Paganini: Violin Concerto No. 2 “La Campanella”

Violin, bow and a small bell on a theatre stage, illustrating Paganini’s Second Violin Concerto.
Paganini’s Second Violin Concerto brings the singing line of Italian opera into a world of dazzling violin playing. Its bell finale, La Campanella, gives a small percussion instrument a memorable role in the exchange between soloist and orchestra.

Niccolò Paganini’s Second Violin Concerto is most widely recognised through its finale, “La Campanella”, in which a violin exchanges sounds with an actual bell. Heard complete, the concerto places that familiar movement within a much broader exploration of melody and instrumental technique. Before the finale begins, the violin has already assumed the dramatic prominence of an operatic protagonist and sustained an Adagio whose demands on phrasing are as exacting as the faster movements’ demands on agility.

Paganini composed the concerto in Naples in 1826, while preparing new works for the appearances he hoped to make beyond Italy. His letters to his friend and legal adviser Luigi Guglielmo Germi connect composition with a practical wish: to try the music before Italian audiences before taking it to Vienna, London and Paris. The concerto was written for his own violin and for direct contact with a large public. Its melodies had to register at a first hearing, its contrasts had to sustain attention, and its technical demands had to contribute to a musical course the audience could follow.

Italian opera helps explain the organisation of that course. The orchestra prepares an entrance; the violin takes up a melody shaped into clear phrases; subsequent returns make room for additional decoration and greater intensity. In vocal music, the words would help articulate the line. Here its direction depends on duration, articulation and the shaping of each arrival. That continuity must remain audible even when the writing climbs into the violin’s highest reaches or divides into simultaneous pitches.

The printed text reached the public after the composer’s death, in the edition of 1851. The surviving manuscripts preserve more than the final appearance of a published work: they include supplementary instrumental parts, changes and annotations associated with performances. Maria Rosa Moretti and Anna Sorrento describe these materials in their thematic catalogue, while Mariateresa Dellaborra’s critical edition of 2017 reconsiders their history and presents the scoring of the concerto’s first conception. This article follows the familiar three-movement form with its D major Adagio, taking the early published full score as the musical source examined directly. Differences between the sources matter particularly to the orchestration and to the decisions through which a performance takes shape.

A programme for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence on 26 June 1827 announces a large concerto in three movements with an obbligato bell. It provides a secure landmark in the work’s early public life, although conflicting accounts prevent the exact premiere from being treated as definitively established. The announcement already suggests what could distinguish the piece in an audience’s memory. Alongside the celebrated violinist, a small orchestral instrument had acquired sufficient importance to be mentioned in the description of the concert.

Movements / Structure

The familiar fast–slow–fast sequence accommodates three distinct kinds of musical attention. The opening movement carries the longest dramatic and tonal argument; the Adagio concentrates on the shaping of a sustained solo line; the finale makes recognition of a recurring melody central to the listener’s experience. D major, the middle movement’s principal key, is the relative major of B minor: the two share a key signature, while organising their sense of arrival around different tonal centres.

MovementMarkingKey and metreForm and role
IAllegro maestosoB minor, ending in B major; opening in 12/8, followed by common timeExtended orchestral exposition and successive solo sections, with a lyrical second subject, a freely organised central span, return and cadenza.
IIAdagioD major; common timeOrchestral preparation followed by an aria-like solo unfolding, decorated returns and a gradual withdrawal of sound.
IIIRondò — Andantino, Allegretto moderato, “La Campanella”B minor; 6/8A recurring refrain and two principal episodes, organised around the violin’s changing technique and its exchanges with the bell.

The B major conclusion of the first movement resolves its immediate tonal course without determining the ending of the concerto as a whole. The Adagio shifts the focus to D major, and the rondo restores B minor. Across that sequence, the same solo instrument assumes different responsibilities: commanding a large public statement, sustaining a lyrical span, then differentiating a succession of sharply identifiable sounds.

Musical Analysis

I. Allegro maestoso — Preparing the soloist’s entrance

The opening establishes movement before the violin begins its extended solo argument. Repeated string notes, short articulation and a rise in dynamic intensity give the listener an immediate rhythmic point of reference. The initial 12/8 metre groups its subdivisions into four principal beats, each divided into three. The subsequent change to common time reorganises that momentum while preserving the imposing character implied by Allegro maestoso.

