It is perhaps sadly ironic that the works directly inspired by the last of Niccolò Paganini's prodigiously difficult 24 Caprices for solo violin (ca. 1817) have overshadowed their source and indeed, the whole of this hugely influential set of technical exercises. But unquestionably, it is the demonic theme of Caprice No. 24, which provided the impetus for composers as diverse as Brahms, Rachmaninov, Lutoslawski, and Lloyd-Webber to use the theme as the basis for their own variation works, which has become Paganini's musical epitaph. This sinister, angular theme conjures up in our minds the gaunt, white face of the violinist whom many thought was in league with Lucifer himself more palpably than any other!

Paganini's music has often been slighted for its lack of profundity; he was, after all, a superstar violinist first and a composer second. Among violinists, however, mastery of the Caprices, Op. 1, represents the summit of technical attainment, and beside the solo violin works of Bach, and perhaps the much later solo sonatas by Ysaÿe, this set stands as one of the greatest volumes of music ever devised for a solo string instrument.

The Caprices were published by Ricordi in 1820, and while their musical content reflected Paganini's astounding technical brilliance, they also served another groundbreaking function. Although primarily intended as technical exercises "A gli Artisti" (dedicated "To the Artists"), the caprices are so wide-ranging in their scope that they actually transcend all expected pedagogic constraints, and thus stand out impressively as bravura miniatures endowed with genuine musical as well as instructional value. In this regard, the series inspired a new interest in compositions which were at once formidably challenging, but also musically rewarding to both players and listeners alike. One of the earliest composers to recognize and emulate this was Chopin, whose Études for piano were directly inspired by the violin caprices. Other composers, notably Berlioz (who composed his symphony Harold in Italy to display Paganini's skills on the viola), Schumann, and especially Franz Liszt, were deeply impressed.

The 24 Caprices for solo violin encompass every imaginable aspect of violin technique, and in many cases, for example in their use of complex multiple stopping, fast passagework, and imaginative bowing permutations, very few, if indeed any other violinist contemporary with Paganini himself could have actually played them! Some of the more spectacular violin pyrotechnics include the combination of bowing and pizzicato (plucking), a full exploration of the use of harmonics, double-stopped trills, and recourse to widely spaced chords based on Paganini's remarkable ability to stretch vast distances across the fingerboard.

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1.Andante in E

While this is the leadoff work of Paganini's Op. 1 collection, it was hardly his first composition. His earliest works date back to at least 1795, and this set of Caprices was written a decade or so later. Moreover, the opus number is misleading: Paganini rarely sought publication of his compositions, this collection being a belated exception appearing in 1820 and bearing the Op. 1 tag assigned by the publisher. This E major effort sounds as much like a display piece as any other work in the set of Caprices (24). It opens with colorful arpeggiated chords leaping about, imparting a curious mixture of elation and anxiety. The work is really a study in balzato playing, a leaping or bouncing bowing effect. Here it comes across in energetic, playful music that paints a simple theme amid virtuosic glitter, a theme whose effervescent parts are perhaps more attractive than their whole. That said, the music is delightful in its bouncy, squeaky sonorities that astonish both the ear and eye in live performances, owing to the wide, left-hand stretches and other challenging writing for the violin.

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5.Agitato in A-

Niccolò Paganini may have quoted his spiritual ancestor Pietro Locatelli's remarkable L'arte del violino in only one of his 24 Caprices for solo violin, Op. 1 (he adapts Locatelli's seventh cadenza-caprice for use as his own Caprice No. 1), but Locatelli's pioneering spirit can nevertheless be felt all throughout the volume. Indeed, it is impossible to say whether or not a work such as Paganini's Caprice No. 5 in A minor, with its huge, arch-shaped arpeggios and rambunctious perpetual motion could have been possible had not Paganini happened upon a copy of Locatelli's L'arte del violino sometime during the last half of the 1790s, but one is tempted to say that Locatelli's influence was crucial. Certainly by 1805, when or about when the Caprice No. 5 and its twenty-three companion caprices were composed, Paganini had gone far beyond anything Locatelli ever penned or perhaps even imagined, but the seed had been planted by Locatelli, and it was a seed that would significantly influence Western music over the next several decades, as Liszt and a whole new generation of musicians attached themselves to the new and vital Paganini way of doing things.

The Caprice No. 5 begins as a series of A minor arpeggios that reach into regions of the violin thought preposterous by Paganini's contemporaries, proceeds to a flashy and harmonically restless Agitato in constant sixteenth notes (the tonal shape of this section is really quite remarkable, though very few have ever noticed it as the virtuoso violinist in front of them dances and dazzles around the fingerboard), and then recapitulates the opening arpeggios in bright A major.

