PSS with Paganini's del Gesu, 'Il Cannone'. Palazzo Tursi, Genova

Paganini and Eliasson

Niccolo Paganini-Caprice d’Adieu for M. Eliasson, by his friend Paganini’ MS. 68.adieu

Edward Eliasson-‘Farewell to my Friend Paganini’ farewell

PSS-Violin

Engineer-Jonathan Haskell  www.astoundingsounds.co.uk

 From The Times in that year:

“Messrs Chelard and Eliasson gave an excellent morning concert yesterday at the Hanover Square Rooms. Mr Eliasson’s performance on the violin was greatly and deservedly admired. Madame Malibran sang, we believe for the first time this season, and Monsieur Herz performed a Fantasia on the Piano. Sigr Paganini, who was one of the audience, was no doubt attracted to the concert for the puspose of hearing Mr Eliasson, but unluckily, he arrived just at the termination of the solo in which the violinist was hear to most advantage.”

Malibran was not a fan of Paganini’s playing. She wrote: “Paganini ne sait pas chanter.” Paganini, on the other had, was her admirer, and had gone to hear her singing in Othello in Paris on the 19^th February 1831.

On July 10^th 1833 , Paganini gave the third in a series of concerts at the Theatre Royal. In that year, Paganini wrote a piece after leaving London which he sent to Eliasson. This in itself is extraordinary; excluding the small works written for the young Cammillo Sivori, we have no accounts of Paganini writing a work for another violinist to perform.

 Sivori’s father had certainly hoped more than the slight works which Paganini composed for him. In June 1823, Paganini noted that he had received a letter from him, asking for write a concerto for his son. The only surviving work dedicated to Sivori is Paganini’s  12^th Cantabile e Waltz MS 45 dedicato al Bravo Ragazzino Sig Camillo Sivori. The remaining eleven Cantabiles are lost, except an accompanying viola part.

 Paganini’s work for the Director of Music at Drury Lane is titled ‘Caprice d’Adieu for M. Eliasson, by his friend Paganini’ MS. 68. Before we are too overwhelmed by the kindness of this gesture, it is worth making reference to the manuscript of this work, which is held in a library in Palermo, which reveals quite how parsimonious Paganini could be with his favours. On this, the name Eliasson has been scrubbed out on the dedication, and replaced with that of Charles Philippe Lafont. The catalogue entry notes laconically: ‘il nome  Eliasson e depenato e sostituto con Lafont’.

 There is a lovely story that, in 1830 Paganini ran into the virtuoso Charles-Philippe Lafont, who he had famously defeated in a ‘duel’ at La Scala, in Baden. Lafont was with his family, and Paganini ran into him at the precise moment that he was paying for a ticket to his concert, which seems to have giving him considerable satisfaction. I like to imagine that Paganini, in an apparent fit of generosity, said “I will write you a piece”, and later sent him Eliasson’s Adieu; correctly anticipating that the two would never meet.

However, I suspect that the cat was eventually let out of the bag, because Eliasson was unable to resist the publicity that could arise out of making as much of the dedication as he possibly could. In 1833 he managed to persuade the firm of Schott and co, in Mainz, to publish his  own ‘Characteristic Studies’ , the sixth of which was his ‘Farewell to my Friend Paganini’, preceding Paganini’s own ‘Caprice d’Adieu’ as an added attraction at the end of the book.

It is well known how keen Paganini was to prevent anyone else from publishing his music; the reason that he only allowed the publication of 4 opii in his lifttime, was as he communicated to Ricordi., that he was planning on supervising editions of all his works later in his life. Little else of Eliasson’s work survives, and very little is know of him, save an Andante &  Moto Perpetuo Op 10.

On the 28^th …1833, Paganini wrote to Ricordi and co., outlining his concerns:

“Indignant at all the pieces of music which have been placed before the public bearing my name, and which are nothing but forgeries, unfortunates, and forgeries, I declare that with the exception of the following: No 1-24 Caprices or studies for violin, No 2-6 Quartets for violin, viola, cello and guitar, , No 3-12 Sonatinas for Violin and Guitar–the rights to which I have placed in the gift of the firm of M.Ricordi, of Italy, all the other works are apocryphal, whilst I research how best as I have proposed, to publish all of my music.”

One piece that Eliasson references explicitly in his ‘Farewell’ is the last movement of the Paganini’s 1^st concerto. This was the concerto which Eliasson directed Paganini playing at their 3^rd concert at Drury Lane. The signature ricochet gesture is central to Eliasson’s graceful work, along with some of Paganini’s distinctive left hand pizzicato.

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