Ilya Gringolts performs Paganini and Sciarrino

In 1998, he became the youngest winner ever of the "Premio Paganini" International Competition. Now 36 years old, Ilya Gringolts brings his dazzling technique and musical maturity to bear on the works of the great 19th-century virtuoso whose name and music played a pivotal role in this Russian violinist’s career. Selections from Paganini's 24 Caprices—legendary for their technical challenges like left-handed pizzicato, ricochet bowings, double-, triple- and quadruple-stops—join the violinistic fireworks of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Sei Capricci (1976) on this ambitious concert program.

The delicacy of Paganini’s hearing surpasses the imagination. In the midst of the noisiest playing of orchestral percussion instruments, he requires only the lightest touch of the finger to tune his violin; he also hears, in the same circumstances, the dissonance of the most quiet instrument, and that at an incredible distance. – Francesco Bennati, Notice physiologique sur Paganini (1831)

Photo: Ilya Gringolts © Nicolas Brodard