The opening tutti of the Allegro maestoso, showing repeated quavers and a crescendo in the violin staff.
Example 1. First movement, bars 1–3 with the preceding two-quaver upbeat; complete bars are counted from the first bar after the upbeat. Only the “Violino principal” staff is reproduced. At this point its marking is Tutti: it participates in the orchestral writing, rather than representing the later solo entrance. Repeated quavers and the crescendo show how the opening builds intensity before an extended melody unfolds. Source: Niccolò Paganini, 2e Concerto, “La Clochette”, full score, Paris: Schonenberger, [1851], p. 1; no named editor. Digitised by Generoso, IMSLP #253710. Faithful extract from the source, without renotation.

The orchestral exposition has room for contrasting kinds of material. Alongside the sharply articulated opening, a cantabile melody introduces a more sustained manner of expression. Its D major setting provides a clear contrast to the concerto’s opening B minor. This melody will later be taken up by the solo violin, so its initial orchestral appearance has an audible structural purpose: it gives the listener something to recognise when the instrumental colour changes.

After this extended preparation, the first substantial solo entrance introduces different material from the opening rhythmic idea of the tutti. Paganini places the melody high in the violin’s compass and connects its expressive intensity with arpeggios and double-stopped passagework. Arpeggios distribute the notes of a chord in succession; double stops allow two pitches to sound together. Their alternation changes the substance of the solo presence. A single line can move with great speed, while simultaneous notes give it additional harmonic weight. The passage from melody to its virtuosic extension can therefore be heard as a change of texture even without following the score.

The return of the lyrical subject changes the soloist’s task. Its continuity depends on the direction of the phrase and the weighting of its arrivals. The surrounding passages in sixths and tenths increase the difficulty while giving the line additional harmonic substance. A useful listening distinction is between places where two notes travel together and those where the music returns to a single melodic strand: technical variety becomes a change in what the ear can follow.

The large-scale design retains the functions associated with concerto-sonata form. An orchestral presentation establishes the musical setting, the soloist develops an exposition of its own, and a central departure carries the music away from its earlier points of reference. The eventual return matters because melodies heard before become recognisable within a changed tonal setting.

Inside that framework, Paganini gives considerable space to the alternation of melody and virtuosic expansion. The central span introduces new material, including an E minor idea, and extends the range and technical demands of the solo writing. Its sense of development emerges through changes of key, fresh melody and greater instrumental mobility, rather than through the continuous fragmentation of a single small motif. Orchestral interventions articulate the principal stages, allowing a new direction to register before the violin resumes its longer unfolding.

The return of the lyrical subject in B major changes the meaning of the familiar melody. B has been recovered as the tonal centre, but the major mode gives that recovery a different colour from the opening B minor. Comparing this passage with the subject’s first appearance makes the combination of recognition and changed perspective especially clear. Near the end, the cadenza suspends the shared orchestral course and leaves the violin alone. Its length and content depend on the version adopted by the performer; the brief orchestral conclusion then restores a collective pulse and completes the movement.

II. Adagio — A sustained line above plucked strings

The Adagio draws attention away from large-scale confrontation towards the detailed shaping of a melodic line. Horns help define the orchestral preparation before the soloist enters. The stronger orchestral statements and quick figures of that introduction make the later change of texture especially noticeable: the violin takes responsibility for a broad melody in D major, and the accompaniment recedes.

The contrast between bowed melody and pizzicato accompaniment is fundamental. A plucked orchestral note has a clear onset and quickly fades; the soloist’s bow can sustain a sound and connect it to the next. The melody therefore continues across a background whose notes remain distinct. The operatic comparison grows out of this audible arrangement: a principal singing voice, a supporting accompaniment and phrases that need recognisable breaths and destinations.

As the Adagio unfolds, Paganini brings back and ornaments his melodic material. Trills, quick connecting figures and movement into higher pitches alter the approach to an arrival. An expected note may be delayed by additional notes leading towards it, making decoration part of the phrase’s timing. Concentrating only on the speed of those small figures can obscure their relationship with the larger line. When their destination remains audible, they become part of the melody’s breathing.

