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Updated: May 28, 2025
M. Vieuxtemps never lets you forget that he plays the violin, that the wonders of mechanism which he accomplishes under your eye are of the greatest difficulty and have cost him immense pains, whereas M. Sivori has the air of being ignorant that he holds in his hands one of the most complicated instruments that exists, and he sings to you like Malibran.
In wealth of technical development, in true musical expressiveness Vieuxtemps is a master. A proof is the fact that his works have endured forty to fifty years, a long life for compositions. "Joachim, Léonard, Sivori, Wieniawski all admired Vieuxtemps.
He has been compared with some of the most eminent violinists thus: Vieuxtemps was an artist with an ardent mind, and a magnificent interpreter of Beethoven; Joachim towers aloft in the heights of serene poetry, upon the Olympic summits inaccessible to the tumults of passion; Sivori was a dazzling virtuoso; Sarasate is an incomparable charmer.
Sivori now set out on extensive travels, and, after visiting England, proceeded, in 1846, to America, travelling through the United States, Mexico, and various parts of South America, spending eight years in these peregrinations, and amassing a considerable fortune.
In six months Paganini left Genoa and desired to take his young pupil with him, but this was not allowed by the parents, and Sivori was placed under the tuition of Costa. Three years later Paganini returned to Genoa, and by his advice his protégé was placed under M. Dellepaine, who taught him taste and expression, his lessons with Costa in technique continuing.
Although several violinists endeavoured to copy Paganini's style, or at least to learn as much as possible from hearing and seeing him play, there was only one, excepting Catarina Calcagno, who received direct instruction from him, and on whom his mantle was said, by his admirers, to have fallen. That one was Camillo Sivori, born at Genoa, June 6, 1817.
The town offered then little in the way of amusement. The Adelphi Theatre was opened that winter for the first time, and presented a variety of mediocre plays. At the Olympia were "lively and beautiful exhibitions of model artists." Herz and Sivori, the pianists, then touring in the United States, played several times in the season; and there was a Chinese Museum.
Léonard took me to see him late one evening at the Hôtel de Havane in Paris, where Sivori was staying. When we came to his room we heard the sound of slow scales, beautifully played, coming from behind the closed door. We peered through the keyhole, and there he sat on his bed stringing his scale tones like pearls. He was a little chap and had the tiniest hands I have ever seen.
These anecdotes, told by an effusive admirer, seem rather ridiculous, but when Paganini visited Genoa, and Sivori was six years old, the virtuoso took a great deal of interest in the little fellow and gave him lessons. He also wrote a concerto for him, and six short sonatas with accompaniment for guitar, tenor, and 'cello, and these the young artist soon played in public.
He asked Paganini to sell him one, and the reply was, "I will not sell you the violin, but I will present it to you in compliment to your high talents." Sivori travelled to Nice to receive the instrument from his master's own hands. Paganini was then it was in 1840 in a deplorable condition, and could hardly speak.
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