"And I too am a painter!" cried Michael Angelo the first time he
beheld a chef d'oeuvre...Though insignificant and poor, your
friend cannot leave off repeating those words of the great man
ever since Paganini's last performance. Rene, what a man, what a
violin, what an artist! Heavens! what sufferings, what misery,
what tortures in those four strings!
Here are a few of his characteristics: -
[Figure: Liszt here writes down several tiny excerpts from
musical scores of Paganini's violin music, such as his famous
"Caprices"]
As to his expression, his manner of phrasing, his very soul in
fact! - -
May 8th [1832]
My good friend, it was in a paroxysm of madness that I wrote you
the above lines; a strain of work, wakefulness, and those violent
desires (for which you know me) had set my poor head aflame; I
went from right to left, then from left to right (like a sentinel
in the winter, freezing), singing, declaiming, gesticulating,
crying out; in a word, I was delirious. Today the spiritual and
the animal (to use the witty language of M. de Maistre) are a
little more evenly balanced; for the volcano of the heart is not
extinguished, but is working silently. - Until when? -
Address your letters to Monsieur Reidet, the receiver-general at
the port of Rouen.
A thousand kind messages to the ladies Boissier.
