101 Classical Music CDs

"Paganini's music is virtuosic for the sake of virtuosity," a relative of mine, a professional viola player, once said, "and it has no musical substance whatsoever." We return to Paganini's 24 Caprices to hear the renowned violin prodigy Midori try to tackle these preposterously difficult works. ********************** Midori, violin (b: 1971) Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840) Paganini: 24 Caprices Sony Classical, 1989 ********************** When I listened a month ago to Michael Rabin trying his best to play the Caprices, it was immediately obvious, even to me as a non-violinist, that these works are so technically challenging that even world-class musicians cannot play them cleanly. Midori, however, with her ferocious technical prowess, attacks these works with more success and better results than Michael Rabin. She may not sound entirely effortless, but she gets these notoriously difficult exercises done with a relatively minimal number of stray and off-key no...

Today's post is about not one, but two of history's greatest violin prodigies, and one of the most challenging collections of classical music ever written for the violin. Nicolo Paganini, our first prodigy, was not only the greatest violinist who ever lived, he can also be thought of as classical music's first rock star, with worldwide fame, groupies, mistresses, and stupefied audiences of weeping and crying fans, some of whom were convinced that Paganini was under the control of Satan himself. I like to think of him as a 19th century version of The Devil Went Down to Georgia . ********************** Michael Rabin, violin (1936-1972) Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840) 24 Caprices For Solo Violin EMI Classics, 1958/1993 ********************** On the other hand, our second prodigy, Michael Rabin, never made it to his 36th birthday. Widely seen as one of the 20th century's most gifted violinists, he died in a freak accident in his New York City apartment--he slipped on the floor...