Nicolo Paganini: His Life and Work

by Stephen Samuel Stratton

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, History

160 pages, Paperback

Published March 29, 2025

Reviews

[Kateryna Krotova · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the book. Don’t know how far it from the real life of Nicola Paganini.. But he was definitely an incredible person! So sad was his whole life. His relationship with his father, how he was treated, bitting up. How much struggle in his life to achieve perfection.. Maybe till now, there is nobody so talented as a violin player as he was.

[Hedda · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, came across this whilst checking out something Paganini related in Berlioz' Memoirs - found it a perfect accompaniment to the larger book by 'the Hector'. I generally love learning about how the paths of old composers and artists crossed, how the older influenced the younger - and sometimes vice versa. This was a quick and informative read that gave me exactly what I needed. And, even if I strictly didn't need it, I found the list of all his works and the comments about them, the tuning of strings and all, weirdly captivating. A few button clicks on, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Alexander Markov playing Paganini's 24 Caprices. (When, at the same time, reading a snippet of the book aloud to my 14-year-old - the part dealing with the questioning of Paganini's Earthly parentage of course - she commented, sadly, on the fact that nobody today has actually heard him play - he never recorded anything... That is indeed a curious thought - TARDIS, please! :D).

[Kristianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this easy-to-read, fascinating overview of Paganini's life. It served as a good research book for my current project. And I enjoyed all the little anecdotes thrown in. It gave me a better understanding of the enigma that Paganini was.

[D. Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative, albeit brief, biography of one of my favorite composers. It's a bit quirky in what it assumes the reader already knows, and in how it divides up its subject between life events, professional events, critical reaction, and larger issues of his reputation, both personally and professionally. The quirks might have been conventions when it was published, I don't really know.

The Gutenberg edition is surprisingly well formatted for an epub, integrating the book's many illustrations into the text nicely, and even including advertisements for other music books from the edition that was scanned. Some of them even made me want to hunt up the books promoted and read those, too.

On the whole, I'm happy I read it, but I feel sure there is a much more definitive bio of the odd and difficult Nicolo out there, somewhere.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Straight forward, no nonsense biography of the virtuoso. This was just one of those "facts are facts" type of books that aren't concerned with flourishing the tale with mystery, rumour, intrigue, poetics, etc... If you're just interested in learning about the artist, it's a good read. If you want to enjoy the reading as well, this book is going to leave you flat.