Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

Quitting Parma, at the commencement of 1797, Paganini made his first professional tour, with his father, of all the principal towns in Lombardy, and commenced a matchless reputation. On his return to Genoa, and after having in solitude made the efforts necessary for the development of his talent, he began to feel the weight of the chain by which he was held by his father, and determined to release himself from the ill treatment to which he was still subjected under the paternal roof. A favorable opportunity alone was required to favor his design. This soon presented itself. The fête of St. Martin was celebrated annually at Lucca by a musical festival, to which persons flocked from every part of Italy. As this period approached, Paganini entreated his father to permit him to attend it, accompanied by his elder brother. His demand was at first met with a peremptory refusal; but the solicitations of the son, and the prayers of the mother, finally prevailed, and the heart of the young artist, at liberty for the first time, bounded with joy, and he set out agitated by dreams of success and happiness. At Lucca he was received with enthusiasm. Encouraged by this propitious début, he visited Pisa, and some other towns, in all of which his success was unequivocal. Paganini had not yet attained his fifteenth year. This is not the age of prudence. His moral education, besides, had been grossly neglected, and the severity which assailed his more youthful years, was not calculated to awaken him to the dangers of a free life: and he formed dangerous connections. Paganini, in this manner, frequently lost the produce of several concerts in one night, and was consequently often in a state of great embarrassment, and frequently reduced to part with his violin. In this condition he found himself at Leghorn, and was indebted to the kindness of a French merchant (M. Livron), a distinguished amateur, for the loan of a violin, an excellent Guarneri. When the concert had concluded, Paganini brought it back to its owner, when this gentleman exclaimed, "Never will I profane strings which your fingers have touched! that instrument is now yours." This is the violin Paganini since used in all his concerts.

Adventures of every kind signalize this period of Paganini's early days; the enthusiasm of art, love, and gaming, divided his time, despite the warnings of a delicate constitution, which proclaimed the necessity of great care. Heedless of every thing, he continued his career of dissipation, until the prostration of his faculties forced a respite. He would then lie by for several weeks, in a state of absolute repose, until, with energies refreshed, he recommenced his artistic career and wandering life. It was to be feared that this dissolute life would, ultimately, deprive the world of his marvelous talent, when an unforeseen and important circumstance, related by himself, ended his fatal passion for gaming.

"I shall never forget," he said, "that I, one day, placed myself in a position which was to decide my future. The Prince of – had, for some time, coveted the possession of my violin – the only one I possessed at that period, and which I still have. He, on one particular occasion, was extremely anxious that I should mention the sum for which I would dispose of it; but, not wishing to part with my instrument, I declared I would not sell it for 250 gold Napoleons. Some time after, the prince said to me that I was, doubtless, only in jest in asking such a sum, but that he would be willing to give me 2,000 francs. I was, at this moment, in the greatest want of money to meet a debt of honor I had incurred at play, and I was almost tempted to accept the proffered amount, when I received an invitation to a party that evening at a friend's house. All my capital consisted of thirty francs, as I had disposed of all my jewels, watch, rings, and brooches, &c., I resolved on risking this last resource; and, if fortune proved fickle, to sell my violin to the prince and proceed to St. Petersburg, without instrument or luggage, with the view of re-establishing my affairs; my thirty francs were reduced to three, when, suddenly, my fortune took a sudden turn; and, with the small remains of my capital, I won 160 francs. This amount saved my violin, and completely set me up. From that day I abjured gaming – to which I had sacrificed a part of my youth – convinced that a gamester is an object of contempt to all well-regulated minds."

