Julia Fischer Records Paganini Caprices

Album is set to be in stores in September

When it comes to the violin world’s most famous virtuoso, Nicolò Paganini, Munich-born violinist Julia Fischer is an ardent champion. “He completely made a revolution on the violin with the possibilities of what you can do on the violin,” she says. “By doing that, he was also influencing other composers of other instruments . . . Franz Liszt made a revolution on the piano only because he heard [Paganini] on the violin in concert.”

Fischer’s zealous remarks come before the release of her Paganini: 24 Caprices (Decca). The new CD includes all of the technical flair you’d expect from the caprices, but Fischer approaches each one not as an exercise, but rather as a melodic exploration. She’s free in her interpretations, using a mute during the haunting Sixth Caprice. “I heard the transcription of the Sixth Caprice for solo piano by Robert Schumann—actually, I didn’t hear it, I played it myself on the piano,” Fischer says. “That started a process to see the caprices not as technical challenges, but as musical ideas, as musical poems.”

The album is set to be in stores in September.

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*This article appeared in Strings September 2010

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