It was a struggle, and one less determined than the fourteen-year-old boy would have given up in despair. He was made of different stuff. Working alone by himself, he composed a sonata, a quartette and an aria. At last he ventured to announce the result of his secret studies. At this news his relatives were up in arms; they judged his desire for music to be a passing fancy, especially as they knew nothing of any preparatory studies, and realized he had never learned to play any instrument, not even the piano.
The family, however, compromised enough to engage a teacher for him. But Richard would never learn slowly and systematically. His mind shot far ahead, absorbing in one instance the writings of Hoffmann, whose imaginative tales kept the boy’s mind in a continual state of nervous excitement. He was not content to climb patiently the mountain; he tried to reach the top at a bound. So he wrote overtures for orchestras, one of which was really performed in Leipsic–a marvelous affair indeed, with its tympani explosions.
Richard now began to realize the need of solid work, and settled down to study music seriously, this time under Theodor Weinlig, who was cantor in the famous Thomas School.
In less than six months the boy was able to solve the most difficult problems in counterpoint. He learned to know Mozart’s music, and tried to write with more simplicity of style. A piano sonata, a polonaise for four hands and a fantaisie for piano belong to this year. After that he aspired to make piano arrangements of great works, such as Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony.” Then came his own symphony, which was really performed at Gewandhaus, and is said to have shown great musical vigor.
Instrumental music no longer satisfied this eager, aspiring boy; he must compose operas. He was now twenty, and went to Wuerzburg, where his brother Albert was engaged at the Wuerzburg Theater as actor, singer and stage manager. Albert secured for him a post as chorus master, with a salary of ten florins a month.
The young composer now started work on a second opera, the first, called “The Marriage,” was found impracticable. The new work was entitled “The Fairies.” This he finished, and the work, performed years later, was found to be imitative of Beethoven, Weber, and Marschner; the music was nevertheless very melodious.
Wagner returned to Leipsic in 1834. Soon there came another impetus to this budding genius: he heard for the first time the great singer Wilhelmina Schroeder-Devrient, whose art made a deep impression on him.
It was a time for rapid impressions to sway the ardent temperament of this boy genius of twenty-one. He read the works of Wilhelm Heinse, who depicts both the highest artistic pleasures and those of the opposite sort. Other authors following the same trend made him believe in the utmost freedom in politics, literature and morals. Freedom in everything–the pleasures of the moment–seemed to him the highest good.
Under the sway of such opinions he began to sketch the plot of his next opera, “Prohibition of Love” (Liebesverbot), founded on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure.” This was while he was in Teplitz on a summer holiday. In the autumn he took a position as conductor in a small operatic theater in Magdeburg. Here he worked at his new opera, hoping he could induce the admired Schroeder-Devrient to be his heroine.
Wagner remained in this place about two years and finished his opera there. The performance of it, for which he labored with great zeal, was a fiasco. The theater, too, failed soon after and the young composer was thrown out of work. His sojourn there influenced his after career, as he met Wilhelmina Planer, who was soon to become his wife.
Hearing there was an opening for a musical director at Koenigsberg, he traveled to that town, and in due course secured the post. Minna Planer also found an engagement at the theater, and the two were married on November 24, 1836; he was twenty-three and she somewhat younger. Kind, gentle, loving, she was quite unable to understand she was linked with a genius. Wagner was burdened with debts, begun in Magdeburg and increased in Koenigsberg. She was almost as improvident as he. They were like two children playing at life, with fateful consequences. It was indeed her misfortune, as one says, that this gentle dove was mismated with an eagle. But Minna learned later, through dire necessity, to be more economical and careful, which is more than can be said of her gifted husband.
After a year the Koenigsberg Theater failed and again Wagner was out of employment. Through the influence of his friend Dorn, he secured a directorship at Riga, Minna also being engaged at the theater. At first everything went well; the salary was higher and the people among whom they were placed were agreeable. But before long debts began to press again, and Wagner was dissatisfied with the state of the lyric drama, which he was destined to reform in such a wonderful way. He was only twenty-four, and had seen but little of the world. Paris was the goal toward which he looked with longing eyes, and to the gay French capital he determined to go.