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9.Allegretto in E ('The Hunt')

This is only one of two Caprices from the famous set of 24 by Paganini that commonly bear a subtitle. The other one, No. 13, carries the prophetic tag "The Devil's Chuckle." The nickname is prophetic because Paganini himself would become identified with the devil by astonished audiences who could explain his transcendental technique only by surmising some unholy proposition by him and Satan. This Caprice in E major received its far less glamorous subtitle because the violin, after first imitating a flute, mimics a French horn, and it is, of course, the horn call that signals the hunt. The music is jovial and rhythmically charged throughout, presenting a main theme whose simple yo-yo-like path is made up of three quick, descending notes followed by three ascending ones, all yielding a colorful phrase that repeats in various patterns and variants along its busy course. The middle section begins with big, dramatic chords, but quickly turns gossamer and fleet with notes bouncing in the lower ranges answered delicately in imitation or near-imitation in the upper ranges. The energetic main theme returns to close out this delightful, dizzyingly colorful piece.

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13.Allegro in Bb ('The Devil's Chuckle')

Though hardly an authentic sobriquet, "The Devil's Chuckle" is actually quite an apt nickname for the 13th of Niccolò Paganini's 24 Caprices for solo violin—Op. 1, No. 13, in B flat major, composed with the others sometime around 1805 but not published for about fifteen years after that. The extent of Paganini's command of the violin and the obvious novelty of some of the techniques and devices he brought to the instrument were such that many early nineteenth-century Europeans, trying to understand or at least explain his accomplishments, came to the conclusion that he had surely consorted with demonic powers to acquire his skills! (Paganini, for his part, did little to combat such rumors: his flair for the dramatic, his wry sense of humor, and his nose for potential ticket-selling publicity, welcomed such publicity.) Add to that the fact that the first thematic idea of Caprice No. 13 is built around a descending chromatic gesture in parallel thirds that sounds uncannily like someone laughing, and it is not hard to follow how the nickname came about. The devil's laughter changes to a fiery battle during the second section of the piece (No. 13 which is, like so many of Paganini's Caprices, in three-part da capo form), making the ensuing reprise of the chuckling opening music seems all the more jocose.

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17.Sostenuto: Andante in Eb

This E flat major effort is one of the more popular of the Caprices (24) in Paganini's famous Op. 1 set. All the works are devoted to specific technical challenges for the soloist, but each of them offers musical delights for the listener as well. This Caprice is typical of the variety one encounters in the collection, with its colorful music and brilliant contrasts in both the outer and inner sections. After a dramatic, fanfare-like introduction, Paganini presents a jaunty, rather simply constructed theme whose phrases of four mostly ascending chords are answered by (or interrupted by) rapid-fire, descending roulades of sixth notes. While the most prevalent sense of tempo here is one of a moderate character, there is a conflicting mixture of movement with both slow and fast elements as the four notes to the melody are played at a leisurely pace and the ensuing response comes in breathlessly fleeting dives. The middle section is built on rapid octave passages that alternately ascend and descend. The main material returns to close out this colorful piece, which, for the listener at least, is a study in stark contrasts.

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20.Allegretto in D

Each of Paganini's Caprices (24) for solo violin examines some aspect of technique, but not at the expense of musical appeal. In fact, many would argue the finely imagined virtuosic character of all two-dozen works enhances their artistic worth. Marked Allegretto, this Caprice in D major presents the soloist with an array of challenging double and triple stops, creating many sustained tones to serve as harmony for the lovely main theme. But it is the furious, contrasting middle section that offers the greatest technical challenges, and also the most colorful music. That said, the touching opening theme, perched between sweet melancholy and pastoral serenity, soars beautifully in its lonely strains. When the melody leaps into the upper ranges on its third statement, it takes on a more passionate, fiery character. The fast variant of the middle section takes off like a speeding bullet, busily swirling as it climbs higher and higher, each phrase ending with three emphatic notes, as if it is applying the brakes to rein in the frantic pace. The opening melody returns to close out this imaginative piece.

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24.Finale: Theme and Variations in A-

Of all Niccolò Paganini's 24 Caprices for solo violin, Op. 1, it is the 24th and last—the theme and variations in A minor (Op. 1, No. 24)—that has proved the most important and influential over the last 200 years: its apparently simple but ingeniously devised twelve-bar theme (or sixteen-bar theme, if one counts the repeat of the first four measures) has been borrowed by a dozen composers for their own variation-making over the years, Brahms and Rachmaninov being the most famous. There are certainly Paganini caprices more difficult to teach to the fingers, and perhaps ones that boast superior musical contours; but were one of the twenty-four to be preserved for posterity, this would probably be the one.

After the presentation of the famous theme, Paganini provides eleven variations on it and then a flashy, arpeggio-filled "finale" that abandons the theme. The variety shown by the eleven variations is admirable. Rushing sixteenth notes run side-by-side with thick, viscous octaves and scherzando spiccato arpeggios. The highest register of the instrument is explored pianissimo and via slippery chromaticism, while, soon after, terrifying scales in thirds and a variation in explosive chords take over; and then there is the famous Variation No. 9 with its peculiar and then-unprecedented (ca. 1805) left-hand pizzicato work. Variation No. 10 offers a brief and sumptuous melodic interlude before the frantic race to the finish line.

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