Although he was still in the full prime of youth, Paganini devoted his talent steadily to success and profit, when, in one of those hallucinations to which all great artists are subject, the violin lost its attractions in his eyes. A lady of rank having fallen desperately in love with him, and reciprocated by him, he withdrew with her to an estate she possessed in Tuscany. This lady played the guitar, and Paganini imbibed a taste for the instrument, and applied himself as sedulously to its practice as he had formerly done with the violin. He soon discovered new resources; and during a period of three years, he divided all the energies of his mind between its study, and agricultural pursuits, for which the lady's estate afforded him ample opportunities. But Paganini's former penchant for the violin returned, and he decided on resuming his travels. On his return to Genoa, in 1804, he occupied himself solely with composition. It appears, too, that at this period he gave instruction on the violin to Catherine Calcagno, born at Genoa, in 1797, who, at the age of fifteen, astounded Italy by the boldness of her style; all traces of her seem lost after 1816. Toward the middle of 1805, Paganini left Genoa, to undertake a new tour in Italy. The first town he visited was Lucca, the scene of his first successes. Here he again created so great a sensation by the concerto he performed at a nocturnal festival, in a convent chapel, that the monks were obliged to leave their stalls, in order to repress the applause which burst forth, despite the sanctity of the place. He was then twenty-one years of age. The principality of Lucca and Piombino had been organized in the month of March, of the same year, in favor of the Princess Eliza, sister of Napoleon, and the wife of Prince Bacciochi. The court had fixed its residence in the town of Lucca. The great reputation of the violinist induced the princess to offer him the posts of director of her private music, and conductor of the Opera orchestra, which he accepted. The princess, who had appreciated the originality of his talent, excited him to extend his discoveries of novel effects upon his instrument. To convince him of the interest he had inspired her with, she granted him the grade of captain in the Royal Gendarmerie, so that he might be admitted with his brilliant costume at all the great court receptions. Seeking to vary the effect of his instrument at the court concerts, he removed the second and third strings, and composed a dialogue sonata for the first and fourth strings. He has related this circumstance himself nearly in the same terms:

"At Lucca I directed the orchestra when the reigning family honored the Opera with their presence. I was often also called upon to play at court: and then, fortnightly, I organized concerts, and announced to the court a novelty under the title of Scène amoureuse. Curiosity rose to the highest pitch; but the surprise of all present at court was extreme, when I entered the saloon with a violin with only two strings. I had only retained the first and the fourth. The former was to express the sentiments of a young girl; the other was to express the passionate language of a lover. I had composed a kind of dialogue, in which the most tender accents followed the outbursts of jealousy. At one time, chords representing most tender appeals; at another, plaintive reproaches, cries of joy and anger, felicity and pain. Then followed the reconciliation; and the lovers, more persuaded than ever, executed a pas de deux, which terminated in a brilliant coda. This novelty was eminently successful. The Princess Eliza lauded me to the skies; and said to me, in the most gracious manner possible, 'You have just performed impossibilities – would not a single string suffice for your talent?' I promised to make the attempt. This idea delighted me; and, some weeks after, I composed my military sonata, entitled Napoleon, which I performed on the 25th of August, before a numerous and brilliant court. Its success far surpassed my expectations. My predilection for the G string dates from this period."

In the summer of 1808, Paganini obtained leave to travel, and quitted Lucca, never more to return. As the sister of Napoleon had become Grand Duchess of Tuscany, she fixed her residence at Florence, with all her court, and where the great artist retained his position. He went to Leghorn, where, seven years previously, he had met with so much success. He has related, with much humor, a series of tribulations which happened to him upon the occasion of his first concert there. "A nail," he said, "had run into my heel, and I came on limping, at which the audience laughed. At the moment I was about to commence my concerto, the candles of my desk fell out. (Another laugh.) At the end of the first few bars of the solo, my first string broke, which increased the hilarity of the audience; but I played the piece on the three strings – the grins quickly changed into acclamations of applause." This broken string frequently occurred afterward; and Paganini has been accused of using it as a means of success, having previously practiced upon the three strings, pieces which appear to require the use of the first string.

From Leghorn he went to Turin, where Paganini was first attacked with the bowel complaint, which subsequently so debilitated his health, as frequently to cause long interruptions to his travels, and his series of concerts.

Being at Milan in the spring of 1813, he witnessed, at the theatre of La Scala, the ballet of Il noce di Benevento (the Drowned One of Benevento). It was from this ballet Paganini took the theme of his celebrated variations, le Streghe (the Witches), from the air being that to which witches appeared. Here he was again seized with a return of his former malady, and several months elapsed before he could appear in public. It was only on the 29th of October following, he was enabled to give his first concert, exciting a sensation which the journals of Italy and Germany made known to the whole world.

