The only Niçois to have played Paganini's violin
GUARNERIUS DEL GESU»

The artist to whom this distinguished honor has fallen is the violinist Mario Vitetta. Born in Nice in 1890, to a family of musicians well-known in our city, Mario Vitetta showed a particular talent for the noble instrument from a very early age.
At eleven, he was a child prodigy; he entered the Bologna Conservatory, in the class of the great Professor Consolini, thanks to an age exemption; he graduated with a brilliant first prize. Judging, however, that further technical training was necessary, he spent two years in Berlin, where he received the advice of the great Joachim.
Vitetta then began concert tours marked by resounding successes, which were unfortunately interrupted by the war. From 1914 to 1918, Vitetta bravely performed his duties in a combat unit, both on the Carso front and in Champagne. He was twice commended and awarded the Italian Croix de Guerre.
After the campaign ended, Vitetta took up his violin again, began touring again, and was acclaimed by the greatest audiences in Italy. For the past few months, he has been staying in Nice, his hometown, where the audiences at the Press Gala and the Symphonic Association have been able to appreciate his great talent.
He will speak to the readers of L'Eclaireur du Dimanche about Paganini's violin, that he is one of the privileged few deemed worthy of playing it.

SAINT-BRIS.

The course of a series of concerts in Italy took me, in February 1921, to Genoa, where I had previously been warmly welcomed by the many concert-goers in the great commercial city. This time, it was at the Teatro Carlo Felice, one of the most glorious in Italy, and with the assistance of the "Giovine Orchestra Genovese," that I performed Max Bruch's Concerto in G minor and Sarasate's Bohemian Airs, which the audience requested an encore.
At the end of this concert, I was offered permission to ask the Municipality of Genoa for permission to play Paganini's famous violin, reverently preserved in one of the rooms of the Palazzo Comunale.

I confess that I did not expect to be worthy of such an honor, the greatest a violinist visiting Genoa could aspire to. However, my friends were so insistent that it was impossible for me to refuse.
The ceremony was set for February 6th. But, before describing how it unfolded, allow me to speak of the most famous instrument, which my unworthy hands were about to awaken, for a few moments, from its slumber.

This is an authentic and splendid Guarnerius del Gesu, made by the master luthier from Cremona in 1742, that is, at the end of his career, when his production reached its highest level of perfection. It was in these later years that Joseph Guarnerius also produced the Alard violin, now in the Paris Conservatoire Museum, and the one in the Louis Doyen collection.
The circumstances under which Paganini became the owner of this instrument are rather curious.

The king of violinists was an incorrigible player. However, it so happened that while in Livorno, he lost all his money and even... his violin.
The problem was that he was supposed to give a concert that very evening. He went to a French merchant named Livron, who agreed to rent him the Guarnerius in question. Paganini was thus able to keep his promise. The next day, when he presented himself to return the instrument, the merchant said to him:
"This violin is yours; I will never desecrate it after you have played it like that."
Was Paganini cured of his fatal passion? Did he become particularly attached to this magnificent instrument, whose sound is so vigorous and brilliant, whose orange varnish is intact, despite its almost two centuries of existence? We don't know; but, in any case, on all his tours, he only played Mr. Livron's Guarnerius. When he died in Nice in 1840, as the marble plaque on the facade of the house number 23, Rue de la Préfecture, recalls, he bequeathed this instrument to the City of Genoa, which took possession of it on May 24, 1852.
Since then, the magical Guarnerius has slept in its case, itself placed in a display case in the Green Room of the Town Hall. Complete rest is never good for a violin, whether old or modern. However, it must be recognized that Paganini's violin is in perfect condition and that its qualities remain intact.
The city of Genoa has preserved this precious instrument for seventy-three years.
Among the last violinists called upon to have the honor of playing it, I would mention Kubelik, Hubermann, Kocian, Franz von Vecsey, and Vacha Prihoda. My name was to be added to this glorious list.

On February 5, 1921, in response to the flattering invitation, I presented myself at the Municipal Palace of Genoa, and, in the Green Room, where the memorabilia bequeathed by Paganini are preserved, I was received by the notables of the administrative and musical world that the Municipality had invited. The Deputy for Fine Arts, assisted by the Deputy for the Economy and the Secretary General, before opening the case that contained the violin, noted that the red wax seals that closed it were intact; on the case a sheet of paper bore the date of the last opening and the name of Vacha Prihoda. The violin, taken from its case, was assembled and tuned by the renowned Genoese violin maker Candi and then it was handed over to me. I cannot describe the emotion that gripped me when I first touched the most famous instrument in all of music: the artistic pleasure of contemplating this admirable product not of the greatest, but of the most brilliant, of Cremona's great violin makers; a quick thought of my studious childhood, during which I would never have dared to make the wish that was nevertheless coming true at that moment; a memory of the inimitable virtuoso who made this instrument sing so well that, according to the words of its first owner, it is a profanation to play it after the Master; all these feelings deeply troubled me.
Witnesses to this scene later told me that they had never seen me so pale. I pulled myself together, however, and, bowing my head, I placed my lips on the scroll of the violin.
A few chords to warm up, and the concert began. The main pieces were, of course, borrowed from the extraordinary repertoire that Paganini had created for himself. I played the Variations on the Prayer by "Mosè," all written for the fourth string; then one of the Caprices, then "Le Stregghe." I also played a Caprice of my own composition, Bach's Aria, and Schumann's Reverie.
The instrument, a little cold at first, seemed to awaken afterward, and in all registers, it responded admirably to all the efforts I demanded of it. The concert over, with the customary ceremony, the violin was dismantled, placed in its case, and the case, closed with a ribbon whose joined ends were sealed, returned to its place in the display case.

MARIO VITETTA.

Mario Vitetta, born in 1890 in Nice, died on December 4, 1961 in Wittenberg, Ulster County, New York, USA, and buried in Woodstock Cemetery and not much else.

Niccolò Paganini

Guarnerius "Il Cannone", the violin by the luthier Guarnerius del Gesù of Cremona

And a century later, "Il Cannone," Paganini's most famous violin, insured for around 30 million euros, reveals its secrets to X-rays in Grenoble to undergo "non-destructive analysis." at the European Synchrotron (ESRF), a fourth-generation particle accelerator. "Working on this instrument was a dream"

And the accompanying Order of February 15, 2024...

the Musei di Strada Nuova at Palazzo Tursi

The Palazzo Doria-Tursi

But Mario Vitetta isn't the only one to have played this instrument. Recently, the young violinist Simon Zhu, 23, winner of the 57th edition of the great Premio Paganini Competition in 2023, was able to benefit from a loan.

The Niccolò Paganini International Violin Competition

Simon Zhu, born in 2001 in Tübingen, Germany

Paganini in music