24 Caprices, Op. 1 Niccolò Paganini Item: 99-8550717 UPC:
730099571722 PRICE: $9.99 Category: CD Recording Format: CD
Paganini's popular reputation rested always on his phenomenal
technique as a violinist, coupled with a showman's ability to
dominate an audience and to stupefy those who heard him by
astonishing feats of virtuosity. His playing served as an
inspiration to other performers in the nineteenth century,
suggesting to Chopin, in Warsaw, the piano Etudes, and to Liszt
the material of the Paganini studies that he wrote in 1838. The
very appearance of Paganini impressed people. His gaunt aquiline
features, his suggestion of hunched shoulders and his sombre
clothing, gave rise to legends of association with the Devil,
the alleged source of his power, an association supported by the
frequent appearance by his side on his travels of his secretary,
one Harris, thought by some to be a familiar spirit or a
Mephistopheles watching over his Faust. Stories of a pact with
the Devil were denied by Paganini himsel