Part 7 (1/2)
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.
_Fara 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 t.i.tle 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 s.h.i.+ft 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 pa.s.sant_) 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-detenu-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 a.s.signed to him. Over the mouth of his aged mother, _in articulo mortis_, he was a.s.serted 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 ideal_ of a fellow that might do the ”First Murderer” in a Melodrama. These romantic rumours, however they might a.s.sist his success with the public, could not be pa.s.sed 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 Fas.h.i.+on made profuse appropriation of his name to her various objects.
Hats, gloves, gowns, stockings, were _a 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 mult.i.tude.
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 a.s.suredly,” 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 prompt.i.tude, 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 impa.s.sioned _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, a.s.serting 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 pa.s.sages 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 n.o.bly 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-gla.s.s.
_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.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”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!