Essay on Niccolo Paganini Music Style

Niccolo Paganini, a violinist, guitarist, and composer worked in the period between October 27, 1782, and May 27, 1840. Paganini is known for his excellent skills in playing the violin. The great violin success resulted from a rare physical illness, the Marfan syndrome (Nelson 1). The physical ailment increased the players technical possibilities. As a result, Paganini did what most musicians consider impossible. Paganinis creative skills to compose music also counted on his greatness. The virtuoso could make left-hand pizzicato besides the harmonic features of his style. Paganini could play three octaves in a hand span across four strings, and this ability was seemingly unnatural.

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The historical event that impacted Paganinis life was the invasion of the Northern Italy by France in March 1796 which led to industrial revolution and made Paganini relocate to Romairone. When at Romairone, Paganini developed his guitar relationship, and to him, the guitar was his constant companion. Industrial revolution affected the lives of citizens at all levels. The composers, as well as the musicians, were altered by the social changes (Dobney par. 2).

The industrial revolution gave rise to the middle-class group in the society, and the need for music education and access to music performances arose. People had more leisure time than before, and the composers gained fame with the many concertgoers. The audience after the industrialization desired more music than before the industrial revolution. Romanticism was the new artistic aesthetic, and there was the replacement of form, symmetry, and order that existed before the industrial revolution. There was the need to give value to the natural world as well as idealize the life of human beings stressing the impact of emotions in art.

Paganini fell under patronage composed of financial, political, social privileges and support from mentors. His rise to greatness was also with the help of his course mate Giacomo Costa who could arrange performances for Niccolo in the local churches giving him opportunities to perfect his skills. Paganini attained many scholarships for his violin lessons after his previous performances that made his music talents recognized. The Vienna success in 1828 brought the cult where everything was assumed to be a la Paganini.

Paganini took part in numerous concerts for a relief of the indigent artists, and many people got to know him. Paganinis violin success could also have resulted from his strong passion for music. Paganini began supporting his violin career early and was a music entrepreneur not only working full time as the first violinist but also supplemented his income through side jobs. Paganinis father being a musician kept strict control on Paganinis practice schedules, sometimes punishing him for failure to adhere to the schedule and this help grow in his career (Nelson 1). The violinist was also given chances to play concerts in courts. Paganini could dazzle audiences with his music performances and grow in fame throughout Europe.

Paganini based his music composition style on the virtuoso violin. Paganini composed his works to perform exclusively during his concerts and this entirely influenced the growth of the violin technique. Paganini based his compositions on technical imagination and this lead to the expansion of the timbre of the instrument. Niccolo spent much of his time on equilibristic and little on melody and lyric (Niccolo Paganini). Paganinis compositions were based on the violin and during his days, no one else played his music (Stratton 154).

According to Stratton (155), Paganinis compositions include the twenty-four capriccios of his violin, the violin, and guitar six sonatas. The three grand quartets played with the guitar, viola, violin and violoncello; the concerto number one played in the E flat by violin and orchestra, and the concerto number two for the same in B minor. Paganini also composed the Le Streghe Introduction and Variations, God save the king variations, Carnaval de Venise and Allegro de Concerto- Moto Perpetuo along with Non-Piu Mesta and Di Tanti palpiti.

When we compare Paganinis style to that of Charles Lafont, Paganinis caprices are flashy, but it is hard to show musicality in them. His violin technique was very profound during his days for there were steady inflexibility and rigidness in the playing styles (Stratton 114). Although, Paganini had one clear unconventionality in the pattern that brought the showmanship, value, and prestige back to some of the older of the violin playing techniques long forgotten. The style of play used by Pianist Franz Liszt was basing on feeling and reviews of his previous concerts especially the precision while playing and strength. Pianist Liszt kept perfect tempo.

