The Violin

“The great Artist has, nevertheless, resources other than those of phantasy, by which to captivate the public – and presently there succeeds to this musical phantasmagoria a broad, stately, harmonious (albeit somewhat too bare) simplicity. The fatigue of the public and of the Artist now gives place to a species of joy, that visibly blooms on every countenance. Chords that are pure sweet, melodious, brilliant, stream from beneath the bow; and then come accents of nature that seem to flow from the heart itself, and affect you with a perspiring thrill of delight; and then (prodigy of harmony!) the vague moans and unfinished plainings of a melancholy abandonment! You sympathize, in gentle pain, with the touching and melodious artist; you dispose yourself to follow, at his direction, the course of (as it should seem) some mournful, fleeting, intangible vision – when instantly a fit of violent distress, a sort of shuddering fury, seizes him, and we are startled, chilled, tormented, by cries which pierce the inmost recesses of our frame, and make us tremble for the hapless being whom we behold and hear! We dare not breathe – we are half suffocated; – fearfully the head burns, and the heart aches.

“And yet – and yet, despite this too positive pain which the unfortunate artist has forced both upon us and himself, he bethinketh him mindfully that ’tis his vocation to serve for sport to the public that does him the honor to come and listen to him. He snatches away, therefore, your ladies with delicate nerves, and your men of effeminacy, from the suffocation and syncope that threaten them. Truce to the cries of agony! truce to despair! A fantastic chaunt, a wild laugh, springs up – and then succeeds a sort of buffoon dance, to complete the relief of these people, and restore them to life. Encore he sings, he laughs, he dances: each face is completely reassured, and its owner, to prove to the rest, and to his own satisfaction, that he has not so far forgotten himself as to quit the precincts of bon ton and eternal frigidity, smiles listlessly upon his neighbour, strokes his cravat adjustingly, and throws a careless glance from side to side! Amidst this returning indifference, let there come a new passage of arduous brilliancy, some more or less astonishing sleight of hand – and a reiterated clapping of palms convinces the unhappy purveyor of diversion that he has but too well served the public according to their taste!

“And yet – and yet, despite this too positive pain which the unfortunate artist has forced both upon us and himself, he bethinketh him mindfully that ’tis his vocation to serve for sport to the public that does him the honor to come and listen to him. He snatches away, therefore, your ladies with delicate nerves, and your men of effeminacy, from the suffocation and syncope that threaten them. Truce to the cries of agony! truce to despair! A fantastic chaunt, a wild laugh, springs up – and then succeeds a sort of buffoon dance, to complete the relief of these people, and restore them to life. Encore he sings, he laughs, he dances: each face is completely reassured, and its owner, to prove to the rest, and to his own satisfaction, that he has not so far forgotten himself as to quit the precincts of bon ton and eternal frigidity, smiles listlessly upon his neighbour, strokes his cravat adjustingly, and throws a careless glance from side to side! Amidst this returning indifference, let there come a new passage of arduous brilliancy, some more or less astonishing sleight of hand – and a reiterated clapping of palms convinces the unhappy purveyor of diversion that he has but too well served the public according to their taste!

“And now, should the rondo come, in its light and laughing gaiety – should the hymn of love and delight succeed, ’twill be the same case as with the cry of grief or despair. Each burst of simple gaiety must be followed by an air in the coquettish style, an impulse from the head, to give it stimulus. Amid the passionate harmonies of love, you shall hear interspersed the accents of coldness, of disdain, of raillery. After a voluptuous transport, you shall have mincings and caprices: —

for there is no gaiety, whether for him, or for the listening public, of a natural, fresh and youthful character; there is no frank and confiding attachment; there is no serene and grateful pleasure; there is no sadness that pours itself out for the sake of consolation; no joys but such as are like scentless flowers, that one picks to pieces in sport; no passion save what is akin to delirium, debauchery, or deadly poison! What the public must have, and the artist, are your pizzicati, your contrasts, your satanic schooleries, your touches of the extravagant; – ’tis a dose of madness or despair, – ’tis an agony – the sensation of a man suspended over a bottomless abyss; – ’tis a violin, which is at once a flute, a bass, a guitar, and a whole orchestra, intermixed, confounded, and getting into harmony only by fits; – ’tis a professional visage, revealing a wounded and withered heart; ’tis a human skeleton – death, in grotesque attire; ’tis the “talented exhibition” of a rebellious angel, who gnashes his teeth, and howls, and jeers! And so the public, seeing their artist hold forth to them, under convenient forms, all possible monstrosities, seem to applaud themselves inwardly, and to exclaim instinctively, ‘Here is our interpreter, our plaything, and our own handywork!‘