When he tried to get a passport for Paris, he found it impossible because of his debts. Not to be turned from his purpose, he, Minna and the great Newfoundland dog, his pet companion, all slipped away from Riga at night and in disguise. At the port of Pillau the trio embarked on a sailing vessel for Paris, the object of all his hopes. The young composer carried with him one opera and half of a second work–“Rienzi,” which he had written during the years of struggle in Magdeburg and Koenigsberg. In Riga he had come upon Heine’s version of the Flying Dutchman legend, and the sea voyage served to make the story more vital.
He writes: “This voyage I shall never forget as long as I live; it lasted three weeks and a half, and was rich in mishaps. Thrice we endured the most violent storms, and once the captain had to put into a Norwegian haven. The passage among the crags of Norway made a wonderful impression on my fancy, the legends of the Flying Dutchman, as told by the sailors, were clothed with distinct and individual color, heightened by the ocean adventures through which we passed.”
After stopping a short time in London, the trio halted for several weeks in Boulogne, because the great Meyerbeer was summering there. Wagner met the influential composer and confided his hopes and longings. Meyerbeer received the poor young German kindly, praised his music, gave him several letters to musicians in power in Paris, but told him persistence was the most important factor in success.
With a light heart, and with buoyant trust in the future, though with little money for present necessities, Wagner and his companions arrived in Paris in September, 1839. Before him lay, if he had but known it, two years and a half of bitter hardship and privation; but–“out of trials and tribulations are great spirits molded.”
There were many noted musicians in the French capital at that time, and many opportunities for success. The young German produced his letters of introduction and received many promises of assistance from conductors and directors. Delighted with his prospects he located in the “heart of elegant and artistic Paris,” without regarding cost.
Soon the skies clouded; one hope after another failed. His compositions were either too difficult for conductors to grasp, or theaters failed on which he depended for assistance. He became in great distress and could not pay for the furniture of the apartment, which he had bought on credit. It was now that he turned to writing for musical journals, to keep the wolf from the door, meanwhile working on the score of “Rienzi,” which was finished in November, 1840 and sent to Dresden. In later years it was produced in that city.
But the Wagners, alas, were starving in Paris. One of Richard’s articles at this time was called “The End of a Musician in Paris,” and he makes the poor musician die with the words; “I believe in God–Mozart and Beethoven.” It was almost as bad as this for Wagner himself. He determined to turn his back on all the intrigues and hardships he had endured for over two years, and set out for the homeland, which seemed the only desirable spot on earth.
The rehearsals for “Rienzi” began in Dresden in July 1842. Wagner had now finished “The Flying Dutchman,” and had completed the outline of “Tannhaeuser,” based on Hoffmann’s story of the Singers’ Contest at the Wartburg.
And now Wagner’s star as a composer began to rise and light was seen ahead. On October 20, 1842 “Rienzi” was produced in the Dresden Opera House and the young composer awoke the next morning to find himself famous. The performance was a tremendous success, with singers, public and critics alike. The performance lasted six hours and Wagner, next day, decided the work must be cut in places, but the singers loudly protested: “The work was heavenly,” they assured him, “not a measure could be spared.”
With this first venture Wagner was now on the high road to success, and spent a happy winter in the Saxon capital. He could have gone on writing operas like “Rienzi,” to please the public, but he aimed far higher. To fuse all the arts in one complete whole was the idea that had been forming in his mind. He first illustrated this in “The Flying Dutchman,” and it became the main thought of his later works. This theory made both vocal and instrumental music secondary to the dramatic plan, and this, at that time, seemed a truly revolutionary idea.
“The Flying Dutchman” was produced at the Dresden Opera House January 2. 1843, with Mme. Schroeder-Devrient as Senta. Critics and public had expected a brilliant and imposing spectacle like “Rienzi” and were disappointed. In the following May and June “The Dutchman” was heard in Riga and Cassel, conducted by the famous violinist and composer, Spohr.
