Niccolò Paganini

Italian composer

• Born: October 27, 1782
• Birthplace: Genoa, Republic of Genoa (now Italy)
• Died: May 27, 1840
• Place of death: Nice, Kingdom of Sardinia (now in France)

From his own time to the twenty-first century, Paganini has been considered one of the greatest violinists the world has ever known. He was the founder of the freelance virtuosi. His astonishing feats of skill on the violin, his uncanny dramatic flair, and the compelling rumors and legends spawned by his colorful lifestyle all combined to captivate the imagination of audiences throughout early nineteenth century Europe and distinguish him as one of the most intriguing figures in music history.

Early Life

The northern Italian culture into which Niccolò Paganini (PAH-gah-nee-nee) was born venerated musicians as much as any other great musical culture in history. Considering the great deal of money available to musical talent at that time, it was quite natural that a family as poor as the Paganini’s would raise a gifted child such as Niccolò to no other end than the complete development of his talents. Paganini’s mother, Teresa, was a pious woman who claimed that while he was being born, an angel came to her and told her that the child would be the greatest violinist the world had ever known. The young Niccolò grew up under his mother’s gentle yet constant prompting to fulfill this divine commission. His father, Antonio, had a more direct and demanding influence on the development of his talents. Antonio worked at the Genoa harbor but was a gifted amateur musician. Although he spent most of his time drinking, gambling, and scheming of ways to get rich, he found time to teach Niccolò the mandolin at the age of five and the violin at the age of seven.

Paganini claimed that within a few months of learning the violin he could play anything on sight. Antonio, recognizing his son’s talents and willing to exploit any financial prospect, forced Paganini to practice from morning until night. When he could teach Paganini no more, he arranged for his son to take lessons with Giacomo Costa, the foremost violinist in Genoa. Paganini played in church three times per week to help pay for his tuition, and Antonio set up concerts throughout Genoa, where Paganini played his own compositions and variations on standard pieces to great applause. At the age of thirteen, Paganini went with his father to Parma, where he studied composition for one year and then made an extensive and successful concert tour throughout northern Italy. Paganini constantly chafed against Antonio’s severity, and although he did make a few concert tours between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, he spent most of this time in his room practicing and composing, as much to avoid contact with his father as to attain perfection in his art.

Life’s Work

In September of 1801, at the age of eighteen, Paganini finally extracted himself from his father’s control and set out on a path that was to make him the talk of Europe. He pleaded to be allowed to go to a festival in Lucca, Italy, where he would be able to demonstrate his talents to travelers from all over southern Europe. His father reluctantly consented on the condition that he take his older brother. The two set out for the festival, and Paganini met with great success.

When the festival ended in December, Niccolò, having tasted the sweet nectar of freedom, sent his brother home alone and decided to remain in Lucca. For three years he lived the life of a freelance artist and indulged the passions of youth that had been long suppressed under his father’s strict rule. His performances earned him a great deal of money, which he gambled away and then earned back at his next concert. Several times he had to pawn his violin to pay a debt of honor. While his violin was in hock he was in desperate need of an instrument with which to perform a concert. A wealthy businessperson lent him a Guarneri violin and was so moved by the performance that he insisted Paganini keep it. Although he would later give up gambling altogether, it was a major feature of his stay in Lucca and would prove to be the source of a great financial failure near the end of his life.

Paganini’s amorous adventures during this period in Lucca and throughout his life were legendary. He was not an attractive man, but his genius and magnetic personality gave him an appeal that captured the hearts of women wherever he went. The most important aspect of this period in Lucca, however, was his development as a performer of the first order. His early teachers had been closely associated with opera and the theater, which surely contributed to his sense of the dramatic and, combined with a financial opportunism he inherited from his father, gave him a keen sense of how to work an audience. His physical appearance also contributed to his popular appeal. His cadaverous presence was so alarming that it led to endless rumors of his associations with the devil, which he initially exploited for publicity but later regretted.

Paganini’s programs were filled with music of his own composition—the works of other violinists and composers not being difficult enough for him—which emphasized his technical prowess and his ability to perform amazing tricks such as imitating the sound of farm animals and playing entire pieces on a single string that anyone else would find difficult playing on all four strings. This thrilled his audiences and earned him a great deal of money, but his propensity to pander to low tastes led critics to label him a charlatan.

Although this criticism is deserved to some extent, those who were most vocal in this regard had not heard him play, basing their judgments on reports of his performances and in reaction to the startling phenomenon of Paganini that swept all of Europe. The most incredulous of critics had only personally to experience a performance to be disabused of the worst of this notion. Even while acknowledging dismay for his antics, the greatest composers and musicians of his day, including Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, Gioacchino Rossini, Hector Berlioz, and Giacomo Meyerbeer, paid him homage as a master. He cut himself an enigmatic figure from those early days in Lucca and remained such throughout his life.

