NICOLO

PAGANINI (1784-1840)  , Italian virtuoso on the violin, was born at Genoa on the 18th of February 1784 . His father Antonio, a clever amateur, who was in the shipping business, taught him the violin at a very early age, and he had further lessons from the maestro di cappella of the cathedral of San Lorenzo . He first appeared in public at Genoa in 1793, with triumphant success . In 1795 he visited Parma for the purpose of taking lessons from Alessandro Rolla, who, however, said that he had nothing to teach him . On returning home, he studied more diligently than ever, practising single passages for ten hours at a time, and publishing compositions so difficult that he alone could play them . His first professional tour, through the cities of Lombardy, was made with his father in 1797 . For some years he led a chequered career; he gambled at cards, and had to pawn his violin; and between 18or and 1804 he lived in retirement, in Tuscany, with a noble lady who was in love with him . In 1805 however he started on a tour through Europe, astonishing the world with his matchless performances, and especially with his unprecedented playing on the fourth string alone . The princess of Lucca and Piombo, Napoleon's sister, made him her musical director, and he became a prominent figure at the court where his caprices and audacities were a by-word . He abandoned this in 1813, and visited Bologna, Milan, and other cities, gaining further fame by his extraordinary virtuosity . In Venice, in 1815, he began a liaison with Antonia Bianchi, a dancer, which lasted till 1828; and by her he had a son Achillino, born in 1826 . Meanwhile the world rang with his praises .

In 1827 the

pope honoured him with the Order of the Golden Spur; and, in the following year, he extended his travels to Germany, beginning with Vienna, where he created a profound sensation . He first appeared in Paris in 1831; and on the 3rd of June in that year he played in London at the King's Theatre . His visit to England was preluded by the most romantic stories . He was described as a political victim who had been immured for twenty years in a dungeon, where he played all day long upon an old broken violin with one string, and thus gained his wonderful mechanical dexterity . The result of this and other foolish reports was that he could not walk the streets without being mobbed . He charged what for that time were enormous fees; and his net profits in England alone, during his six years of absence from his own country, amounted to some £17,000 . In 1832 he returned to Italy, and bought a villa near Parma . In 1833 he spent the winter in Paris, and in 1834 Berlioz composed for him his beautiful symphony, Harold en Italie . He was than at the zenith of his fame; but his health, long since ruined by excessive study, declined rapidly . In 1838 he suffered serious losses in Paris through the failure of the " Casino Paganini," a gambling-house which was refused a licence . The disasters of this year increased his malady—laryngeal phthisisand, after much suffering, he died at Nice on the 17th of May x840 . His will left a fortune of £8o,000 to his son Achillino; and he bequeathed one of his violins, a fine Joseph Guarnerius, given him in early life by a kind French merchant, to the municipality of Genoa, who preserve it as one of their treasures .

Paganini's

style was impressive and passionate to the last degree . His cantabile passages moved his audience to tears, while his tours de force were so astonishing that a Viennese amateur publicly declared that he had seen the devil assisting him . His name stands in history as that of the most extraordinary executant ever known on the violin; and in spite of greater artists or no less remarkable later virtuosi, this reputation will remain with Paganini as the inaugurator of an epoch . He was the first to show what could be done by brilliance of technique, and his compositions were directed to that end . He was an undeniable genius, and it may be added that he behaved and looked like one, with his tall, emaciated figure and long black hair . There are numerous lives of Paganini ; see the article and bibliography in Grove's Dictionary of Music .