In the month of October, 1814, he went to Bologna, when he saw Rossini for the first time, and commenced a friendship which became strengthened at Rome in 1817, and at Paris in 1831.

In the year 1817, he arrived at Rome, and found Rossini there busy in producing his Cenerentola. Several concerts he gave here during the Carnival excited the greatest enthusiasm. From this time, Paganini formed the project of leaving Italy to visit the principal cities in Germany and France; and in the year 1819, he arrived at Naples. It is a very remarkable circumstance, that he appeared here in a manner unworthy of his great name; for, instead of giving his first concerts at St. Carlo, he modestly commenced at the theatre of the Fondo.

On his arrival at Naples, Paganini found several artists indisposed toward him. They doubted the reality of the prodigies attributed to him, and awaited a failure. To put his talent to the test, the young composer, Danna, was engaged, recently from the Conservatory, to write a quartet, containing every species of difficulty, convinced that the great violinist would not vanquish them. He was, therefore, invited to a musical re-union, where the piece was immediately given to him to play at first sight. Understanding the snare that was laid for him, he merely glanced at it, and played it as if he had been familiar with it. Amazed and confounded at what they had heard, the highest approbation was awarded to him, and he was proclaimed a miracle.

It was during this sojourn at Naples that Paganini met with one of the most singular adventures of his extraordinary life. An alarming relapse of his malady took place; and, satisfied that any current of air was injurious to him, he took an apartment in the part of the town called Petrajo under Saint Elme; but meeting here that which he most sought to avoid, and his health daily becoming worse, it was reported that he was consumptive. At Naples, the opinion prevails that consumption is contagious. His landlord, alarmed at having in his house one who was supposed to be dying of this malady, had the inhumanity to turn him into the street, with all he possessed. Fortunately, the violoncellist, Ciandelli, the friend of Paganini, happened to be passing, and, incensed at the act of cruelty he was witness to, and which might have proved fatal to the great artist, belabored the barbarian unmercifully with a stick he carried, and then had his friend conveyed to a comfortable lodging, where every attention was paid to him.

Between 1820 and 1828, he visited Milan, Rome, Naples, and Trieste, and on the 2d of March, 1828, he proceeded to Vienna.

On the 29th of March, the first concert of this artist threw the Viennese population into an indescribable paroxysm of enthusiasm. "The first note he played on his Guarneri" (says M. Schilling, in his poetical style, in his Lexique Universel de Musique) – indeed, from his first step into the room – his reputation was decided in Germany. The Vienna journals were unlimited in hyperbolical expressions of admiration; and all admitted his performance to be incomparable. Verses appeared in every publication – medals were struck – the name of Paganini engrossing all; and, as M. Schottky remarks, every thing was à la Paganini. Cooks designated certain productions after him; and any extraordinary stroke of billiards was compared to a bow movement of the artist. His portrait appeared on snuff-boxes and cigar-cases; his bust surmounted the walking-sticks of the fashionable men. After a concert given for the benefit of the poor, the magistrate of Vienna presented to Paganini the large gold medal of St. Salvator, and the emperor conferred upon him the title of virtuoso of his private band.

After an uninterrupted series of triumphs, during three years, the celebrated artist arrived at Paris, and gave his first concert at the Opera, the 9th of March, 1831. His studies for the violin, which had been published there for some time – a species of enigma which had perplexed every violinist – the European fame of the artist – his travels and triumphs – raised the curiosity of the artists and the public. It were impossible to describe the enthusiasm his first concert created – it was universal frenzy. The same enthusiasm prevailed during his entire stay in Paris.

Toward the middle of May he left this city and proceeded to London – where he was expected with the utmost impatience, but not with that artistic and perceptive interest with which he had been received at Paris.

After an absence of six years, Paganini again set foot on his native soil. The wealth he had amassed in his European tour, placed him in a position of great independence; and among the various properties he purchased, was a charming country-house in the environs of Parma, called la Villa Gajona– here he decided on residing.

