Niccolò Paganini - Violin Concerto No.1, Op.6 The Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 6, was composed by Niccolò Paganini in Italy and dates from the mid-to-late 1810s. It was premiered in Naples on the 31st of March 1819. Paganini intended the Concerto to be heard in E-flat major: the orchestral parts were written in E-flat, and the solo was written in D major with instructions for the violin to be tuned a semitone high, (a technique known as scordatura) enabling the soloist to achieve effects sounding in E-flat which would not be possible with normal tuning. An example of this is the opening of the third movement, where the violin plays a rapid downward scale A-G-F♯-E-D, both bowed and pizzicato, which is possible on an open D-string, but extremely difficult in the key of E-flat. (i.e. playing B♭-A♭-G-F-E♭) Two strings would be required to play this downward scale, whereas only one string is required to play it in the key of D. In addition, having the orchestra playing in E-flat appears to comparatively mute the sound of the orchestra compared to the solo violin, because the orchestral string section plays less frequently on open strings, with the result that the solo violin part emerges more clearly and brightly from the orchestral accompaniment.
Violin : Hilary Hahn Hilary Hahn is an American violinist. She was born in Lexington, Virginia, on November 27, 1979, and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Steve Hahn, was a journalist and librarian; her paternal great-grandmother was from Bad Dürkheim in Germany. Her mother Anne was an accountant. A musically precocious child, Hahn began playing the violin one month before her fourth birthday in the Suzuki Program of Baltimore's Peabody Institute. She participated in a Suzuki class for a year. From 1985 to 1990 she studied in Baltimore under Klara Berkovich. In 1990, at age ten, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Jascha Brodsky for seven years. She learned the études of Kreutzer, Ševčík, Gaviniès and Rode, Paganini's Caprices, 28 violin concertos, and chamber works and assorted showpieces.At 16 she completed the Curtis Institute's university requirements, but she remained for several years to pursue elective courses until her graduation in May 1999 with a Bachelor of Music degree. During this time she studied violin with Jaime Laredo and studied chamber music with Felix Galimir and Gary Graffman. She has performed throughout the world as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors and as a recitalist. She is an avid supporter of contemporary classical music, and several composers have written works for her, including concerti by Edgar Meyer and Jennifer Higdon, partitas by Antón García Abril, two serenades for violin and orchestra by Einojuhani Rautavaara, and a violin and piano sonata by Lera Auerbach.