In spite of the fact that “The Flying Dutchman” was not then a success, and in Dresden was shelved for twenty years, Wagner secured the fine post of Head Capellmeister, at a salary of nearly twelve hundred dollars. This post he retained for seven years, gaining a great deal of experience in orchestral conducting, and producing Beethoven’s symphonies with great originality, together with much that was best in orchestral literature.
“Tannhaeuser” was now complete, and during the following summer, at Marienbad, sketches for “Lohengrin” and “Die Meistersinger” were made. During the winter, the book being made he began on the music of “Lohengrin.” In March of the exciting year 1848, the music of “Lohengrin” was finished. There was a wide difference in style between that work and “Tannhaeuser.” And already the composer had in mind a new work to be called “The Death of Siegfried.” He wrote to Franz Liszt, with whom he now began to correspond, that within six months he would send him the book of the new work complete. As he worked at the drama, however, it began to spread out before him in a way that he could not condense into one opera, or even two; and thus-it finally grew into the four operas of the “Ring of the Nibelungen.”
It must not be imagined that Wagner had learned the lesson of carefulness in money matters, or that, with partial success he always had plenty for his needs. He had expensive tastes, loved fine clothing and beautiful surroundings. Much money, too, was needed to produce new works; so that in reality, the composer was always in debt. The many letters which passed between Wagner and Liszt, which fill two large volumes, show how Liszt clearly recognized the brilliant genius of his friend, and stood ready to help him over financial difficulties, and how Wagner came to lean more and more on Liszt’s generosity.
Just what part Wagner played in the revolution of 1848 is not quite clear. He wrote several articles which were radical protests for freedom of thought. At all events he learned it would be better for him to leave Dresden in time. In fact he remained in exile from his country for over eleven years.
Wagner fled to Switzerland, leaving Minna still in Dresden, though in due time he succeeded in scraping together funds for her to follow him to Zurich. He was full of plans for composing “Siegfried,” while she continually urged him to write pleasing operas that Paris would like. Wagner believed the world should take care of him while he was composing his great works, whereas Minna saw this course meant living on the charity of friends, and at this she rebelled. But Wagner grew discouraged over these petty trials, and for five years creative work was at a standstill.
How to meet daily necessities was the all absorbing question. A kind friend, who greatly admired his music, Otto Wesendonck, made it possible for him to rent, at a low price, a pretty chalet near Lake Zurich, and there he and Minna lived in retirement, and here he wrote many articles explaining his theories.
During the early years at Zurich Wagner’s only musical activity was conducting a few orchestral concerts. Then, one day, he took out the score of his “Lohengrin,” and read it, something he rarely did with any of his works. Seized with a deep desire to have this opera brought out, he sent a pleading letter to Liszt, begging him to produce the work. Liszt faithfully accomplished this task at Weimar, where he was conducting the Court Opera. The date chosen was Goethe’s birthday, August 28, and the year 1850. Wagner was most anxious to be present, but the risk of arrest prevented him from venturing on German soil. It was not till 1861, in Vienna, that the composer heard this the most popular of all his operas. Liszt was profoundly moved by the beautiful work, and wrote his enthusiasm to the composer.
Wagner now took up his plan of the Nibelung Trilogy, that is the three operas and a prologue. Early in 1853 the poem in its new form was complete, and in February he sent a copy to Liszt, who answered: “You are truly a wonderful man, and your Nibelung poem is surely the most incredible thing you have ever done!”
So Wagner was impelled by the inner flame of creative fire, to work incessantly on the music of the great epic he had planned. And work he must, in spite of grinding poverty and ill health. It was indeed to be the “Music of the Future.”
After a brief visit to London, to conduct some concerts for the London Philharmonic, Wagner was back again in Zurich, hard at work on the “Walkuere,” the first opera of the three, as the “Rheingold” was considered the introduction. By April 1856, the whole opera was finished and sent to Liszt for his opinion. Liszt and his great friend, Countess Wittgenstein, studied out the work together, and both wrote glowing letters to the composer of the deep effect his music made upon them.
