Part 8 (1/2)
But we have left Paganini himself at Paris, where we must now rejoin him and his fortunes. As for the latter, in the moneyed meaning, they grew with a ratio of increase that would have been more wonderful, had it not been afterwards outdone by that of his gains in London. As it was, they were sufficient to inspire one of the Parisian dilettanti, a nicer worker in figures, with a special access of pa.s.sion for calculating the value of notes-that is to say, of Paganini's musical ”notes of hand.”
The result, based upon a concert given at the Opera at Paris, producing 16,500 francs, and presenting 1365 bars of _the_ fiddling, indicated a quotient of 12 francs for _each bar_, and was still more curiously distributed into proportions as follows:-for a semibreve, 12 francs; a minim, 6 francs; a crotchet, 3 francs; a quaver, 1 franc, 50 centimes; a semiquaver, 15 sous; a demisemiquaver, 7 sous. This exemplary calculation did not overlook, moreover, the cash value of each of the occurring sorts of _rests_; besides working out a ”contingent remainder”
of 420 francs-that residue happening to be, by the most curious coincidence, exactly the price of such a violin as the Conservatory usually awards by way of prize to its most successful pupils![39]
The provoking impertinence of Rumour, with her thousand busy tongues darting conjecture and accusation, drew forth, at Paris, as at Vienna, some effort at self-defence on the part of the a.s.sailed Artist. His letter to the Editor of the _Revue Musicale_ may claim a place here (in translated form), as well for its pleasantry and ingenuity, as for the clue it affords to the origin of some of the slanderous liberties which had and have been taken with his character. Of this letter, it subsequently appears that the materials were furnished by Paganini, and the diction arranged by his friend, M. Fetis:-
”Sir,
_Paris, 21 April, 1831._
”So many marks of kindness have been lavished on me by the Parisian public,-so many plaudits have been awarded to me,-that I am bound to give credit to that celebrity which is said to have preceded my arrival. But, if any doubt on the subject could have remained, it must have been dissipated by the care I see taken by your artists to make representations of my likeness,-by the numerous portraits of Paganini, more or less like the original, with which the walls of your capital are covered. It is not, however, to simple portraits, Sir, that their speculations are confined. While walking yesterday along the Boulevard des Italiens, I saw, in a print-shop, a lithograph representing _Paganini in prison_. ”Well!” said I to myself, ”here have we some worthy citizen who, in imitation of Don Bazilio, has been turning to account the calumny which has pursued me for the last fifteen years.” While smilingly examining all the details of this mystification with which the fancy of the artist had furnished him, I perceived that a numerous circle had gathered around me, and that every one, as he compared my features with those of the young man represented in the lithograph, was taking pains to satisfy himself as to the degree in which I was altered since the period of my imprisonment! Thus I found that the thing was taken _au serieux_, and that the speculation, at least, was no bad one.
It occurred to me that, as every one _must live_, I might as well, of myself, furnish a few anecdotes to those enterprising persons who take so much interest in me and my affairs; so that, if so disposed, they may have a few more subjects for prints, as good, and quite as true, as that in question. It is with this view that I beg you, Sir, to do me the favour of inserting this letter in your Musical Review.
”These gentlemen have represented me _in prison_, but they do not seem to know what _took me there_; and, so far, they are about as wise as myself, or as those who have brought the story into circulation. It bears, in fact, a great many versions, and presents a corresponding variety for the designer. It has been said, for instance, that, having surprised a rival in the chamber of my mistress, I had bravely stabbed him from behind, when he was incapable of defending himself. By others, it has been pretended that it was against the person of my mistress herself, that my fury had been directed; but they are not agreed as to the _mode_ I had adopted to accomplish her destruction,-some contending for the poniard, and others for poison; so that, as each has indulged his imagination in describing the affair, it would be hard to deny a similar license to the dealers in lithographs. I will relate what occurred to me at Padua some fifteen years ago.
”I had given a concert there, and had met with considerable success. On the following day, I was one of sixty at a _table d'hote_, where I had entered the room without being recognized.
One of the guests was pleased to express himself in very flattering terms on my public appearance the evening before.
Another concurred in the praise thus bestowed, but added, by way of explanation, ”There is nothing in the talent of Paganini which ought to excite surprise. He is indebted for it to the sojourn he has made for eight years of his life within the walls of a dungeon, with nothing but his violin to mitigate the rigors of his captivity. He was condemned to this long confinement for having basely a.s.sa.s.sinated a friend of _mine_, who was his rival.”
