by Professor Vivienne Hand, in Fogli di Anglistica, Spring, 2013.
This article explores the relationship between Hunt's poem on Paganini (below) and his reviews in the Tatler magazine of Paganini's performances in London in 1831. Extract below:
Crossing cultures in the nineteenth century:
Leigh Hunt’s “Fragment”, the Tatler reviews, and Paganini’s performances in London, 1831.
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) enjoyed a sixty-year publishing career not only as a prolific journalist and newspaper editor, but also as an essayist, translator, play-wright, novelist, and above all, poet.1 He was, arguably, one of the key figures of the Romantic period, and a close friend of Keats, Byron and Shelley. Like them, he had a passion for Italian culture, but his experience of the actual country, Italy, where he lived with his family for three years (in Pisa, Genoa, Lerici, Albaro, Maiano and Florence) was not a happy one. It was Shelley who in 1818 suggested that he join him and Byron in Italy in order to set up a quarterly magazine (Liberal) in which liberal views could be advocated with more freedom than was possible at home. Within days of Hunt’s arrival at Leghorn on 1 July, 1822, Shelley drowned at Lerici in a sailing accident. Byron subsequently lost interest in the Liberal, and left for Greece in 1824. Bereft of this two colleagues, in September 1825 Hunt travelled overland to Calais with his wife and 7 children, and boarded a steamboat back to England. He writes in his Autobiography
To me, Italy had a certain hard taste in the mouth. Its mountains were too bare, its outlines too sharp, its lanes too stony, its voices too loud, its long summer too dusty. I longed to bathe myself in the grassy balm of my native fields. (Hunt 1965: I, 198)
His negative impression of Italy did not however tarnish his love of Italian literature, art and music, evident in his own poetry, in his Dramatic Criticism, and his Autobiography. In 1816 he made a mark in English literature with his Story of Rimini, a reworking of the tale of Paolo and Francesca as told by Dante in Canto V of the Inferno. As well as translating sections from Tasso’s Aminta, Petrarch’s Canzoniere, and Francesco Redi’s Bacco in Toscana (Hunt 1849: 203-19), in his essay “What is Poetry?” he demonstrates a very detailed knowledge of Dante and Ariosto (Hunt 1875). Other Italian authors discussed in his Autobiography are Alfieri, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Pulci, Redi, Lorenzo de’ Medici and Petrarch (Hunt 1965: II, 97-229). Chapter 3 of his The Book of the Sonnet is entitled “Of Guittone d’Arezzo and of the Sonnets”, while chapter 7 of A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla concentrates on the Italian and English Pastoral. In Pisa he was struck by the paintings of Andrea Orcagna, Simon Memmi, Giotto and Buffalmacco, and there is detailed discussion of them in the Autobiography (ibid.146-49). The latter also frequently mentions Bellini, and the Dramatic Criticism reviews two operas by Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia and L’Italiana in Algeri. Both of these operas were reviewed in London in March 1818 and January 1819, respectively. It was also in London that Hunt saw Paganini perform in the Kings Theatre on 23, 25 and 27 June, 1831, although the violinist did give concerts in Genoa, as well as in Milan, Venice, Trieste and Rome from 1822-25, and Hunt undoubtedly first heard of Paganini whilst residing in Italy. Hunt’s poem, “Paganini. A fragment”2 was inspired by the London concerts which he reviewed in three parts for the Tatler (Hunt 1831).The reviews throw much light on the poem itself and indeed may be used to elucidate aspects of the Paganini “fragment”.
To date there have only been two articles and one book chapter written on Leigh Hunt’s intellectual relationship with Italy and Italian culture 3 (Roe 2006; Schoina 2006; Schoina 2009: 152-63), and none of them make mention of Hunt’s poem on Paganini. The present study constitutes the first analysis ever made of Hunt’s “Paganini. A fragment”, and its primary aim is to begin to fill the general void of criticism on Hunt and Italy. It highlights both the virtuoso’s reception among the English theatre-going public of the early 1830s, and Hunt’s more cerebral attitude toward the violinist, partly influenced by contemporary Parisian reviews, Paganini having just left the French capital before arriving in London on his Grand Tour of Europe. The study places Hunt’s poem in the wider perspective of the English poet’s music criticism (Dramatic Criticism), his writings on poetry in general (Imagination and Fancy, and Autobiography), and his knowledge of Italian poetry in particular. It demonstrates Hunt’s attempt to assimilate the domains of music and poetry by presenting Paganini’s music as a poetically visual language, and by drawing attention to the innovative and idiosyncratic aspects of the Italian’s playing which it is the aim of the English poem to imitate on a linguistic and stylistic level. The poem, whilst being, as I shall show, quintessentially English, particularly in its Miltonic structure, achieves a successful blending of the English and Italian poetic traditions through its inter-textual references to key texts in the Italian medieval literary tradition.