And now came a halt in the composition of these tremendous music dramas. Wagner realized that to produce such great works, a special theater should be built, of adaptable design. But from where would the funds be forthcoming? While at work on the “Walkuere,” the stories of “Tristan” and “Parsifal” had suggested themselves, and the plan of the first was already sketched. He wrote to Liszt: “As I have never in life felt the bliss of real love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams.” The first act of “Tristan and Isolde” was finished on the last day of the year 1857. In his retreat in Switzerland, the composer longed for sympathetic, intellectual companionship, which, alas, Minna could not give him. He found it in the society of Marie Wesendonck, wife of the kind friend and music lover, who had aided him in many ways. This marked attention to another aroused Minna’s jealousy and an open break was imminent. The storm, however, blew over for a time.
In June, 1858, Wagner was seized with a desire for luxury and quiet, and betook himself to Venice, where he wrote the second act of “Tristan.” Then came the trouble between Wagner and the Wesendoncks which caused the composer to leave Zurich finally, on August 17, 1859. Minna returned to Dresden while Wagner went to Paris, where Minna joined him for a time, before the last break came.
What promised to be a wonderful stroke of good luck came to him here. His art was brought to the notice of the Emperor, Napoleon III, who requested that one of his operas should be produced, promising carte blanche for funds. All might have gone well with music of the accepted pattern. But “Tannhaeuser” was different, its composer particular as to who sang and how it was done. The rehearsals went badly, an opposing faction tried to drown the music at the first performance. Matters were so much worse at the second performance that Wagner refused to allow it to proceed. In spite of the Emperor’s promises, he had borne much of the expense, and left Paris in disgust, burdened with debt.
From Paris Wagner went to Vienna, where he had the great happiness of hearing his “Lohengrin” for the first time. He hoped to have “Tristan” brought out, but the music proved too difficult for the singers of that time to learn. After many delays and disappointments, the whole thing was given up. Reduced now to the lowest ebb, Wagner planned a concert tour to earn a living. Minna now left him finally; she could no longer endure life with this “monster of genius.” She went back to her relatives in Leipsic, and passed away there in 1866.
The concert tours extended over a couple of years, but brought few returns, except in Russia. Wagner became despondent and almost convinced he ought to give up trying to be a composer. People called him a freak, a madman and ridiculed his efforts at music making. And yet, during all this troublesome time, he was at work on his one humorous opera, “Die Meistersinger.” On this he toiled incessantly.
And now, when he was in dire need, and suffering, a marvelous boon was coming to him, as wonderful as any to be found in fairy tale. A fairy Prince was coming to the rescue of this struggling genius. This Prince was the young monarch of Bavaria, who had just succeeded to the throne left by the passing of his father. The youthful Prince, ardent and generous, had long worshiped in secret the master and his music. One of his first acts on becoming Ludwig of Bavaria, was to send for Wagner to come to his capital at once and finish his life work in peace. “He wants me to be with him always, to work, to rest, to produce my works,” wrote Wagner to a friend in Zurich, where he had been staying. “He will give me everything I need; I am to finish my Nibelungen and he will have them performed as I wish. All troubles are to be taken from me; I shall have what I need, if I only stay with him.”
The King placed a pretty villa on Lake Starnberg, near Munich, at Wagner’s disposal, and there he spent the summer of 1864. The King’s summer palace was quite near, and monarch and composer were much together. In the autumn a residence in the quiet part of Munich was set apart for Wagner. Hans von Buelow was sent for as one of the conductors; young Hans Richter lived in Munich and later became one of the most distinguished conductors of Wagner’s music.
The Buelows arrived in Munich in the early autumn, and almost at once began the attraction of Mme. Cosima von Buelow and Wagner. She, the daughter of Liszt, was but twenty five, of deeply artistic temperament, and could understand the aims of the composer as no other woman had yet done. This ardent attraction led later to Cosima’s separation from her husband and finally to her marriage with Wagner.
