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The miracle violinist: Paganini would softly walk on the stage with only the G-string in tact and play with virtuosity, a feat that no violinist can emulate and play until the single string snaps.

He was the quintessential Romantic virtuoso surrounded by legends about his diabolical skills on the violin as well as his ability to dance all of which his cadaverous appearance did nothing to dispel.

His magnetism was so powerful and demanding that it lured the great Rachmaninov in 1939 to compose his celebrated Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. It was the composer who suggested to Mikhail Fokine the possibility of a narrative ballet about Paganini using this score. Thus Fokine produced his Paganini to Rachmaninov’s score in 1939. It was mounted by de-Basil Ballets Russes at the Covent Garden in the summer before the outbreak of war.

The Director of the Bolshoi Ballet. Leonid Lavrovsky who was the choreograper-in-charge staged his Paganini in Moscow in 1960 with Yaroslav Sekk as the tormented violinist.

A role later played brilliantly by Vladimir Vassilve. Lavrovsky did not adopt Fokine’s scenario which meant that Paganini was tormented by his own genius as well by his rivals and instead he sought to give the impression of an artist in an emotional struggle.

Pagnini (Vasiliev) danced against authority, the conflicts he would encounter. Later with eventual triump. There were seven sections in the scores but titled by Lavrovsky and all were danced.

For many long years Lavrovsky had dreamed of producing an one-act ballet devoted to the music of Sergei Rachmaninov who was his favourite composer. As he listened to the music of Rhapsody one night when poet Heinrich Heine paid tribute to the amazing genius of Paganini. A ballet unfolded before his eyes with coloured shadows and the great masterpiece of ballet. Paganini captured his imagination and the world saw its immortality. Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody conquered him precisely because Paganini was its central character. So, the immortal classic of choreography depicted Paganini as Lavrovsky deemed. He revealed Paganini as the rebellious, passionate, full of vitality and struggling for his art.

Paganini in love all his life not only with music but with life itself, Lavrovsky decided in his ballet that Paganini will not hold a violin. The beautiful instrument that gave birth to music. He used Paganini’s body as the symbol of the deathless beauty and power of music.

If I am asked to deliver an oration on a classical composer, it will certainly be Paganini. Not so much over his music since I am not passionate over his scores but for the virtuoso violinist in him.

Never in the annals of music history, was a violinist so iconic, a marvel ever born in the past or to date. The vibrancy of his playing shook the realms of string orchestration.

Paganini’s magnetism so overwhelmed composer, Sergei Rachmaninove that he, together, with choreographer, Lenoid Lavrovsky produced a ballet on him titled Paganini. Here Paganini (Dmitri Guanor) with the Muse (Nina Lagrinov)

He would enter the stage with just two strings on his violin; E string representing a woman and the G string representing a man, and play passionate scores between them.

(I mean between E and G strings). At other events, he would pull out three stings off his violin and continue to play on one;

just the G string. This musical miracle demanded incredible athleticism and split-second accuracy.

He was at peace with himself while the audience stand up and gasp in wonder whether he would snap the single string. This was a feat that even the man (whoever discovered the violin) could not have achieved. Paganini performed certain passages, leapt and double-stopped that had never been heard from any violinist.

After being taught by his gifted father, on the mandolin and violin, he also mastered the guitar and viola, like a duck taking to water.

His first appearance was at eleven years and was only sixteen when he wrote the famous Twenty-four Caprices. Infact the young Paganini was greatly influenced by a now-forgotten violinist.

August Duranowski some of his works that he adapted later and turned out to be brilliant string scores.

Paganini left home when he was nineteen to Lucca and most of the money he earned there were lost due to his gambling. At one concert he turned up without a violin in a crazy state of mind and was loaned one by the wealthy amateur, Guarnerius. After he heard him perform, Guarnerius refused to take it back.

His amorous life started with an affair with Napleanis sister. Princess Elise for whom he composed many outstanding, captivating scores.

After the affair broke off, Paganini struck up a relationship with opera singer, Antonia Bianchi whom he met in 1824. Their son, Achille was born in 1825 and though that relationship too broke down, Paganini continued as a devoted father who accompanied his son wherever he went. Achille died in 1895. Paganini’s rise was stupendous. He conquered Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London in 1828. In three years he became the most famous violinist. Despite doubling the tickets people thronged to see him and among them was the young Liszt swore that he would become the ‘Paganini of the piano’.

With time, he fell terribly sick with various complications and was condemned as a heretic because of the sounds he made.

Laryngeal Phthisis robbed him of his speech. When he died in 1840 his body was stored in a cellar for years because the church refused him burial saying he was in league with the devil. How else would he make such noises, the church queried.

In 1845, the Grand Duchess of Parma authorized the removal of his remains to the Villa Gaione; they were re-interred in Parma cemetery in 1876 and yet again in another cemetery in 1896. Paganani’s extraordinary violin, Guarneri del Gesu is preserved in the Musoo Municipal in Genoa. No other composer of the first two decades on the nineteenth century so mesmerized the public.

He was the archetypical Romantic; tall, emaciated, with wavy black hair to shoulder length, he was dare-devil showman, always dressed in black. His charisma and technical wizardry introduced virtuosity as an important element of music making. When he died the whole music world died with him.

Niccolo Paganini’s romanced ballet