Paganini, the miracle on the violin

by Gwen Herat

No one can describe the miracle-virtuosity of the world's greatest violinist who even played on a single string without as much as batting an eyelid. Niccolo Paganini stunned the world and carved a niche in the realms of classical music history whose matchless playing has not yet been eclipsed.

He inspired the devil and the devil inspired him.

And after that, he inspired choreographer Lenoid Lavrovsky into a ballet on his life which he divided into seven sections.

first Improvisations
Enemies
A meeting
Loneliness and despair
Love and consolation
the joy of creative work and death
Finale: Stronger than death.
Obsessed

Lavrovsky was completely obsessed by this quintessential Romanic virtuoso who was surrounded by legends of his commitment to the devil who had responded to him with every skills on the violin that was diabolical and matched his cadaverous appearance, giving him the scary looks. People were intrigued and other violinists and composers stunned by his playing like a man obsessed by an evil spirit.

With the excesses of his life, Paganini rose to be what he had painted of himself. In 1934, Sergei Rachmaninov composed his celebrated Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Later, it was the composer who suggested to choreographer, Mikhail Fokine of the possibility of doing a narrative ballet on Paganini using this score.

Thus the day dawned. In 1939 Fokine produced his Paganini Rachmaninov's music for the de Basil Ballets Russess, boarding it for the first time at Covent in the summer before the outbreak of war.

Fascinated by these results, in 1960 Leonid Larvovsky who was the Director of the Bolshoi Ballet used this score for his ballet on Paganini in Moscow with scenery to effect more interest, by Vadim Ryndin. He cast yaroslar Sekli as the tormented violinist.

This role immortalised later by Ladimir Vasiliev who caused more revivals due to his brilliant performance. Lavrovsky did not accept everything that Fokine did and instead he involved Paganini tormented by his own genius as by his rivals. He gave the impression of the artistic and motional struggle of a great performer along with conflicts but with eventual triumph of art.

Ballet

Lavrovsky for many years dreamed about producing a one-act ballet, a part of which would be devoted to the music of Rachmaninov who was his favourite composer. He was thinking of the florentine Nights of Heinrich Heine where the poet payes tribute to the amazing genius of Paganini. Everything was unfolding before the choreographers's eyes as he visualised him with the violin remaining with the principal character of Paganini.

Rachmaninove's music gripped him to Paganini because of his rebellious passionate vitality. Lavrovsky portrayed him as the genius at work in the fervour of inspiration, struggling for his art. Paganini in love with all his life not only with music but also with life itself. That made Lavrovsky decide on the ballet and project Paganini not holding the violin but he as the beautiful instrument that gave birth to music.

His body was the symbol of the deathless beauty and power of music. That was the way the world looked at him no matter whether he was tormented by the devil or not.

Life from his tender age, he was taught many instruments by his father and he mastered them. He was truly astounding with the violin being his first love and on which he conquered the whole world of classical music.

He conquered Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London along with the heart and love of Princess Elise, the sister of Napolean while in Lucca during his eight-year stay there. At nineteen Paganani left home and as he started his brilliant career and the money was coming, he started gambling and lost most of it. But he earned a considerable amount, going into millions in the ensuing yeas.

Along with his fame, success and virtuosity at the violin, surfaced eccentricity and was called loosely the Romantic. He was the archetypal Romantic, very tall, emaciated, with curly black hair reaching his shoulders and dressed in black immobile that made him a showman and dare-devil but the greatest violinist that ever lived.

With his crazy way, he would walk on to a stage and look around for a violin and many were the eager ones to let him have his. At one concert in Livorno he turned up without a violin and was loaned Guarnerius to play by a wealthy violinist.

After listening to Paganini, he refused to take it back. He kept audiences in tension and awe most of the time with his devil-given ‘ tricks'. He would enter the stage with two strings on his violin with the E-string representing a woman and the G-string a man and play an amorous score between the two. At other times, he would rip off three strings and retain one and continue to play on the G-string.

Amazing, incredible, astonishing but that was Paganini. He had the athleticism and accuracy. No one has surpassed to date. No one dared to take up the challenge. Some of the passages he perform leaps and double stops that had never been played on a violin.

It was such an impossibility that he mastered with truly inexplicable touch. All these wondrous acts at play, people started to associate him with the supernatural, causing devil influence. Paganini without question, became the foremost and greatest violinist in the world.

Music

He was more renowned for his music over his scores that were heavenly and perfect beyond compare with anyone of his past and present contemporaries and the ones that followed him especially works written for the strings.

His health deteriorated so much that all his teeth had to be taken out and his power failed to sustain him. Two operations on his jawbone in 1828 completely knocked off his senses. He also suffered from laryngeal phthisis which robbed him of his speech. Eventually he could hardly swallow anything and condemned as a heretic.

This made people to say that he was in league with the devil because how could those sounds have come. The church denied him a burial and his body was stored in a cellar for many years. In 1845 the Grand Duchess of Parma authorised the removal of his remains and interred in the Parma cemetery.

Paganini's Guarneri del Gesu violin is preserved in the Museo Municipal in Genoa. Essential works: Twenty-four Caprices, Op.1 (1820), short unaccompanied studies that have the capacity to tackle any different violinistic problem. Musically attractive enough to have inspired Brahms’ variations for the piano.

Violin Concerto No.1 in D Op.6 (1817-18) This bouncing bow and double-stop harmonics in the last movement, the recording which tragically short-lived with the Philharmonic Orchestra. Violin Concerto No.2 in B Minor, Op.7 (1826): This last movement is nicknamed La ciochenette in which the soloist imitates a little bell. Liszt wrote a very difficult piano version of this piece.

Le Streghe (witches dance) Op.8 (1813) This score is one of the most sought after pieces of Paganini's recital. Fantasia on G-String: Paganini created the precedence by playing this on a single. G-string. It is based on a theme from Rossini's Mose in Egitto and strilingly beautiful and largely associated with Paganini's virtuosity.