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Le mythe de Paganini dans la presse et la littérature de son temps par Marie-Hélène Rybicki

2016; American Association of Teachers of French; Volume: 90; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tfr.2016.0283

2329-7131

Laurence M. Porter,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

Reviews 205 Rybicki, Marie-Hélène. Le mythe de Paganini dans la presse et la littérature de son temps. Paris: Garnier, 2014. ISBN 978-2-8124-2930-9. Pp. 610. 59 a. The violinist Nícolo Paganini’s career coincided with the rise and triumph of French Romanticism. Living from 1782 to 1840, he completed his first composition in 1797. From the beginning, he liked to imitate birdsongs, the human voice, and the sounds of other instruments in his compositions for violin. His virtuosity ensured that he would be well-connected.At her court in Italy, Napoleon’s sister, the princess Elisa, named him director of the local opera in 1805. He composed a “Napoleon Sonata” for violin and orchestra (1805–08). By 1810, a reviewer described him as“such a great musician that we may never hear his like again” (25). A poem in his praise was first published in 1814, and he had his first major European tour in 1828. He lived in Paris from 1831 on, returning to Parma from 1834–36. Secretive, he refused to allow anyone to hear him rehearse, and he refused to show members of his orchestras the score of his violin parts. Unlike the great French violinists of the time, Neoclassicists who tried to express the essence of the compositions they played, Paganini memorized his program and then improvised on it, rather like a jazz group that takes liberties with “standards,”and breaks away from them regularly in multiple cadenzas. His“delirium” while playing made women literally swoon, but provoked so many complaints about his childishness and bad taste that he finally played only his own compositions in concerts (75–96). His greed was also noteworthy. Rybicki contrasts him at length with Liszt, the great European virtuoso of the next generation, who was an inspired interpreter of others’ work, and public-spirited. From age sixteen, Paganini suffered from an intestinal disorder, and may have had Marfan’s syndrome (with spidery, “double-jointed”fingers and a sunken chest). His Saturnine appearance and emaciated frame contributed to the myth that he had made a Faustian pact with the Devil, as did the subject of his first highly successful piece,“Le Streghe” (The Witches; 159– 66). To this day, the violin has been considered the Devil’s favorite instrument (e.g., “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a song recorded in 1979 by the Charlie Daniels Band); it comes closest to imitating the human voice; and human souls sometimes supposedly inhabit violins (their “soul” is the name of an internal part that regulates the sound). After “the fantastic” became wildly popular in 1830, Paganini became its major incarnation for the general public, embodying tensions between the grotesque and the sublime, the real and the ideal, Romantic overreaching and its punishment. The second part of Rybicki’s book gathers fictions featuring the musician: memes, poems, parodic Burlesques, Nouvelles musicales (informal discussions of musicians, which became an independent genre during the height of Romanticism), Nouvelles fantastiques, and anecdotes. Rybicki provides plot summaries (nearly all examples come from France and Germany, despite her intensive search for English and Italian sources), plus an extensive bibliography and name index. The best-known authors discussed include Balzac, Desbordes-Valmore, Gautier, Grillparzer, Hoffmann, and Leigh Hunt. Oberlin College Affiliate Scholar (OH) Laurence M. Porter Sauza, Guillaume de, et Élise Rajchenbach-Teller, éd. Charles Fontaine, un humaniste parisien à Lyon. Genève: Droz, 2014. ISBN 978-2-600-01734-3. Pp. 286. 49 a. Poète et traducteur aujourd’hui méconnu, Fontaine a pourtant joué un rôle important dans la vie intellectuelle et culturelle des années 1540–50. Dans le sillage de la thèse de Marine Molins (Charles Fontaine traducteur, Droz, 2011), ce recueil a pour vocation de faire redécouvrir l’œuvre et l’itinéraire d’un écrivain qui participa aux grands débats littéraires de son époque—“Querelle des amies”, “Querelle de Marot et de Sagon”—et qui incarne, aux côtés d’auteurs comme Barthélemy Aneau, l’effervescence humaniste de la Renaissance lyonnaise. L’ouvrage est divisé en trois parties. Les articles de Jean-Marie Flamand et Marine Molins concernent le...