Revised January 4, 2020

Niccolò Paganini became the world’s first international superstar of the violin. People wondered, could the brilliance of this eccentric, odd-looking man possibly be natural? Or did he have diabolical help?

Paganini could perform technical feats no other violinist could match. If anything, his showmanship was even more marvelous than his technique. The first virtuoso to perform from memory, he could move around the stage and interact with the audience.

In part, he could outdo other violinists because he invented new techniques such as left-hand pizzicato and various new kinds of bowing and tuning. Later violinists have learned them all. But he also had incredible joint flexibility and long fingers, which gave him a reach up and down the fingerboard that no one before or since has been able to match.

Apparently, the physiological uniqueness of his technique came from some kind of congenital condition like Marfan syndrome or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The nineteenth-century knew nothing of these conditions. Rumor had it that Paganini had sold his soul to the devil.

Other health conditions gave him a gaunt appearance. A serious illness in 1822 left him with a cadaverous pallor. In 1828, he had two operations on his jaws, which required the extraction of all his teeth. His international fame started a year later.

Whether from his medical conditions or his sense of showmanship, Paganini looked the part of an evil genius. Tall and pale, he had a long nose, long curly hair, and thin lips often formed into a sarcastic smile.

A contemporary description of Paganin’s appearance

English critic Leigh Hunt attended one of Paganini’s performances and left this description:

There we beheld the long, pale face of the musical marvel, hung, as it were, in the light, and looking as strange as need be. He made divers uncouth obeisances, and then put himself in a masterly attitude for his work, his manner being as firm and full of conscious power when he puts the bow to the instrument as it is when he is not playing. We thought he did not look so old as he is said to be; but he is long-faced and haggard, with strongly-marked prominent features, wears his black hair flowing on his neck like an enthusiast, has a coat of ancient cut which astonishes Fop’s Alley; in short, is very like the picture of him in the shops . . . When he makes his acknowledgements, he bows like a camel, and grins like a goblin or a mountain-goat.

Terror in a darkened room

On one occasion, in a private home, someone told a grisly story. A young man who killed his father, became a highwayman, fell in love with a girl. She spurned him. So he took her to a precipice, where he grabbed her and jumped into the abyss. After the story, he asked Paganini to improvise music to match it.

Paganini asked for all the lights to be extinguished, then played such a devilishly expressive interpretation that several ladies fainted. According to one witness, the salon looked like a battlefield when the lights were put back on.

Stories like that enhanced Paganini’s reputation and enlarged his audience. They attracted both people who wanted to hear the great violinist and those who wanted to see the devil. As advantageous as his reputation was, though, he disliked the more extreme stories that circulated.

Paganini confronts someone who has accused him of a monstrous crime

In a letter to the Belgian critic François-Joseph Fétis, Paganini complained that he once entered a hotel restaurant in Padua unobserved. Soon he heard someone telling a story. This person explained how “Paganini” had murdered one of his (the story teller’s) friends, a rival violinist. Sentenced to eight years of solitary confinement with only his violin for companionship, no wonder he developed such technique.

Everyone who heard the story expressed shock at the enormity of “Paganini’s” crime. Then Paganini himself confronted the man. He demanded to know just when and where the supposed murder took place. Everyone recognized him by then. The embarrassed narrator forgot his claim that the victim was one of his friends. He said he had heard the story with enough proof that he believed it, but he could have been deceived.

Paganini’s letter continued that after a concert in Vienna, someone else claimed there was nothing surprising about his performance of a piece called “The Witches.” After all, he had seen

. . . the devil at my elbow directing my arm and guiding my bow. My resemblance to him was proof of my origin. He was clothed in red––had horns on his head––and carried his tail between his legs.

Paganini’s last days

Never in good health, a bout of tuberculosis forced Paganini to retire from public performances when he was only 54. Later, he contracted cancer of the larynx, from which he died on May 27, 1840.

He had repeatedly refused last rights from a priest. When news got out, it seemed to confirm that he had been in league with the devil. The Bishop of Nice refused to allow him to be buried in consecrated ground. His body was embalmed and then left on his deathbed for two months.

After that, it languished in the cellar of the house for more than a year. Almost four years after his death, during which time his corpse had been moved unceremoniously several times, Pope Gregory XVI authorized his burial in Genoa. Thirty-one years later, his body was reburied in Parma.




Sources:

The Book of Musical Anecdotes / Norman Lebrecht (New York: Free Press, 1985)
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. “Paganini, Nicolò” (London: Macmillan, 1980)
Paganini / Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM.com. February 1, 2019