In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte named his own sister, Elise, regent of Lucca. She appointed Paganini court conductor and solo violinist. Besides performing several times per week, his duties also included giving violin lessons to Elise’s husband. After serving four years in this capacity, Paganini resumed his career as a freelance artist, delighting audiences all over the Lombardy region of Italy. In 1813, he gave a triumphant concert in Milan. He had considered following this performance with an international tour but was retained for thirty-six more concerts in Milan and then proceeded with an extensive tour of Italy. He would not leave his native land for another fifteen years.

By the time Paganini set out for Vienna in 1828, he was known throughout Europe, his fame having spread by travelers who returned home from Italy with reports of his amazing skills as well as fantastic rumors of his notorious lifestyle. After five months in Vienna, Paganini set out on a two and one-half year tour of Germany, Bohemia, and Poland. In 1831 he visited Paris, France, for the first time and later that year made the first of two tours of England. Everywhere he went, his concerts sold out even though he charged twice as much for tickets as any other performer. His performances invariably exceeded his reputation.

In 1834, Paganini returned to Italy and purchased an estate near Parma. For a brief time he took a post with Napoleon’s second wife, Marie Louise, who was then the duchess of Parma. Paganini spent the remaining years of his life giving concerts and dabbling in the violin trade, buying and selling fine instruments as a hobby during his extensive travels. In 1836, he became enmeshed in a failed scheme to open a casino in Paris that was to bear the name Casino Paganini. An easy target because of his wealth and fame, Paganini was ruined by the lawsuits that followed this debacle. He left Paris in 1838 hoping to return to Genoa, but he was not to live much longer. He did not have a strong physical constitution, and his life had been filled with extended periods of illness. In 1840, still embroiled in litigation over the casino venture, his frail health, compounded by years of living on the road and the pressures of his recent financial setbacks, failed him. He died in Nice, unable to complete his journey home.

Significance

Public subscription concerts had been common for nearly one hundred years prior to Paganini’s life, but only as a supplement to the support a musician received from wealthy patrons. With the rise of republican sentiment in Europe during the early nineteenth century, a new class of citizen emerged with new aesthetic demands that made public concerts a practical option for the musician who understood these demands. Paganini was the first to take advantage of these changing conditions. He defined the role of the freelance musician for generations to come, and his influence extended from the likes of Liszt to the modern rock band.

The legendary aspects of Paganini’s colorful life and showmanship are fascinating, but it is his achievements as a composer and an artist that preserve his place in history. Although many of his compositions are flashy pieces of technical wizardry lacking musical substance, there are a few pieces that are premier works for the violin. His greatest compositions are his twenty-four caprices, a collection of violin studies exercising all the technical elements necessary to master the instrument. The ability to play this work remains a primary criterion for consideration as a master violinist. These caprices have also been the subject of transcriptions as well as theme and variations by numerous composers. His six violin concertos are highly regarded and are still a part of the standard concert repertoire.

Bibliography

Courcy, G. I. C. Paganini: The Genoese. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1977. This book is one of two classic biographies on Paganini in English. The appendixes include a genealogy of the Paganini family, two autobiographical sketches by Paganini himself, a list of compositions, a list of instruments owned by Paganini, and an extensive bibliography of pre-1950 works on Paganini.

Pulver, Jeffrey. Paganini: The Romantic Virtuoso. Herbert Joseph, 1936. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. This book is a classic work on Paganini and includes an extensive bibliography compiled by Frederick Freedman.

Roth, Henry. Violin Virtuosos: From Paganini to the Twenty-first Century. Los Angeles: California Classics Books, 1997. Roth traces the phenomenon of the violin virtuoso from Paganini to contemporary performers. Includes chapters on women violinists, American and Russian violinists, and the nature of the violin as art.

Sheppard, Leslie, and Herbert R. Axelrod. Paganini. Neptune City, N.J.: Paganiniana, 1979. A complete compendium of material related to the life and works of Paganini. This collaboration includes an engaging biography; hundreds of drawings and pictures of Paganini, his contemporaries, and modern performers of his compositions; reproductions of Paganini-related ephemera; stylistic samples and analysis of Paganini’s music; a Paganini discography; and a facsimile of the twenty-four caprices.

Stratton, Steven S. Niccolò Paganini: His Life and Work. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971. The first half of this short book is a biography of Paganini, while the second half provides a detailed analysis of his life, his artistic merit, and his significance as a composer.

Sugden, John. Paganini. London: Omnibus Press, 1986. This book was originally published in 1980 as Paganini: Supreme Violinist or Devil’s Fiddler? by Midas Books. It is a brief biography with many pictures and drawings. Appendixes include a select bibliography, a discography, and a list of derivatives of Paganini’s life and works in popular and serious culture.