The Violin

To find out sufficient scope for an entire field of melody, as the produce of a single musical string, must have demanded great study, as well as unremitting manual practice. Paganini extended the capability of the string to three octaves, including the harmonic sounds, which he developed into a most important resource. The success of this novelty was prodigiously increased, after he had presented it beyond the courtly circle, and made it public37.

When the Princess Eliza became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Paganini followed her to Florence, where he became an object of even fanatic admiration. His talent developed itself daily in new forms; but he had as yet very imperfectly learned to regulate its exercise. The amount of study, however, to which he had subjected himself, after ceasing to be the slave of his father, is a thing to excite astonishment. He had abandoned himself, in solitude, to the research with which his mind was occupied; and had then formed the plan of the Studies which are known under his name, and wherein he proposed difficulties that he himself could not surmount without immense labour. It is a remarkable fact, also, that he suddenly interrupted his enquiries as to the possibility of augmenting the resources of the violin, in order to study seriously the works of Corelli, Vivaldi, Tartini, Pugnani and Viotti, and to ascertain the successive progress of his instrument. He afterwards familiarized himself with the works of the Violinists of France.

In the summer of 1808, after three years passed at Lucca, Paganini, with the consent of his patroness, visited Leghorn, which city had been a scene of triumph to him seven years previously. How, at his first concert on this re-appearance, a cloud was converted into sunshine, has been pleasantly enough recorded by himself: —

“Having accidentally run a nail into my heel, I came on the stage limping– and the public greeted me with a laugh. At the moment when I was beginning my concerto, the tapers fell from my music-stand, drawing a fresh burst of laughter from the audience. Again, after the first few bars of the solo, my upper string broke – which raised the merriment to a climax: – but I went through the piece upon three strings – and the laughter was turned into shouts of enthusiasm.”

Still retaining his engagement in the service of the Princess Bacciocchi, who was now become Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and established at Florence with her court, the great artist made professional excursions to various Italian cities – including one to Turin (where he was first attacked by the abdominal ailment which, in the sequel, so much enfeebled his health, and so often interrupted his travels, and disturbed the order of his concerts) – and another to Ferrara, where his grotesque mode of retaliation for an affront received in public, led to such a misunderstanding with the townspeople, as caused some jeopardy to his life.

About the commencement of 1813, his position at the Court of the Grand Duchess Eliza was suddenly and disagreeably abolished. On a certain state occasion, Paganini appeared in the orchestra in the full-blown uniform of a Captain of the Gendarmerie Royale, which, as a general privilege, his fair patroness had authorized him to wear. He was now requested, however, to exchange it immediately for a suit of plain black. The sudden shock to his dignity was met by a refusal to comply with the order, and the result of this bearding of authority was his precipitate retreat from Florence, with (it is probable) a resolution to decline all future offers of a “fixed position.”

In the city of Milan, where Paganini found many congenial attractions, he passed a considerable time, at various epochs of his life. There he first saw, and entered into friendship with, Rossini. There, too (in March 1816), occurred, within the walls of La Scala, his contest with Lafont, the champion of French renown in the fiddle field. The story has been variously represented. It appears that Lafont challenged Paganini to join him in a concert, and conceived great hopes of beating him, when, after acceptance of the proposal, the wary Italian was found to make a very indifferent exhibition of power at the previous rehearsal. When the rival display came on in earnest, however, the impression produced by Lafont, with his fine tone, and his graceful and elegant performance, was presently eclipsed in toto by the superlative mastery shewn in the performance of the Genoese enchanter, who purposely followed in the track of his competitor, to establish his superiority at all points – outweighing him in the deliberate adagio, and outstripping him in all the agile feats of execution, besides transcending him wholly in the nicer arcana of the art. Of this purport, at least, is the more common and probable account of the affair. But, if the Frenchman was thus conspicuously beaten, it would seem that (as in the case of Falstaff) it would “discolor too much the complexion of his greatness” to acknowledge it: Monsieur Lafont wrote a letter of negation to a French journal, some fourteen years after the momentous day. In this letter he even decides himself to have obtained a partial advantage, alluding to some particular “phrase de chant,” – and he indulges in this passage: – “On all occasions I have taken pleasure in rendering homage to his great talent but I have never said that he was the first violinist in the world: I have not done such injustice to the celebrated men, Kreutzer, Rode, Baillot, and Habeneck and I declare now, as I have always done, that the French school is the first in this world for the violin!” – To this self-and-country-vaunting epistle, as translated in the Harmonicon, Lafont found a respondent (April 7, 1830) in Signor Francesco Cianchettini, who asserts, as one present on the occasion, that the public decision was in favour of the Italian, and compares the vain glory of French fiddlers, in their talk of Paganini, to the empty freedom of the gladiators of the Neronian age, in speaking of Hercules.

