If you're about my age (and let's face it, if you're here then you probably are), when you hear the opening bars of Paganini's 24th Caprice you'll be looking for a couple of giant hands to touch fingers and for Melvyn Bragg to hove into view. That's because The South Bank Show used Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Variations as its theme... and that was very much based on Caprice No. 24.
Paganini's source material was composed for strings, but here's an arrangement for classical guitar performed by Japanese guitar prodigy Haruna Miyagawa, in which her hands defy the laws of physics. Whether you like the music or not, if you are any kind of guitarist you know that this is almost unbelievably exceptional.
I had to check that she has only five fingers on each hand!
ReplyDeleteAstonishing, isn't she?
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