In proof of the extensive sphere of his attraction, the following anecdote, having reference to the year 1824, has been published. A northern traveller, and passionate lover of music, M. Bergman, reading accidentally, the evening before, in the Journal, at Leghorn, an announcement of Paganini’s concert, instantly set out for Genoa, a distance of 100 miles, and luckily reached the spot just half an hour before the concert began! He came with his expectations raised to the utmost; but, to use his own expression, the reality was as far above his anticipations, as the heavens are above the earth. Nor could this enthusiastic amateur rest content with once hearing Paganini, but actually followed him to Milan, to hear him de novo. Of the two concerts which the great artist gave at La Scala at that time, the first consisted entirely (as far as regarded his own performance) of exhibitions on the fourth string! and may be said to form a remarkable antithesis to the case of the man so specially indicated by the late Charles Mathews, as having lost his G! The public were in ecstacies; but it was observed, with some regret, by the judicious among Paganini’s auditors at these two concerts, that he was neglecting the cantabile, and the nobler powers of his instrument, for the difficult and astonishing. Yet it was to no want of sensibility in the soul of the artist, that this deviation was to be attributed; for he had before expressed his high admiration of Spohr, the German violinist, so celebrated for the excellence of his cantabile, and had given him full credit for being the greatest and most perfect singer upon his instrument—retaining, however, the satisfactory consciousness, as it has been supposed, of his own immeasurable superiority in the aggregate of the qualities for which all the greatest masters have been distinguished.
At Pavia, Paganini likewise gave two concerts, and was received with no less enthusiasm than at Milan. The bill which set forth the pieces to be performed was headed with the following autocratical annunciation:—
PAGANINI.
Farà sentire il suo Violino!
(“Paganini will cause his violin to be heard!”)
In the bills of a concert he gave at Naples, in 1825, his name was announced with the style and title of Filarmonico; and various sage debates and conjectures were the consequence, among the idlers of the place.
But it is needless to go thrice over the map of Italy, and detail all the triumphs of our acoustic hero among his own countrymen. Let us shift the scene to Germany, and the time to the year 1828, when he was exhibiting before the people at Vienna, and exciting the admiration and astonishment of the most distinguished professors and connoisseurs of that critical city. His inducement to quit his native Italy had been furnished, it appears, by Prince Metternich, who had witnessed his performances in the preceding year at Rome, when the Pope (soit dit en passant) had conferred on our Artist the order of the Golden Spur, an honor which had formerly been awarded to Gluck and Mozart.
All notion of rivalling the foreigner was at once banished from among the Germans; and it is said that Mayseder, their violinist of then highest fame, with an ingeniousness that did him honor, intimated, in a letter to a London friend, that he felt he might now lock up his violin as soon as he liked!
The successes of Paganini gave new currency to the tales of crime and diablerie which inventive fame, “ficti pravique tenax,” had so often circulated in connection with him. A captain of banditti—a Carbonaro—a dungeon-détenu—a deadly duellist—a four-mistress man—a friend of Beelzebub—a “bowl-and-dagger” administrator—these are some of the characters that were freely assigned to him. Over the mouth of his aged mother, in articulo mortis, he was asserted to have placed a leathern tube, and to have caught her last breath at the S holes of his fiddle!—He was made out, in short, the very beau idéal of a fellow that might do the “First Murderer” in a Melodrama. These romantic rumours, however they might assist his success with the public, could not be passed by in silence. The injured, yet profited, object of them, made a public manifesto of his innocence in the leading Journals of Vienna, and appealed to the magistrates of the various States under whose protection he had lived, to say if he had ever offended against the laws. This was all very well; but, what was still better, enough of the pleasing delusion remained, in spite of all disavowals, to render Paganini the continued pet of the public. Indeed, a general intoxication with regard to him prevailed for some time with the Viennese public. Verses were daily poured forth in honour of him—medals were struck—and Fashion made profuse appropriation of his name to her various objects. Hats, gloves, gowns, stockings, were à la Paganini:—purveyors of refreshment fortified their dishes with his name; and if a brilliant stroke were achieved at billiards, it was likened unto a stroke of his bow! snuff-boxes and cigar-cases displayed his portrait—and his bust was carved upon the walking-stick of the man of mode.