Paganini’s own account of the affair exhibits a modest simplicity, tending to confirm any previous impressions of his having been the victor. After quoting it, however, Monsieur Fétis, who has repeatedly heard Lafont’s relation of the circumstances, offers some remarks, which it is but right here to subjoin: – “It is not to be denied,” says he, “that Lafont displayed much imprudence on that occasion. Doubtless he possessed qualities of a classic order, more pure, and more analogous to the French taste of his time, than those of Paganini. Doubtless he had greater volume and evenness of tone: but, with respect to original fancy, the poetry of playing, and the mastery over difficulties, he could place himself in no comparison with his antagonist. In a concert at the Paris Conservatoire, the palm, in 1816, would perhaps have been awarded to him (Lafont): but, in presence of an Italian audience, eager for novelty, originality, and impulsion, he must needs have succumbed. ” To continue our narrative of Paganini’s “life, behaviour and conversation,” – the French musical Amateur, Count de Stendhal (Monsieur Beyle) has alluded to him descriptively at two periods. In 1814, he observes, “Paganini, the Genoese, is, it appears to me, the first violinist in Italy. He cultivates an exceeding softness of expression. He plays concertos as unmeaning as those which set us gaping at Paris; but his delicate softness is always a distinction in his favour. I love especially to hear him execute variations on the fourth string of his instrument.” And again, in 1817, he writes of him, as of a Genoese who played very finely on the violin – being “equal to the French in execution, and superior in fire and originality!” – Mathews, the author of the “Diary of an Invalid,” offers the following remarks on him in the year 1818: – “He is a man of eccentric character and irregular habits. Though generally resident at Turin, he has no fixed engagement, but, as occasion may require, makes a trading voyage through the principal cities of Italy, and can always procure a theatre, upon the condition of equal participation in the receipts. Many stories are told of the means by which he has acquired his astonishing style; such as having been imprisoned ten years, with no other resource. His performance bears the stamp of the eccentricity of his character. His tone, and the thrilling intonation of his double stops, are electric. His bow moves as if it were part of himself, and endued with life and feeling.”

In proof of the extensive sphere of his attraction, the following anecdote, having reference to the year 1824, has been published. A northern traveller, and passionate lover of music, M. Bergman, reading accidentally, the evening before, in the Journal, at Leghorn, an announcement of Paganini’s concert, instantly set out for Genoa, a distance of 100 miles, and luckily reached the spot just half an hour before the concert began! He came with his expectations raised to the utmost; but, to use his own expression, the reality was as far above his anticipations, as the heavens are above the earth. Nor could this enthusiastic amateur rest content with once hearing Paganini, but actually followed him to Milan, to hear him de novo. Of the two concerts which the great artist gave at La Scala at that time, the first consisted entirely (as far as regarded his own performance) of exhibitions on the fourth string! and may be said to form a remarkable antithesis to the case of the man so specially indicated by the late Charles Mathews, as having lost his G! The public were in ecstacies; but it was observed, with some regret, by the judicious among Paganini’s auditors at these two concerts, that he was neglecting the cantabile, and the nobler powers of his instrument, for the difficult and astonishing. Yet it was to no want of sensibility in the soul of the artist, that this deviation was to be attributed; for he had before expressed his high admiration of Spohr, the German violinist, so celebrated for the excellence of his cantabile, and had given him full credit for being the greatest and most perfect singer upon his instrument – retaining, however, the satisfactory consciousness, as it has been supposed, of his own immeasurable superiority in the aggregate of the qualities for which all the greatest masters have been distinguished.

