Condemnation of Paganini

This is a book about a brilliant violinist whose frightening appearance and ability to extract sounds of otherworldly beauty "from coarse veins" drove the audience into ecstasy and confusion. And the Catholic Church - into indignation. It is a novel... about an incredibly gifted and cruelly wounded soul, who lived in a twisted, painful body and throughout her earthly existence vainly tried to break through humiliations, vindictiveness, and slander to love and freedom. It is a story about a society that too easily and carelessly uses its power both to drag through the mud and to elevate to Olympus.
Nicolò Paganini was not a devil or a criminal, as priests tried to portray him. He wasn't an angel either - sarcastic, temperamental, unpredictable. But the magical charm of his playing, mastery, and music were so beyond human capabilities that people refused to see in him just a virtuoso violinist. This gave rise to numerous legends, gossip, and fables, some of which live on to this day. Anatoly Vinogradov's novel "Condemnation of Paganini" is based on documentary materials about the life of the great violinist and offers not only an artistic biography of the maestro but also a broad panorama of European life at the beginning of the 19th century.