Yesterday evening provided the opportunity to catch up on the latest OMNI on-Location video on YouTube, released this past Monday. The guitarist for the performance was Aniello Desiderio, performing with his brother Gennaro on violin. Some readers may recall that Aniello will conclude this season’s Dynamite Guitars series, presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, towards the end of April of next year.
Gennaro and Aniello Desiderio performing in an engaging setting of books (screenshot from the Omni on-Location YouTube video)
The Desiderio brothers performed the first of eighteen sonatas for violin and guitar composed by Niccolò Paganini under the collective title Centone di sonate. This was a three-movement composition in A minor with an opening Larghetto, followed by a Tempo de marcia, and concluding with a Rondoncino. The entire performance ran for about six and a half minutes. The performance was filmed this past January 10 at the Residenza d'epoca "Palazzo Cusani" in the Italian city of Solopaca. As the above photograph shows, the performance took place in a venue with a serious respect for books.
I have to confess that, more often than not, I tend to find Paganini’s symphonic music to be more than a little tedious, if not downright heavy-handed. This may be because his primary mission was to flaunt his own violin virtuosity. This duo sonata, on the other hand, is far more intimate. Rather than soaring above a roaring orchestra, the violin is in intimate conversation with the guitar. (The fact that the entire sonata is shorter than the first movement of any of Paganini’s concertos is probably the major factor in that intimacy!) Clearly, there was a side of Paganini that placed the music above his own ego!
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