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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.”

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: —

PAGANINI

Farà 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.