INCIDENT IN PARMA
"40 Stories About Famous Composers" by Dragan Tenev - Niccolò Paganini, October 1782 – May 1840
In the mail coach, which was barely making its way through the rain along the steep and muddy road to Parma, it was terribly stuffy. Nevertheless, none of the passengers dared to open one of the four small windows, for the abbot sitting at the back of the coach coughed and scowled fiercely even at the mere mention of it. Next to him, on the leather seat, clutching a large cardboard hatbox on her lap, sat a middle-aged woman. On his other side, dressed entirely in black, fidgeted a man with silver-streaked hair. This was Antonio Paganini from Genoa, traveling with his son to Parma to meet the renowned Maestro Rolla—Italy’s greatest music teacher. His son, Niccolò, sat across from him. The boy was embarking on such a long journey for the first time in his life and had pressed his little nose against the small window. He found it both strange and delightful to watch the colors of the landscape change with every passing kilometer. The rain grew heavier. The sound of the large raindrops striking the coach’s roof was clearly audible. From time to time, the coachman’s horn joined their song. Niccolò burned with the desire to take his violin and reproduce those sounds on its strings, but the abbot’s grim face held him back. Replicating all the sounds and noises he heard with his violin was one of his greatest pleasures. In his hands, the violin often turned into a bird, a bell, or even the creaking wheels of the heavy carts that rolled through the steep, narrow street in Genoa past his father’s small trading office. At one point, Niccolò quietly asked:
“Won’t we arrive too late, Father? What if the maestro has gone out or isn’t in the city?”
“Don’t worry, my son! Everything will work out. At most, we’ll be in Parma in an hour, and it’s only…”—his father reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a large watch—“four o’clock. There’s still plenty of time!”
When they arrived at the city’s mail station, no one was expecting the two Paganinis. They rented a room at the inn “At the Three Hunchbacks” and immediately set off to find Maestro Rolla’s house. They found it easily—the maestro lived near the station.
Old Paganini pulled the doorbell. Father and son heard its pleasant chime echo through the house. A young woman opened the door:
“Whom are the gentlemen looking for?”
“Maestro Rolla, signorina. We must see him on important business!”
“I’m very sorry, signori. It’s clear you’re not from Parma. Otherwise, you’d know that when it’s raining and damp, the maestro doesn’t receive anyone—his legs hurt him. Everyone in the city knows this, which is why no one comes. But even if he does see you,” she said with a smile, “he’s unlikely to want to listen to you. Today he’s very…”
“Please ask him, signorina. We’ve come from far away—all the way from Genoa!”
“If you insist, I’ll try. Wait a moment!” the woman said and disappeared. She returned only after a few minutes.
“The maestro will see you, but on one condition—that you be as brief as possible.” She opened the door wide. “Please, come in!”
They entered a large hall. Sheet music, notebooks, books, and a variety of musical instruments were scattered everywhere. In the center stood a large wooden stand, piled high with scores. To the right, through an open door, they could see a small, dimly lit room where a fireplace glowed. The shadows of its flames danced on the walls.
“Wait for me here, Piccolo!” said the father, stepping into the room. The maestro was reclining in a large chair by the fireplace, warming his aching legs.
“What do you want, sir…” he said, not particularly politely, as Antonio Paganini stood before him.
“Paganini, Antonio Paganini, maestro! From Genoa! I’ve come to ask you to hear my son and take him under your wing to study.” The father quickly reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a white envelope with a crest in one corner. “Here’s a short letter of recommendation from your friend and admirer in Genoa, Marquis Di Negro. My son is very talented; he’s already given several solo concerts and plays at the Church of Sant’Ambrogio, but…”
The maestro felt a sharp pain in his leg, which might explain why he replied rather brusquely:
“If you’re here for such a matter, Mr. Paganini, you’ll have to come back in five or six days. As you can see, I’m unwell and can’t do anything right now…”
“Please, make an exception, maestro! We’ve come all the way from Genoa. We even visited Maestro Salvatore Tinto in Florence. He heard my son and said, ‘Go to Parma to Rolla—only he can teach the boy something new!’”
The cunning Paganini flattered the great musician skillfully, but Rolla remained unmoved.
As the two argued, suddenly someone in the hall began playing the violin. It was the sonata left on the stand, which the maestro had composed just a few days earlier, and it was being played beautifully. Until that moment, Rolla would have bet one to a hundred that no violinist had yet been born who could play it without long, diligent practice. He had poured all his mastery into that sonata, and now its sounds soared freely—coming and going in an instant, now high, now rich and mournful, then rising again to dizzying heights. To the maestro, it seemed as though they danced atop the flames burning in the fireplace before him. Rolla couldn’t believe his ears. But something even more astonishing happened. When the written piece ended, the unseen violinist began improvising on the main theme, drawing forth marvelous variations from the strings—far more complex and difficult than the sonata itself.
The old man suddenly forgot his aching legs, stood up, and, leaning on Antonio Paganini’s arm, went into the hall, consumed with curiosity to see who was playing.
When he saw him, Niccolò abruptly lowered the violin, embarrassed.
“Come, let me embrace you, my boy!” cried the astonished old man. “You’re a true miracle, and if you’re the one they’ve brought to me, I don’t know what more I could teach you. But mark my words—one day, the whole world will bow before your violin.”
He kissed the boy on the forehead and stroked his hair.
“You deserve the finest Amati or Stradivarius that exists! Only something like that is worthy of fingers like yours! What violin is this?”
“A Guarneri del Gesù,” said Niccolò Paganini, his cheeks flushed with excitement.
“Well, that’s not bad either… Here, let me have it for a moment!”
Rolla took the violin and drew the bow across its strings, but something irritated his ear, and he played it again.
“But this violin is tuned a half-tone lower!” the maestro exclaimed, even more astonished. “What a wonder I’ve lived to see! My boy, you’re a genius!” said the old man, flustered. “I bow to you. You can stay in this house whenever and for as long as you wish. It will be an honor for me to have known you and that one day people might mention my name alongside yours.”
And he bowed his white-haired head low.
Niccolò stayed in Parma for a full year. And later, when his fame spread across the world, people did not forget old Maestro Rolla, the first to recognize the genius of the great Paganini.