At Pavia, Paganini likewise gave two concerts, and was received with no less enthusiasm than at Milan. The bill which set forth the pieces to be performed was headed with the following autocratical annunciation: —

PAGANINIFarà sentire il suo Violino!(“Paganini will cause his violin to be heard!”)

In the bills of a concert he gave at Naples, in 1825, his name was announced with the style and title of Filarmonico; and various sage debates and conjectures were the consequence, among the idlers of the place.

But it is needless to go thrice over the map of Italy, and detail all the triumphs of our acoustic hero among his own countrymen. Let us shift the scene to Germany, and the time to the year 1828, when he was exhibiting before the people at Vienna, and exciting the admiration and astonishment of the most distinguished professors and connoisseurs of that critical city. His inducement to quit his native Italy had been furnished, it appears, by Prince Metternich, who had witnessed his performances in the preceding year at Rome, when the Pope (soit dit en passant) had conferred on our Artist the order of the Golden Spur, an honor which had formerly been awarded to Gluck and Mozart.

All notion of rivalling the foreigner was at once banished from among the Germans; and it is said that Mayseder, their violinist of then highest fame, with an ingeniousness that did him honor, intimated, in a letter to a London friend, that he felt he might now lock up his violin as soon as he liked!

The successes of Paganini gave new currency to the tales of crime and diablerie which inventive fame, “ficti pravique tenax,” had so often circulated in connection with him. A captain of banditti – a Carbonaro – a dungeon-détenu – a deadly duellist – a four-mistress man – a friend of Beelzebub – a “bowl-and-dagger” administrator —these are some of the characters that were freely assigned to him. Over the mouth of his aged mother, in articulo mortis, he was asserted to have placed a leathern tube, and to have caught her last breath at the S holes of his fiddle! – He was made out, in short, the very beau idéal of a fellow that might do the “First Murderer” in a Melodrama. These romantic rumours, however they might assist his success with the public, could not be passed by in silence. The injured, yet profited, object of them, made a public manifesto of his innocence in the leading Journals of Vienna, and appealed to the magistrates of the various States under whose protection he had lived, to say if he had ever offended against the laws. This was all very well; but, what was still better, enough of the pleasing delusion remained, in spite of all disavowals, to render Paganini the continued pet of the public. Indeed, a general intoxication with regard to him prevailed for some time with the Viennese public. Verses were daily poured forth in honour of him – medals were struck – and Fashion made profuse appropriation of his name to her various objects. Hats, gloves, gowns, stockings, were à la Paganini: – purveyors of refreshment fortified their dishes with his name; and if a brilliant stroke were achieved at billiards, it was likened unto a stroke of his bow! snuff-boxes and cigar-cases displayed his portrait – and his bust was carved upon the walking-stick of the man of mode.

Amid the glare of the enchanter’s triumphs, it is pleasing to discover, in a record of a concert given for the benefit of the poor, that the cause of benevolence was not forgotten; – nor will it be uninteresting to bestow a moment’s attention on the following little anecdote, which certainly reveals something not unlike a heart: —

One day, while walking in the streets of Vienna, Paganini saw a poor boy playing upon his violin, and, on entering into conversation with him, found that he maintained his mother, and an accompaniment of little brothers and sisters, by what he picked up as an itinerant musician. Paganini immediately gave him all the money he had about him; and then, taking the boy’s violin, commenced playing, and, when he had got together a crowd, pulled off his hat, and made a collection, which he gave to the poor boy, amid the acclamations of the multitude.

The following fact will give some idea of the hearty love of music, the real dilettantism, prevailing among the peasants of Germany. In the autumn of 1829, Paganini was summoned to perform before the Queen Dowager of Bavaria, at the Castle of Tegernsee, a magnificent residence of the Kings of Bavaria, situated on the banks of a lake. At the moment when the concert was about to begin, a great bustle was heard outside. The Queen, having enquired the cause, was told that about sixty of the neighbouring peasants, informed of the arrival of the famous Italian violinist, were come, in the hope of hearing some of his notes, and requested that the windows should be opened, in order that they also might enjoy his talent. The Queen went beyond their wishes, and, with truly royal good nature, gave orders that they should all be admitted into the saloon, where she had the pleasure of marking their discernment, evidenced by the judicious manner in which they applauded the most striking parts of the performance.

