Thirty Years of Musical Life in London

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

7-8

text excerpt

He could go back a good many years, too, could my musical schoolmaster. When 
in the mood he would tell us how, as a youth, he had been taken to St. Andrew's 
Hall to hear the great Paganini. With an air of awe he would describe the weird 
aspect and lean, lank form of the illustrious fiddler, as he stood upon the 
platform in his closely buttoned swallow-tailed coat, playing amid a silence so 
intense that his auditors almost feared lest their breathing might break the 
spell. 

"Never before or since," my teacher would say, "have I seen an audience wrought 
to such a pitch of excitement. It was partly the influence of the individual 
himself, no doubt; but it was also due to the strangely wonderful beauty of the 
tone that he obtained from his instrument, and the fascination of a method which 
completely concealed the nature of the difficulties he surmounted. As I listened 
I seemed to forget that Paganini was a man. Gradually he assumed the character 
of a magician, an executant endowed with positively supernatural powers!" And 
such I imagine was the impression actually produced by this marvelous violinist 
upon nine out of every ten persons who heard him. 

excerpt from 'Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900' pp. 7-8 (203 words)

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1438863202544