Paganini: Down to the Crossroads

I am realizing that I am immediately drawn to solo pieces whether they are contemporary or 100’s of years old. Somehow much of what I have started off listening to has been solo music. Yo-Yo Ma, Glenn Gould and some Erik Satie. My father recommended Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices performed by Itzhak Perlman.

Reading up on Paganini I learned that he was a native of Genoa and that Mandolin was his first instrument. More interestingly, he had refused the Last Rites and as Wikipedia puts it: It was on these grounds, and his widely rumored association with the devil, that his body was denied a Catholic burial in Genoa. It took four years, and an appeal to the Pope, before the body was allowed to be transported to Genoa, but was still not buried. His remains were finally put to rest in 1876 in a cemetery in Parma. I like to think of this like as a Faustian tale, where Paganini’s virtuoso skills were acquired just like Robert Johnson down at the crossroads. The Devil went down to Georgia 200 years after he did some business in Genoa.

As with Yo-Yo Ma, I can hear the intense execution of each note. This sometimes sounds like gun-to-the-temple stopwatch execution. If you could film it and play back in slow motion, we would be dazzled and amazed at the lightening fast reflexes of Itzhak Perlman. Still, I find it all a bit exhausting. Maybe it’s too much to try and listen to or take in all at once. I feel I can draw a direct comparison to a jazz improvisation like a Max Roach solo, where the musical mind drives the machine. Point and counterpoint are hammered home, and each note clear whether it has a full second or 1/1,000^th to make itself heard. I imagine Paganini with his fathers mandolin, plucking the tunes his father taught him fits at 1 and ½ speed, then two and three times faster, then backwards, or moving all the notes several octaves lower. A virtuoso, bored with convention and preparing for his deal with the devil.

Day 1 with Yo-Yo Ma

I decided to spend a little down time today after much eating and Wii researching some of the suggestions I have received for this so called Year of Classical.

My father spoke very highly of Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach's Suite in G. Part of the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. Rather than think of Bach or music history, this was more of a chance to hear Yo-Yo Ma.

First impressions: I know of Yo-Yo Ma and his status as a virtuoso. I can hear the musical hurtles he has to jump through. At times all the mastery and skill fades into the background and the feeling seeps through with every bit of the music. I didn't want to overthink it, so I listened to both albums once through. Overall I loved it for it's quiet strength. Bold and groaning lines of music making strong bass vibrations in everything. A very good Day 1.

Album information from Amazon below:

Bach: The Cello Suites Inspired By Bach, From The Six-Part Film Series / Yo-Yo Ma Though they were long misunderstood as mere technical hurdles, Bach's six suites for unaccompanied cello are among those rare works of music that offer inexhaustible rewards for performer and listener alike. Yo-Yo Ma gave a pathbreaking account of the suites back in the '80s (Suites for Unaccompanied Cello ) but returns to them here impelled by a unique and interdisciplinary approach. For this project, Ma engaged the talents of artists in different fields--ranging from a landscape artist to a Kabuki actor and figure skaters--to produce six short films as a visual correlative for the highly distinctive character of each suite. While the success of the films in illuminating Bach's creativity is decidedly uneven, Ma brings the music itself to life with a searing, quasi-vocal eloquence. His interpretations are probing, characterized by imaginative bowing and attention to the spacious architecture of Bach's score. This is especially clear in Ma's preference for broad, expansive tempos and patient spinning of filigreed detail. True, the generally Romantic cast of his conception can seem overdone and exaggerated in statement, as if Ma is more intent on overlaying his own personality on the discipline of the music. But the prayerful, meditative concentration he brings to the Sarabandes--listen to the single-lined, anguished tone painting in Suite 5--is utterly convincing. There is a sense of profound introspection here, while in the Sarabande of Suite 6 Ma's phrasing suggests we are in the same spiritual terrain as Beethoven's late quartets. Yet there is no lack of blistering energy and extroverted high spirits in some of the more overtly dance-oriented movements. While purists may complain of distortion in these accounts, Ma once again proves he has something vital to say with this music. --Thomas May