”The whole company, as you may well believe, exclaimed against the enormity of the offence. For _my_ part, I got up, and, addressing the person who seemed so well acquainted with my previous history, begged him to tell me where, when and how, the adventure had taken place. Every eye was turned towards me as I spoke, and you may judge of the general astonishment, when one amongst themselves was thus recognized as the chief actor in the tragedy. The historian was sadly embarra.s.sed. It was no longer one of _his friends_ who had fallen; ”he had heard it said,”-”he had been credibly informed,”-”he had believed,-but it was possible that he might have been mistaken!”
”It is thus, Sir, that the reputation of an artist is trifled with, because others, of more indolent habits, are at a loss to understand how a man should apply himself as effectually to study, while at full liberty in his own house, as within the walls of a dungeon!
”At Vienna, a still more preposterous rumour put the credulity of the inhabitants to the test. I had been playing those variations known by the name of _Le Stregghe_ (the Witches). A young man, who was described to me as of a pale and melancholy aspect, with eyes of the most inspired cast, said that he saw nothing surprising in my performance, for, while I was executing my variations, he had distinctly perceived the devil at my elbow, guiding my fingers, and directing my bow; that the said devil was dressed in red; had horns and a tail; and that, moreover, the striking likeness of our countenances plainly established the relations.h.i.+p between us! It was impossible to refuse credence to so circ.u.mstantial and descriptive an account: and the curious became satisfied that this was the true secret of what are called my _tours de force_.
”For a long time, I was weak enough to allow my tranquillity to be disturbed by such idle rumours. I tasked myself to demonstrate their absurdity. I called attention to the fact, that, from the age of fourteen, I had been constantly under the public eye, and giving concerts; that I had been employed, for sixteen years, as chief of the orchestra and director of the music, to the Court; and that, if it were true that I had been eight years in prison for killing my mistress or my rival, it must have been before my first appearance in public; so that I must have had a mistress, and a rival, before I was seven years of age. I invoked even the testimony of my country's amba.s.sador at Vienna, who declared that he had known me, for nearly twenty years, in the situation which became an honest man; and I thus succeeded, for the moment, in silencing the calumny; but calumny is never totally extinguished, and it does not surprise me to find it revive in this city.
”Under such circ.u.mstances, Sir, what ought I to do? I see nothing for it but to submit with resignation, and give free scope to the exercise of an ingenious malignity. Before concluding, however, I may as well communicate an anecdote, which has probably given rise to some of these injurious rumours about me.
It is as follows:
”A performer on the violin, named D...i,[40] who was at Milan in 1798, had connected himself with two men of bad character, who persuaded him to go with them during the night to a neighbouring village, to a.s.sa.s.sinate the clergyman, who was reported to have been possessed of great wealth. Happily, the heart of one of the a.s.sociates failed him at the decisive moment, and he resolved to denounce his confederates. The gendarmerie went to the spot, and arrested D...i, and his friend, at the moment of their arrival at the house of the _cure_. They were condemned to twenty years'
confinement, and thrown into prison; but General Menou, then Governor of Milan, at the end of the second year, set the artist at liberty.
”Would you believe it, Sir? It was on this foundation, that all my history has been raised. A performer on the violin was in question, and his name ended in _i_-so that it _must_ have been _Paganini_. It was _I_ who had been in prison, and the a.s.sa.s.sination became that of my mistress, or my rival. Thus, to explain the discovery of my new style of performance, they enc.u.mber me with fetters which would but add to the difficulty.
Let me hope, Sir, that if I must yield to the propagators of a calumny so obstinately persevered in against all verisimilitude, they will at least consent to abandon their prey _after death_,-and that those who so cruelly avenge themselves of my success, will leave my ashes to rest in peace. Accept, Sir, the a.s.surance, &c.
”PAGANINI.”
Largely profited in honours and revenue, through his exertions in France, the great artist directed his course to the sh.o.r.es of England, where the reception which awaited him was destined to form a climax to his previous triumphs. Fame, that most eager, but inexact lady-usher, who had introduced him to the French with so many whispers of wild import, took similar liberties when she presented him to the marvelling Londoners. ”The page will be a strange one in the history of Art, to be written some fifty years hence (says a writer in the _Athenaeum_), which shall contain all the rumours that heralded Paganini's first appearance in England, and were quoted in explanation of his outward eccentricities of person and manner. Our children will laugh at the credulity of their fathers, when they read of a magician who strung his instrument with the heart-strings of his mistress-a sort of demon Orpheus, who had been initiated into his power by the gentle ordeals of murder and solitary confinement;-and yet such reports were widely spread, and, strange to say, believed! The writer of this notice remembers having heard it gravely said in society, ”that Paganini could play upon his violin when all its strings were taken off!” and, when another of the party, to expose the absurdity of the tale, declared that this wonder of the world had done more, having once actually _strung a gridiron_ (his own violin not arriving in time), on which he performed a concerto with immense applause-this second and surpa.s.sing marvel (of course fabricated in the humour of the moment) was not only swallowed, but absolutely retailed, as an accredited fact!”
