Joseph Achron Society - Performance Edition of Achron-Paganini Caprices

... reviving the brilliant legacy of a forgotten composer...

Thanks to the Joseph Achron Society and its printed publication of Achron's Third Violin Concerto, this incredible work just received its first performance in over 70 years! The orchestra, critics, and audience were enthralled by Achron's innovative blend of Jewish, Russian, and American musical traditions. We are already discussing possibilities of further performances.

Joseph Achron (1886-1943) was an extraordinarily gifted and innovative composer, one of the greatest violinists of his generation, a musical scholar and activist, and an important leader of a Jewish national music movement. The great violinist Jascha Heifetz called him "one of our foremost modern composers." But, like the Third Concerto, most of Achron's more than 100 compositions had never been published or recorded. As a result, his works are rarely performed or written about, and his name stays buried in obscurity. With our publication of the Third Violin Concerto, the Achron Society is already making concrete progress in bringing Achron's brilliant legacy to the concert stage!

The Achron-Paganini Caprices:

Inspired by the success of our Concerto project, we are now working to bring another long-lost, unpublished Achron work to the stage: the 11 Achron-Paganini Caprices for Violin and Piano. Dedicated to Heifetz, these highly creative concert transcriptions bring new insights to the harmonic, motivic, and contrapuntal potential of Paganini's well-known masterpieces. Our edition will feature Achron's own extensive fingerings, bowings, and dynamics, which were very unusual and visionary in the history of violin performance. An introductory essay by world-famous violinist Yuval Waldman will delve into the history of these fingerings, revealing Achron to be an important, yet forgotten, innovator of violin technique.

About donations:

Thanks to a fiscal sponsorship from the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, all donations through this website are tax-deductible while we work to achieve non-profit status ourselves.

Thank you for your support! Together, we are bringing life to these long-forgotten masterpieces!