Iskender Savasir wrote:

>I am trying to explore the solo string literature pre- and post- dating
>the Bach solo sonatas- ...
>
>Moving on to the Baroque literature proper, I am told that Locatelli has
>capriccios for solo violin but so far I have not been able to discover
>any recordings.

If these are the 24 capriccios I'm thinking of, they are typically
played interstitially - almost like cadenzas - within the twelve Op.
3 violin concertos.  The caprices follow the first and last movement
of each concerto, and are substantial: often nearly as long as the
movement they follow.  As far as I know, all the recordings of these
concertos include the capriccios.  They weren't published separately,
and I've never seen a standalone recording of just the capriccios.

>A question that is somewhat important to my enterprise whether Telemann
>composed his 12 fantasias for violin before or after Bach's work.

As Paul mentioned, these were written about 15 years after Bach's
sonatas and partitas.

Purcell wrote a fantasia for solo violin (Z. 733) that predates
Bach's works by at least 40 years.

Postdating Bach, Johan Helmich Roman wrote a set of "Assaggios" for
solo violin.  These are substantial works in the 10-15 minute range.

Tartini wrote a series of 26 "piccolo" sonatas for solo violin, each
at about 6-8 minutes.  He also wrote at least a couple of full-scale
sonatas for solo violin each about 20-25 minutes.

And, Franz Benda wrote a fairly substantial solo for violin.

As far as more modern, we have:

Paganini's famous set of 24 caprices Op. 1(1818)

Giovanni Battista Viotti's "Duetto" for solo violin (1821)

Bartolomeo Campagnoli's Op. 10 set of 6 introductions & fugues (1828)
and the 6 sonatas Op. 18 (1834)

Molino's sonata Op. 68 (1843)

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst's etudes (1865)

Reger's 7 sonatas Op. 91 (1905/6) and the 6 preludes & fugues Op. 131a (1915)

Ysaye's 6 sonatas Op. 27 (1923)

Nathan Milstein's "Paganinana" (1928)

Harold Truscott's sonata in C Major (1946)

Schnittke's "A Paganini" (1963)

Rochberg's 24 Caprice Variations (1988)

All of this has been recorded and released on CD, though only a
excerpts from some set (such as Tartini's piccolo sonatas - only 8
have been recorded).

Tomorrow I'll try and remember to do the cello music (there's really
very little literature for solo viola to speak of).

Dave