After declining, for the freer indulgence of his rambles, various offers of profitable engagement on per manent grounds, he was induced to enter, in 1805, the service of Napoleon’s sister with the exquisite name (Elisa Bacciocchi), then Princess of Lucca and Piombino, to whose elegant little court several distinguished artists were at that time attracted. Paganini became concertist and director of the orchestra there; and it was in this situation that he first attempted the execution of those triumphs of art under diminished resources, that have had, in the sequel, so large a share in the production of his success with the multitude. I allude to his acquired habit, displayed from time to time, of dispensing with the aid of two or even three of the strings of his instrument, and working apparent impossibilities with the remaining two or one—a habit which, owing to his occasional abuse of it, has laid him open to a charge of charlatanism, even from the Italians. His incredible address in these extraordinary efforts, produced a degree of astonishment which may probably have given rise to some of those rumours, both romantic and ludicrous, that have been so freely associated with his name. The explanation he has himself given of the origin of these performances, in the following letter to a friend, seems so consistent with his disposition at the period, that it may very readily command the preference in point of credibility:—
“At Lucca,” he says, “I led the orchestra whenever the Reigning Family attended the opera. I was often sent for also to the court circle,—and once a fortnight I gave a grand concert,—but the Princess Eliza retired always before the conclusion, declaring that her nerves were too keenly affected by the sounds of my instrument. A certain lady, on the contrary, whom I had long adored in secret, was constant and assiduous in her attendance at these musical meetings. I thought I could perceive that some secret influence attracted her towards me. Our mutual passion insensibly increased; but, as motives of prudence made secrecy indispensable, and forbade any open declaration, the idea occurred to me of surprising her with a piece of musical gallantry, which would convey to her the expression of my feelings. Having announced my intention to produce a novelty at Court, under a title (that of “A Love Scene”) well calculated to excite the general curiosity, I could observe that that feeling was not diminished on my entering the music-room, with a violin provided with only two strings, the first and the fourth. The first was intended to express the sentiments of a lady; the fourth, those of a despairing lover. Between the two, I established a sort of impassioned dialogue, in which the tenderest accents succeeded the violence of repeated fits of jealousy. Alternately plaintive and insinuating, there was at one moment a cry of grief or anger, and the next, of joyful reconciliation. The whole scene was eminently successful; the lady to whom it referred rewarded me by looks full of delighted amiability; and the princess Eliza, after loading me with praises, enquired if, after doing the impossible with two strings, one might not possibly suffice me. I instantly gave my promise to make the attempt; and, a few weeks afterwards, I produced a Sonata on the fourth string, which I entitled “Napoleon,” and executed it on the 25th of August, before a brilliant and numerous Court. Its success having far surpassed my expectation, I may date from that period my predilection for the lower string; and, as my audience seemed never to tire of the pieces I had composed for it, I have at length arrived at that degree of facility which appears to have so much surprised you.”
To find out sufficient scope for an entire field of melody, as the produce of a single musical string, must have demanded great study, as well as unremitting manual practice. Paganini extended the capability of the string to three octaves, including the harmonic sounds, which he developed into a most important resource. The success of this novelty was prodigiously increased, after he had presented it beyond the courtly circle, and made it public[37].
When the Princess Eliza became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Paganini followed her to Florence, where he became an object of even fanatic admiration. His talent developed itself daily in new forms; but he had as yet very imperfectly learned to regulate its exercise. The amount of study, however, to which he had subjected himself, after ceasing to be the slave of his father, is a thing to excite astonishment. He had abandoned himself, in solitude, to the research with which his mind was occupied; and had then formed the plan of the Studies which are known under his name, and wherein he proposed difficulties that he himself could not surmount without immense labour. It is a remarkable fact, also, that he suddenly interrupted his enquiries as to the possibility of augmenting the resources of the violin, in order to study seriously the works of Corelli, Vivaldi, Tartini, Pugnani and Viotti, and to ascertain the successive progress of his instrument. He afterwards familiarized himself with the works of the Violinists of France.
In the summer of 1808, after three years passed at Lucca, Paganini, with the consent of his patroness, visited Leghorn, which city had been a scene of triumph to him seven years previously. How, at his first concert on this re-appearance, a cloud was converted into sunshine, has been pleasantly enough recorded by himself:—
“Having accidentally run a nail into my heel, I came on the stage limping—and the public greeted me with a laugh. At the moment when I was beginning my concerto, the tapers fell from my music-stand, drawing a fresh burst of laughter from the audience. Again, after the first few bars of the solo, my upper string broke—which raised the merriment to a climax:—but I went through the piece upon three strings—and the laughter was turned into shouts of enthusiasm.”
