Paganini had already become a myth for musicians and men of letters during his lifetime (Heine's visionary portrait narrated in 'Florentine Nights' is unforgettable) and was, and is still today, considered the greatest violinist of all times. For this reason he is held to be a minor composer and  his pieces for the guitar constitute a minor part of his works. Though  not immediately evident, Paganini's production for the guitar has a highly original flair. Moreover,  since these pieces were not envisaged for concerts, they make up a more “intimate” part of the compositions written by this great Genoese musician . In addition to which this production is not limited by the conventional virtuosity of the period, thanks to technical solutions which we consider innovative if we think that they were written at the beginning of the Nineteenth century (the period in which most of these works are dated) and to its being a synthesis of that instrumental virtuosity and the “cantabile” (which was the hallmark of the Italian musical theatre)    . Going from simple pieces like those of the Ghiribizzi collection -  written for “a little Neapolitan girl”- to more elaborate and interesting works such as the Grande Sonata, Paganini always shows an organic coherence in a creative gesture
An annotation about the instrument, a Gaetano Guadagnini guitar made in 1851. The idea of proposing this music on an instrument of the period was not a philological requirement: Paganini's music is alive in the here and now, in our contemporary world. We do think, however, that the Nineteenth century guitar on which Paganini conceived his music, is a completely different instrument to the modern guitar, for it has a specific timbre as well as dynamic and morphological peculiarities which force the interpreter to read the script - and the ideas which inspired his compositions - as correctly as possible from a technical as well as musical point of view.