The first of the Wagner Festivals under patronage of the King, took place in Munich June 10, 13, 19, and July 1, 1865. The work was “Tristan and Isolde,” perhaps the finest flower of Wagner’s genius, and already eight years old. Von Buelow was a superb conductor and Ludwig an inspired Tristan. Wagner was supremely happy. Alas, such happiness did not last. Enemies sprang up all about him. The King himself could not stem the tide of false rumors, and besought the composer to leave Munich for a while, till public opinion calmed down. So Wagner returned to his favorite Switzerland and settled in Triebschen, near Lucerne, where he remained till he removed to Bayreuth in 1872.
In 1866, the feeling against Wagner had somewhat declined and the King decided to have model performances of “Tannhaeuser” and “Lohengrin” at Munich. The Festival began June 11, 1867. The following year “Die Meistersinger” was performed–June 21, 1868.
And now the King was eager to hear the “Ring.” It was not yet complete but the monarch could not wait and ordered “Das Rheingold,” the Introduction to the Trilogy, to be prepared. It was poorly given and was not a success. Not at all discouraged, he wished for “Die Walkuere,” which was performed the following year, June 26, 1870.
It had long been Wagner’s desire to have a theater built, in which his creations could be properly given under his direction. Bayreuth had been chosen, as a quiet spot where music lovers could come for the sole purpose of hearing the music. He went to live there with his family in April, 1872. Two years later they moved into Villa Wahnfried, which had been built according to the composer’s ideas. Meanwhile funds were being raised on both sides of the water, through the Wagner Societies, to erect the Festival Theater. The corner stone was laid on Wagner’s birthday–his fifty-ninth–May 22, 1872. It was planned to give the first performances in the summer of 1876; by that time Wagner’s longed-for project became a reality.
The long-expected event took place in August, 1876. The Festival opened on the thirteenth with “Das Rheingold,” first of the Ring music dramas. On the following night “Die Walkuere” was heard; then came “Siegfried” and “Goetterdaemmerung,” the third and fourth dramas being heard for the first time. Thus the Ring of the Nibelungen, on which the composer had labored for a quarter of a century at last found a hearing, listened to by Kings and Potentates, besides a most distinguished audience of musicians from all parts of the world.
At last one of Wagner’s dreams was realized and his new gospel of art vindicated.
One music drama remained to be written–his last. Failing health prevented the completion of the drama until 1882. The first performance of this noble work was given on July 26, followed by fifteen other hearings. After the exertions attending these, Wagner and his wife, their son Siegfried, Liszt and other friends, went to Italy and occupied the Vendramin Palace, on the Grand Canal, Venice. Here he lived quietly and comfortably, surrounded by those he loved. His health failed more and more, the end coming February 13, 1883.
Thus passed from sight one of the most astonishing musicians of all time. He lives in his music more vitally than when his bodily presence was on earth, since the world becomes more familiar with his music as time goes on. And to know this music is to admire and love it.
XVII
CESAR FRANCK
Whatever we learn of Cesar Franck endears him to all who would know and appreciate the beautiful character which shines through his art. He was always kind, loving, tender, and these qualities are felt in the music he composed. Some day we shall know his music better. It has been said of this unique composer: “Franck is enamored of gentleness and consolation; his music rolls into the soul in long waves, as on the slack of a moonlit tide. It is tenderness itself.”
In Liege, Belgium, it was that Cesar Franck was born, December 10, 1822. Chopin had come a dozen years earlier, so had Schumann, Liszt and other gifted ones; it was a time of musical awakening.
The country about Liege was peculiarly French, not only in outward appearance, but in language and sentiment. Here were low hills covered with pines and beeches, here charming valleys; there wide plains where the flowering broom flourished in profusion. It was the Walloon country, and the Francks claimed descent from a family of early Walloon painters of the same name. The earliest of these painters was Jerome Franck, born away back in 1540. Thus the name Franck had stood for art ideals during a period of more than two and a half centuries.
When Cesar and his brother were small children, the father, a man of stern and autocratic nature–a banker, with many friends in the artistic and musical world–decided to make both his sons professional musicians.
His will had to be obeyed, there was no help for it. In the case of Cesar, however, a musician was what he most desired to become, so that music study was always a delight.
