Casino Paganini, which was intended to provide facilities equally for gambling and for music.

From this and the continuing financial obligations that its failure brought, and with failing health, he took final refuge in Nice, where he died in May