My ‘Knowledge Exchange Violin’ project is about to rev up again, with films and concerts on two exciting violins in Genova. Here’s one of them!!!
In 2006, I asked David Gorton to write the first of a series of Caprices for solo violin. This ‘Rosetta Caprice’, was inspired by the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, London, where it was premiered on the 1709 ‘Viotti’ Stradivari. However there was another inspiration: the work of Niccolo Paganini, and his extraordinary del Gesu ‘Il Cannone’ which the composer had encountered when Peter played it in London the year before.
In 2007, I played a set of the Gorton caprices, along with other pieces dedicated to him inspired by Paganini by David Matthews, Judith Bingham and George Rochberg, on the Paganini violin, at the the violin’s home, the Palazzo Tursi in Genova. This is part of that performance, given a particular wildness by the extraordinary voice of this storied violin. My dear friend and great photographer, Richard Bram, was there to photograph the violin in both cities.