1782–1840 · Romantic
Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) was an Italian violin virtuoso and composer, a native of Genoa. He gave concerts in Italy, Germany, France and England, and his harmonics, pizzicato and playing on a single string astonished listeners. Among his best-known works are the 24 Caprices for solo violin; the site has two of them, No. 23 and No. 24.
Niccolò Paganini was born in Genoa on 27 October 1782. Antonio Paganini and Teresa Bocciardo had six children, and Niccolò was the third. His father had worked for a time as a porter and later kept a shop in the port.
When the boy was five, his father noticed his ability and began to teach him music, first on the mandolin and from the age of six on the violin. By Paganini's own recollection, his father punished him harshly when he was not diligent enough, and this told on his already poor health. Niccolò himself, however, grew ever more absorbed in the instrument and worked hard, hoping to find combinations of sounds that nobody had yet heard.
From 1793 he played regularly at services in the churches of Genoa; at that time in Genoa and Liguria churches heard secular music as well as sacred. The composer Francesco Gnecco heard him and took on the role of adviser to the young musician. In the same year Paganini studied with Giacomo Costa, who invited him to play in the cathedral of San Lorenzo, where Costa was kapellmeister.
Niccolò gave his first public concert on 31 July 1795 at the Sant'Agostino theatre in Genoa. The takings were meant to pay for a journey to Parma, where he hoped to study with the violinist and teacher Alessandro Rolla. The programme included his own composition, Variations on the Carmagnole. In the same year the patron Marquis Gian Carlo Di Negro took the boy and his father to Florence, and a concert at a Florentine theatre raised the money still missing for the trip.
Rolla was ill that day and was not receiving anyone. His own concerto and a violin lay in the next room, and Niccolò played the piece at sight. Rolla came out to his visitors, saw a boy playing his concerto and declared that he had nothing left to teach him. Rolla advised turning to Ferdinando Paer, but Paer was busy with opera productions and sent the young violinist to the cellist Gaspare Ghiretti. Ghiretti gave him lessons in harmony and counterpoint.
In the autumn of 1796 Niccolò returned to Genoa. At the house of Marquis Di Negro he played very difficult pieces at sight at the request of Rodolphe Kreutzer, who was on a concert tour.
In early 1797 Paganini set out with his father on his first concert journey: Milan, Bologna, Florence, Pisa, Livorno. Because of the fighting the tour had to be cut short. He went back to Genoa and then moved with his family to his father's house in the Polcevera valley. There he devised difficult exercises for himself, working on shifts, staccato, pizzicato, harmonics and unusual chords, and practised for many hours a day until he was exhausted.
In 1801 his father's guardianship over Paganini came to an end. He had resumed giving concerts in December 1800 in Modena. In the autumn of 1801 he came to Lucca and played twice in the cathedral, and in December he became the Republic of Lucca's first violin. He spent several years in the city.
The Lucca period is probably linked with the most serious love affair of his life. A lady of high rank, whose name he kept secret all his life, withdrew with him to her country estate in Tuscany, and he lived there for three years, working on the land. In those years he became fond of the guitar and wrote 12 sonatas for guitar and violin (Op. 2 and 3). Paganini also recalled his passion for cards: he often lost everything, but he managed to give up gambling and never touched cards again.
He left Lucca briefly for Genoa, but then Elisa Bonaparte, ruler of Piombino and Lucca, invited him back to Tuscany. Paganini received the title of court virtuoso and was made captain of the princess's personal guard. For a small salary he played for her, conducted stage productions, arranged concerts and gave the prince violin lessons.
In 1808 Paganini was granted a long leave and travelled around Italy giving concerts. Gradually he developed a manner of playing of his own, unlike that of other violinists. Audiences were drawn by his unusual appearance and behaviour on the platform, and by his striking techniques. He deliberately kept an air of mystery and at first did nothing to stop the most fantastic rumours about himself from spreading.
Playing on two strings, or even one, came naturally to him. While in Elisa Bonaparte's service he composed Love Scene for A and E, and later wrote the sonata Napoleon for the single G string, for the Emperor's birthday. For a time he stayed at the Turin court of Pauline Bonaparte, where he made friends with Felice Blangini, who looked after music for Borghese. In the second half of 1808 he came to Florence at the invitation of Elisa Bonaparte. At the end of 1812 he left court service, which he found a burden, and left Florence.
