8. Playing style.

Paganini formed no school nor had any pupil who equalled his fame. But two exceptions may perhaps be taken into consideration: Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, who heard him in Vienna and whose variations on The Last Rose of Summer are based on his flamboyant technique; and Henryk Wieniawski, who included in his Etudes-caprices his own variations on God Save the King, in which he surpassed the technical difficulties of the Paganini model. As in the case of Liszt and Chopin, Paganini's music was dependent on his own playing style. While he allowed the publication of five opus numbers during his lifetime, all of which were intended for private performance (including the 24 Caprices op.1), most of his works for violin and orchestra, such as the concertos and variations, remained in manuscript until 1851, because Paganini had presumed that these works could be played only by himself. Thus, the conductor or the leader had to rely on the first violin part, on which he marked the solo and tutti passages; and Paganini's autograph scores omit the soloist's part. There was, however, another reason for such unfortunate omissions which have deprived us of the possibility of acquainting ourselves with at least three of his late works: the lack of any kind of copyright. A composer had therefore no alternative but to sell his work to a publisher or to perform it himself for either a nominal fee or a percentage of the proceeds of the sale of tickets. In spite of these limitations, Paganini earned so much money in one year that he could have bought 300 kilos of gold.

Paganini's orchestration was a mixture of ingenuity and pragmatism as he differentiated between ‘obbligato’ and ‘di rinforzo’ instruments. The former group was employed during the solo passages because the resulting lighter texture allowed the soloist to be heard more distinctly, whereas the two groups were brought together in the tuttis. And, as in pre-Romantic practice, the soloist belonged to the first desk and was thus required to play in the tutti passages.

Paganini's virtuoso technique largely depended on his peculiar manner of holding the violin, which is shown by the numerous lithographs and drawings published in France and England. Contrary to the modern school of violin playing, the neck of the instrument pointed downwards and both upper arms were held close to the body; one foot was placed slightly forward. In this posture Paganini's body was totally relaxed, achieving a perfect centre of gravity. His fingers were of normal size but they could be stretched laterally to a considerable extent, which enabled him to produce double stops and double harmonics with great ease.

His favourite violin was a Guarneri del Gesù (made in 1742), which he called ‘Il cannone’ (‘The Cannon’) because of its powerful sound. In Vienna he had the original fingerboard replaced with a larger one; he also adopted a flatter bridge, which allowed the simultaneous production of triple and perhaps quadruple stops. His bow was old-fashioned and heavy, an exact replica of the Tartini model, the stick being parallel with the hair.

When Liszt wrote an obituary of Paganini, he did not fail to mention the effects that his friend had drawn from the four ‘miserable strings’ of his violin. No doubt Paganini had caused the four strings to become less ‘miserable’, through his use of left-hand pizzicato and double harmonics, and ‘ricochet’ bowing, produced by letting the bow bounce on the strings. Tuning the G string to B , and all four strings up a semitone as in his First Violin Concerto, led to a slight sacrifice in tone quality, especially in the lower frequencies of the strings. It is possible that Paganini was dissatisfied with the generally lower pitch of the European symphony orchestras of his time (a' = 435), but this is questionable since he never complained about any difference of pitch between his violin and the orchestras that accompanied him in his concerts. Paganini was perhaps more interested in making his violin attain ethereal sounds through mercurial flights, so that what had been an exception became a rule.