It was at Vienna that the rumour spread abroad of Paganini being in league with the Devil, which accounted for his marvellous performances. The great violinist was much disturbed and annoyed by these calumnies, and had to appeal to the press for aid in refuting them. It may be that his estrangement from the world, his love of solitude, morose temper, and the avarice which displayed itself, all had their origin in the hostile attitude assumed by a section of the public during his foreign tours, for when in Italy Paganini seems to have lived much as others did. Paganini was accompanied by his companion Signora Bianchi, and the son born to them, when he visited Vienna.
It was in May the little party left Vienna. The concerts had quite prostrated Paganini, and the family went to Carlsbad. After resting there some time Paganini departed for Prague, but an abscess in the face kept him a prisoner for three weeks. Here is a contemporary account which is interesting. Paganini was obliged to place himself under the care of two celebrated medical men, Krumblholz and Nusshardt, and they were the only visitors he received during his lonely residence up three pair of stairs. After a successful operation on the jaw-bone, one of his physicians expressed a desire which was cherished in vain by the whole city—that of hearing some notes from the hitherto silent instrument of the great master; and he entreated him to try if he could rest his violin on his hardly healed chin. Paganini confirmed what has long been said, that even before friends he was very niggardly in the display of his talents. He took his instrument, played one stroke with his bow, and said, "Es geht schon" (that will do). "For eight days before the first concert," continues the writer, "every place was engaged. When I reached the theatre at four o'clock in the afternoon, it appeared as if the house was about to be stormed, so great was the throng on the outside. Many magistrates and people of the first rank were amongst the crowd, and shared my anxious expectation. At last I found myself, I scarcely know how, in the pit, and there awaited for two hours and a half the opening of the concert." The writer then goes on to describe the violinist, his appearance, his smile that made everyone shudder, and the extraordinary performance which roused the audience to the wildest enthusiasm. He then quotes the saying of a Vienna critic: "Paganini has nothing in common with other players but the violin and the bow," and regrets that his friend will not for some time have the opportunity of hearing the superb performer, for he learns that Paganini does not yet intend to visit Paris or London.[18]
Paganini's first concert only was well attended. There was then a reaction. Some attributed the falling off to the high prices charged for admission, but there was, in fact, a traditional hostility in art matters between Prague and Vienna; that which was praised in Vienna must be condemned in Prague, and what was approved in Prague must not be tolerated in Vienna. It was at Prague that Paganini actually published this letter from his mother as proof that he was not the son of the devil!
Dearest Son,—At last, after seven months have elapsed since I wrote to you at Milan, I had the happiness of receiving your letter of the 9th current, through the intermediary of Signor Agnino, and was much rejoiced to find that you were in the enjoyment of good health. I am also delighted to find that, after your travels to Paris and London, you purpose visiting Genoa expressly to embrace me. I assure you, my prayers are daily offered up to the Most High, that my health may be sustained, also yours, so that my desire may be realised.
My dream has been fulfilled, and that which God promised me has been accomplished. Your name is great, and art, with the help of God, has placed you in a position of independence. Beloved, esteemed by your fellow citizens, you will find in my bosom and those of your friends, that repose which your health demands.
The portraits which accompanied your letter have given me great pleasure. I had seen in the papers all the accounts you give me of yourself. You may imagine, as your mother, what an infinite source of joy it was to me. Dear son, I entreat you to continue to inform me of all that concerns you, for with this assurance I shall feel that it will prolong my days, and be convinced that I shall still have the happiness of embracing you.
We are all well. In the name of your relations, I thank you for the sums of money you have sent. Omit nothing that will render your name immortal. Eschew the vices of great cities, remembering that you have a mother who loves you affectionately, and whose fondest aspirations are your health and happiness. She will never cease her supplications to the All-powerful for your preservation.
Embrace your amiable companion for me, and kiss little Achille. Love me as I love you.
Your ever affectionate mother,
21st July, 1828. TERESA PAGANINI.