Still retaining his engagement in the service of the Princess Bacciocchi, who was now become Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and established at Florence with her court, the great artist made professional excursions to various Italian cities—including one to Turin (where he was first attacked by the abdominal ailment which, in the sequel, so much enfeebled his health, and so often interrupted his travels, and disturbed the order of his concerts)—and another to Ferrara, where his grotesque mode of retaliation for an affront received in public, led to such a misunderstanding with the townspeople, as caused some jeopardy to his life.
About the commencement of 1813, his position at the Court of the Grand Duchess Eliza was suddenly and disagreeably abolished. On a certain state occasion, Paganini appeared in the orchestra in the full-blown uniform of a Captain of the Gendarmerie Royale, which, as a general privilege, his fair patroness had authorized him to wear. He was now requested, however, to exchange it immediately for a suit of plain black. The sudden shock to his dignity was met by a refusal to comply with the order, and the result of this bearding of authority was his precipitate retreat from Florence, with (it is probable) a resolution to decline all future offers of a “fixed position.”
In the city of Milan, where Paganini found many congenial attractions, he passed a considerable time, at various epochs of his life. There he first saw, and entered into friendship with, Rossini. There, too (in March 1816), occurred, within the walls of La Scala, his contest with Lafont, the champion of French renown in the fiddle field. The story has been variously represented. It appears that Lafont challenged Paganini to join him in a concert, and conceived great hopes of beating him, when, after acceptance of the proposal, the wary Italian was found to make a very indifferent exhibition of power at the previous rehearsal. When the rival display came on in earnest, however, the impression produced by Lafont, with his fine tone, and his graceful and elegant performance, was presently eclipsed in toto by the superlative mastery shewn in the performance of the Genoese enchanter, who purposely followed in the track of his competitor, to establish his superiority at all points—outweighing him in the deliberate adagio, and outstripping him in all the agile feats of execution, besides transcending him wholly in the nicer arcana of the art. Of this purport, at least, is the more common and probable account of the affair. But, if the Frenchman was thus conspicuously beaten, it would seem that (as in the case of Falstaff) it would “discolor too much the complexion of his greatness” to acknowledge it: Monsieur Lafont wrote a letter of negation to a French journal, some fourteen years after the momentous day. In this letter he even decides himself to have obtained a partial advantage, alluding to some particular “phrase de chant,”—and he indulges in this passage:—“On all occasions I have taken pleasure in rendering homage to his great talent but I have never said that he was the first violinist in the world: I have not done such injustice to the celebrated men, Kreutzer, Rode, Baillot, and Habeneck and I declare now, as I have always done, that the French school is the first in this world for the violin!”—To this self-and-country-vaunting epistle, as translated in the Harmonicon, Lafont found a respondent (April 7, 1830) in Signor Francesco Cianchettini, who asserts, as one present on the occasion, that the public decision was in favour of the Italian, and compares the vain glory of French fiddlers, in their talk of Paganini, to the empty freedom of the gladiators of the Neronian age, in speaking of Hercules.
Paganini’s own account of the affair exhibits a modest simplicity, tending to confirm any previous impressions of his having been the victor. After quoting it, however, Monsieur Fétis, who has repeatedly heard Lafont’s relation of the circumstances, offers some remarks, which it is but right here to subjoin:—“It is not to be denied,” says he, “that Lafont displayed much imprudence on that occasion. Doubtless he possessed qualities of a classic order, more pure, and more analogous to the French taste of his time, than those of Paganini. Doubtless he had greater volume and evenness of tone: but, with respect to original fancy, the poetry of playing, and the mastery over difficulties, he could place himself in no comparison with his antagonist. In a concert at the Paris Conservatoire, the palm, in 1816, would perhaps have been awarded to him (Lafont): but, in presence of an Italian audience, eager for novelty, originality, and impulsion, he must needs have succumbed. ” To continue our narrative of Paganini’s “life, behaviour and conversation,”—the French musical Amateur, Count de Stendhal (Monsieur Beyle) has alluded to him descriptively at two periods. In 1814, he observes, “Paganini, the Genoese, is, it appears to me, the first violinist in Italy. He cultivates an exceeding softness of expression. He plays concertos as unmeaning as those which set us gaping at Paris; but his delicate softness is always a distinction in his favour. I love especially to hear him execute variations on the fourth string of his instrument.” And again, in 1817, he writes of him, as of a Genoese who played very finely on the violin—being “equal to the French in execution, and superior in fire and originality!”—Mathews, the author of the “Diary of an Invalid,” offers the following remarks on him in the year 1818:—“He is a man of eccentric character and irregular habits. Though generally resident at Turin, he has no fixed engagement, but, as occasion may require, makes a trading voyage through the principal cities of Italy, and can always procure a theatre, upon the condition of equal participation in the receipts. Many stories are told of the means by which he has acquired his astonishing style; such as having been imprisoned ten years, with no other resource. His performance bears the stamp of the eccentricity of his character. His tone, and the thrilling intonation of his double stops, are electric. His bow moves as if it were part of himself, and endued with life and feeling.”