Books › Chats on violins, 1905 › scan 231
Scan 231
Chats on violins, 1905
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 205. See the scan on archive.org.
1has conquered, cannot form any adequate notion of his wonderful and entrancing power. He strings his violin very thinly; nevertheless, there is a roundness and silkiness of tone which is at once delightful and astonishing. Sorrow is the characteristic of his style and music; and although some French author has said that La melancolie est toujours friande, it certainly never was half so delicious as it appears in this strange being's performance. He literally imparts an animal sensibility to his instrument, and at moments makes it wail and moan with all the truth and expression of conscious physical suffering. We could not refrain from personifying, in fact thinking that the poor violin was a transformed victim in a demon's hands, uttering the anguished complaints of his inflicted torture. In moments less appassionati, it "discoursed most eloquent" tenderness and simple sweetness. A fanciful writer has observed, that the cause of the melancholy which prevails in the Irish melodies is that the harps, whence they have had their origin, were generally made of yew-tree; we should like to know of what wood Paganini's violin is composed. A punning friend of ours at our elbow says it must be Satan-wood. Abominable!
3Paganini has been accused by some persons of charlatanism; and all because he plays, or rather fingers, in one key while the orchestra accompanies him in another. Why, this trick, if trick it be, is as old as Corelli
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