Progetto Martha Argerich

italiano

Works

Robert Schumann

3 Caprices by Paganini with Piano accompaniment by Robert Schumann

 

On 29 March 1828, Niccolò Paganini performed in Vienna for the first time and achieved an enormous success. From that day on, the Paganini Legend began to spread across Europe. Paganini had published his 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1 (dedicated “to Artists”), in 1820, but no one abroad had noticed that amazingly brilliant collection, which comprised every aspect of modern, transcendental violin technique; it was a sort of non plus ultra in which the Genoese violinist had concentrated all of the innovations that could be made to fit. Robert Schumann got to know Paganini’s Caprices several years later, and he made two sets of arrangements of them for piano solo (Six Etudes de Concert, Op. 3and Op. 10). Not yet satisfied, he then created piano accompaniments for all twenty-four pieces, because he was convinced that the Caprices contained “so many diamonds that the richer settings provided by the piano could strengthen them rather than make them vanish”.

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1. Capriccio No. 9 in E Major
2. Capriccio No. 12 in A-flat Major
3. Capriccio No. 24 in A minor

Performers

Performance