“Of such a public, and such an artist, how saddening the sight!.. The public, made up of idlers – of beings isolated, selfish, cold, corrupt – must be amused, forsooth! and the artist exhausts his taste and his sentiment, and well nigh perspires blood and water, to comply with their exactions – to amuse them! – and if he attain this end, the public clap their hands, the manager of the theatre counts out to him a heap of gold, and he goes away, with his ears deafened at the noise which has surrounded him, and which, for a moment, (it may be), has made his heart beat high; – he goes away, with a loving grasp tightened over the coin he has so hardly won; and inwardly exclaims, with a smile of pity, ‘The blockheads – the barbarians! Who is there among them that can comprehend me – that can feel my intentions?’ – and then the home-returning public, selfish to the very soul, indemnify themselves for their fingers’-end applause, by sottish contempt, by remarks that are empty, or worse – that are scornful, bitter, shocking, disgusting even – such as those which may have been buzzed into one’s ears in Italy or in Paris, but varied in a hundred ways, and aggravated at will, just as he varies and enlarges, twists and turns, beneath his magic bow, a subject of apparently the most simple and insignificant kind. And now the voices most distinguishable among the ebbing crowd murmur out the words, ‘Gambler! Libertine!’ or worse… And the privileged public resort again to the theatre, to admire the talent of him whom they comprehend not; and the artist returns in like manner, to amuse those who provoke his pity, and whom he beholds so far below him! Thus, we have contempt on one side, compassion on the other – applause from hands chilled with the touch of gold, on the one part, – on the other, sounds that borrow their animation from no social sympathy! Such are the relations between the public and the professor – such the bonds that connect them!”

So much for the pungently descriptive, as regards this singular being. It is less difficult, however, to exhibit effects and appearances, than to analyze the causes or means which produce them – and it is in this latter endeavour, accordingly, that there has been least success attained by those who have made Paganini their theme, in Paris, as elsewhere. That which was already obscure in relation to him, has been forced into denser obscurity by the attempted demonstrations of certain pompous literary showmen, who have succeeded only in illustrating the proverb of “ignotum per ignotius.” Mystification and generalization, the resources of ambitious ignorance, have been copiously employed in these endeavours. Of a less unsatisfactory character, however, are the pretensions of M. Guhr, the able violinist, of Frankfort, who has attempted an analysis of the means employed, and the effects produced, by Paganini. Like most professors of a secret, the arch Italian was always studious of maintaining the mystery so provocative of curiosity and admiration. He assumed the air cabalistic, and, with a severe front and sullen eye, would stimulate and foster the impression of his being “profited in strange concealments.” M. Guhr, though he had the seeming advantage of personal and friendly access to him, found he could make nothing of him by the interrogatory system, and therefore adopted the alternative of becoming a silent student of his peculiarities, till he made certain discoveries of more or less importance, which he shaped into five heads, to show that Paganini’s chief points of difference from other violinists were —

1. In his manner of tuning the instrument.

2. In a management of the bow, entirely peculiar to himself.

3. In his mode of using the left hand in the passages chantans, or passages of a singing character.

4. In the frequent employment of harmonic sounds.

5. In the art of putting the violin into double employ, so as to make it combine with its own usual office the simultaneous effects of a mandolin, harp, or other instrument of the kind, whereby you seem to hear two different performers.

As to the first of these points, “his manner of tuning the instrument,” observed M. Guhr, “is wholly original, and to me appears incomprehensible in many respects. Sometimes he tunes the first three strings half a tone higher, while that of G is a third lower, than ordinary. Sometimes he changes this with a single turn of the peg, and he invariably meets the due intonation, which remains sure and firm. Whoever is aware how much the higher strings stretch with the least relaxation of the G, and how much all the strings generally lose, by a sudden change in tuning, the faculty of remaining with certainty at one point, will join me in the lively desire that Paganini may decide on communicating his secret in this respect. It was surprising to find, especially on one occasion, when he played for nearly an hour and a half in the most opposite keys – without its being perceptible that he had changed his tuning – that none of the strings became disturbed. In an evening concert, between the Andante and the Polacca, his G string snapped, and that which he substituted, though afterwards tuned to B, remained firm as a rock. His manner of tuning his instrument contains the secret of many of his effects, of his succession of chords, and striking vibrations, which ordinarily appear impossible to the violinist.”

According to this statement, “curious, if true,” Paganini improved his effects by playing on an instrument out of tune, and, with something like a miracle of creative power, produced harmony out of discord. Paganini must of a surety have “pegged hard,” and with a screwing that was inscrutable, to have attained such a management of his pegs! Was M. Guhr a misty demonstrator, or was Paganini inexplicable? As to the G, that can bear to be pulled about in this fashion without resenting it, we must suppose it to possess a passive virtue, a habit of accommodation, quite beyond the custom of the stringy tribe.38

In expatiating on the second point, M. Guhr seems content to describe effects, rather than to labour (in vain) for the indication of a cause – but his description is not infelicitous: —

“Paganini’s management of the bow is chiefly remarkable by the tripping movement which he imparts to it in certain passages. His staccato is no way similar to that ordinarily produced. He dashes his bow on the strings, and runs over a succession of scales with incredible rapidity, while the tones proceed from beneath his fingers, round as pearls. The variety of his strokes with the bow is wonderful. I had never before heard marked with so much precision, and without the slightest disturbance of the measure, the shortest unaccented notes, in the most hurried movements. And again, what force he imparts in prolonged sounds! With what depth, in the adagio, he exhales, as it were, the sighs of a lacerated heart!”

However he might sometimes err in his doctrine, M. Guhr was at least right in his faith. The supremacy, which he assigned to the great Genoese genius, was expressed in the language of a handsome enthusiasm: —

“Rode, Kreutzer, Baillot, Spohr – those giants among violinists – seemed to have exhausted all the resources of the instrument. They had extended its mechanism, introduced the greatest imaginable variety in the use of the bow, which was made subservient to all the shades of expression and execution: they had succeeded, by the magic of their sounds, which rivalled the human voice, in painting all passions and all the movements of sentiment. In short, advancing rapidly in the path marked out by Corelli, Tartini, and Viotti, they had raised the violin to that rank which ensures to it the dominion of the human soul. In their style, they are, and remain, great and unsurpassed. But, when we hear Paganini, and compare him with the other masters, it must be confessed that he has passed all the barriers which custom had hitherto raised, and that he has opened a way peculiar to himself, and which essentially separates him from those great Artists; so much so, that whoever hears him for the first time, is astonished and transported at hearing what is so completely new and unexpected; – astonished by the fiend-like power with which he rules over his instrument; – transported that, with a mechanical facility which no difficulty resists, he at the same time opens to the fancy a boundless space, gives to the violin the divinest breathings of the human voice, and deeply moves the inmost feelings of the soul.”

But we have left Paganini himself at Paris, where we must now rejoin him and his fortunes. As for the latter, in the moneyed meaning, they grew with a ratio of increase that would have been more wonderful, had it not been afterwards outdone by that of his gains in London. As it was, they were sufficient to inspire one of the Parisian dilettanti, a nicer worker in figures, with a special access of passion for calculating the value of notes – that is to say, of Paganini’s musical “notes of hand.” The result, based upon a concert given at the Opera at Paris, producing 16,500 francs, and presenting 1365 bars of the fiddling, indicated a quotient of 12 francs for each bar, and was still more curiously distributed into proportions as follows: – for a semibreve, 12 francs; a minim, 6 francs; a crotchet, 3 francs; a quaver, 1 franc, 50 centimes; a semiquaver, 15 sous; a demisemiquaver, 7½ sous. This exemplary calculation did not overlook, moreover, the cash value of each of the occurring sorts of rests; besides working out a “contingent remainder” of 420 francs – that residue happening to be, by the most curious coincidence, exactly the price of such a violin as the Conservatory usually awards by way of prize to its most successful pupils!39

The provoking impertinence of Rumour, with her thousand busy tongues darting conjecture and accusation, drew forth, at Paris, as at Vienna, some effort at self-defence on the part of the assailed Artist. His letter to the Editor of the Révue Musicale may claim a place here (in translated form), as well for its pleasantry and ingenuity, as for the clue it affords to the origin of some of the slanderous liberties which had and have been taken with his character. Of this letter, it subsequently appears that the materials were furnished by Paganini, and the diction arranged by his friend, M. Fétis: —

Paris, 21 April, 1831.

“Sir,

“So many marks of kindness have been lavished on me by the Parisian public, – so many plaudits have been awarded to me, – that I am bound to give credit to that celebrity which is said to have preceded my arrival. But, if any doubt on the subject could have remained, it must have been dissipated by the care I see taken by your artists to make representations of my likeness, – by the numerous portraits of Paganini, more or less like the original, with which the walls of your capital are covered. It is not, however, to simple portraits, Sir, that their speculations are confined. While walking yesterday along the Boulevard des Italiens, I saw, in a print-shop, a lithograph representing Paganini in prison. “Well!” said I to myself, “here have we some worthy citizen who, in imitation of Don Bazilio, has been turning to account the calumny which has pursued me for the last fifteen years.” While smilingly examining all the details of this mystification with which the fancy of the artist had furnished him, I perceived that a numerous circle had gathered around me, and that every one, as he compared my features with those of the young man represented in the lithograph, was taking pains to satisfy himself as to the degree in which I was altered since the period of my imprisonment! Thus I found that the thing was taken au sérieux, and that the speculation, at least, was no bad one. It occurred to me that, as every one must live, I might as well, of myself, furnish a few anecdotes to those enterprising persons who take so much interest in me and my affairs; so that, if so disposed, they may have a few more subjects for prints, as good, and quite as true, as that in question. It is with this view that I beg you, Sir, to do me the favour of inserting this letter in your Musical Review.

“These gentlemen have represented me in prison, but they do not seem to know what took me there; and, so far, they are about as wise as myself, or as those who have brought the story into circulation. It bears, in fact, a great many versions, and presents a corresponding variety for the designer. It has been said, for instance, that, having surprised a rival in the chamber of my mistress, I had bravely stabbed him from behind, when he was incapable of defending himself. By others, it has been pretended that it was against the person of my mistress herself, that my fury had been directed; but they are not agreed as to the mode I had adopted to accomplish her destruction, – some contending for the poniard, and others for poison; so that, as each has indulged his imagination in describing the affair, it would be hard to deny a similar license to the dealers in lithographs. I will relate what occurred to me at Padua some fifteen years ago.

“I had given a concert there, and had met with considerable success. On the following day, I was one of sixty at a table d’hôte, where I had entered the room without being recognized. One of the guests was pleased to express himself in very flattering terms on my public appearance the evening before. Another concurred in the praise thus bestowed, but added, by way of explanation, “There is nothing in the talent of Paganini which ought to excite surprise. He is indebted for it to the sojourn he has made for eight years of his life within the walls of a dungeon, with nothing but his violin to mitigate the rigors of his captivity. He was condemned to this long confinement for having basely assassinated a friend of mine, who was his rival.”

“The whole company, as you may well believe, exclaimed against the enormity of the offence. For my part, I got up, and, addressing the person who seemed so well acquainted with my previous history, begged him to tell me where, when and how, the adventure had taken place. Every eye was turned towards me as I spoke, and you may judge of the general astonishment, when one amongst themselves was thus recognized as the chief actor in the tragedy. The historian was sadly embarrassed. It was no longer one of his friends who had fallen; “he had heard it said,” – “he had been credibly informed,” – “he had believed, – but it was possible that he might have been mistaken!”

“It is thus, Sir, that the reputation of an artist is trifled with, because others, of more indolent habits, are at a loss to understand how a man should apply himself as effectually to study, while at full liberty in his own house, as within the walls of a dungeon!

“At Vienna, a still more preposterous rumour put the credulity of the inhabitants to the test. I had been playing those variations known by the name of Le Stregghe (the Witches). A young man, who was described to me as of a pale and melancholy aspect, with eyes of the most inspired cast, said that he saw nothing surprising in my performance, for, while I was executing my variations, he had distinctly perceived the devil at my elbow, guiding my fingers, and directing my bow; that the said devil was dressed in red; had horns and a tail; and that, moreover, the striking likeness of our countenances plainly established the relationship between us! It was impossible to refuse credence to so circumstantial and descriptive an account: and the curious became satisfied that this was the true secret of what are called my tours de force.

“For a long time, I was weak enough to allow my tranquillity to be disturbed by such idle rumours. I tasked myself to demonstrate their absurdity. I called attention to the fact, that, from the age of fourteen, I had been constantly under the public eye, and giving concerts; that I had been employed, for sixteen years, as chief of the orchestra and director of the music, to the Court; and that, if it were true that I had been eight years in prison for killing my mistress or my rival, it must have been before my first appearance in public; so that I must have had a mistress, and a rival, before I was seven years of age. I invoked even the testimony of my country’s ambassador at Vienna, who declared that he had known me, for nearly twenty years, in the situation which became an honest man; and I thus succeeded, for the moment, in silencing the calumny; but calumny is never totally extinguished, and it does not surprise me to find it revive in this city.

“Under such circumstances, Sir, what ought I to do? I see nothing for it but to submit with resignation, and give free scope to the exercise of an ingenious malignity. Before concluding, however, I may as well communicate an anecdote, which has probably given rise to some of these injurious rumours about me. It is as follows:

“A performer on the violin, named D.. ,40 who was at Milan in 1798, had connected himself with two men of bad character, who persuaded him to go with them during the night to a neighbouring village, to assassinate the clergyman, who was reported to have been possessed of great wealth. Happily, the heart of one of the associates failed him at the decisive moment, and he resolved to denounce his confederates. The gendarmerie went to the spot, and arrested D…i, and his friend, at the moment of their arrival at the house of the curé. They were condemned to twenty years’ confinement, and thrown into prison; but General Menou, then Governor of Milan, at the end of the second year, set the artist at liberty.

“Would you believe it, Sir? It was on this foundation, that all my history has been raised. A performer on the violin was in question, and his name ended in i– so that it must have been Paganini. It was I who had been in prison, and the assassination became that of my mistress, or my rival. Thus, to explain the discovery of my new style of performance, they encumber me with fetters which would but add to the difficulty. Let me hope, Sir, that if I must yield to the propagators of a calumny so obstinately persevered in against all verisimilitude, they will at least consent to abandon their prey after death, – and that those who so cruelly avenge themselves of my success, will leave my ashes to rest in peace. Accept, Sir, the assurance, &c.

“Paganini.”

Largely profited in honours and revenue, through his exertions in France, the great artist directed his course to the shores of England, where the reception which awaited him was destined to form a climax to his previous triumphs. Fame, that most eager, but inexact lady-usher, who had introduced him to the French with so many whispers of wild import, took similar liberties when she presented him to the marvelling Londoners. “The page will be a strange one in the history of Art, to be written some fifty years hence (says a writer in the Athenæum), which shall contain all the rumours that heralded Paganini’s first appearance in England, and were quoted in explanation of his outward eccentricities of person and manner. Our children will laugh at the credulity of their fathers, when they read of a magician who strung his instrument with the heart-strings of his mistress – a sort of demon Orpheus, who had been initiated into his power by the gentle ordeals of murder and solitary confinement; – and yet such reports were widely spread, and, strange to say, believed! The writer of this notice remembers having heard it gravely said in society, “that Paganini could play upon his violin when all its strings were taken off!” and, when another of the party, to expose the absurdity of the tale, declared that this wonder of the world had done more, having once actually strung a gridiron (his own violin not arriving in time), on which he performed a concerto with immense applause – this second and surpassing marvel (of course fabricated in the humour of the moment) was not only swallowed, but absolutely retailed, as an accredited fact!”