Niccolò Paganini & the Devil
Paganini
(Wolverine?! Is that you?!)
A lot of people believe that he is to this very day still the greatest violinist that ever lived, and...I would not have such a strong opinion, but I do think he is DEFINITELY among the greatest, standing side by side with Giuseppe Tartini and Antonio Vivaldi, for example. Niccolò Paganini was incredibly gifted, to a whole new level, you could say, people even thought he had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his talent with the violin. The 19th century did in fact give us a lot of very talented violinists, but none of them could reach Paganini's virtuosity.
Now, some of you may feel surprised if I tell you that the violin was not Paganini's first instrument(or, maybe not) but it really wasn't. When he was only 5 years old, Niccolò began to study music, and his first instrument was the mandolin. Two years later, when he was 7, he went from the mandolin to the violin and, from that point on, his career was a staircase to success. When he was 15 years old, he started playing solo tours and, sadly, had a big breakdown and ended up facing problems with alcohol abuse. With his fame growing, Paganini ended up becoming a heavy gambler, his alcoholism followed him for a long time and he was also labeled as a womanizer at some point.
The fact that Paganini could play 3 octaves in one hand span opens speculation about the possibility of him being born with Marfan Syndrome, wich was not even known of when he was alive. But we can't know precisely if that was the case or not.
Replica of Paganini's hand.
Some of the rumours people used to spread about Paganini:
At some point in Paganini's life, he performed a concert in Vienna and a member of the audience said they had seen the Devil helping him play. Also, some people said they allegedly had seen men who looked exaclty like Paganini, but had horns and hooves, walking around.
People would even say that once, during a performance, a lightning struck Paganini's bow and it was a way the Devil found to make people aware of his presence.
Some things that were NOT just rumours; Paganini's last years:
Later in his life, Paganini contracted syphilis. He also had health complications due to the mercury treatment he received.
A decade later, he had tuberculosis, recovered, but decided to retire from performing, because he felt too weak to play publicly.
In his very last months, Paganini was fighting against cancer, he had a tumour in his larynx. At this time, he was living in France.
When priests offered him last rites, prayers that catholics commonly received when they were in the end of their lives, Paganini would reject them. It was not even a bit common for people to turn down a priest offering something like that, so...that also made people think that Paganini really had a strong relation with the Devil. It's said that he tried to explain his rejection, saying that he didn't believe he would die, but not a lot of people believed that.
Later on, he died without the last rites and the local church assumed that he did not deserve to be buried in sacred ground. Because of that, his body ended up being transported around Europe for the following 4 years and then was buried in Parma, Italy.
Hey there! Thank you for your attention and vote! Feel free to comment also! Do you think Paganini sold his soul? Or...maybe, he was he Devil himself?!
Hope you guys liked my little summary of an amazing artist's life! :)
I didn't know mandolin was his first instrument before the violin.
Tartini and Vivaldi definitely belong to the group of the devil violinist, but Paganini mastered it to even more transcendental levels. And ou say 3 octaves span in one hand? Oh, wow, that is one of the reasons the violinists today struggle to play his works 😇
Interesting facts and rumours about Paganini, thanks 👌
Thank you! :)
I learned the hand span thing while doing my research to write this and got pretty surprised too, it instantly reminded me of Rachmaninoff, who could reach a 13th in the piano with a single hand! Gosh dang, massive hands!
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Damn! I really didn't know some of these details. First, I imagine how sad it was to live in these times in Europe, people's lifetime was very short and always full of diseases. I wonder how productive it would have been for world culture if there were more affordable health care in that era. How many died too young...
And what a bizarre thing about 4 years without being buried, did some kind of mummification, preservation are made in he's body in this period?
I remember seeing a movie that painted the figure of Paganini as a dark, morose, very ugly and very menacing man. Quite different from the painting there. But, the replica of his hand gives that dark impression too...
Very good text :)
I guess I did choose a painting in which he does look a bit less gloomy, but most people did, in fact, describe him as very pale and thin, always wearing black clothes, kind of vampiric, and on and on...So, might make sense that he gave this dark-kind-of-vibe(?), even though it's not very cute to assume anything based purely on someone's appearance, but...yeah, people did it.
About the weird "not-buried-for-4-years" thing, from what I know, his body was embalmed, but possibly there was some even more complex technique involved also, these details are kinda hard to get right.