In 1836, speculators induced him to lend the aid of his name and talent for establishing a casino, of which music was the pretext, but gambling the real object. This establishment, which was situate in the most fashionable locality of Paris, was opened with considerable splendor at the end of November, 1837, under the name of Casino Paganini; but the government refused to authorize its opening as a gambling-house, and the speculators were reduced to give concerts, which far exceeded the expenses of the undertaking. The declension of his health was manifest, and his wasted strength precluded the possibility of his playing at the casino. A lawsuit was commenced against him, which he lost; and the judges, without having heard his defense, condemned him to pay 50,000f. to the creditors of the speculation, and he was deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid.

When this decision was pronounced, Paganini was dying – his malady, which was phthisis of the larynx, had increased since the commencement of 1839. The medical men advised him to proceed to Marseilles, the climate of which they considered favorable to his health. He followed this advice, and traveled by slow stages to the southern extremity. Despite his extreme weakness, he went to hear a requiem, by Cherubini, for male voices; finally, on the 21st of June, he attended in one of the churches at Marseilles, to take part in a solemn mass, by Beethoven. However, the love of change, inherent in all valetudinarians, induced him to return to Genoa by sea, fully impressed the voyage would recruit his health. Vain hope! In the commencement of October of the same year, he wrote from his native city to M. Galafre, a painter, an esteemed friend: "Being in much worse health than I was at Marseilles, I have resolved on passing the winter at Nice." Nice was destined to be his last abode. The progress of his malady was rapid – his voice became almost extinct, and dreadful fits of coughing, which daily became more frequent, and, finally, reduced him to a shadow. The sinking of his features, a certain token of approaching death, was visible in his face. An Italian writer has furnished us with a most touching description of his last moments, in the following terms:

"On the last night of his existence, he appeared unusually tranquil – he had slept a little: when he awoke, he requested that the curtains of his bed should be drawn aside to contemplate the moon, which, at its full, was advancing calmly in the immensity of the pure heavens. At this solemn hour, he seemed desirous to return to Nature all the soft sensations which he was then possessed of; stretching forth his hand toward his enchanted violin – to the faithful companion of his travels – to the magician which had robbed care of its stings – he sent to heaven, with its last sounds, the last sigh of a life which had been all melody."

The great artist expired on the 27th of May, 1840, at the age of 56, leaving to his only son, Achille, an immense fortune, and the title of Baron, which had been conceded him in Germany. All had not ended with the man whose life was as extraordinary as his talent. Whether from the effect of certain popular rumors, or whether from Paganini having died without receiving the last rites of his church, he had left doubts of his faith; his remains were refused interment in consecrated ground by the Bishop of Nice. Vainly did his friends solicit permission to celebrate a solemn service for his eternal rest; the bishop remained inexorable, but proffered an authentic act of decease, with permission to remove the body wheresoever they pleased. This was not accepted, and the matter was brought before the tribunals. All this time, the body was remaining in one of the rooms of the hospital at Nice; it was afterward removed by sea from the lazaretto of Villa Franca, near that city, to a country spot named Polcevera, near Genoa, which belonged to the inheritance of the illustrious artist. At length, the friends of the deceased obtained permission from the bishop of Parma to bring the body into the Duchy, to remove it to the Villa Gajona, and to inter it in the village church. This funeral homage was rendered to the remains of this celebrated man, in the month of May, 1845, but without pomp, in conformity with the orders which had emanated from the government.

By his will, made on the 27th of April, 1837, and opened the 1st of June, 1840, Paganini left to his son, legitimized by deeds of law, a fortune estimated at two millions (£80,000 sterling), out of which two legacies were to be paid, of fifty and sixty thousand francs, to his two sisters, leaving to the mother of his son, Achille, an annuity of 1,200 francs. Independently of his wealth, Paganini possessed a collection of valuable instruments; his large Guarneri, the only instrument which accompanied him in his travels, he bequeathed to the town of Genoa, not being desirous that an artist should possess it after him.

