Page 149 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 147

See also: The Four Seasons 92–97 ■ Faust Symphony 176–177

cultivate an equally dramatic Paganini’s and Liszt’s talent
persona. His career coincided pushed the boundaries of existing
with technical advances in piano techniques for both violin and
manufacturing that made the piano. The concerto became a
instrument reliable, versatile, and stage for soloists to excel on these
loud enough to fill the large concert instruments, while the theme and
halls that catered for the growing variations form, in which a simple,
middle classes. Liszt was the most often well-known melody would
highly gifted of a new breed of be submitted to increasingly
composer-pianists who competed impressive reworkings, became
for prominence—sometimes in popular among concert-goers Niccolò Paganini
piano-playing duels. His celebrity and composers. The theme of
status helped establish the piano Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 inspired Born in the Italian port town
recital in its present form, thereby works by Liszt, Johannes Brahms, of Genoa in October 1782,
benefiting other composers. and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Paganini learned the violin
Later virtuosos included the and guitar from his father,
Belgian composer-violinist Henri who was an outstanding
The First Triumph of Paganini, Vieuxtemps and composer-pianists amateur musician. The young
by Annibale Gatti, c.1890, possibly Paganini supplemented his
depicts a performance at the court Louis Moreau Gottschalk in the US, training with a strict regimen
at Lucca, where Paganini built his Leopold Godowsky in Poland, and
reputation during the early 1800s. Rachmaninoff in Russia. ■ of practice, later claiming
he became a virtuoso after
hearing a performance by the
Polish-born French violinist
August Duranowski.
In 1809, Paganini left a
court appointment in Lucca
to pursue a solo career. He
traveled in Italy, composing
and performing works that
displayed his skills. Health
problems, including syphilis,
delayed him until 1828, after
which he went first to Austria,
Bohemia, and Germany and
then, in 1831, to Paris, where
his 10 concerts at the Opéra
caused a sensation. In 1834,
continuing ill health forced
him into semi-retirement in
Italy, where he died in 1840.

Other key works

1813 Le Streghe (The Witches)
1816 Violin Concerto No. 1
1819 Sonata “a Preghiera”
1826 Violin Concerto No. 2
in B minor

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