The accompaniment helps the listener follow that relationship. Its short notes maintain a point of reference while the violin broadens a sustained sound or completes a more densely decorated passage. Balancing these kinds of motion is one of the movement’s central interpretative tasks. The melody needs room to move, yet the phrase continues to depend on the pulse beneath it.

The movement unfolds through lyrical presentation, decorated reappearances and a final withdrawal, rather than reproducing the first movement’s extended opposition of large sections. Towards the close, high double-stopped writing, softer dynamics and indications of broadening and fading gradually diminish the intensity. The technical demands remain considerable as the sound recedes. Accuracy and tonal control have to survive precisely where the music becomes most exposed.

III. Rondò — Recognising the refrain of “La Campanella”

The finale returns to B minor in 6/8. Its two principal beats, each divided into three quavers, support a mobile melody clearly differentiated from the Adagio’s sustained line. The violin presents the theme, whose reappearances become the listener’s main points of reference. Between them, larger solo episodes change the writing, the colour and, at certain stages, the tonal setting.

These alternations organise the rondo. At the broadest level it can be heard as A–B–A–C–A, with A representing the refrain and B and C the two principal episodes, including their internal extensions. The outline is useful because it connects recognition with form. Each return brings the memory of the first statement into contact with the music heard since.

The bell in F sharp is a real component of the scoring. Its fixed pitch has a specific place within B minor: F sharp is the dominant, the fifth degree of the scale. The bell’s easily distinguished metallic sound supplies a point of reference while the violin’s writing changes around it. Both the Italian title “La Campanella” and the French “La Clochette” refer to this instrumental presence.

The exchange becomes more subtle when the violin employs harmonics. By touching a string in a particular way, the player brings higher components of its vibration into prominence, producing a lighter, purer sound than an ordinarily stopped note. The listener then hears a relationship between an actual metallic percussion sound and a colour generated on a string instrument. Their resemblance matters, but so does the difference that remains audible between them. This distinction gives the finale an identity that speed alone cannot explain.

In the first episode, the violin moves beyond the refrain’s compact statement into more mobile passagework. Changes of pitch range and decorative extensions make the return of the main tune especially clear. After a more densely active span, its familiar contour restores a stable melodic reference. There is no need to track every note to follow the form: remembering the opening phrase is enough to distinguish its returns from the intervening activity.

The second principal episode moves to G major and initially offers a gentler melodic contrast. The writing subsequently becomes more elaborate and includes left-hand pizzicato. Here a finger of the hand normally responsible for stopping the string also plucks it. Alternation with bowed playing creates sounds of different duration and character: some continue, while others register as short, separate attacks. The change is audible even without seeing how the violinist produces it.

A shorter final return leads towards the orchestral conclusion in B minor. Recognisable melody and clearly differentiated sounds remain essential through the closing pages. Precise articulation allows the listener to distinguish the kinds of motion that have shaped the movement: the tune itself, rapid passagework, harmonics and plucked notes.

This finale also began the theme’s subsequent life at the piano. Liszt first developed its material in the S. 420 fantasy of 1832, then returned to it in his Paganini studies, producing the familiar S. 141 No. 3 in 1851. The change of instrument also changed the means of creating contrasts. Keyboard distances and repeated notes assumed roles shared here between violin and bell. The piano writing and the separate history of that transformation are explored in Franz Liszt: La Campanella.

Bel canto and the violin’s melodic line

In this concerto, bel canto can be understood through specific features of phrasing: continuity, clearly directed arrivals and decoration that preserves a melody’s identity. The violinist must make it possible to hear which notes are destinations and which prepare, prolong or ornament those destinations. This is a practical responsibility that extends beyond the production of an attractive tone.

The Adagio makes that responsibility particularly easy to hear because its short pizzicato accompaniment leaves space around the sustained solo note. The first movement poses a related problem in a busier setting. Its lyrical subject has to remain intelligible as speed, range and double-stopped writing increase around it. Virtuosity can extend the phrase, delay its arrival or change its colour, and the performer must judge how those changes relate to the line as a whole.

