In August of this year, I played a concert with a horn player who is also a guitarist, and when we were batting ideas around for repertoire, she found this lovely Paganini sonata (Op 2a, #VI) in IMSLP. I liked it so much that I decided to record it, and went to Toronto yesterday to do exactly that with my good friends, Joe Phillips (who everyone knows as a stellar bassist and he plays guitar too) and polymath engineer Robert DiVito. It is always so comfortable to play with Joe. Such a hugely talented person who always makes things better. And he is another bass clef player who doesn’t mind reading treble clef. 🙂 And so easy to work with Rob, who captures such a deep yet clear sound and is calmly and expertly helpful as producer too. I do love the sound of Blue Bell in the mics.

I drove down to the city on an uncharacteristically gorgeous autumn day, joining the legions of cottagers who were also returning to the city, and recorded the music, then drove back up to the quiet near north. . . roads were empty now that it was the middle of the night and though I kept my eye out for leaping deer, I saw only a single fox trotting down the gravel road as I neared home. I will let you know when the duo is edited and available.

Oh, and in the interest of ensemble, I decided to write out the music by hand and discovered that I could use more practice in this area! And since I plan to record the other 5 sonatas in this opus, it looks like I will have the opportunity to refine my manuscript. Unless someone knows of a modern edition??