Abstract
While virtuosic‐or incredibly skilled‐action is recognized as an important facet of symbolic activity, talk of virtuosity is often limited to the superficial and deceptive uses of talent, a trend that constrains the rhetorical nature of human agency. This essay examines virtuosity as a performance in which the agent's display of extraordinary skill is valued because it transfigures cultural ideals concerning the expressive power of the human agent. The study examines in detail a concert by Nicola Paganini, the nineteenth century violinist whose striking expressive force functioned rhetorically to expand ideas concerning music and human agency, and to evoke a unique sense of communitas by embodying the ideals of the Romantic era.