Summary: <br> <a href="https://d3fr1q02b1tb0i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/28103218/NiccoloPaganini.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) in 1819) by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres<br> <br> <br> <br> We mark the death of the violinistic wizard, composer, and showman extraordinaire Niccolò Paganini, who died 179 years ago today in the Mediterranean resort city of Nice on May 27, 1840.<br> <br> <br> <br> Woman with Marfan Syndrome, making us squirm.<br> <br> <br> <br> Marfan Syndrome (or “MFS”) is a genetic disorder of the connective tissue. The syndrome is named after the French pediatrician Antoine Marfan, who first identified it in 1891. For those – like me – who must know, the gene linked to the condition was identified in 1991 by Francesco Ramirez at New York City’s Mount Sinai Medical Center.<br> <br> <br> <br> Folks with Marfan Syndrome are characteristically tall and slim; with long arms, legs, fingers and toes. Their joints are typically flexible; sometime crazy flexible, the sort of crazy flexible that makes the rest of us squirm with discomfort when we see such a person casually twist him or herself up like a human pretzel.<br> <br> <br> <br> Marfan Syndrome can affect the heart as well, and thus the American Heart Association, ever the Helpy Helperton, has made recommendations regarding the sorts of activities folks with Marfan can and should not engage in. <br> <br> <br> <br> The American Heart Association lists as “high risk” activities for Marfan sufferers bodybuilding, weightlifting (non-free and free weights), ice hockey, rock climbing, windsurfing, surfing, and scuba diving. (Should we assume that bungee jumping, sky diving, and alligator wrestling – which are not on the list – are all okay? Just asking.)<br> <br> <br> <br> Conversely, we are told that “probably permissible activities” include bowling, golf, skating (but not ice hockey), snorkeling, brisk walking, treadmill, stationary biking, modest hiking, and doubles tennis.<br> <br> <br> <br> Let us now add to this list of “probably permissible activities” playing the violin.<br> <br> <br> <br> Niccolò Paganini almost certainly had Marfan Syndrome, which allowed him – physically – to do things on the fiddle that no one before him had considered possible. He was also a genius (in the true spirit of that word and certainly not in our modern and trivialized sense), and thus his violin playing and his compositions advanced violin technique more, in a couple of decades, than might otherwise have occurred over the course of a century. <br> <br> <br> <br> For example.<br> <br> <br> <br> While he did not invent it, Paganini “institutionalized” the left hand pizzicato by using it constantly in his performances and employing it in his compositions. Likewise, his use of harmonics: a technique used only occasionally before him became a standard feature in his violin music. The flexibility of his wrist allowed him to rapidly alternate bowing techniques in a manner unheard of to his time; we’re talking here about the rapid alternation of such bowing techniques as legato (where the bow stays on the string; notes are smoothly connected with a single stroke of the bow); détaché (each note played by a separate bow stroke, though the bow stays on the string); staccato (played in a single bow stroke, though the bow springs slightly off the string between notes); spiccato (rapid detached bowing: each note is played by a separate bow stroke while the bow bounces off the string after each note), saltando or jeté (a sort of “super staccato” in which repeated notes are played in a single bow stroke but the bow is allowed to bounce off the string between notes); and martellato (“hammer-stroke” bowing, typically played using downbows only, employing the bottom third – or the “frog” – of the bow).<br> <br> <br>