Around 1813 Paganini saw Viganò and Süssmayr's ballet The Walnut Tree of Benevento at La Scala. The scene of the witches' wild dance struck him, and he wrote variations on a theme from the ballet for violin and orchestra. They are called The Witches (Variations on the Fourth String) and are among his best-known works.
The premiere took place at his solo concert at La Scala on 29 October 1813. According to the Milan correspondent of a Leipzig music newspaper, the audience was deeply moved, and at the insistent demand of the listeners he repeated the variations. After that, within six weeks, Paganini gave eleven concerts at La Scala and at the Carcano theatre, and The Witches was a particular success every time.
His fame grew further after a journey through Germany, France and England, where he enjoyed enormous popularity everywhere. In Germany he bought a hereditary title of baron.
Paganini became attached to the singer Antonia Bianchi, whom he helped to prepare a solo performance. Their son Achille was born in 1825, and in 1828 the musician parted from Antonia, the son remaining in his sole care.
Constant touring and frequent performances undermined Paganini's health. In September 1834 he decided to leave the stage and returned to Genoa, where he took pupils; one of them was the violinist Camillo Sivori. Paganini himself was ill all the time, yet at the end of December 1837 he gave three concerts in Nice. Chronic illnesses plagued him all his life, and even eminent doctors could not help. In October 1839, ill and extremely nervous, he came to his native Genoa for the last time.
In his last months he did not leave the house, and his legs ached constantly. He was so exhausted that he could not hold a bow, and could only run his fingers over the strings of a violin lying beside him. Niccolò Paganini died in Nice on 27 May 1840.
The mystery and strangeness of his personality gave rise to suppositions that he was superstitious and an atheist, and Domenico Galvano, Bishop of Nice, refused a requiem mass. It was decided to take the remains to Genoa, but there too burial was not permitted. The musician's son fought for the right to bury his father with Catholic rites, and the remains were buried and exhumed several times. In 1876 Pope Pius IX gave permission for a funeral with all due rites, and the ashes were finally laid to rest in 1896 in the cemetery of Parma.
Paganini owned a valuable collection of violins by Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati. His favourite violin, made by Guarneri, which he called il cannone ("the cannon") for its powerful sound, he bequeathed to his native Genoa, not wanting any other player to use it. The violin came to be known as the Widow of Paganini.
Working on the music of Corelli, Vivaldi, Tartini and Viotti, Paganini came to see that they had not yet exhausted the rich resources of the violin. Locatelli's treatise L'Arte di nuova modulazione gave him the idea of using new effects.
As a boy he wrote several pieces for the violin; they were difficult, he played them successfully himself, but they have not come down to us. Later, studying with Ghiretti, he composed 24 four-part fugues. And in Livorno, by his own account, he wrote music for the bassoon at the request of a Swedish amateur musician who complained that there were no difficult works for that instrument.
Audiences were struck by the variety of colour, natural and artificial harmonics, the quick alternation of pizzicato and bowing, skilful and varied staccato, double stops and chords, and the wealth of bowing techniques. He played all of this very cleanly and with assurance. Playing on two strings, or even one, was routine for him: this is how Love Scene for the A and E strings and the sonata Napoleon for the G string were written.
Among his best-known works are The Witches, variations on a ballet theme for violin and orchestra written around 1813. In Lucca he composed 12 sonatas for guitar and violin (Op. 2 and 3). The Variations on the Carmagnole were heard at his first public concert in 1795. Very few of his works were published in Paganini's lifetime, and his contemporaries explained this by his fear of giving away the secrets of his virtuosity.
Paganini wrote his six violin concertos between 1817 and 1830. The variations The Witches and The Carnival of Venice were written before his big European tours, or at any rate first played before them. His works often imitate the sounds of different instruments and animals.
The 24 Caprices for solo violin are Paganini's Op. 1. The theme of Caprice No. 24 is the basis of the Paganini variations by Brahms (Variations on a Theme by Paganini) and the Paganini rhapsody by Rachmaninoff (Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini). For piano, Schumann wrote studies after Paganini's caprices (Op. 3 in 1832 and Op. 10 in 1833), and Liszt in 1851 wrote the Six Grandes Études de Paganini.
The site has two caprices: No. 24 (level "Medium+") and No. 23 (level "Advanced"). These are works for solo violin. Besides the caprices, Paganini's works include concertos for violin and orchestra.