Prague, Dresden, Berlin and Warsaw were successively visited by the triumphant ear-charmer. Great was the excitement he produced at Berlin – but somewhat contradictory the opinions about him. “Most assuredly,” said one journalist, “Paganini is a prodigy; and all that the most celebrated violinists have executed heretofore is mere child’s play, compared with the inconceivable difficulties which he has created, in order to be the first to surmount them.” The same writer declared that Paganini executed an air, quite sostenuto, on one string, while, at the same time, a tremolo accompaniment upon the next was perfectly perceptible, as well as a very lively pizzicato upon the fourth string: that he executed runs of octaves on the single string of G with as much promptitude, precision and firmness, as other violinists on two. Nay, his celebrator went so far as to say that, in order to produce this latter effect, he employed one finger only; and further declared him able to render the four strings of the instrument available to such a degree, as to form concatenations of chords that could be heard together, and that produced as full and complete harmony as that of six fingers of a pianoforte-player on the key-board; adding, moreover, that, in moments of the most daring vivacity, every one of his notes had all the roundness and sonorousness of a bell! Another journalist averred that he was incapable of producing a grand tone, but that he executed the adagio, and impassioned cantilenas, with profound sensibility and great perfection of style. It was the remark of another critic, that “whoever had not heard Paganini, might consider that there existed a lacuna in the chain of his musical sensations.”

Lipinski, a Pole, had ventured to seek, at Placentia, in 1818, a contest with Paganini, such as Lafont had previously sought. Whilst at Berlin, he met with a third challenge to a trial of skill. Sigismund Von Praun, an ambitious youth, asserting claims to universal genius – a counterfeit Crichton – attempted to dispute the palm with him, and paraded a public defiance in the papers: but, this time, Apollo would not compete with Marsyas Praun, who had made some impression, a few years before, at Malta and other places, appears to have had talents far from contemptible, although immature, but his presumption exposed him to merited ridicule: —

Low sinks, where he would madly rise,This most pretentious imp!See! while with Paganin’ he vies,Praun looketh less than shrimp!

After returning from Warsaw, Paganini visited Frankfort. It is related that, while he was in this latter city, an actor from the Breslau Theatre, taking advantage of his marked peculiarities of look, manner and gesture, made successful public mimicry of him; and that he had the good sense, himself, to attend one of these performances, and join in the general laugh with the best grace imaginable. He remained for a year at Frankfort; and it seemed as if he had renounced the previously well-circulated notion of his visiting Paris and London, when he suddenly made his appearance at Strasbourg, and soon afterwards arrived upon the banks of the Seine, to delight and astonish those idolators of novelty, the inhabitants of the French metropolis.

Of the impression produced by Paganini among the Parisians, as well as of his personal and musical characteristics, I find so graphic and picturesque an account in a French journal (Le Globe), that I am induced to translate, for my purpose, the chief portion of it, under the conviction that the length of passages leading to what is so far the reverse of “nothing” will be easily pardoned. Whether the writer’s moral estimate of the spectacle-hunting branch of the Parisian public be not a little overcharged with severity, is a point which I have no pretensions to determine. That there is some eloquence in the thoughts of the French writer, whoever he might be (and, alas! for common sense, he is, or was, a St. Simonian), will be, I think, admitted, even by those who would not so far admire his composition as to “mark it for a rapture nobly writ.” Here follows his sketch, however; and Paganini himself (in pictorial effigy) shall attend, and give it a sort of personal confirmation.

“The Artist is about to make his appearance – silence begins to be restored – the overture is over, without having been listened to – somewhat less of coldness and unconcern is expressed on the faces around – and the hands of the white-gloved are all armed with the double opera-glass. Enter Paganini and his Violin!

