While living in seclusion near Hamburg he composed some of his finest works, among them six violin duets, which he prefaced with the words:  “This work is the fruit of leisure afforded me by misfortune.  Some of the pieces were dictated by trouble, others by hope.”  At one time he embarked in a mercantile enterprise, in London, his transactions being regulated by the strictest integrity, but, as was inevitable, he soon returned to Paris and his art.  After he had abandoned the concert room one of his greatest pleasures was in improvising violin parts to the piano performances of his friend, Madame Montegerault, to the delight of all present.  He never had more than seven or eight pupils, but his influence has been widely felt.  Many anecdotes are told of his kindness and generosity, and it is an interesting fact that among those who sought his advice and patronage was no less a personage than Rossini.

It must be because genius is little understood that its manifestations have so often been attributed to evil influences.  The popular mind could only explain the achievements of the Genoese wizard of the bow, Nicolo Paganini (1784-1840) by the belief that he had sold himself body and soul to the devil who stood ever at his elbow when he played.  When, after a taxing concert season, the weary violinist retired to a Swiss monastery for rest and practice amid peaceful surroundings, rumor had it that he was imprisoned for some dark deed.  To crown the delusion, his spectre was long supposed to stalk abroad, giving fantastic performances on the violin.  It is his apparition Gilbert Parker conjures up in “The Tall Master.”

Paganini is described as a man of tall, gaunt figure, melancholy countenance and highly wrought nervous temperament.  His successors have all profited by his development of the violin’s resources, the result of combined genius and labor.  He was practically a pioneer in the effective use of chords, arpeggio passages, octaves and tenths, double and triple harmonics and succession of harmonics in thirds and in sixths.  His long fingers were of invaluable service to him in unusual stretches, and his fondness for pizzicato passages may be traced to his familiarity with the twang of his father’s mandolin.  He shone chiefly in his own compositions, which were written in keys best suited to the violin.  Students will find all that he knew of his instrument and everything he did in his Le Stregghe (The Witches), the Rondo de la Clochette, and the Carnaval de Venise, which have been handed down precisely as he left them in manuscript.

Signora Calcagno, who at one time dazzled Italy by the boldness and brilliancy of her violin playing, was his pupil when she was seven years old.  The only other person who could boast having direct instructions from him was his young fellow townsman, Camillo Ernesto Sivori (1815-1894), who was in his day a great celebrity in European musical centres, and who was familiar to concert-goers in this country, especially in Boston, during the late forties and early fifties.  He was thought to produce a small but electric tone, and to play invariably in tune.  To him his master willed his Stradivarius violin, besides having given him in life the famous Vuillaume copy of his Guarnerius, a set of manuscript violin studies and a high artistic ideal.