[32] Voltaire’s contempt for bad playing seems to have equalled his indifference towards good, as may be evidenced in the following lines from his caustic pen:—
toi, dont le violon Sous un archêt maudit par Apollon D’un ton si dur a ráclé, &c.
[33] Michael Kelly, who heard this artist at Vienna, on his return from Russia, makes the following mention of him:—
“Giornovick, who was on his way from Russia to Paris, had been many years first concerto-player at the court of Petersburgh. He was a man of a certain age, but in the full vigour of talent: his tone was very powerful, his execution most rapid, and his taste, above all, alluring. No performer, in my remembrance, played such pleasing music. He generally closed his concertos with a rondo, the subject of which was some popular Russian air, to which he composed variations, with enchanting taste.”
[34] Apropos of this deficiency of English, I find an anecdote in the book of Parke, the oboist. He is describing the return from a dinner-party.—“When we arrived at Tottenham-court Road, there being several coaches on the stand, one was called for Jarnovicki, to convey him home; but, on its coming up, although he had been in London several years, he could not muster up English enough to name the street in which he lived; and, none of the party knowing his residence, it produced a dilemma, in which he participated, till, suddenly recollecting himself, he broke out singing, Marlbrouk s’en va-t-en guerre, which enabled his English friends to direct the coachman to Marlborough Street.”
[35] Parke, also, mentions the occurrence of this dispute, and the challenge—stating, as the occasion, that Shaw had refused to leave his proper station in the orchestra, to accompany Giornovichi.
[36] Authentic editions of these charming productions will be found in the Catalogue of the Messrs. Robert Cocks and Co. who are the sole publishers of Viotti’s Duos and Trios.
[37] It has been asserted that the wire of his fourth string was particularly fine and close, to ensure greater smoothness of surface, and facilitate the sliding of the fingers.
[38] It is right to add here, that M. Guhr has subsequently reduced to a system the results of his investigation into the peculiarities of Paganini’s playing, and, illustrating the whole with copious examples, has published it in a special work, of which an English version, under the title of “Paganini’s Method of Playing the Violin,” has been put forth by Messrs. Cocks and Co. The work is a curiosity in its kind, and lays open, perhaps, as many of the great Artist’s labyrinthine recesses, as could well be traced upon paper, for the guidance of those who would toil in his track. Many of the difficulties thus exhibited to view, are truly astounding—difficulties that look as inexpugnable as the fortifications of Gibraltar! The simultaneous four A’s flat, do “puzzle the will,” while the artificial double harmonics, and other eagle-flights, cause an aching of “the mind’s eye,” in the attempt to follow them. Ordinary students, in beholding such things, may well experience a double shake of apprehension; but those of more energetic fibre, and devoted patience, should by no means despair of attaining, at least, a partial success in the undertaking.
Among the mechanical resources employed by Paganini, as essential for the production of his extraordinary effects, M. Guhr mentions the peculiar smallness or thinness of his strings—a quality the reverse of advantageous, as regards the usual course of playing,—and his frequent habit of screwing up his G string to B flat, through which device certain passages, otherwise unmanageable, were brought within the scope of possibility. Ordinary strings would resent this freedom of treatment by a snap; but those of Paganini were, it seems, expressly fitted and prepared for their higher duty, in a way which M. Guhr minutely explains.