This guide is part of our overview of the essential classical guitar repertoire. Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) is remembered as the most electrifying violinist of the Romantic era. The guitar was his constant private companion, and he wrote more than 200 works for it that show a very different, more intimate side of his musical personality.
The violinist who loved the guitar
Born in Genoa in 1782, Paganini began his training on the mandolin before turning to guitar and violin. The guitar was part of his life from early childhood, and his engagement with it was lifelong. During his years at the Baciocchi court in Lucca, roughly 1805 to 1809, he composed the bulk of his guitar output: solo pieces, duo sonatas for violin and guitar, trios, and quartets with guitar. The Lucca years, free from the pressure of the concert tour, gave him time for private music-making, and the guitar stood at the centre of that private world.
He almost never performed on the guitar in public, reserving it for private music-making, intimate gatherings and composition. That explains the character of the guitar works: they are not showpieces built to astonish an audience with technical display, as the violin caprices are. They are music for pleasure, for conversation, for the enjoyment of playing and listening in a domestic room. The contrast with his violin works could hardly be greater.
More than 200 works: an overview
Paganini's guitar output is vast: over 200 works spanning solo guitar, guitar duets, violin-and-guitar sonatas, quartets with guitar and other chamber combinations. The solo writing runs to sonatinas, minuets, studies and variations, among them the set of short character pieces known as the Ghiribizzi — the word means something like whims or fancies — composed around 1820. They are brief, personal and unmistakably written for his own enjoyment rather than for an audience.
His best-known single work with guitar is the Grande Sonata in A major, MS 3, composed around 1805 and published in 1828. Its layout is unusual: the guitar carries the principal melodic line while the violin accompanies, inverting the normal soloist-and-accompanist relationship. That inversion is characteristic. Paganini was not writing for a subordinate instrument but for a partner, albeit a private one. The lyrical opening and the more animated close show the expressive range he valued in the guitar.
The 37 sonatas for violin and guitar
The 37 sonatas for violin and guitar are Paganini's most substantial contribution to the duo repertoire. Composed mainly during the Lucca period, they are polished chamber works rather than sketches, and both instruments are treated with care. The violin carries the more prominent line in most movements, but the guitar does far more than accompany: it supplies harmonic support, rhythmic drive and counter-melodic material that gives the texture real depth.
Guitarists have programmed these sonatas increasingly often in recent years, together with violinists. For anyone interested in the full scope of the guitar's chamber music tradition, they are essential listening — and playing.
Luigi Legnani, the guitar partner
Paganini's closest guitar companion was Luigi Legnani, himself one of the finest players of the age. The two toured together in 1836 and 1837, and Paganini wrote violin-and-guitar duets specifically for their joint appearances. He called Legnani the leading guitarist of the time — a judgement from the greatest virtuoso of the era that carries weight. Their collaboration marks the guitar's high point of prestige in the early Romantic period, when the instrument stood briefly at the centre of European musical life alongside figures such as Mauro Giuliani and Fernando Sor.
His guitars, and why they matter
Paganini owned several guitars, instruments of the early nineteenth-century Italian and Viennese type: light, quick to respond, suited to the domestic music-making he preferred. The gap between his violin virtuosity and his guitar intimacy says something about the instrument itself. In the hands of the greatest violin virtuoso who ever lived, the guitar called forth a different, gentler, more private musical personality. That remains one of its most enduring qualities.
Our guide to the Romantic guitar covers the instruments of exactly this period, and the overview of nineteenth-century guitar music places Paganini's guitar works among those of his contemporaries.
Frequently asked questions
Did Paganini really play the guitar?
Yes, extensively. He composed more than 200 works for it, called it his constant companion and played it all his life — though he almost never performed on it in public, keeping the violin for his concert career.
What is Paganini's most important guitar work?
The Grande Sonata in A major, MS 3, for guitar with violin accompaniment, is his best-known piece involving the guitar. The 37 sonatas for violin and guitar are his most substantial contribution to the instrument's chamber repertoire.
Why did he never perform on guitar in public?
He kept the guitar for private music-making and for composing. For him it was an instrument of the drawing room rather than the concert hall, and he held that distinction throughout his career.
More repertoire in our overview of famous classical guitar pieces, more players in our profiles of great classical guitarists, and the full list in our composer overview.
