Chapter III: Paganini (1)

“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 permanent 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 public[37].

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.

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!

“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 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:—