For the listener, a useful experiment is to retain the simplest outline of a theme and look for it again in a decorated return. This gives the concerto’s relationship with vocal music an audible basis. No invented operatic plot is needed: the connection emerges through the management of breath, continuity and ornament within the instrumental phrase.

Orchestra, supplementary parts and cadenzas

The orchestra has different responsibilities across the concerto. In the Allegro maestoso it presents material, articulates the large divisions and establishes the context for the violin’s entrance. In the Adagio, a lighter accompaniment allows the melody’s duration to register. In the rondo, the addition of the bell directs attention towards distinctions of timbre. Sparse accompaniment has a practical purpose here: it makes details audible that continuous orchestral density could obscure.

The surviving materials require a distinction between sources: the principal score and supplementary instrumental parts. They document two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bassoon, two principal horns, two trumpets, three trombones and strings. Additional parts survive for reinforcing bassoon and horns, serpentone and cimbasso, timpani, bass drum and cymbals, and the bell. Collecting every instrument named in these sources into one undifferentiated list would conceal how the materials developed and how particular parts function. Some reinforce selected passages, and the terminology for the low wind instruments belongs to the orchestral practices of Paganini’s time.

The first movement’s cadenza calls for a related distinction. The orchestra’s withdrawal creates a space in which the violinist can concentrate and extend melodic and technical ideas. Recordings offer different solutions. Salvatore Accardo’s performance with Charles Dutoit, for example, identifies the cadenza as Accardo’s own. Such a contribution changes the duration and the shape of the performance’s late climax; it should be recognised as the later player’s addition rather than automatically attributed to Paganini.

🪶 A Chapter in the Life of the Work

Before the bell reached Vienna

In Naples in December 1826, Paganini is preparing the music he wants to place before an audience. On the twelfth he writes to Germi about a concert planned for the San Carlo after Christmas. He intends to play his First Concerto and, if a second concert is arranged, a new concerto with an obbligato bell. He has also completed the orchestration of a third, ending in a polonaise. Before taking these works to Vienna, London and Paris, he wants his fellow Italians to hear them.

Eleven days later, he returns to the subject. The copyists have delivered the parts of the two new concertos, and he is studying them while anticipating a San Carlo appearance in about twelve days. The music has reached the stage between composition and performance: it must be available to the orchestral players who will work with the soloist. The letters show Paganini occupied with that preparation while continuing to plan the appearances that lie ahead.

One small instruction surviving among the concerto’s materials makes the work of copying unusually tangible. In the bell part, Paganini asks the copyist to avoid abbreviations and write out every note. The player responsible for the small instrument needs a complete text through which to follow its place in the rondo. The bell may contribute a single pitch, but the timing of each entrance belongs to the composition as surely as the notes entrusted to the violin.

On 26 June 1827, we find Paganini in Florence. At the Teatro della Pergola, the programme announces a large concerto in three movements with an obbligato bell. The idea described to Germi now has a place in a public programme. Later that year, he presents the work in Genoa and Milan. At La Scala in December, the announcement names the three movements separately and again specifies the bell accompaniment in the rondo. Across these appearances, the concerto is acquiring a recognisable public identity.

When Paganini reaches Vienna in the spring of 1828, the new work is already part of the repertory through which he will introduce himself beyond Italy. On 29 March he appears in the Redoutensaal. The evening begins with an overture from Beethoven’s Fidelio, followed by the concerto in three movements, its finale once again identified by the bell accompaniment. The Viennese appearance envisaged in the Naples correspondence now has a location, a date and an announced programme.

The audience hears a different kind of evening from the familiar modern pairing of concerto and symphony. Antonia Bianchi sings an aria by Ferdinando Paer, while Paganini returns to the violin with his Sonata militare, written for the G string, and variations on music from Rossini’s La Cenerentola. Vocal and instrumental appearances alternate. The Second Concerto is heard alongside singing and other kinds of violin virtuosity, within a musical setting that helps explain its own combination of sustained melody and instrumental display.

