"Impossible! no lad could play like that—I can teach that player nothing!"
Next the musician Paer was visited, and he passed the boy along to Giretta, who gave him three lessons a week in harmony and counterpoint. The boy had abrupt mannerisms and tricks of his own in bringing out expressions, and these were such a puzzle to the teacher that he soon refused to go on.
Niccolo possessed a sort of haughty self-confidence that aggravated the master; he believed in himself and was fond of showing that he could play in a way no one else could. Adolescence had turned his desire to play into a fury of passion for his art: he practised on single passages for ten or twelve hours a day, and would often sink in a swoon from sheer exhaustion. This deep, torpor-like sleep saved him from complete collapse, just as it saved Mendelssohn, and he would arise to go on with his work.
Paganini's wisdom was shown at this early age in that he limited his work to a few compositions, and these he made the most of, just as they say Bossuet secured his reputation as the greatest preacher of his time by a single sermon that he had polished to the point of perfection.
When fifteen years old Paganini contrived to escape from his father and went to a musical festival at Lucca. He managed to get a hearing, was engaged at once as a soloist, and soon after gave a concert on his own account. In a month he had accumulated a thousand pounds in cash.
Very naturally, such a success turned the head of this lad who never before had had the handling of money. He began to gamble, and became the dupe of rogues—male and female—who plunged him into an abyss of wrong. He even gambled away the "Stradivarius" that had been presented to him, and when his money, watch and jewels were gone, his new-found friends of course decamped, and this gave the young man time to ponder on the vanities of life.
When he played again it was on a borrowed "Guarnerius," and after the rich owner, himself a violinist, had heard him play, he said, "No fingers but yours shall ever play that violin again!"
Paganini accepted the gift, and this was the violin he played for full forty years, and which, on his death, was willed to his native city of Genoa. There it can be seen in its sealed-up glass case.
Up to his thirtieth year Paganini continued his severe work of subduing the violin. By that time he had sounded its possibilities, and thereafter no one heard him play except in concert. It is told that one man, anxious to know the secrets of Paganini's power, followed him from city to city, watching him at his concerts, dogging him through the streets, spying upon him at hotels. At one inn this man of curiosity had the felicity to secure a room next to the one occupied by Paganini; and one morning as he watched through the keyhole, he was rewarded by seeing the master open the case where reposed the precious "Guarnerius." Paganini lifted the instrument, held it under his chin, took up the bow and made a few passes in the air—not a sound was heard. Then he kissed the back of the violin, muttered a prayer, and locked the instrument in its case.
At concert rehearsals he always played a mute instrument; and Harris, his manager, records that for the many years he was with Paganini he never heard him play a single note except before an audience.