Before he was quite eleven years old, his father took him on a tour of Belgium. It looked then as though he had started on a virtuoso career, as the wonder children–Mozart, Chopin, Thalberg, Liszt and others who had preceded him, had done. The future proved, however, that Cesar’s life work was to be composing, teaching and organ playing, with a quiet life, even in busy Paris, instead of touring the world to make known his gifts.
During this youthful tour of Belgium, he met a child artist, a year or two older than himself, a singer, also touring as a virtuoso. The little girl was called Pauline Garcia, who later became famous as Mme. Pauline Viardot Garcia.
When Cesar was twelve he had learned what they could teach him at the Liege Conservatory, and finished his studies there. His father, ambitious for the musical success of his sons, emigrated with his family to Paris, in 1836. Cesar applied for entrance to the Conservatoire, but it was not until the following year, 1837, that he gained admission, joining Leborne’s class in composition, and becoming Zimmermann’s pupil in piano playing. At the end of the year the boy won a prize for a fugue he had written. In piano he chose Hummel’s Concerto in A minor for his test, and played it off in fine style. When it came to sight reading, he suddenly elected to transpose the piece selected a third below the key in which it was written, which he was able to do at sight, without any hesitation or slip.
Such a feat was unheard of and quite against the time-honored rules of competition. And to think it had been performed by an audacious slip of a boy of fifteen! The aged Director, none other than Maestro Cherubini, was shocked out of the even tenor of his way, and declared that a first prize could not be awarded, although he must have realized the lad deserved it. To make amends, however, he proposed a special award to the audacious young pianist, outside the regular competition, to be known as “The Grand Prize of Honor.” This was the first time, and so far as is known, the only time such a prize has been awarded.
Cesar Franck won his second prize for fugue composition in 1839. Fugue writing had become so natural and easy for him, that he was able to finish his task in a fraction of the time allotted by the examiners. When he returned home several hours before the other students had finished, his father reproached him roundly for not spending more time on the test upon which so much depended. With his quiet smile the boy answered he thought the result would be all right. And it was! The next year he again secured the first prize for fugue; this was in July 1840. The year following he entered the organ contest, which was a surprise to the examiners.
The tests for organ prizes have always been four. First, the accompaniment of a plain chant, chosen for the occasion; second, the performance of an organ piece with pedals; third, the improvising of a fugue; fourth, improvising a piece in sonata form. Both the improvisations to be on themes set by the examiners. Cesar at once noticed that the two themes could be combined in such a way that one would set off the other. He set to work, and soon became so absorbed in this interweaving of melodies that the improvisation extended to unaccustomed lengths, which bewildered the examiners and they decided to award nothing to such a tiresome boy. Benoist, teacher of this ingenious pupil, explained matters with the result that Cesar was awarded a second prize for organ.
He now began to prepare for the highest honor, the Prix de Rome. But here parental authority interfered. For some unexplained reason, his father compelled him to leave the Conservatoire before the year was up. It may have been the father desired to see his son become a famous virtuoso pianist and follow the career of Thalberg and Liszt. At any rate he insisted his boy should make the most of his talents as a performer and should also compose certain pieces suitable for public playing. To this period of his life belong many of the compositions for piano solo, the showy caprices, fantaisies and transcriptions. Being obliged to write this kind of music, the young composer sought for new forms in fingering and novel harmonic effects, even in his most insignificant productions. Thus among the early piano works, the Eclogue, Op. 3, and the Ballade, Op. 9, are to be found innovations which should attract the pianist and musician of to-day.
His very first compositions, a set of three Trios, Op. 1, were composed while he was still at the Conservatoire, and his father wished them dedicated “To His Majesty, Leopold I, King of the Belgians.” He wished to secure an audience with the King and have his son present the composition to his Majesty in person. It may have been for this reason he withdrew the boy so suddenly from the Conservatoire. However this may have been, the Franck family returned to Belgium for two years. At the end of that time, they all returned to Paris, with almost no other resources than those earned by the two young sons, Josef and Cesar, by private teaching and concert engagements.