The journey continues, leaving traces on the orchestral materials themselves. Surviving parts carry musicians’ annotations of places and performance dates: Vienna in 1828, German stages of the tour in 1829, then Paris and London. Those entries connect the music prepared in Naples with the orchestras that subsequently played it. Through the thematic catalogue, we can follow that course in the sheets used for the concerts, alongside the separate bell part and Paganini’s instruction to its copyist.

🎧 Listening Guide

At the beginning of the first movement, follow the repeated notes and the increase in intensity. Both initial metric organisations have four principal beats; notice how the motion changes when the compound subdivisions of 12/8 give way to common time.

Before the solo violin enters, remember the lyrical orchestral melody. When the soloist later takes it up, listen for the same outline within a different instrumental colour and a more decorated setting.

At the cadenza, identify the point where the orchestra withdraws. Its eventual return makes it possible to hear how a passage of greater temporal freedom reconnects with a shared pulse.

In the Adagio, distinguish the sustained violin sound from the short pizzicato notes beneath it. On a second hearing, follow the way an ornament changes the approach to a melodic arrival while preserving the phrase’s overall direction.

In the rondo, memorise the opening phrase and recognise its returns. Give the intervening episodes a different focus on successive hearings: first changes of pitch range, then the relationship between the bell and violin harmonics, and finally the short plucked sounds produced by the left hand.

🎶 Further Listening

Once the concerto’s course is familiar, different performances make it possible to examine the balance between melody and passagework, the freedom of the Adagio and the contribution of a cadenza. The following choices offer specific points of comparison.

  • Salvatore Accardo — London Philharmonic Orchestra — Charles Dutoit, Deutsche Grammophon. A useful reference for the complete concerto and for comparing versions of the first movement’s cadenza, credited here to Accardo. Follow the return of the lyrical subject before the final extended solo contribution.
  • Ilya Kaler — Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra — Stephen Gunzenhauser, Naxos 8.550649. A second complete performance through which to compare the proportions of the movements. In the Adagio, use the accompaniment’s pulse as a reference and listen to the temporal freedom allowed to the melody above it.
  • Giuseppe Gibboni — Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra — Yao-Yu Wu. The three performance videos make it possible to follow the same soloist and ensemble throughout the concerto. In the first movement, watch the transition from lyrical playing to double stops; in the Adagio, connect bowing with the duration of the phrase; in the rondo, follow the alternation of bowed and plucked sound.

📚 Further Reading

Further study can move from the surviving documents to the history of the editions, then outwards to Paganini’s wider career. These sources serve different stages of that exploration.

  • Maria Rosa Moretti and Anna Sorrento — Catalogo tematico delle musiche di Niccolò Paganini. Comune di Genova, 1982, M.S. 48, pp. 157–162. The essential starting point for this concerto’s surviving sources, supplementary instrumental parts, correspondence and historical concert programmes.
  • Mariateresa Dellaborra, editor — Niccolò Paganini, Secondo concerto per violino e orchestra M.S. 48 — Le couvent du Mont Saint Bernard M.S. 67. Istituto Italiano per la Storia della Musica, Rome, 2017. The critical edition is the appropriate next step for investigating the concerto’s textual history and original conception of the orchestral scoring. Comparing the sources helps distinguish the original conception, the changes associated with performance and the decisions embodied in a later edition.
  • Danilo Prefumo — Paganini: His Life, Works, and Times. Libreria Musicale Italiana, Lucca, 2022; English edition of the Italian monograph published in 2020. Recommended for placing the concerto within Paganini’s career and the larger tradition of violinist-composers writing for their own performances.

🔗 Related Works

These connections lead back towards the violin concerto’s earlier history and forward to later approaches to melody, virtuosity and form. Liszt’s “La Campanella” has the closest relationship, as a direct reworking of the finale.

  • Niccolò Paganini — Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 6, M.S. 21. Compare the orchestral preparation, the solo entrance and the vocal conception of melody in the composer’s two best-known concertos.
  • Giovanni Battista Viotti — Violin Concerto No. 24 in B minor. A route back to the preceding generation of the violin concerto and its combination of lyrical melody with a prominently individual soloist.
  • Franz Liszt — “La Campanella”, S. 141 No. 3. The finale’s direct creative continuation, with changes of instrument, key and technical mechanism.
  • Felix Mendelssohn — Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64. A later approach in which the early solo entrance and the position of the written cadenza alter the organisation of the first movement.
  • Camille Saint-Saëns — Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28. Its lyrical opening and mobile rondo offer another way of hearing virtuosity built on recognisable melody and clearly articulated rhythm.

