Composer: born October 27, 1782, Genoa; died May 27, 1840, Nice 

Work composed: 1816-18

World premiere: March 31, 1819, in Naples, Italy, with Paganini performing the solo part

Instrumentation: solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons (1 doubling contrabassoon), 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, and strings 

Estimated duration: 35 minutes

The emerging romanticism we associate with 19th century music changed both composers and performers alike. One basic aspect of Romanticism is its emphasis on individual experience. Early romantic composers like Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert and later Robert Schumann, embraced opportunities for particular self-expression that were unique to their lived experiences. In Schubert’s case, his exploration of harmonically unusual tonalities gave voice to emotions and moods never before heard in music. 

Romanticism allowed composers to prioritize their individual artistic explorations, but the interest in personal expression also gave rise to an entirely new type of performer: the superstar virtuoso. Of all the outstanding instrumentalists who emerged in the 19th century, none could match the sheer technical brilliance or the commanding ego of Nicolò Paganini, the first of this new breed.

There were other great violinists before Paganini, but the musical and artistic aesthetics of their time limited their ability for self-expression. Before Paganini, performers, no matter how skilled, played in the service of their music. They were the interpreters, and it was the music that took center stage. 

From his debut performance at age 11 in Genoa, Paganini exploded the idea that the performer should take a back seat to the music. For more than 30 years, Paganini cultivated a new kind of musician: a superstar, with a devoted following who came to hear him play, regardless of repertoire. Everything Paganini did in performance – his penchant for performing all in black, his carefully disheveled hair and clothes, and especially his over-the-top stage mannerisms – was deliberately planned so as to achieve a certain effect: the creation of Paganini the Romantic artist. He was one of the first artists to craft a cult of personality and mystery to accompany his virtuoso playing.

Today superstars are common enough in both music and art, and some trade on their charisma to cover up less than first-rate skill. Paganini manufactured his own mystique – he never allowed anyone to hear him practice, for example – but he also lived up to his own hype. There seemed no limit to his facility on the violin, nothing too difficult or technically unconventional that he could not master. Paganini became known for his left-handed pizzicato notes, and a technique he called the “ricochet,” where he bounced the bow quickly across the strings. Most dazzling of all, Paganini executed flawless runs of double-stop harmonics at lightning speed, a skill that left other violinists shaking their heads in admiration.

After he had run through all the suitably virtuoso works in his repertoire – and after a request for a piece by Hector Berlioz resulted in Harold in Italy, which Paganini deemed insufficiently virtuosic for his style of playing, Paganini began composing his own music to create showpieces for his skill. The Violin Concerto No. 1, originally written in E-flat, required the soloist to tune his violin up a half step. The higher pitch allowed for a more brilliant tone, but over time most musicians and orchestras have chosen to perform it in D, a more natural key for the violin (and easier to keep in tune). 

As a vehicle for Paganini, the Violin Concerto provides everything a virtuoso would want: plenty of dazzling runs and other lightning-fast tricks, and a clear emphasis on the soloist – the orchestra takes a secondary role as accompanist. Additionally, as in the central Adagio, the music gives the soloist an opportunity to demonstrate lyricism and refined tone. Paganini wanted to dazzle his audience, but he also wanted to move them. He succeeded with Franz Schubert, who, having heard Paganini perform in Vienna, described his playing as “the singing of an angel.”

© Elizabeth Schwartz