Niccolò Paganini

Paganini rewrote what a violin could do and left a catalogue that is still, two centuries later, the boundary of the instrument's technique.

The 24 Caprices, Op. 1 are the central work and are professional repertoire — the twenty-fourth is the famous one, and it is not a starting point. The violin concerti are equally demanding. What is approachable is the guitar music: he played guitar seriously and wrote a large body of sonatas and duos for violin and guitar that sit at a genuinely amateur level.

Editions of the Caprices differ in bowing and fingering, which on this music is most of the interpretation. Free scans of the original are available and are unmarked; for study, an edited edition is worth having.