🎼 Closing Reflection

If “La Campanella” first reached you through the piano, the concerto can change the picture you attach to its sound. A high note acquires a separate instrument and a musician waiting to play it; the melody recovers the bow that can sustain its line. Returning to the first form of familiar music can make us newly attentive to the different people and physical actions through which it comes into being.

📖 Bibliography and Sources

The analysis combines direct examination of the early published full score with the source descriptions in Moretti and Sorrento’s thematic catalogue, particularly for the manuscripts, supplementary scoring, chronology and historical programmes. The narrative of the concerto’s preparation and tour draws on the letters, concert announcements and players’ annotations recorded there, together with documentation of the Viennese programme. Verified editorial information supports the brief account of Liszt’s reworkings. The complete 2017 critical edition was not available for direct consultation: its official presentation and contents were used only for the information they establish.

Scores

Paganini, Niccolò. 2e Concerto, “La Clochette”, Op. 7. Full score. Paris: Schonenberger, [1851]. Digitised by Generoso, IMSLP #253710, 171 PDF pages. Page references in this article follow the printed pagination.

Paganini, Niccolò. Second concerto avec accompagnement de piano, Op. 7. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, n.d., plate 11369. Sibley Music Library, University of Rochester; copy lacking the separate violin part. Consulted to cross-check the musical text. The piano reduction is not evidence for the complete orchestration.

Primary testimony

Manuscript materials for the Second Concerto, Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome, ms. Cas. 5565: bell part with the composer’s instruction to the copyist, and instrumental parts with annotations of performance dates and places. The descriptions and transcriptions in Moretti–Sorrento, pp. 159–160, were consulted; the manuscripts themselves were not examined directly.

Paganini’s letters to L. G. Germi dated 12 August, 12 December and 23 December 1826, and the Florence programme of 26 June 1827, were consulted as reproduced in Moretti–Sorrento, pp. 160–161. The Milan and Vienna programmes were also checked in the same catalogue. The original documents were not examined directly.

Scholarship and editorial documentation

Moretti, Maria Rosa, and Anna Sorrento. Catalogo tematico delle musiche di Niccolò Paganini. Genoa: Comune di Genova, 1982, M.S. 48, pp. 157–162; M.S. 49, pp. 162–163. Digital copy provided by the Centro Paganini.

Mariani, Mauro. Programme note for the Second Concerto, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, 28 October 2000. Schillirò, Nino. Note accompanying the CD issued with Amadeus, No. 76. Reproduced at Flaminio Online, “Secondo Concerto in si minore, op. 7”. The chronology in the website’s heading was not adopted as evidence for the premiere.

Anderson, Keith. Booklet essay for Paganini: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, Ilya Kaler, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stephen Gunzenhauser. Naxos 8.550649.

Nicholas, Jeremy. Booklet essay for Liszt: Paganini Studies & Schubert Marches, Marc-André Hamelin. Hyperion CDA67370, 2002.

Istituto Italiano per la Storia della Musica. Official presentation and published contents of Niccolò Paganini, Secondo concerto per violino e orchestra M.S. 48 — Le couvent du Mont Saint Bernard M.S. 67, edited by Mariateresa Dellaborra, Rome, 2017.

Performance records and further-reading verification

Universal Music Italia. Accardo Plays Paganini — The Complete Recordings: performer credits and attribution of the Second Concerto’s cadenza to Salvatore Accardo.

Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra / OPENTIX. “Faust’s Wild Resonance” — Giuseppe Gibboni & KSO, 2024; work, soloist, orchestra and conductor credits.

Libreria Musicale Italiana. Publishing records for Danilo Prefumo, Paganini. La vita, le opere, il suo tempo (2020) and Paganini: His Life, Works, and Times (2022). Used to verify the further-reading recommendation, without implying consultation of the complete monograph.