And now began for Cesar Franck that life of regular and tireless industry, which lasted nearly half a century. This industry was expressed in lesson-giving and composing.
One of the first works written after his return to Paris, was a musical setting to the Biblical story of “Ruth.” The work was given in the concert room of the Conservatoire, on January 4, 1846, when the youthful composer was twenty-three. The majority of the critics found little to praise in the music, which, they said, was but a poor imitation of “Le Desert,” by David. One critic, more kindly disposed than the others, said: “M. Cesar Franck is exceedingly naive, and this simplicity we must confess, has served him well in the composition of his sacred oratorio of ‘Ruth.'” A quarter of a century later, a second performance of “Ruth” was given, and the same critic wrote: “It is a revelation! This score, which recalls by its charm and melodic simplicity Mehul’s ‘Joseph,’ but with more tenderness and modern feeling, is certainly a masterpiece.”
But alas, hard times came upon the Franck family. The rich pupils, who formed the young men’s chief clientele, all left Paris, alarmed by the forebodings of the revolution of 1848. Just at this most inopportune moment, Cesar decided to marry. He had been in love for some time with a young actress, the daughter of a well-known tragedienne, Madame Desmousseaux, and did not hesitate to marry in the face of bad times and the opposition of his parents, who strongly objected to his bringing a theatrical person into the family.
Cesar Franck was then organist in the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, and the marriage took place there, February 22, 1848, in the very thick of the revolution. Indeed, to reach the church, the wedding party were obliged to climb a barricade, helped over by the insurgents, who were massed behind this particular fortification.
Soon after the wedding, Franck, having now lost his pupils–or most of them–and being continually blamed by his father, whom he could no longer supply with funds, decided to leave the parental roof and set up for himself in a home of his own. Of course he had now to work twice as hard, get new pupils and give many more lessons. But with all this extra labor, he made a resolve, which he always kept sacredly, which was to reserve an hour or two each day for composition, or for the study of such musical and literary works as would improve and elevate his mind. Nothing was ever allowed to interfere with this resolution, and to it we owe all his great works.
Franck made his first attempt at a dramatic work in 1851, with a libretto entitled “The Farmer’s Man.” As he must keep constantly at his teaching during the day, he devoted the greater part of the night to composition. He worked so hard that the opera, begun in December 1851, was finished in two years, but he paid dearly for all this extra labor. He fell ill–a state of nervous prostration–and was unable for some time to compose at all.
It was indeed a time of shadows for the young musician, but the skies brightened after a while. He had the great good fortune to secure the post of organist and choir master in the fine new basilica of Sainte Clothilde, which had lately been erected, and which had an organ that was indeed a masterpiece. This wonderful instrument kept all its fulness of tone and freshness of timbre after fifty years of use. “If you only knew how I love this instrument,” Father Franck used to say to the cure of Sainte Clothilde; “it is so supple beneath my fingers and so obedient to all my thoughts.”
As Vincent d’Indy, one of Franck’s most gifted and famous pupils, writes:
“Here, in the dusk of this organ-loft, which I can never think of without emotion, he spent the best part of his life. Here he came every Sunday and feast day–and toward the end of his life, every Friday morning too, fanning the fire of his genius by pouring out his spirit in wonderful improvisations, which were often far more lofty in thought than many skilfully elaborated compositions. And here, too, he must have conceived the sublime melodies which afterward formed the groundwork of his ‘Beatitudes.'”
“Ah, we knew it well, we who were his pupils, the way up to that thrice-blessed organ loft, a way as steep and difficult as that which the Gospels tell us leads to Paradise. But when we at last reached the little organ chamber, all was forgotten in the contemplation of that rapt profile, the intellectual brow, from which seemed to flow without effort a stream of inspired melody and subtle, exquisite harmonies.”
Cesar Franck was truly the genius of improvisation. It is said no other modern organist, not excepting the most renowned players, could hold any comparison to him in this respect. Whether he played for the service, for his pupils or for some chosen musical guest, Franck’s improvisations were always thoughtful and full of feeling. It was a matter of conscience to do his best always. “And his best was a sane, noble, sublime art.”
