Bazzini was a great violin virtuoso
Born in Brescia, Italy in 1818, Bazzini fell under the spell of the great Niccolò Paganini, whom he met as a teenager. The renowned virtuoso encouraged the young violinist to begin concertizing, and he soon became one of the most highly regarded instrumentalists of the day. Schumann and Mendelssohn were among his fans.
Itzhak Perlman remarked that that the composer hadn’t written anything else because he’d used up all the notes in La ronde. It has all the hallmarks of a violin showpiece: false harmonics, ricochet bowings, double-stop tremolos, left hand pizzicato – and indeed it has remained a “go-to” when a performer wants to pull out all the stops for an encore.
Don’t be fooled by Perlman’s ease, the piece is hard as f****: