The Violin

It has been well suggested, as a hint to the solo-players at our London Concerts, that Viotti’s Concertos offer material far more desirable for their use than those eternal “Airs with Variations,” which convey to the feelings of the auditor so little sense of variety, and in general tend to exhibit nothing beyond the dexterity of what the Italians call a spacca-nota, or note-splitter.

The most popular of his Trios are Op. 16, 17, and 18. The whole of his Duos are admirable, as respects both invention and energy: they may be called Concertos in miniature36.

Among the disciples of the school of this great master, may be enumerated Rode (on the whole regarded as the best), Alday, Labarre, Vacher, Cartier, Pixis, Madame Paravicini, Mademoiselle Gerbini, and our countryman, Mori.

Francesco Vaccari, born at Modena, about the year 1772, commenced his practice of the instrument at the infantine age of five years, under the tutelage of his father, who, delighted with his quickness of apprehension, would frequently encourage him to play at sight, not by the gauds and “immoment toys” that are the common habits of childhood, but by gifts of new music. After four years of domestic study, he was introduced by his father to Pugnani, who, with a natural mistrust of precocious powers, did not like, at first, to be troubled with “child’s-play,” although, on hearing him, he could not refrain from applauding his execution. The boy went afterwards to Florence, and had instructions from Nardini. The habit so early instilled into him by his father, of playing at first sight, procured him a triumph at Mantua, when he was yet but thirteen; for he was enabled to execute, without hesitation, a new Concerto which Pichl, its composer, placed before him. In 1804, after he had visited most of the great towns in Italy, he obtained from the King of Spain the appointment of First Violin of his chamber-band. The disturbed state of that country drove him into Portugal; and he was, at two several periods, performing in England. Vaccari was distinguished by purity of tone and of taste, a tender expression, execution without trick, and a nice exactitude of intonation.

Masoni, a Florentine, born 1799, attained very brilliant powers of execution, which he displayed chiefly in foreign countries – quitting Italy in 1817, for South America, from whence, after various migratory musical labours, he passed over to India, and stirred to liveliest emotion the languid people of Calcutta. In the spring of 1834, he visited England, where his tours de force, and surprising dexterities of bowing, would have won for him a more copious admiration than they did, if, instead of coming so closely in the rear of the Genoese “Miracle of Man,” who had well nigh exhausted our stock of musical sympathies, he had been his antecedent. I would here ask the gentle reader’s indulgence towards the following bit of measured hyperbole, perpetrated at the above time, and admitted into a weekly publication of Mr. Leigh Hunt’s: —

If your soul be not too drony,Haste, to hear renowned Masoni!Scarce Napoleon (nick-named Boney)Was more wondrous than Masoni!‘Pollo’s pet, Euterpe’s crony,Is the exquisite Masoni.All the sweets that live in honeyAre concentred in Masoni!Fiddlers should be rich and toney—This – and more, is great Masoni.Swifter, far, than hare or poney,Run the triplets of Masoni —And Astonishment bends low kneeTo the flights of high Masoni!Utterly himself unknown heShould be, who not knows Masoni.Dead must be the heart, and stony,That is moved not by Masoni!Money, without ceremony,Shower’d should be on Masoni!E’en from Greece ColocotroniWell might come, to hear Masoni!So, again I tell ye, on’yGo, and listen to Masoni!

The length to which these notices of the artists of Italy has already extended, is one of the reasons precluding detail with respect to some others of the later names belonging to that country. Paganini, however, is neither to be thus dismissed, nor to be here briefly treated of at the end of a chapter. To him, as standing alone in the history and practice of his art, and as forming an object of very widely-diffused curiosity, I propose devoting a separate notice in the ensuing chapter. I cannot, in the mean time, omit wholly to advert to the name of Spagnoletti, whose taste and refinement, in the conspicuous situation which he filled for so many years in London, rendered him a highly valued model for the attention of our own cultivators of the instrument. Who is there amongst those who were frequenters of the King’s Theatre, during his time of office, that will not recollect, with feelings of interest, the delicate grace of Spagnoletti’s playing – his obviously intense, yet not obtrusive, enthusiasm – and his oft-repeated sidelong depressions of the head, as if to drink in more fully, at the left ear, the delicious tones which he enticed from his own instrument? His peculiar sensitiveness under the impression of a false note, and his liberality of spirit, and readiness to speak commendingly of his brethren of the bow, are among the further traits which denoted him to those who had the opportunity of closer observation. Spagnoletti’s original name is said to have been Paolo Diana. I have heard an anecdote which, if it may be depended on, exemplifies his quickness of temper. It was to the effect that Spagnoletti, having chanced to quarrel one morning with Ambrogetti, challenged him on the spot; and that the singer put aside the abrupt invitation, by the phlegmatic remark that he had not breakfasted!

CHAPTER III

PAGANINI

“Natura il fece, e poi ruppe la stampa.” —

Ariosto.

“The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.” —

Pope.

Who has not heard of Paganini – and who, that boasts of an ear, has not heard Paganini himself? Fame, catching up the echoes of his glory, has caused them to reverberate through her trump, and to far furore even to the uttermost parts of the civilized world; and the hero himself, following in her rear, has gone forth to fulfil her proclamations, to reap his laurels, to achieve the general conquest of ears, and to receive in gold the tribute of admiring nations! Tongues and pens have vied with each other in celebrating his name; and ‘Ercles’ vein has been drawn upon in his behalf, till its exhausted stream could no further go.

Nicolo Paganini came into this breathing world at Genoa. The date of his birth, like most of the circumstances of his life, has been variously represented; but the most probable account fixes it on the 18th of February, 1784. His parents were of humble rank, but not so low as has been pretended in some of the “supposures hypothetical” that have been mixed up with the history of their marvel-moving son. To suit the humor of these fancies, the conjectured father has been depressed to the condition of a street-porter, bearing (along with his burdens) some name too obscure to be recorded; while the person known as Paganini père has been asserted to possess no other rights of paternity than what are conferred by adoption. This story, were it a true one, would reflect no discredit on an artist who has owed to his own genius the wide celebrity attaching to his name. “Miserum est aliorum incumbere famæ,” says the Roman poet; and the feeling of modern times is daily more and more confirming the sentiment. By another version, the father of Paganini has been styled a small trader, with a large tendency to seek his fortune through the calculation of lottery-chances. His actual station, as appears most likely, was originally that of a mercantile clerk; and it is concurrently allowed that this father, putative or positive, had music enough in his soul, or in his head, to perceive the indications of the faculty in his infant son, and to resolve on its full development; although the means he took for this purpose were as little creditable to his paternal pretensions, as they were injudicious with reference to their object. Ere yet the boy, however, had received into his tiny hands the instrument that was destined to make him “a miracle of man,” the world, it appears, was very near being deprived of him altogether! It is stated that, at the age of four years, he was attacked by the measles, attended, in his case, with unusually aggravated symptoms. So extraordinary an influence did the disease exercise on his nervous system, that he remained during an entire day in the state of catalepsy, or apparent death, and had actually been enveloped in a shroud, when a slight movement fortunately revealed the fact of his existence, and saved him from the horrors of a premature interment.

The musical discipline adopted by his father appears to have begun in pretty close sequence to this shock; and the days of hard work for poor little Paganini were made to commence, by a shameful perversion, before he could plainly speak. As soon as he could hold a violin, his father put one into his hands, and made him sit beside him from morning till night, to practise it. The willing enthusiasm of the child, as well as the tenderness of his age, might have disarmed the severity of any ordinary preceptor; but the rigor of a stern father, when sharpened by ambition and avarice, can forget the measure of an infant’s powers. The slightest fault, the most pardonable inadvertence, was harshly visited upon the Liliputian performer; and even the privation of food was sometimes resorted to, as part of the barbarous system to enforce precocity. A lasting influence of baneful kind was thus wrought upon a constitution naturally delicate and sensitive: the sickly child, incapable of attaining a healthful maturity, was merged into the suffering man.

His mother, with equal but more tender zeal for the development of the talent of young Paganini, succeeded in inspiring him with no slight portion of her own enthusiasm, by persuading him that an angel had appeared to her in a vision, and had assured her that he should outstrip all competition as a performer on the violin. Whether this vision was the result of a pardonable stratagem, or whether it was really the dream of a southern imagination, it is certain that it had the greatest effect on the mind of the infant artist, whose instinctive and irresistible inclination for the art made him an easy recipient of this maternal tale of encouragement. He began also to relish the domestic plaudits which were occasionally awarded to him for the boldness wherewith he produced new, if not legitimate, effects, indicative of future mastery over the powers of the instrument; for the instinct of his mind towards the extraordinary was, even thus early, a thing clearly discernible. He speedily outstripped his father’s slender reach of musical knowledge, as well as that of a minor violinist named Cervetto, who, for a short time, attempted to teach him. Giacomo Costa, director of the orchestra, and first violin in the principal churches, at Genoa, was next charged with his musical direction, and led him more rapidly onwards. At this period (when he was about eight years old), he was to be seen performing some three times a week in the churches, and at private musical parties, upon a fiddle that looked nearly as large as himself. At this time, too, he composed his first Violin Sonata, which, with others of his early musical pennings, is, unfortunately, not extant. A year later, he made what was considered his public début, in the great theatre of Genoa, at the request of the noted singers, Marchesi and Albertinotti, who begged of his father to allow the youthful artist to play for their benefit, undertaking, in return, to sing for Paganini at the first concert he should offer to the public. On both occasions, he played a series of variations, believed to be his own, on the French republican air, “La Carmagnole,” which were received with a force of approbation that seemed to carry with it the conviction of his future fame. Already, indeed, had his native genius urged him into a new path, both as to fingering and the management of the bow.

Stimulated by the opening prospects of solid advantage, his father next carried him to Parma, then the residence of Alessandro Rolla, in order to place him under the care of that celebrated composer. It so happened on their arrival, that Rolla was confined to his room by indisposition; and the strangers, having been shown into a neighbouring apartment, found there, on a table, the score of a work which the composer had just finished. At the suggestion of his father, Paganini took up the violin which lay by the manuscript, and performed the new concerto at sight, with so much point and precision as to raise the sick composer from his bed, that he might ascertain to what master’s hand he owed this agreeable surprise! The father, having explained the object of their visit, was assured by Rolla that he was incapable of adding any thing to his son’s acquirements: he advised them to go to Paër, who was then the director of the Conservatory at Parma. Paër, in his turn, directed his visitors to his old master, Giretti, who received young Paganini as one of his pupils, and for six months gave him regular lessons in counterpoint. The good use which he made of this short apprenticeship is proved by the four-and-twenty fugues which he composed in the course of it. His rapid progress inspired Paër with so lively an interest in his success, that he also devoted several hours a day to his instruction, and, at the end of four months, entrusted him with the composition of a duo, which was eminently successful. But these advantages were interrupted by the removal of Paër to Venice, where he had undertaken the composition of an opera.

Thus additionally qualified for the gratification of the “auri sacra fames” in the paternal breast, Paganini was now hawked about the country in a professional tour (at the commencement of 1797), through the principal cities of Lombardy; after which the father and son returned to Genoa, where the youthful artist was again subjected to those daily toils which had previously been forced on him with such wanton rigor: but the bonds were not to be of much longer endurance. In his 14th year, he was permitted, under the protection of an elder brother, to attend the Musical Festival of St. Martin, which is annually celebrated at Lucca, in the month of November; and, after meeting with a very flattering reception in all his public appearances, he extended his tour among the towns in the neighbourhood. The extreme degree of severity and restraint, with which his education had hitherto been conducted, was now beginning to work its natural result. At the age of fifteen, finding himself relieved from all effectual control by means of the ascendancy of his talent, and capable of attaining, through the same means, unlimited pecuniary supplies, he commenced the itinerant system on his own account; and soon, by a reaction of mind, that is in no degree surprising, acquired a decided partiality for a course of life that was accompanied by freedom from the trammels of such a father. The bonds of affection towards that persecuting parent were only loosened, however, not severed; for, after acquiring, by his independent exertions, a sum equal to about a thousand pounds, he proposed to assign a portion of it towards the maintenance of his father and mother. The cupidity of the former rejected this, and demanded the whole. The interest of the capital was then offered, equally in vain; and the violence of the father proceeded to the extent (as it has been asserted) of threatening Paganini with instant death, unless the whole of the principal were relinquished to him. This outrage, supposing it true, appears but a concentration, as it were, of the ill usage more diffusely applied before. To procure peace – perhaps to save his life – Paganini gave up the greater part of the sum.

Resuming the exercise of his emancipated powers, Paganini visited many parts of Italy, and was flattered and rewarded in all. The intoxication of his rapid successes, combined with his joy at the escape from domestic fetters, seem to have led him into some youthful excesses at this period, and to have made the roving course of his travel rather too close a type of his moral career —

Erring here, and wandering there,Pleas’d with transgression every where.

The increased celebrity which he afterwards acquired, or rather, perhaps, the jealous envy by which such celebrity is commonly pursued, has exercised a magnifying effect upon these early aberrations, and presented them as crimes of a serious and disgraceful nature. Whenever duly examined, they will be probably found to shrink back into something not greatly beyond peccadillo proportions. The feverish and unhealthy excitement besetting his peculiar position should be taken into full account, in forming a moral estimate of his youthful course. That the seductions of the gaming-table for a while swayed his fancy, and checquered his fortunes, is made clear by his own confession, which I will here extract from the interesting “Notice Biographique” by Monsieur Fétis (written as a pendant to the Collection of Paganini’s Compositions, about to appear in Paris), to which pamphlet I am indebted for some of the additional facts in the present sketch.

“I shall never forget,” says Paganini, “that I once placed myself in a position which was to form the turning point of my whole career. The Prince De * * * * * had long felt a desire to become the possessor of my excellent violin, which I still retain, and which was then the only one I had. He sent to me one day, in the endeavour to make me fix a price for it; but, reluctant to part with my instrument, I declared that I would only do so for 250 gold Napoleons. The Prince remarked to me, shortly afterwards, that I was probably joking when I asked so much, but that he was disposed to go as far as 2000 francs. I was, that very day, in much embarrassment as to funds, owing to a considerable loss encountered at play; so that I was on the point of resolving to give up my violin for the sum offered, when a friend came in, with an invitation to join a party in the evening. My whole supply amounted to thirty francs; and I had already stripped myself of my watch, jewels, rings, pins, &c. I formed the instant resolve to hazard my last pittance, and then, if fortune were adverse, to sell the violin for what had been offered, and set off for Petersburgh, without either instrument or property, there to re-establish my circumstances. My thirty francs were presently reduced to three, – and I fancied myself already on the road towards the great city, when fortune, shifting like the glance of an eye, turned my petty remainder into a gain of 160 francs. That favorable moment rescued my fiddle, and set me on my feet. From that day, I renounced gaming, to which a portion of my youth had been sacrificed; and, in the conviction that a gambler is universally despised, I abandoned for ever that fatal passion.”

The imperilled instrument above referred to, appears to have been the same that figures in the following anecdote, as related by M. Fétis. Whilst the youthful artist was still under the dominion of the passion for play, that sometimes robbed him, in a single evening, of the produce of more than one concert, and sometimes did not leave to him even his violin, he had recourse (at Leghorn) to the kindness of a French merchant, Monsieur Livron, a zealous musical amateur, who very readily lent him a fine Guarnerius instrument. After the concert for which it had been required, Paganini took it back to the owner, who, however, declined to receive it, saying, “I shall take good care how I profane the strings that your fingers have touched! It is to you that my violin now belongs.” The instrument was afterwards used by Paganini at all his concerts.

A similar incident occurred to him at Parma, though under different circumstances. Pasini, a painter, with musical propensities, had refused to credit the prodigious facility attributed to Paganini, in the way of playing the crabbedest music at sight, like one who had fully studied it. The sceptic therefore placed before him a manuscript concerto, in which all manner of difficulties had been brought together, and, handing to him an excellent Straduarius instrument, exclaimed, “This is yours, if you play that at sight, like a master.” “In that case,” observed Paganini, “you may say farewell to it at once;” and, in fact, his fulminating execution presently threw the convinced Pasini into an ecstasy of admiration.

To those earlier days belongs also the fact of Paganini’s transient passion for the guitar, or rather for a certain fair Tuscan lady, who incited him to the study of that feebler instrument – of which she was herself a votary. Applying his acute powers to the extension of its resources, he soon made the guitar an object of astonishment to his fair friend; nor did he resume in earnest that peculiar symbol of his greatness, the violin, till after a lapse of nearly three years. Paganini tickling the guitar, may almost suggest, for analogy, Hercules dallying with the distaff!

After declining, for the freer indulgence of his rambles, various offers of profitable engagement on per manent grounds, he was induced to enter, in 1805, the service of Napoleon’s sister with the exquisite name (Elisa Bacciocchi), then Princess of Lucca and Piombino, to whose elegant little court several distinguished artists were at that time attracted. Paganini became concertist and director of the orchestra there; and it was in this situation that he first attempted the execution of those triumphs of art under diminished resources, that have had, in the sequel, so large a share in the production of his success with the multitude. I allude to his acquired habit, displayed from time to time, of dispensing with the aid of two or even three of the strings of his instrument, and working apparent impossibilities with the remaining two or one– a habit which, owing to his occasional abuse of it, has laid him open to a charge of charlatanism, even from the Italians. His incredible address in these extraordinary efforts, produced a degree of astonishment which may probably have given rise to some of those rumours, both romantic and ludicrous, that have been so freely associated with his name. The explanation he has himself given of the origin of these performances, in the following letter to a friend, seems so consistent with his disposition at the period, that it may very readily command the preference in point of credibility: —

“At Lucca,” he says, “I led the orchestra whenever the Reigning Family attended the opera. I was often sent for also to the court circle, – and once a fortnight I gave a grand concert, – but the Princess Eliza retired always before the conclusion, declaring that her nerves were too keenly affected by the sounds of my instrument. A certain lady, on the contrary, whom I had long adored in secret, was constant and assiduous in her attendance at these musical meetings. I thought I could perceive that some secret influence attracted her towards me. Our mutual passion insensibly increased; but, as motives of prudence made secrecy indispensable, and forbade any open declaration, the idea occurred to me of surprising her with a piece of musical gallantry, which would convey to her the expression of my feelings. Having announced my intention to produce a novelty at Court, under a title (that of “A Love Scene”) well calculated to excite the general curiosity, I could observe that that feeling was not diminished on my entering the music-room, with a violin provided with only two strings, the first and the fourth. The first was intended to express the sentiments of a lady; the fourth, those of a despairing lover. Between the two, I established a sort of impassioned dialogue, in which the tenderest accents succeeded the violence of repeated fits of jealousy. Alternately plaintive and insinuating, there was at one moment a cry of grief or anger, and the next, of joyful reconciliation. The whole scene was eminently successful; the lady to whom it referred rewarded me by looks full of delighted amiability; and the princess Eliza, after loading me with praises, enquired if, after doing the impossible with two strings, one might not possibly suffice me. I instantly gave my promise to make the attempt; and, a few weeks afterwards, I produced a Sonata on the fourth string, which I entitled “Napoleon,” and executed it on the 25th of August, before a brilliant and numerous Court. Its success having far surpassed my expectation, I may date from that period my predilection for the lower string; and, as my audience seemed never to tire of the pieces I had composed for it, I have at length arrived at that degree of facility which appears to have so much surprised you.”