An instrumental journey that started in the 1600s, when Antonio Stradivari started making string instruments, has culminated in a new album: “Paganini: His Music, His Instruments.”
The Goldmund Quartet, which is based in Germany, teamed up with Italian classical guitarist Carlotta Dalia to produce the album. The quartet played on the famed Paganini Quartet instruments and Dalia played a classical guitar also once owned by Paganini himself.
The Paganini Quartet is a set of instruments — two violins, a viola and a cello — owned by Italian violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini in the 1800s. After his death, the instruments changed hands many times until they were united in 1946 and dubbed the Paganini Quartet. Now, they’re loaned out by the Sasakawa Music Foundation to musicians who apply to use them. The Goldmund Quartet first received the instruments in 2019. Raphael Paratore, the cellist of the group, recalls when he first played the cello named Ladenburg.
“Actually, it was really magic, especially the volume of the instrument, especially for me as a cellist,” Paratore said. “The lower register, like the open G and C string, the two lowest strings on the cello, they resonate just so greatly and you can feel it with your whole body. It was really a huge joy ever since.”
Members of the Goldmund Quartet include: Florian Schötz, Pinchas Adt, Christoph Vandory, and Raphael Paratore. The quartet announced in 2024 that they would have the long-term loan of the instruments for another three years.
Paratore told BYU-Idaho Radio it was while touring in the United States, with the long car rides together, that the quartet first thought of recording Paganini’s chamber music with his instruments.
“Maybe we had heard one or two, but not everything,” Paratore said. “And I remember how we were so excited to discover his music. We’re like, ‘Oh man, this is actually really good!’”
The album includes “Guitar Quartet No. 15” and “String Quartet No. 3” as well as the “Sonata, Op. 3, No. 1” in a guitar arrangement. Paratore said it was important for them to include the guitar on this album.
“(Paganini) played guitar himself. He composed almost all of his music from the guitar, so, for us, was kind of very natural to say, ‘Let’s include guitar for this chamber music program,’” Paratore said.
The album is available now on streaming services like Spotify and YouTube. The quartet will also perform this album in North America when they tour in February and March in cities from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Toronto, Canada.