Books › The violin and its music, 1885 › scan 294
Scan 294
The violin and its music, 1885
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 269. See the scan on archive.org.
1over his instrument is surprising: the tones he draws from it might be thought those of the sweetest flageolet and hautboy, and sometimes of the human voice; the expression he gives to a common air is quite charming. His playing of 'Patrick's Day,' was the sweetest piece of instrumental music I ever heard—BUT HE IS A QUACK."
3The poet, Thomas Moore, remarked that Paganini "abuses his powers. He could play divinely, and does so sometimes for a minute or two, but then comes his tricks and surprises, his bow in convulsions, and his enharmonics like the mewlings of an expiring cat."
5Macready and Moore doubtless refer to one of those performances which George Hogarth, the musical critic, described as: "running up and down a single string, from the nut to the bridge, for ten minutes together, or playing with the bow and the fingers of his right hand, mingling pizzicato and arcato notes with the dexterity of an Indian juggler." "It was not, however," Hogarth continues, "by these tricks, but in spite of them, that he gained the suffrages of those who were charmed by his truly great qualities—his 'soul of fire,' his boundless fancy, his energy, tenderness, and passion: these are the qualities which give him a claim to a place among the greatest masters of the art."
7Paganini appeared for the last time in England in 1833, returning to the Continent, in possession of considerable wealth, which he invested in landed
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