24 Caprices of Nicolo Paganini

Paganini 24 Caprices

No violinist can escape them: Paganini’s Caprices. A beautiful, infamous cycle of 24 works for violin solo with an enormous arsenal of technical delights.

With his 24 Caprices Niccolò Paganini set out to fascinate the audience and play the kind of music that people had never experienced before. As a young talent Niccolò had shocked and enraged the public by imitating animals using his violin and in the Caprices he elaborated on that earlier experimentation. Bird- song, hunting horns, laughter, donkeys – they were all brought to life through his instrument. When it comes to special techniques and almost impossible dexterity, his 24 Caprices go a step further than Locatellis. Above all Paganini’s caprices are full of drama. Calm and moving passages interchange without warning withfiery, almost violent passages.

For Lisa Jacobs it is not the technical aspects of the music, but exactly that enormous variety in the musical characters, the extraordinary sound landscape, and the fantasy and lyricism that has amazed her all her life and has been an inspiration for this recording.

Dutch violinist Lisa Jacobs performs three of Locatteli’s concertos with bold characterization, and meets their formidable technical challenges with commendable athleticism and élan.
(The Strad, UK, 2017)

Dutch violin virtuoso Lisa Jacobs is known for her passionate per- formances, interesting programs and communicative qualities on stage. She is equally at home on the concert stage with concer- tos, chamber music and solo works. Lisa Jacobs collaborated with amongst others the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Bremer Philharmoniker and respected conductors such as Riccardo Chaily, Neeme Järvi, Massimo Quarta, Otto Tausk, Jan Willem de Vriend and Carlos Miguel Prieto.