Paganini Devil's Violinist or Genius

Paganini Devil’s Violinist or Genius

Ross Amico

October 27, 2025

One response

Did Niccolò Paganini sell his soul to the Devil? At the very least, he must have leased it.

Paganini, born on this date in 1782, is often stated to have been the greatest violinist who ever lived. He took up the mandolin at the age of 5, and was playing his first fiddle by 7. His professional career began at 15, when he embarked on his first solo tour.

In an era teeming with extraordinary violinists, Paganini transcended them all. In fact, so far did he outstrip his peers, there were rumblings that, if he himself had not bargained his soul, then surely his mother must have.

At 13, he was sent to study with renowned violinist Alessandro Rolla. Rolla quickly ascertained that there was nothing he could teach this terrifying prodigy. So he referred him to his own teacher, Ferdinando Paer, who in turn handed him up the ladder to his teacher, Gasparo Ghiretti.

Despite Paganini’s preternatural talent, his early success began to take its toll. Almost immediately, he suffered a nervous breakdown and began drinking heavily. He also became a prodigious gambler and a prolific womanizer.

Combined with his uncanny abilities as a performer, his flamboyant lifestyle laid the foundation for the Paganini legend. It was said he once murdered a woman and used her intestines to string his violin, so that her imprisoned soul could be heard screaming as he played. Some claimed that sulfur could be smelled during his performances. Another swore that he saw the Devil standing beside him. Yet another, that he was the Devil himself. Paganini doppelgangers began to appear, bearing horns and hooves. Once, lightning struck the end of his bow as he played. Or so the stories went.

And if you saw Paganini, you’d probably believe it was all true. He was tall and thin, with hollow cheeks and pale skin, thin-lipped and adorned in black. His pallid hand, with unusually long, flashing fingers, raced hypnotically up and down the strings of his violin like an enormous, acrobatic spider. Its unusual span and uncanny flexibility have been attributed in modern times to genetic irregularities, Marfan’s syndrome, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Or perhaps he simply sold his soul to the devil.

Paganini’s skills on the violin were unparalleled. It’s said that he could play twelve notes per second. He performed without sheet music, contorted, and swung wildly about the stage. His outlandish mannerisms earned him the nickname “Rubber Man.”

Already sickly for most of his life, he contracted syphilis in 1822. This was treated with mercury, which led to further issues. In 1834, he contracted tuberculosis. He recovered, but retired from the stage later that year, at the age of 54. He spent his last years teaching.

Shortly before his death, of larynx cancer, at 57 in 1840, a priest arrived to administer last rites, but Paganini turned him away. It might have been because he was convinced he wasn’t going to die. Or it could have been because of… something else.

Paganini’s final tour was posthumous. When the Church refused to bury his body in consecrated ground, it was sent around Europe for the next four years, where it lay in state. When burial was still denied, it spent a year in a cellar. Then it was taken to a leper house. After that, it was moved to a cement vat in an olive factory. Then to a private house. Finally, Pope Gregory XVI allowed Paganini’s remains to be laid to rest in La Villetta Cemetery in Parma.

Niccolò Paganini was a Romantic icon, with a capital “R.” Hector Berlioz, himself no slouch in the seething Romantic department, wrote “Harold in Italy” so that Paganini could show off his new viola. Paganini didn’t think the solo part was flashy enough, and though he came eventually to admire the piece, he never actually played it. Even so, he continued to help Berlioz financially during his later years. He also became a good friend of Rossini.

Numerous other composers were inspired by Paganini’s own music. Liszt, another kindred spirit, who modeled his own concert persona after Paganini’s, wrote a set of “Paganini Etudes.” And how many composers have written sets of variations on Paganini’s famous 24th Caprice? Franz Lehár even wrote an operetta, highly fictionalized, about a romance between the virtuoso and Napoleon’s sister, Princess Anna Elisa.

Whether or not you believe the legends, Paganini sure could play like the Devil. Happy birthday, Niccolò Paganini, wherever you are!

Alexander Markov plays Paganini’s 24th Caprice