Augustin Hadelich @_augustinhadelich

Augustin plays Paganini Caprice No. 5 with original bowing! • About four years ago, I posted a video of a live performance of Paganini Caprice no. 5 (https://youtu.be/Zg_Hf_StXzU). It was my encore piece for a long time, and I usually played the middle section with all separate bowing. Occasionally, there were some cranky comments asking when I will make a video with the original bowing! The "original" bowing of the fast middle section of this piece consists of throwing the bow to play 3 notes in ricochet downbow, and then taking one upbow -- then repeating, throughout the piece. This is enormously difficult because each group of four notes is different depending on string changes and dynamics, and because as you keep doing this there is a danger to move further and further towards the tip. There is some uncertainty whether Paganini actually meant for the entire piece to be played in this bowing. He indicates it only on the first two groups of four notes, and does not write "segue" - so it's also possible that he meant to do it for the first half of each bar, and play the second half of each bar separate. The most likely scenario in my mind is that he went in and out of this bowing, switching between the ricochet and separate, in order to get maximum speed and dazzle his audience as much as possible. There are settings where I think all separate is the better choice - for example in a concert hall when the audience sits far away, or when I play it for a recording - where in other words you don't have the visual element and the audience is only listening - in that case, especially if they are not string players, they might be more impressed by the all-separate bowing. Since I recently had some time on my hands (well, a lot of time!), ! revisited this and finally made a video of Paganini caprice no. 5 with the original bowing! It was frustrating to practice, but once I got it working ! had a lot of fun! . . . #violin #orchestra #fyp #classicalmusic #performance

Plays

505.3K

Likes

110.1K

Comments

883

Shares

4.9K

Posted Sep 22, 2026 · Sound: Original sound

Open on TikTok