Niklas Liepe - The New Paganini Project (2018) [Official Digital Download]

The 24 Caprices for solo Violin by Niccolò Paganini are a challenge for every violinist. They request virtuosity at the highest level and they are full of musical color and variety.

“I often bevailed that the caprices are not as very-well established in the concert life as they should, in my opinion”, says violinist Niklas Liepe. In order to change this, he started the “New Paganini Project”. Together with the German Radio Philharmonic Orchester Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern under the baton of Gregor Bühl, he recorded the CD “The New Paganini Project” (SONY Classical, German release: 9 March 2018).

The Idea: The 24 Caprices by Niccolò Paganini can be re-experienced in a totally new sound image. Partly, there are arrangements of the caprices for violin and piano by already deceased composers such as Robert Schumann and Fritz Kreisler. Prof. N. Tarkmann, who already arranged music for Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Netrebko, will arrange these versions for the new instrumentation violin and orchestra. Additionally, contemporary composers such ans Fazil Say and Andrea Csollány created completely new arrangements for the solo caprices.

The special challenge for the composers is to ensure that the orchestra is not only a petty sound carpet but to create a new, edgy and top-class compendium on the basis of Paganini’s caprices. The famous original artistically-compositionally charges the new works and accords the orchestra a technically, compositionally and artistically demanding task. Meanwhile, the virtousity of the violin must not be impaired.

The “Caprices are much more than just ‘technical studies’, each of them is a little jewel for every violinist to date”, says the young violinist. He made it his business too give these jewels a new cutting.

Tracklist:

Niccolò Paganini (1782 - 1840)

24 Caprices for Violin, Op. 1
01. No. 1 in E Major 02:03
02. No. 2 in B Minor 05:28
03. No. 3 in E Minor 04:22
04. No. 4 in C Minor, "Transformation concertante" 07:20
05. No. 5 in A Minor 03:20
06. No. 6 in G Minor, "Trance" 05:12
07. No. 7 in A Minor 03:57
08. No. 8 in E-Flat Major 03:57
09. No. 9 in E Major, "La chasse" 03:24
10. No. 10 in G Minor, "Danse macabre" 04:23
11. No. 11 in C Major 04:09
12. No. 12 in A-Flat Major 03:21
13. No. 13 in B-Flat Major 02:35
14. No. 14 in E-Flat Major 02:01
15. No. 15 in E Minor 03:46
16. No. 16 in G Minor 04:10
17. No. 17 in E-Flat Major 03:32
18. No. 18 in C Major 04:08
19 No. 19 in E-Flat Major 04:58
20. No. 20 in D Major 02:59
21. No. 21 in A Major 02:44
22. No. 22 in F Major 02:08
23. No. 23 in E-Flat Major 03:33
24. No. 24 in A Minor 08:46

Fazil Say (1970 - )

25. Paganini-Jazz for Piano (Arr. for Jazz Quartet) 08:10

Personnel:
Niklas Liepe, violin
Deutsche Radio Philharmonie
Gregor Bühl, conductor