On stage, Niccolò Paganini looked like a man straight out of a Gothic novel. Slender, with long hair, unusually agile hands, and a laugh that contemporaries described as convulsive, he didn't just play the violin. Paganini turned the performance into a spectacle, and the audience often didn't know where the musical genius ended and the mystery began.
The Italian violinist and composer was born on October 27, 1782 in Genoa. He died on May 27, 1840 in Nice, but his legend did not end with his last concert. On the contrary – after his death, the rumors became even more persistent.
Fingers that seemed impossible
Paganini was known for the unusual flexibility of his fingers. An examination of a bronze impression of his right hand revealed a small palm and relatively long fingers. However, this does not prove that the musician suffered from a specific illness. Various medical explanations have been proposed over the years, but reliable evidence for an accurate diagnosis is lacking.
It was this peculiarity of his body, combined with a technique unknown to the audience of the time, that fueled rumors that Paganini received his skills from the devil. Stories spread throughout Europe because his performances included flageolets, left-handed pizzicato, double notes, and huge leaps up the fretboard.
A violin called “The Canon“
Paganini also made the instrument itself part of his mythology. His favorite violin was made in 1743 by the Cremonese luthier Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri, known as “del Gesù“. Because of its powerful sound, the musician called it “The Canon“.
He did not keep the instrument just for himself. In his will, Paganini left it to Genoa with the explicit condition:
The violin was given to the city in 1851 and is today kept in the „Turzi“ palace.
His decisions as a composer were also unusual. In some works, he tuned the violin strings a semitone higher than the orchestra in order to achieve a brighter sound and facilitate certain virtuoso passages.
Gambling, broken strings and dark fame
Paganini had a weakness for gambling. In 1838, he organized a space in Paris that was supposed to combine concerts and a casino, but he did not receive a gambling license and incurred serious losses. The story that he even bet or risked a valuable instrument is told by his biographers, but the individual versions are not equally reliable.
Equally famous are the stories that during a concert, the strings of his violin broke one after another, and he continued to play with the remaining one. Some of these stories were probably exaggerated, but they correspond to his real desire for extreme technical effects.
His dark image turned out to be so strong that the church authorities delayed his burial in consecrated ground. Thus, Paganini remains in history not only with his 24 Caprices and his concerts, but also as an artist who turned his own strangeness into an unforgettable part of music.
Sources: classical-music.com, theguardian.com