“A universal clapping of hands attends his first advent on the scene. He advances, with sundry awkward and heavy steps; he makes obeisance, and the applause is renewed: he moves forward, with increased oddity of gait, and the noise of hands is prolonged on all sides.

“He makes several further salutations – he endeavours to animate his countenance with a smile of acknowledgment, which is instantly succeeded by a look of icy coldness… He makes a halt, and, with still greater eccentricity of manner, it may be, than in his reverences and his walk, he seizes his fiddle, hugs it betwixt chin and chest, and fixes on it a look at once of pride, penetration and gentleness. Thus resteth he several seconds, leaving the public at leisure to examine and make him out in his strange originality – to note with curiosity his gaunt body, his lengthy arms and fingers, his dark hair descending to his shoulders, the sickness and suffering denoted in his whole frame, his sunken mouth, his long eagle nose, his wan and hollow cheeks, his large, fine, manifest forehead, such as Gall would have delighted to contemplate, – and, beneath the shelter and shadow of that front, eyes that dilate, sparkle and flash at every instant!

“Such doth Paganini show himself, formed, at every point of his person, to catch the greatest possible quantum of applause from a public whom it is his office to amuse. Behold him, a compound of chill irony and electric enthusiasm, – of haughtiness, with seeming humility, – of sickly languor, and fitful, nervous, fatal exultings, – of wild oddity, chastened by some hidden and unconscious grace – of frank abandonment, of charming attractiveness, of a superiority of talent that might fix the most indifferent, – but, above all this, a very man-fiddle– a being of extraordinary nature, created as if expressly for the gratification of a public delighting, before all things, in the extraordinary!

“‘Sufficient for the eyes!’ seems he now to say within himself, as he notes in their operation the incoherent reveries and speculations of his beholders. Promptly his looks descend from his violin to the orchestra – he gives the signal – he raises his right hand briskly into the air, and dashes his bow down upon the instrument!

“You anticipate the rupture of all its strings! On the contrary, the lightest, the finest, the most delicate of sounds comes forth to win your surprise. He continues for some moments to sport with your pre-conceptions, to look askance at you, to irritate you; and every whim that occurs to him, is employed to draw you out from your supposed indifference. He teases you, he pleases you: he springs, he runs, he wanders from tone to tone, from octave to octave; achieves, with incredible lightness and precision, the widest intervals; ascends and descends the chromatic and diatonic scales; touches harmonic accompaniments in his way; extracts unknown sounds; searches, with easy success, for difficulties and tricks of skill; exhausts, within the space of a few bars, the whole range of chords and sounds possible upon the instrument – discourses, sings, bewails, ejaculates, describes! ’Tis suddenly a murmur of waves, a whistling in the air, a warbling of birds; a something undefinably musical, in the most acute as well as the lowest tones – an unrestricted impulse of caprices, and contrasts, without guide or measure! ’Tis, in a word, a perfect union of incoherence and nameless clatter, beyond which, the world-worn and vitiated beings around, the worshippers of singularity, can see nothing, imagine nothing, desire nothing!

“You anticipate the rupture of all its strings! On the contrary, the lightest, the finest, the most delicate of sounds comes forth to win your surprise. He continues for some moments to sport with your pre-conceptions, to look askance at you, to irritate you; and every whim that occurs to him, is employed to draw you out from your supposed indifference. He teases you, he pleases you: he springs, he runs, he wanders from tone to tone, from octave to octave; achieves, with incredible lightness and precision, the widest intervals; ascends and descends the chromatic and diatonic scales; touches harmonic accompaniments in his way; extracts unknown sounds; searches, with easy success, for difficulties and tricks of skill; exhausts, within the space of a few bars, the whole range of chords and sounds possible upon the instrument – discourses, sings, bewails, ejaculates, describes! ’Tis suddenly a murmur of waves, a whistling in the air, a warbling of birds; a something undefinably musical, in the most acute as well as the lowest tones – an unrestricted impulse of caprices, and contrasts, without guide or measure! ’Tis, in a word, a perfect union of incoherence and nameless clatter, beyond which, the world-worn and vitiated beings around, the worshippers of singularity, can see nothing, imagine nothing, desire nothing!