The capacious area of the King's Theatre, scarcely adequate to the large expectations founded upon his fame, was selected as the scene of his London debut. An awkward collision with public opinion marked, however, the interval immediately preceding his appearance. An endeavour to elevate the prices of admission above the usual _concert-pitch_, raised a storm of opposition, that was only allayed by prompt and necessary concession. To attribute the attempt, thus properly frustrated, to an extortionate spirit on the part of Paganini, as was pretty generally done at the time, seems hardly fair. It is more reasonable to suppose that his ignorance of the English customs was taken advantage of, for the sordid purposes of others; and on this point it may be worth while here to say a few words. There is in London a cla.s.s of needy and adventurous foreigners, who, with no available talent of their own, have just industry enough to make them beset those of their countrymen, whose genius or good fortune enables them to figure successfully in our metropolis. Whoever, at the period here referred to, has had occasion to direct his course through the Regent's Quadrant, either in the twilight of a departing day, or during the brighter reign of gas and night, must have noted the loose, idle, swaggering gait, the tawdry and _outre_ habiliments, and the dark and dirty looks, of certain figures who loitered about in obstructive knots, or sauntered on in pairs or threes, among the more regulated pa.s.sengers. Their equipment was ordinarily completed by a reeking cigar, which added to their sense of importance, and was an auxiliary to their impertinencies of demeanour towards the females, of whatever grade, who chanced to pa.s.s within their track. But their ”high and _palmy_ state” was in the gallery of the King's Theatre, where their pertinacious ”manual exercise,” and their laudatory vociferations, in favour of the dancers who successively occupied the stage during the ballet, were a serious annoyance to all around them.
Under this character, which seems to have no English term that will exactly fit it, they were (and still are) known as the _claqueurs_.
Externally, they are altogether the personification of impudent pretence-and, to enable them to support their equivocal character, they seek out the private quarters of the great singer, or the fortunate artist, in whatever line, and, by all the arts of the meanest flattery, contrive to extract from his purse such tribute as his vanity, or his complaisance, may be willing to afford. It is no unnatural conjecture to suppose that, on the occasion just named, Paganini acted under a mistake produced by influence of this kind.[41]
Perhaps no achievement in the musical art, performed by one person, has ever been attended with more enthusiasm than marked the exhibition made by Paganini at his first concert in London, given on the 3rd of June, 1831. Certain it is that nothing in the way of musical performance, that had ever preceded it in this country, had exceeded it in _novelty_. It was the prevalent theme of talking wonder; and all the ingenuities of written criticism were tasked to describe and estimate it. Allowing for the difficulty of appreciating, where the singularity was so great, there was a remarkable acuteness shewn in some of the accounts that appeared in the journals of the day. From these I propose to make a few extracts, selecting such as seem best to ill.u.s.trate the peculiarities with which they had to deal. Let us commence with a statement given in the first person, by Mr. Gardner, of Leicester.
”At the hazard of my ribs, I placed myself at the Opera door, two hours and a half before the concert began; presently, the crowd of musicians and violinists filled the Colonnade to suffocation, all anxious to get the front seat, because they had to pay for their places, Paganini not giving a single ticket away. The Concert opened with Beethoven's Second Symphony, admirably performed by the Philharmonic band; after which Lablache sang _Largo al Factotum_, with much applause, and was encored.
A breathless silence then ensued, and every eye was watching the action of this extraordinary violinist: and, as he glided from the side scenes to the front of the stage, an involuntary cheering burst from every part of the house, many rising from their seats to view the _spectre_ during the thunder of this unprecedented cheering-his gaunt and extraordinary appearance being more like that of a devotee, about to suffer martyrdom, than one to delight you with his art. With the tip of his bow, he set off the orchestra, in a grand military movement, with a force and vivacity as surprising as it was new. At the termination of this introduction, he commenced with a soft streamy note of celestial quality: and, with three or four whips of his bow, elicited points of sound that mounted to the third heaven, and as bright as the stars. A scream of astonishment and delight burst from the audience at the novelty of this effect. Immediately, an execution followed, that was equally indescribable, in which were intermingled tones more than human, which seemed to be wrung from the deepest anguish of a broken heart.