Share this article:

Armenian violinist claims Paganini record

main

norman lebrecht

February 23, 2014

Nikolay Madoyan, an international soloist, has written to the Guinness Book of Records claiming to be the first to perform all six Paganini concertos in one evening. Apart from the composer, perhaps.

nikolay_madoyan-325x243

Comments

Dario says:

February 23, 2014 at 9:50 am

next step all Vivaldi’s…

Dr. Peter Lim says:

February 23, 2014 at 11:47 am

Ruggiero Ricci whom I had the good fortune to meet in 1999 was a pioneer in playing Paganini’s Caprices.

He was a gentle, humble and reticent person. Over meals, I urged him to write his autobiography.

I lost contact with him after he left Austria to return to USA.

What a great man!

He wrote the Foreword to THE GREAT VIOLINISTS by Margaret Campbell in which he said

it was better to play THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER well than a concerto badly-

I am a self-taught amateur fiddler and am comforted by these words–the piece has been my favourite since my teenage years–I play and sing it all the time.

Carlos Majlis says:

February 24, 2014 at 11:20 am

Ricci was the first to play and record the 24 as written, that is on solo violin. But the first who played and recorded them but with an absurd an totally unnecessary piano accompaniment was Oskar Reiss (Ossy Renardy) in 1940.

Reply

Carlos Majlis says:

February 23, 2014 at 8:36 pm

That seems to me an absolutely stupid thing to do. I very much doubt anybody could stand all the program, I not I couldn’t. First complete it’s enough for me. Big difference between old masters and actual players. Old ones played the violin. Those one try to break records.

Isabelle says:

March 1, 2014 at 9:36 pm

I don’t know if it’s stupid, but , but clearly unnecessary. I was present in the hall, and I can say that few people, endeed, stayed to the end. I was among those few, so tired that I could hardly understood what I was listening. BUT, the amazing is that this violonist who is triying do break records, is, in the same time, an obvious master. His playing on that evening was marvellous from the beginning to the end. I never felt that his energy or his musicality were lesser to the end. Really astonishing …

Reply
Harold says:

April 26, 2015 at 3:27 pm

I was at the same concert and I will say that nobody has left that concert until the end. May be 5-10 people but it is usual for any concert.

Reply