NUMBER NINETEEN IN OUR STREET

Number Nineteen in our street is a gloomy house, with a blistered door and a cavernous step; with a hungry area and a desolate frontage. The windows are like prison-slips, only a trifle darker, and a good deal dirtier, and the kitchen-offices might stand proxies for the Black Hole of Calcutta, barring the company and the warmth. For as to company, black beetles, mice, and red ants, are all that are ever seen of animated nature there, and the thermometer rarely stands above freezing-point. Number Nineteen is a lodging-house, kept by a poor old maid, whose only friend is her cat, and whose only heirs will be the parish. With the outward world, excepting such as slowly filter through the rusty opening of the blistered door, Miss Rebecca Spong has long ceased to have dealings. She hangs a certain piece of card-board, with "Lodgings to Let," printed in school-girl print, unconscious of straight lines, across it; and this act of public notification, coupled with anxious peepings over the blinds of the parlor front, is all the intercourse which she and the world of men hold together. Every now and then, indeed, a mangy cab may be seen driving up to her worn-out step; and dingy individuals, of the kind who travel about with small square boxes, covered with marbled paper, and secured with knotted cords of different sizes, may be witnessed taking possession of Nineteen, in a melancholy and mysterious way. But even these visitations, unsatisfactory as most lodging-house keepers would consider them, are few and far between; for somehow the people who come and go never seem to have any friends or relations whereby Miss Spong may improve her "connection." You never see the postman stop at that desolate door; you never hear a visitor's knock on that rusty lion's head; no unnecessary traffic of social life ever takes place behind those dusty blinds; it might be the home of a select party of Trappists, or the favorite hiding-place of coiners, for all the sunshine of external humanity that is suffered to enter those interior recesses. If a murder had been committed in every room, from the attics to the cellar, a heavier spell of solitude and desolation could not rest on its floors.

One dreary afternoon in November, a cab stopped at Number Nineteen. It was a railway cab, less worn and ghastly than those vehicles in general, but not bringing much evidence of gayety or wealth for all that. Its inmates were a widow and a boy of about fifteen; and all the possessions they had with them were contained in one trunk of very moderate dimensions, a cage with a canary-bird twittering inside, some pots of flowers, and a little white rabbit, one of the comical "lop-eared" kind. There was something very touching in these evidences of the fresh country life which they had left for the dull atmosphere and steaming fogs of the metropolis. They told a sad tale of old associations broken, and old loves forsworn; of days of comfort and prosperity exchanged for the dreariness of poverty; and freedom, love, and happiness, all snapped asunder for the leaden chain of suffering to be forged instead. One could not help thinking of all those two hapless people must have gone through before they could have summoned courage to leave their own dear village, where they had lived so many years in that local honorableness of the clergyman's family; throwing themselves out of the society which knew and loved them, that they might enter a harsh world, where they must make their own position, and earn their own living, unaided by sympathy, honor, or affection. They looked as if they themselves thought something of this, too, when they took possession of the desolate second floor; and the widow sat down near her son, and taking his hand in hers, gave vent to a flood of tears, which ended by unmanning the boy as well. And then they shut up the window carefully, and nothing more was seen of them that night.

Mrs. Lawson, the widow, was a mild, lady-like person, whose face bore the marks of recent affliction, and whose whole appearance and manners were those of a loving, gentle, unenergetic, and helpless woman, whom sorrow could well crush beyond all power of resistance. The boy was a tall, thin youth, with a hectic flush and a hollow cough, eyes bright and restless, and as manifestly nervous as his mother was the reverse in temperament – anxious and restless, and continually taxing his strength beyond its power, making himself seriously ill in his endeavors to save his beloved mother some small trouble. They seemed to be very tenderly attached one to the other, and to supply to each all that was wanting in each: the mother's gentleness soothing down her boy's excitability, and the boy's nervousness rousing the mother to exertion. They were interesting people – so lonely, apparently so unfit to "rough it," in the world; the mother so gentle in temper, and the son so frail in constitution – two people who ought to have been protected from all ill and all cares, yet who had such a bitter cup to empty, such a harsh fate to fulfill.