Paganini contributed a timeless masterpiece to the violin world that many violin virtuoso upcoming in the future cannot ignore. Renato explains that the numerous of all the 24 Caprices of Paganini explain knowledgeable characteristics of the Paganinis notion and the significance for its todays interpretation (Niccolo Paganini). Though acknowledged as a virtuoso than a composer, Paganini had wide-ranging influence even after his death. The work of Paganini greatly inspired Liszt and after that was the motivation behind Liszts determination in obtaining exceptional virtuoso skills on the piano.

Along with Robert Schumann, Liszt was first to compose a series of variation on Paganinis melodies, the trend later followed by many other including Johannes Brahms and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Paganini was the utter sensation, the person whose unusual sound, eccentric lifestyle, strange appearance, enormous mass appeal, stage presence riveting and the monster showmanship changed the culture forever. He changed the music course by discovering the performer cult. Paganini gained traditional worship and rewarded fabulously with wealth and in awe is still remembered. The vocal line that started with Paganini extends through all the musical idol of this current time.

One of the works composed by Paganini is the Violin Concerto No.1 played in the E-flat major (Stratton 155). Paganini completed this piece in 1817. The style of the Violin Concerto No.1 is the Bel Canto style that has an Italian origin, and similar to that used in the Italian soap operas. Violin Concerto No.1 falls under classic music. The instruments from the military band that later comes into the song give the Violin Concerto No.1 music an aggressive sound that is very distinct.

Violin Concerto No.1 comprises of three main movements, namely: Allegro maestoso, adagio and rondo. Allegro maestoso is where Paganini shows excellent orchestration in the first three to four minutes to the point where the violin makes a sudden entrance with the feature of flashiness and trickery. The Bel Canto style means beautiful singing of the music, especially the voice. In the violin concerto one, beauty is fundamental. There is freedom to speed up or slow down when playing the music, and there are usually little themes for the solo voice, often in an unpremeditated like style allowing the performers to bring in their voices.

The sublime beauty in the Bel Canto style is remarkably straightforward and allows artists to express their feelings. Adagio is a more standard and a very emotional movement where Paganini shows the dramatics and emotiveness of his music. In Rondo Paganini returns to the firsts movements spirit, allegro spirit and comes to the end of the music in a stunningly harmonized passage. In this movement, there is the use of horns and strings, along with fireworks and the daring skill of the solo violin.

Technically, Violin Concerto No.1 is difficult when compared to others in the repertoire (Niccolo Paganini). All through its course, the soloist has to cope with highest locations of the instrument, sudden changes and shifts of the register, swift passage pizzicatos, artificial harmonics, combined pizzicatos as well as Arco runs, unison and the octave trills, chromatic glissandi and guitarist strummed chords.

The analysis of the tone of the Violin Concerto one is also as important as its style and structure. When Paganini composed the piece, he wanted listeners to hear it in the E-flat major, with the orchestral parts written in E-flat while the solo part was in the D-major. The instructions to play the violin were that the violin tune at a semitone high, the scordatura technique for it to sound in the E-flat. The reason behind this it that it allows the soloist achieve the E-flat sounding effect that could not be possible when the average tuning.

The orchestral portions of Paganinis works are unadventurous, polite in the scoring and supportive. The critics of Paganinis work find his concert long widened and at the same time formulaic (Niccolo Paganini). The violin parts in the Paganinis Concerto were a secret. Paganinis Violin Concerto No. 1 amazes many people because of its sound, similar to that of an opera, with violin to singing like a faultless diva.

Works Cited

Dobney, Jayson Kerr. Nineteenth-Century Classical Music. In Heilbronn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amcm/hd_amcm.htm (October 2004)

Niccolo Paganini, How A Rare Medical Condition helped the Great Violinist.

David Nelson, 2011

Niccolo. Paganini. "Concerto for Violin No. 1 In D, Op. 6: Arr. For Violin & Piano."

Slonimsky, N. "Joseph Sauveur." Bakers biographical dictionary of musicians, Centennial edition (2001).

Stratton, Stephen Samuel. Niccolo Paganini: his life and work. No. 17. London:" The Strad"; New York: C. Scribner, 1907.