Paganini: Compositions for the guitar

Paganini's intimate friend and biographer, Professor J.M. Schottky, once stated: Paganini plays the guitar extraordinarily well; he plays difficult chords and magnificent arpeggios. His fingering on this instrument is wholly unique. Paganini composed at least 104 pieces for solo guitar which can be divided in three groups: 43 Ghiribizzi, 37 Sonatas and 24 other compositions as well as a series of chamber concerts such as quartets, trios and violin and guitar duets. He was thus amongst the most prolific composers for the guitar in the nineteenth century. Yet the works of composers like Giuliani, Carulli, Legnani and Carcassi have been and are still played far more frequently by guitarists than Paganini's. Among the possible reasons for this oversight two factors seem of particular importance: the late publication of his works and the damaging reviews of contemporary critics. The only works which were printed while Paganini was still alive - by Ricordi in 1820 - were the 24 Capricci for violin op.1, two collections of Sonatas for violin with guitar accompaniment op.2 and 3, and two collections op.4 and 5 including six quartets with guitar. His premature death impeded the publication of his works by the Parisian firm Pacini for whom Paganini had compiled a list of musical pieces to be printed. It is interesting to note that the solo pieces for the guitar are not even mentioned in the list. After the death of Paganini, the responsibility for the further publication of the works passed to his son, Achille. In 1851, Schonenberger published the compositions op.6 to op.14 following the numeration in the Ricordi catalogue but, once again, no piece for the guitar was considered worthy of publication. Apart from Zimmerman's publication of 26 pieces in 1925, Paganini's works for solo guitar were not published in their entirety until 1989. Perhaps the most important reason for the neglect of the guitar music lies in the opinion expressed by the critics. Not even Paganini's contemporaries had admired him for his talent as a composer and they had often accused him of formal weakness as well as of flaunting virtuosity in his compositions. Clearly the critics did not approve of his desire to impress through virtuosity to the detriment of more substantial composition. When, after the death of Achille in 1895, Paganini's heirs decided to sell the posthumous collection of unpublished manuscripts to the Italian state, a government commission was nominated to examine the pieces. The result was a damaging report - by Arnaldo Bonaventura - owing to which the Italian government refused to buy the manuscripts. Later, in 1910, they were put on auction in Florence and purchased by the publisher L.Olschki who immediately re-sold them to Wilhelm Heyer, a collector from Cologne. In 1922, Heyer's heirs distributed the manuscripts to several buyers, thus completely breaking up this precious collection. Fritz Reuther from Mannheim took on the task of putting the collection together again by purchasing the pieces which had been scattered all over the world. After the death of Reuther in 1963 the pieces passed to a Bavarian antique dealer from whom the Italian state finally bought the collection in 1971. The Paganini manuscripts were sent to the Casanatense library in Rome where they are still housed today. (Luciano Tortorelli)

Interpreting Paganini today.

Paganini had already become a myth for musicians and men of letters during his lifetime (Heine's visionary portrait narrated in 'Florentine Nights' is unforgettable) and was, and is still today, considered the greatest violinist of all time. For this reason he is held to be a minor composer and his pieces for the guitar constitute a minor part of his works. Though it may not be immediately evident, however, Paganini's guitar writing has a highly original flair; and, since these pieces were not envisaged for concerts, they make up a more intimate part of the compositions written by the great Genoese musician. Moreover, his guitar music is not limited by the conventional virtuosity of the period, thanks to technical solutions which we consider innovative - bearing in mind that most of these works date from the early nineteenth century - and to the way it achieves a synthesis of that instrumental virtuosity and the cantabile which was the hallmark of the Italian musical theatre.

Going from simple pieces like those of the Ghiribizzi collection - written for a little Neapolitan girl - to more elaborate and interesting works such as the Grande Sonata, Paganini always shows an organic coherence in a creative gesture which we have tried to safeguard in this recording by retrieving the spontaneity of the writing. In particular, we have decided to cut out some repeats in order to make the simpler compositions more enjoyable and, at the same time, to use particular fingerings with the aim of clarifying the musical function of the writing, rather than being tied to the peculiarities of nineteenth century technique. Moreover, in order to restore the character of certain movements indicated by Paganini (as for example, the Minuetto, nearly always the first movement of the Sonata without any other distinguishing feature), we have adopted appreciably different tempi with an ear to the specific qualities of the style of each single piece rather than to the metrical scheme. We have finally decided to present the Grande Sonata, Paganini's most accomplished composition for the guitar and one of the most significant in his catalogue, in the version for guitar solo, thus ignoring the indication Accompaniment for violin, a typical form of late eighteenth century sonata which, in this case, is not essential for the full comprehension of the work. One final word about the instrument used for this recording, a Gaetano Guadagnini guitar made in 1851. The idea of offering this music on an instrument of the period was not a philological requirement: Paganini's music is alive in the here and now, in our contemporary world. We do think, however, that the nineteenth century guitar, on which Paganini conceived his music, is a completely different instrument to the modern guitar, for it has a specific timbre as well as dynamic and morphological peculiarities which force the interpreter to read the script - and the ideas which inspired his compositions - as faithfully as possible from a technical as well as musical point of view. (Luigi Attademo)