A Biographical Dictionary of Fiddlers di A. Mason Clarke
Biographical Dictionary of Fiddlers. 1.09
third, and whilst he is playing he raises or lowers the string as he pleases. In an organ-point or a Coronella, he has recourse to deceptions, by means of which he leads us on from one degree of surprise to another, provokes and ensures the attention of his audience, and when he has excited them to the highest pitch he leads them by a succession of unlooked-for wonders to transports of enthusiasm. The greatest artists have yet to explain how Paganini produces this multitude of prodigious effects. None have yet been able to discover his double harmonics, nor how he produces the metallic sound which imitates that of a bell, with which he introduces a conversation by the means of a simple harmonic. Some persons determined to interrogate him. One evening, when the best instrumentalists in Vienna met at his house, the excellent quartett player, Schuppanzigh, and Mayseder, who has composed so gracefully for the violin and pianoforte, pressed him with questions on these subjects.—Tell us now, said Mayseder, how you obtain, at the upper end of the neck of your instrument, what we produce close by the bridge, and those staccato pizzicati, which you play with the left hand without the aid of the bow, and those pizzicati, unrivalled for force and rapidity. Paganini, who is averse to
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Dictionary Fiddlers Coronella Paganini Vienna Schuppanzigh Mayseder Mayseder The One Paganini
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