“For a long time, I was weak enough to allow my tranquillity to be disturbed by such idle rumours. I tasked myself to demonstrate their absurdity. I called attention to the fact, that, from the age of fourteen, I had been constantly under the public eye, and giving concerts; that I had been employed, for sixteen years, as chief of the orchestra and director of the music, to the Court; and that, if it were true that I had been eight years in prison for killing my mistress or my rival, it must have been before my first appearance in public; so that I must have had a mistress, and a rival, before I was seven years of age. I invoked even the testimony of my country’s ambassador at Vienna, who declared that he had known me, for nearly twenty years, in the situation which became an honest man; and I thus succeeded, for the moment, in silencing the calumny; but calumny is never totally extinguished, and it does not surprise me to find it revive in this city.
“Under such circumstances, Sir, what ought I to do? I see nothing for it but to submit with resignation, and give free scope to the exercise of an ingenious malignity. Before concluding, however, I may as well communicate an anecdote, which has probably given rise to some of these injurious rumours about me. It is as follows:
“A performer on the violin, named D . . . ,[40] who was at Milan in 1798, had connected himself with two men of bad character, who persuaded him to go with them during the night to a neighbouring village, to assassinate the clergyman, who was reported to have been possessed of great wealth. Happily, the heart of one of the associates failed him at the decisive moment, and he resolved to denounce his confederates. The gendarmerie went to the spot, and arrested D...i, and his friend, at the moment of their arrival at the house of the curé. They were condemned to twenty years’ confinement, and thrown into prison; but General Menou, then Governor of Milan, at the end of the second year, set the artist at liberty.
“Would you believe it, Sir? It was on this foundation, that all my history has been raised. A performer on the violin was in question, and his name ended in i—so that it must have been Paganini. It was I who had been in prison, and the assassination became that of my mistress, or my rival. Thus, to explain the discovery of my new style of performance, they encumber me with fetters which would but add to the difficulty. Let me hope, Sir, that if I must yield to the propagators of a calumny so obstinately persevered in against all verisimilitude, they will at least consent to abandon their prey after death,—and that those who so cruelly avenge themselves of my success, will leave my ashes to rest in peace. Accept, Sir, the assurance, &c.
“Paganini.”
Largely profited in honours and revenue, through his exertions in France, the great artist directed his course to the shores of England, where the reception which awaited him was destined to form a climax to his previous triumphs. Fame, that most eager, but inexact lady-usher, who had introduced him to the French with so many whispers of wild import, took similar liberties when she presented him to the marvelling Londoners. “The page will be a strange one in the history of Art, to be written some fifty years hence (says a writer in the Athenæum), which shall contain all the rumours that heralded Paganini’s first appearance in England, and were quoted in explanation of his outward eccentricities of person and manner. Our children will laugh at the credulity of their fathers, when they read of a magician who strung his instrument with the heart-strings of his mistress—a sort of demon Orpheus, who had been initiated into his power by the gentle ordeals of murder and solitary confinement;—and yet such reports were widely spread, and, strange to say, believed! The writer of this notice remembers having heard it gravely said in society, “that Paganini could play upon his violin when all its strings were taken off!” and, when another of the party, to expose the absurdity of the tale, declared that this wonder of the world had done more, having once actually strung a gridiron (his own violin not arriving in time), on which he performed a concerto with immense applause—this second and surpassing marvel (of course fabricated in the humour of the moment) was not only swallowed, but absolutely retailed, as an accredited fact!”
