Update 5/27/13: An alert reader of this blog has told me that the image below is a late 19th-century  fake. Thank you for this info! Evidently it does bear a resemblance to Paganini, but, among other reasons, daguerreotypes were very recently invented and would not have been this reliable in 1840.

I’ve been kind of haunted by this image. It’s a daguerreotype of the violinist Nicolo Paganini (1782 – 1840), taken around 1840. The year of his death. Look at the man’s chin. And look at the size of his hands. No, really look at them. Are you getting as freaked out as I am?

Nicolo Paganini was one of six children, born into a poor family. His father was a dock worker, but he had musical ability, and began giving young Nicolo lessons. As a young boy, Nicolo was locked in his room by his father and forced to practice his violin for up to fifteen hours at a time. He was a virtuoso by the time he was 13. Famous teachers turned him down as a student, saying there was nothing further they could teach him.  At 23, he composed the 24 Caprices, which are the most difficult violin pieces ever written. No other violinists could play them.

He had no bottom teeth, and with his pale skin and rail-thin frame, appeared cadaverous. He suffered from a disorder that gave him extra joint mobility in his freakishly-long fingers, and it’s been conjectured that he had Marfan syndrome. He died of what was probably cancer.

He was pretty much the rock star of the early nineteenth century, performing crazy stunts before rapt audiences. Once a string snapped during a performance, and he continued playing the piece anyway, on three strings. People began whispering that he was the son of the devil himself, and crossed themselves during his performances. He was even asked to publish letters from his mother to prove that he was the son of a human father, and not the spawn of Satan.

Here’s Jascha Heifetz playing Paganini’s Caprice Number 24.  If you only have ten seconds, scroll up to the 5:19 mark and listen until 5:29.  If you have twenty seconds more, scroll back to 3:48-4:10. I played violin for eighteen years and I have no idea what he is doing with what hand. (Pizzicato with the left while ricochet bowing with the right?) And then at 4:12 he seems to be playing the E-string in front of the bridge?? Kind of horribly lovely, like a melodious dentist drill.

Now that I’m a mother, I have sort of changed my perspective on the kind of parent who locks a kid in his room to practice for fifteen hours. I mean, it’s not like he whipped the kid. Um, like Mozart’s dad did.

A few years ago, I discovered one of my kids has perfect pitch. I accidentally hit a key on the piano when he had his back to it, and heard him mutter “B-flat.” We took this test online and wouldn’t you know, he really does have it. I guess I’ve been a little Tiger-Motherish toward him, not letting him give up piano lessons even though he’s thirteen.

Excuse me while I go unlock him from his room.