You will have noticed that the artwork for Il Cannone represents quite a departure from our usual packaging designs. This was prompted by customer request such that our envelopes are almost all text based and can, therefore, be difficult to easily identify and request in many territories. A more graphical, readily identifiable, image based format was suggested for this reason and with this in mind we asked our designer to come up with something, instantly, memorable for Il Cannone.
The Il Cannone and Paganini connection suggested an emphasis upon Paganini’s unusually dexterous hands combined with an allusion to his famed mystical associations:
Paganini made left hand pizzicato and harmonics his own trademark style and was said to be capable of playing three octaves of notes across the four strings. An anecdotal story that adds to Paganini’s near mythical status takes place on an evening when he was asked by a wealthy sponsor to serenade a lady friend. The evening air was damp and strings at that time did not respond well to humidity. The first string to break was the E followed in quick succession by the A and D and yet the virtuoso was able to complete the entire melody on the remaining G. Naturally, a set of Il Cannone supplied by Larsen Strings would have entirely avoided the issue but a two hundred year wait for them to arrive would have spoiled the evening. And the story.
The revolutionary qualities of the new Il Cannone offered the perfect opportunity to try out some new ideas as suggested by you, the customer.