Born in 2002 in Granada, Spain, Maria Dueñas began playing violin at the age of six. Before she was 20, she had won eight international competitions, including the prestigious Menuhin; by the time she was 20, she had been signed by Deutsche Grammophon, her maiden outing Beethoven’s violin concerto that introduced a master musician of great imagination, keen intelligence, flawless technique, interpretive insight beyond her years, a fiery and passionate temperament, yet also graceful, lyrical, and thoughtfully personal without being idiosyncratic (see my review in TAS 363 and on Tracking Angle).
Scarcely a year later came her second: that Everest of the solo-violin repertoire, Paganini’s 24 Caprices, most of which require all but superhuman dexterity, flexibility, and strength in fingers, hands, and arms. Aware that Paganini called them not etudes…
