Excerpt from Paganini

IN considering the life of this famous artist, it must always be remembered that there are two Niccolo Paganinis. The life -story of the Paganini Of romance and legend 15 a glowing and fascinating novel of adven ture, reflecting demoniac fires, for the artist was said to have sold his soul to the devil as the price iof his supernatural mastery of his instrument. The biography Of the real Paganini, hardly less colorful and rich in incident, is the tale Of a career so astounding, a fame so universal, that practically but one other artist - Franz Liszt - holds a similar place in musical history. Paga nimi's creative work in music - aside, perhaps, from the T wenty-four Caprices - is negligible, but as an inter preter who could play on the heart strings of every human emotion to a degree which almost justifies the tales of satanic possession circulated wherever he ap peared, he knows no rival to this day. The popular phrase, He plays like Paganini, still used to express the ultimate heights of violin playing, though the great Genoese himself has been resting in his grave for more than eighty years, is the greatest praise which may be given an interpreting artist. In noting the difference between the Paganini Of legend and Of actuality, it must not be forgotten that legend cannot be dismissed as irrelevant and unimportant. It Stands for the crys tallization Of the great mass of public opinion, beneath its possible extravagances and embellishments are hidden essential truths, and this fact has been borne in mind in this story of Paganini' 5 life. What may appear absurd or - apocryphal of itself is Often of value in casting a light on various phases of a strange and Obscure per _sonality, and the Paganini of fact cannot well be divorced from the Paganini Of myth and fiction if the tale of his life and accomplishment 13 to be told in full. We' must remember, too, that Paganini's musical achievement, like his life -story is phantasmagoric, visional, a kind Of dream-picture in which truth and falsehood, elements spiritually important and alien, per haps even unbeautiful in origin, were inextricably mingled in a strange and curious whole.

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