On This Day!
1782 -- The great violinist Niccolo Paganini is born in Genoa; by 11, he'd be fiddling in public.
His playing of tender passages was so beautiful that his audiences often burst into tears, and yet, he could perform with such force and velocity that at Vienna one listener became half crazed and declared that for some days that he had seen the Devil helping the violinist.
(Racmaninoff's Paganini Variations are one of my favourites).
(And since we've been talking about Berlioz lately) in 1893 -- Originally written as an oratorio, Hector Berlioz's opera The Damnation of Faust has its premiere in Monte Carlo.
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'Truth and beauty joined'
[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 02-18-2006).]
His playing of tender passages was so beautiful that his audiences often burst into tears, and yet, he could perform with such force and velocity that at Vienna one listener became half crazed and declared that for some days that he had seen the Devil helping the violinist.
(Racmaninoff's Paganini Variations are one of my favourites).
(And since we've been talking about Berlioz lately) in 1893 -- Originally written as an oratorio, Hector Berlioz's opera The Damnation of Faust has its premiere in Monte Carlo.
------------------
'Truth and beauty joined'
[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 02-18-2006).]