Paganini arrived in London around the middle of May 1831, and immediately met with controversy by doubling the usual prices for his first planned concert in the King’s Theatre, so that journalists for The Times became inarticulate with rage: “There can be nothing in his art, a mere instrumental performer, so great a prodigy, as to deserve such a price.” (Anon. May 1831). Paganini bowed to the public outcry, and in an apologetic letter to The Times, agreed to play at the “old” prices (Paganini 1831). When he actually gave his first London performance on 3 June, The Times and other newspapers conceded that all of the high expectations formed of the violinist before his arrival had fallen very short of the reality. As The Athenaeum, a contemporary literary magazine, put it “The arrival of this magician was enough to make the greater part of the fiddler tribe commit suicide” (Anon. June 1831).
The main focus of Hunt’s poem is a description of Paganini’s ability to conjure up all conceivable moods and imagery. It is announced at the very beginning of the poem (the italics here and elsewhere are mine): “So play’d of late to every passing thought / With finest change [...] the pale magician of the bow”, and it is the focal point for the long fourth section, to be dealt with later – a monumental unit of expression (77 lines out of a total of 97 in the poem as a whole) which has something of the epic grandeur of Milton’s blank verse. In the initial section, however, Hunt is mainly concerned with introducing Paganini from two points of view: there is a subtle mixture of the layman’s perspective and that of Hunt himself, the educated poet. Most laymen in the audience would be there out of curiosity – to witness the exotic foreigner (“Who brought from Italy the tales, made true”) whose playing was so extraordinary that it was believed he had supernatural abilities and was in league with
the devil. This was a suspicion reinforced by Paganini’s extraordinary appearance: his pale, skeletal face was framed by long, black hair, giving him a fiendish air (as well portrayed in Delacroix’s Portrait of Paganini, painted in 1831, the same year as Hunt’s poem was written). Hunt neatly encapsulates these associations with magic and sickliness in his effectively simple expression, “the pale magician of the bow”. The associations are reinforced in the third section with the reference to Paganini’s “mournful”, “gaunt” “look”; and the innocuous “magician” by then even assumes more sinister overtones in Hunt’s indirect reference to the sad Faustian figure who has sold his soul to the devil in return for his prodigious gift:
[...] hanging his pallid face
’Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seem’d,
To feeble or to melancholy eyes,
One that had parted with his soul for pride (16-19).
Hunt’s references to wizardry and devilry formed part of the popular mythology surrounding Paganini by the time of his arrival in England, but embedded within the first section there are also references to the poet’s own specific interest in Paganini. Throughout his Autobiography Hunt displays his deep love of Greek literature, mythology and culture, and Paganini has “brought from Italy the tales, made true, / Of Grecian lyres”. The reference is elucidated in Hunt’s review of Paganini’s concert of 25 June:
From this moment our faith is confirmed in the wonders recorded of Aeolic and Doric modulations; and we owe a gratitude to Paganini, if only for confirming it and doubling the pleasure with which we read of the Timotheuses and Terpanders. (Hunt 1950: 275)
By putting Paganini on a par with Timotheus (B.C. 446-357), a celebrated Greek musician and poet; indeed with Terpander (B.C. 700-650), the founder of the first musical school in Greece, he is attempting to elevate him onto a more respectable plane than that conferred by popular culture: Paganini is more than a “magician” or a “devil”; he is a genius with a “serious” “skill”. The two latter terms are, importantly, repeated in the poem: “and clinging to the serious chords” (8); “That skill dwelt in him serious with its joy” (22); “And then with show of skill mechanical” (49). It is for this reason that Hunt’s reference to Faust was, on close inspection, a guarded one: Paganini would appear to be a soul possessed by the devil only to those with “feeble” or “melancholy” eyes. His rightful place among the “serious” and the “classical” is further underscored by the reference to Jupiter, the chief god of the Romans, and his wife, Juno (12-13); his playing with “godlike ravishment” (9); and the repeated reference to Paganini “smiting” the strings (8 and 23), the classical implications of which are explained in the review of 23 June: “he [Paganini] struck them [the strings] as you might imagine a Greek to have done when he used his plectrum and ‘smote the sounding shell’”(ibid. 272).
