Niccolò Paganini

Niccolò Paganini was born in Genoa on 27 October 1782. His father, Antonio, a dock worker and trader, played the mandolin as an amateur and taught his son music. He was very strict, sometimes depriving the boy of food if he did not practise enough. Little Niccolò first learned the mandolin, then the violin at seven. His progress was dazzling: he gave his first public concert in Genoa around 1794, aged eleven or twelve, and studied with the city’s best violinists.

Around 1795 he went to study in Parma with the violinist Alessandro Rolla and the composer Ferdinando Paër. According to the anecdote, Rolla declared he had nothing more to teach him after hearing him sight-read one of his works. Paganini then practised up to fifteen hours a day, inventing new techniques. In 1801, to escape his father’s authority, he left for Lucca, where he became leader of the city orchestra.

For a few years he led a turbulent life of gambling and adventure. According to one anecdote he even lost his violin at cards before being given a magnificent Guarneri del Gesù by an admirer, which he nicknamed “il Cannone”, “the Cannon”, for its powerful sound. From 1805 to 1809 he was violinist at the court of Elisa Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister, who had become Princess of Lucca. For her he composed pieces for a single string, such as the Napoleon sonata, played on the G string alone.

In 1813 he triumphed at La Scala in Milan with Le Streghe (The Witches), dazzling variations on a ballet tune. He then began a career as a touring virtuoso in Italy. In 1820 he published his 24 Caprices for solo violin, Op. 1, a collection of unheard-of difficulty exploring every possibility of the instrument: double stops, left-hand pizzicato, harmonics, dizzying leaps. The last caprice, in A minor, inspired variations by Brahms, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and many others.

In 1828 he left Italy for a great European tour. In Vienna there was “Paganinimania”: hats, gloves and dishes “à la Paganini” were sold. Then came Prague, Berlin and, in 1831, Paris and London, where his concerts were packed despite very high prices. Tall, thin, very pale and dressed in black, he both fascinated and frightened people: it was said he had sold his soul to the devil to play like that. He fed the mystery himself, keeping his scores secret and publishing almost nothing in his lifetime.

His playing overwhelmed the musicians of his day. On hearing him in Paris, the young Franz Liszt resolved to become “the Paganini of the piano”. Schumann, Chopin and Berlioz were fascinated. In 1834 Paganini, who had just acquired a fine Stradivari viola, asked Berlioz for a work to show it off: the result was Harold in Italy. Disappointed by the viola part, which was not virtuosic enough, he never played it, but later made Berlioz a generous gift after hearing his Symphonie fantastique.

His fragile health declined in the 1830s. He tried to launch a casino in Paris, the “Casino Paganini”, which went bankrupt. He died in Nice on 27 May 1840. Because of his reputed pact with the devil, the bishop refused him Christian burial, and his body wandered for years before being laid to rest in Parma. He bequeathed his violin “il Cannone” to his native Genoa, where it is still kept and played on exceptional occasions.