From Prague, Paganini went to Berlin, where he remained four months. He was received with the utmost enthusiasm, and on the evening of his first concert he exclaimed: "I have found my Vienna public again." Wherever Paganini stayed for any length of time it suddenly became the fashion to learn to play the violin; and the fair members of the aristocratic families were among the most eager to become pupils of the famous man. Paganini made a great deal of money in Berlin. The critics were divided in opinion as to his merits; but Rellstab, whom Schumann once called "Wretched Berlinese reviewer," was favourably impressed. Paganini is said to have received a challenge from Baron Sigismond von Praun, to a public contest for supremacy in performance, but as the would-be opponent was a youth of seventeen, Paganini disdained him. Perhaps he thought of his own presumption in his young days!
Paganini's tour was one continual triumphal progress. At Königsberg his first concert realised about £330, an unprecedented sum in that place; at Frankfort his four concerts produced something like £1,000. A critic wrote of him: "One striking peculiarity of his playing is the extraordinary effect it produces on persons wholly devoid of musical cultivation. Most virtuosi play only for the learned; not so Paganini. His performance is alike appreciated by men of business and connoisseurs, by children and grown persons—it is felt and understood by all. This is the distinctive characteristic of all that is great in art."
He was at Leipzig in 1829, and was among the visitors at the house of Abraham Mendelssohn—the pleasant garden-house in the Leipziger Strasse—and his portrait figures in Hensel's collection. In June, 1830, Paganini was in Cassel, when Spohr heard him for the first time—of which more later. In Hamburg the same year Heine heard him, and his vivid and extraordinary notice of the artist must be briefly quoted. "I believe," said Heine, "that only one man has succeeded in putting Paganini's true physiognomy upon paper—a deaf painter, Lyser by name, who in a frenzy full of genius has with a few strokes of chalk so well hit the great violinist's head that one is at the same time amused and terrified at the truth of the drawing. 'The devil guided my hand,' the deaf painter said to me, chuckling mysteriously, and nodding his head with a good-natured irony in the way he generally accompanied his genial witticisms.... The Hamburg Opera House was the scene of this concert, and the art-loving public had flocked there so early, and in such numbers, that I only just succeeded in obtaining a little place in the orchestra." Then he goes on to describe the audience and the entrance of Paganini. "Is that a man brought into the arena at the moment of death, like a dying gladiator, to delight the public with his convulsions? Or is it one risen from the dead, a vampire with a violin, who, if not the blood out of our hearts, at any rate sucks the gold out of our pockets? Such questions crossed our minds while Paganini was performing his strange bows, but all those thoughts were at once still when the wonderful master placed his violin under his chin and began to play. As for me, you already know my musical second-sight, my gift of seeing at each tone a figure equivalent to the sound, and so Paganini with each stroke of his bow brought visible forms and situations before my eyes; he told me in melodious hieroglyphics all kinds of brilliant tales; he, as it were, made a magic lantern play its coloured antics before me, he himself being chief actor.... A holy, ineffable ardour dwelt in the sounds, which often trembled, scarce audibly, in mysterious whisper on the water, then swelled out again with a shuddering sweetness, like a bugle's notes heard by moonlight, and then finally poured forth in unrestrained jubilee, as if a thousand bards had struck their harps and raised their voices in a song of victory." Thus, a poet on a poet in tones.
In 1829 Paganini was in Warsaw, and Chopin was among those who heard him. As he was leaving, in July, he was stopped some distance from the city by a numerous company who had met together in a garden. They drank the health of the artist, and Joseph Xaver Elsner, Director of the Conservatoire, handed him a costly snuff box, bearing this inscription: "Al Cavaliere Nicolo Paganini, gli ammiratori del suo talento, Varsovia 19 Luglio 1829." Paganini pressed it to his lips, speechless with surprise, and affected almost to tears. At Munich he gave three concerts in November of the same year; and at the close of the last soirée the artist was crowned by Stunz, the Kapellmeister, while thousands of laudatory poems were showered from different parts of the hall. At Stuttgart, the King of Würtemberg presented him with 100 louis d'or, and it is said that before leaving Germany Paganini sent over £6,000 to the Bank of England for safe custody, a proceeding which showed his good sense, and perhaps revealed a mistrust of his continental friends.