April 1834

This is part of a local history note on performances at Richmond's Theatre Royale. See the start of this local history note.

Date: 26 April 1834

A Grand Concert by Signor Paganini

Niccolo Paganini (1782 to 1840)

Paganini, the Italian Virtuoso, was born in Genoa. After being given preliminary instruction in violin playing by his father, he received tuition from Servetto, a violinist in the theatre orchestra, and Giocomo Costa "maestro di cappella" at the Cathedral of St. Lorenzo. His public debut was made at the age of nine. In 1795 he had lessons in Parma from Alessandro Rolla and Ghiretti. Two years later, accompanied by his father, he made his first professional tour to Lombardy. Whilst still in his teens he left home and started to tour independently. He became addicted to gambling and, through losses at cards, had to pawn his violin. Fortunately he was able to borrow a fine Guerneri from a French merchant called Livron, who later made him a present of the instrument Thereafter it became Paganini’s favourite violin. During 1801-4 he lived with a lady of rank in Tuscany and ceased to play in public. He began to study the guitar for which he composed two sets of duets with violin.

In 1805 Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Bacciochi, Princess of Lucca and Pioma, engaged him as director of her private music, a position for which he was poorly paid. At about this time he composed his Military Sonata for the G String entitled Napoleon and also his Scene Amoureuse for two strings only. He left the service of the Princess Elisa in about 1813. While at Venice in 1815 he first met the dancer Antonia Bianchi, the woman who bore his son, Achillino, in 1826. Paganini’s first concert in Vienna took place in 1828. The visit caused a sensation and even merchandise in the city’s shop windows was advertised as "a al Paganini."

In 1831 he travelled to England for the first time and eventually made his London debut in June, after considerable hostility in the press over the high prices of the concert tickets. On another visit to this country in1834, Paganini gave concert with an American pianist and composer called Watson, his daughter and a Miss Wells. Both the ladies were singers and all three appeared in Paganini’s concert at Richmond. A Boulogne newspaper later accused Paganini of attempting to elope to France with Miss Watson. The violinist defended himself in the same newspaper, stating that she had come to him as a refuge from an unhappy life at home, where her father was living with Miss Wells, having separated from his wife. Whatever the truth, Miss Watson, on a subsequent tour of America, achieved some publicity by coupling her name with that of Paganini.

By the beginning of 1839, Paganini was in the throes of the disease from which he never recovered and his death occurred at Nice. He had requested that his funeral should be without pomp and that no Requiem should be played for him. He bequeathed his beloved Guarneri to his native city of Genoa. Because of the superstitious rumours attached to him and because he died without receiving the last rite, permission to inter his body in consecrated ground was not granted until 5 years after his death.