Paganini, a 'Fragment'.
by Leigh Hunt
So played of late to every passing thought With finest change (might I but half as well So write!) the pale magician of the bow, Who brought from Italy, the tales, made true, Of Grecian lyres; and on his sphery hand, Loading the air with dumb expectancy, Suspended, ere it fell, a nation's breath. He smote, — and clinging to the serious chords With godlike ravishment, drew forth a breath, So deep, so strong, so fervid thick with love, Blissful, yet laden as with twenty prayers, That Juno yearned with no diviner soul To the first burthen of the lips of Jove. The exceeding mystery of the loveliness Saddened delight; and with his mournful look, Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face 'Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed, To feeble or to melancholy eyes, One that had parted with his soul for pride, And in the sable secret lived forlorn. But true and earnest, all too happily That skill dwelt in him, serious with its joy; For noble now he smote the exulting strings, And bade them march before his stately will; And now he loved them like a cheek, and laid Endearment on them, and took pity sweet; And now he was all mirth, or all for sense And reason, carving out his thoughts like prose After his poetry; or else he laid His own soul prostrate at the feet of love, And with a full and trembling fervour deep, In kneeling and close-creeping urgency, Implored some mistress with hot tears; which past, And after patience had brought right of peace, He drew, as if from thoughts finer than hope, Comfort around him in ear-soothing strains And elegant composure; or he turned To heaven instead of earth, and raised a prayer So earnest vehement, yet so lowly sad, Mighty with want and all poor human tears, That never saint, wrestling with earthly love, And in mid-age unable to get free, Tore down from heav'n such pity. Or behold, In his despair (for such, from what he spoke Of grief before it, or of love, 'twould seem,) Jump would he into some strange wail uncouth Of witches' dance, ghastly with whinings thin And palsied nods — mirth wicked, sad, and weak. And then with show of skill mechanical, Marvellous as witchcraft, he would overthrow That vision with a shower of notes like hail, Or sudden mixtures of all difficult things Never yet heard; flashing the sharp tones now, In downward leaps like swords; now rising fine Into some utmost tip of minute sound, From whence he stepped into a higher and higher On viewless points; till laugh took leave of him: Or he would fly as if from all the world To be alone and happy, and you should hear His instrument become a tree far off, A nest of birds and sunbeams, sparkling both, A cottage-bower: or he would condescend, In playful wisdom which knows no contempt, To bring to laughing memory, plain as sight, A farm-yard with its inmates, ox and lamb, The whistle and the whip, with feeding hens In household fidget muttering evermore, And, rising as in scorn, crowned Chanticleer, Ordaining silence with his sovereign crow. Then from one chord of his amazing shell Would he fetch out the voice of quires, and weight Of the built organ; or some twofold strain Moving before him in sweet-going yoke, Ride like an Eastern conqueror, round whose state Some light Morisco leaps with his guitar; And ever and anon o'er these he'd throw Jets of small notes like pearl, or like the pelt Of lovers' sweetmeats on Italian lutes From windows on a feast-day, or the leaps Of pebbled water, sprinkled in the sun, One chord effecting all: — and when the ear Felt there was nothing present but himself And silence, and the wonder drew deep sighs, Then would his bow lie down again in tears, And speak to some one in a pray'r of love, Endless, and never from his heart to go: Or he would talk as of some secret bliss And at the close of all the wonderment (Which himself shared) near and more near would come Into the inmost ear, and whisper there Breathings so soft, so low, so full of life, Touched beyond sense, and only to be borne By pauses which made each less bearable, That out of pure necessity for relief From that heaped joy, and bliss that laughed for pain, The thunder of the uprolling house came down, And bowed the breathing sorcerer into smiles.
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