Grand Quartet in E Major (1818-20)

Paganini had little interest in the string quartet. There are three authentic Paganini scores for the standard ensemble, written under political pressure for King Vittorio Emanuele I in Genoa in 1815, but they are comprehensively outnumbered by his quartets for violin, viola, cello and guitar. He must have felt more at ease in this company, presumably because it was texturally so much less demanding than the string quartet. Certainly, he wrote as many as 15 works for guitar and string trio – not, however, in the intention of presenting himself as a star guitarist, accomplished though he was in that respect. Except in the last of these works, where a special feature is made of the viola, the violin is the clear and undisputed leader of an ensemble which, as a fortunate consequence, can be transcribed with little difficulty for standard string quartet. In the present Grand Quartet – an unattributed arrangement of Quartet No.7 in E major published in Leipzig in the middle of the 19th century – the harmonic responsibility originally entrusted to guitar is simply transferred to the second violin.

Although, obviously, the presence of the guitar in the original version of the work gives it a distinctive colour, its absence in the arrangement is no great loss. In the original, the two main themes of the first movement are introduced by the violin and viola respectively, the cello claiming solo prominence in the middle section and all three of them having a more or less bravura role to play while the    guitar does nothing more than strum a modest accompaniment. The scoring is much the same in the arrangement except that the second violin supplies the missing harmonies.

Listening to the present version of the Minuetto, one might assume that the pizzicato colouring in all four parts is meant to compensate for the absence of the guitar. In fact, the cello carries the melody in the original too. The main difference here is that the solo parts in the three trio sections, the third of which was scored for guitar, have had to be redistributed. The most extensive rewriting – which touches on the melodic material as well as the scoring, suggesting that the arrangement might be by Paganini himself – happens in the slow movement. The guitar never had a share of the melody but it was prominent in the accompaniment. Its absence here seems to encourage a more serious, at times even Beethoven-like, treatment of the recitative and arioso solos of what amounts to an operatic scena.   

The Quartet in E was first performed with, it is thought, Paganini playing the guitar part. It is difficult, however, to imagine him handing over the violin part to anyone else, least of all in the last movement which, with its “flying staccato” rondo theme, is clearly written in his virtuoso image.