The capacious area of the King’s Theatre, scarcely adequate to the large expectations founded upon his fame, was selected as the scene of his London début. An awkward collision with public opinion marked, how ever, the interval immediately preceding his appearance. An endeavour to elevate the prices of admission above the usual concert-pitch, raised a storm of opposition, that was only allayed by prompt and necessary concession. To attribute the attempt, thus properly frustrated, to an extortionate spirit on the part of Paganini, as was pretty generally done at the time, seems hardly fair. It is more reasonable to suppose that his ignorance of the English customs was taken advantage of, for the sordid purposes of others; and on this point it may be worth while here to say a few words. There is in London a class of needy and adventurous foreigners, who, with no available talent of their own, have just industry enough to make them beset those of their countrymen, whose genius or good fortune enables them to figure successfully in our metropolis. Whoever, at the period here referred to, has had occasion to direct his course through the Regent’s Quadrant, either in the twilight of a departing day, or during the brighter reign of gas and night, must have noted the loose, idle, swaggering gait, the tawdry and outré habiliments, and the dark and dirty looks, of certain figures who loitered about in obstructive knots, or sauntered on in pairs or threes, among the more regulated passengers. Their equipment was ordinarily completed by a reeking cigar, which added to their sense of importance, and was an auxiliary to their impertinencies of demeanour towards the females, of whatever grade, who chanced to pass within their track. But their “high and palmy state” was in the gallery of the King’s Theatre, where their pertinacious “manual exercise,” and their laudatory vociferations, in favour of the dancers who successively occupied the stage during the ballet, were a serious annoyance to all around them. Under this character, which seems to have no English term that will exactly fit it, they were (and still are) known as the claqueurs. Externally, they are altogether the personification of impudent pretence—and, to enable them to support their equivocal character, they seek out the private quarters of the great singer, or the fortunate artist, in whatever line, and, by all the arts of the meanest flattery, contrive to extract from his purse such tribute as his vanity, or his complaisance, may be willing to afford. It is no unnatural conjecture to suppose that, on the occasion just named, Paganini acted under a mistake produced by influence of this kind.[41]
Perhaps no achievement in the musical art, performed by one person, has ever been attended with more enthusiasm than marked the exhibition made by Paganini at his first concert in London, given on the 3rd of June, 1831. Certain it is that nothing in the way of musical performance, that had ever preceded it in this country, had exceeded it in novelty. It was the prevalent theme of talking wonder; and all the ingenuities of written criticism were tasked to describe and estimate it. Allowing for the difficulty of appreciating, where the singularity was so great, there was a remarkable acuteness shewn in some of the accounts that appeared in the journals of the day. From these I propose to make a few extracts, selecting such as seem best to illustrate the peculiarities with which they had to deal. Let us commence with a statement given in the first person, by Mr. Gardner, of Leicester.
“At the hazard of my ribs, I placed myself at the Opera door, two hours and a half before the concert began; presently, the crowd of musicians and violinists filled the Colonnade to suffocation, all anxious to get the front seat, because they had to pay for their places, Paganini not giving a single ticket away. The Concert opened with Beethoven’s Second Symphony, admirably performed by the Philharmonic band; after which Lablache sang Largo al Factotum, with much applause, and was encored. A breathless silence then ensued, and every eye was watching the action of this extraordinary violinist: and, as he glided from the side scenes to the front of the stage, an involuntary cheering burst from every part of the house, many rising from their seats to view the spectre during the thunder of this unprecedented cheering—his gaunt and extraordinary appearance being more like that of a devotee, about to suffer martyrdom, than one to delight you with his art. With the tip of his bow, he set off the orchestra, in a grand military movement, with a force and vivacity as surprising as it was new. At the termination of this introduction, he commenced with a soft streamy note of celestial quality: and, with three or four whips of his bow, elicited points of sound that mounted to the third heaven, and as bright as the stars. A scream of astonishment and delight burst from the audience at the novelty of this effect. Immediately, an execution followed, that was equally indescribable, in which were intermingled tones more than human, which seemed to be wrung from the deepest anguish of a broken heart. After this, the audience were enraptured by a lively strain, in which you heard, commingled with the tones of the instrument, those of the voice, with the pizzicato of the guitar, forming a compound of exquisite beauty. If it were possible to aim at a description of his manner, we should say that you would take the violin to be a wild animal which he is endeavouring to quiet in his bosom, and which he occasionally, fiend-like, lashes with his bow; this he dashes upon the strings as you would whip with a walking switch; tearing from the creature the most horrid as well as delightful tones. He has long legs and arms, and his hands, in his playing, often assume the attitude of prayer, with the fingers pointed upwards. The highest notes (contrary to every thing we have learnt) are produced as the hand recedes from the bridge; overturning all our previous notions of the art. During these effects, a book caught fire upon one of the desks, which burned for some time unobserved by the musicians, who could neither see nor hear (though repeatedly called to by the audience) any thing but the feats of this wonderful performer. Some few pieces were played by the orchestra, that gave repose to the admiring audience. He then entered upon his celebrated performance of the single string, introducing the air of Nel cor più (Hope told a flattering tale), to which he imparted a tone so ‘plaintive and desolate that the heart was torn by it;’ in the midst of this he was so outré—so comic—as to occasion the loudest bursts of laughter! This feat was uproariously encored. He then retired to put on three other strings, and ended this miraculous performance with the richest arpeggios and echoes, intermingled with new effects that no language can describe! Though he retired amidst a confusion of huzzas and bravos that completely drowned the full orchestra, yet he was called for to receive the homage of the audience. There was no trick in his playing; it was all fair, scientific execution, opening to us a new order of sounds, the highest of which ascended two octaves above C in alt.”
Our next demonstration is from the able pen that gave life and eloquence to the new “Tatler:”—