For the next ten years Franck worked and lived the quiet life of a teacher and organist; his compositions during this time were organ pieces and church music. But a richer inner life was the outgrowth of this period of calm, which was to blossom into new, deeper and more profoundly beautiful compositions.
One of these new works was “The Beatitudes.” For years he had had the longing to compose a religious work on the Sermon on the Mount. In 1869, he set to work on the poem, and when that was well under way, began to create, with great ardor, the musical setting.
In the very midst of this absorbing work came the Franco-Prussian war, and many of his pupils must enter the conflict, in one way or another. Then early in 1872, he was appointed Professor of Organ at the Conservatoire, which was an honor he appreciated.
The same year, while occupied with the composition of the “Beatitudes,” he wrote and completed his “Oratorio of the Redemption.” After this he devoted six years to the finishing of the “Beatitudes,” which occupied ten years of his activity, as it was completed in 1879. A tardy recognition of his genius by the Government granted him the purple ribbon as officer of the Academy, while not until five or six years later did he receive the ribbon of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
In consequence of this event his pupils and friends raised a fund to cover expenses of a concert devoted entirely to the master’s compositions. These works were given–conducted by Pasdeloup: Symphonic Poem–“Le Chasseur Maudit,” Symphonic Variations, piano and orchestra, Second Part of “Ruth.” Part II was conducted by the composer and consisted of March and Air de Ballet, with chorus, from “Hulda” and the Third and Eighth Beatitudes.
The Franck Festival occurred January 30, 1887, and was not a very inspiring performance. The artist pupils of the master voiced to him their disappointment that his works should not have been more worthily performed. But he only smiled on them and comforted them with the words: “No, no, you are too exacting, dear boys; for my part I am quite satisfied.”
No wonder his pupils called him “Father Franck,” for he was ever kind, sympathetic and tender with them all.
During the later years of Cesar Franck’s earthly existence, he produced several masterpieces. Among them the Violin Sonata, composed for Eugene and Theophile Ysaye, the D minor Symphony, the String Quartet, the two remarkable piano pieces, Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, Prelude, Aria and Finale, and finally the Three Chorales for organ, his swan song. His health gradually declined, due to overwork and an accident, and he passed quietly away, November 8, 1890.
Chabrier, who only survived Franck a few years, ended his touching remarks at the grave with these words:
“Farewell, master, and take our thanks, for you have done well. In you we salute one of the greatest artists of the century, the incomparable teacher, whose wonderful work has produced a whole generation of forceful musicians and thinkers, armed at all points for hard-fought and prolonged conflicts. We salute, also, the upright and just man, so humane, so distinguished, whose counsel was sure, as his words were kind. Farewell!”
XVIII
JOHANNES BRAHMS
It has been truly said that great composers cannot be compared one with another. Each is a solitary star, revolving in his own orbit. For instance it is impossible to compare Wagner and Brahms; the former could not have written the German Requiem or the four Symphonies any more than Brahms could have composed “Tristan.” In the combination of arts which Wagner fused into a stupendous whole, he stands without a rival. But Brahms is also a mighty composer in his line of effort, for he created music that continually grows in beauty as it is better known.
Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, May 7, 1833. The house at 60 Speckstrasse still stands, and doubtless looks much as it did seventy years ago. A locality of dark, narrow streets with houses tall and gabled and holding as many families as possible. Number 60 stands in a dismal court, entered by a close narrow passage. A steep wooden staircase in the center, used to have gates, closed at night. Jakob and Johanna lived in the first floor dwelling to the left. It consisted of a sort of lobby or half kitchen, a small living room and a tiny sleeping closet–nothing else. In this and other small tenements like it, the boy’s early years were spent. It certainly was an ideal case of low living and high thinking.
The Brahms family were musical but very poor in this world’s goods. The father was a contra bass player in the theater; he often had to play in dance halls and beer gardens, indeed where he could. Later he became a member of the band that gave nightly concerts at the Alster Pavillion. The mother, much older than her husband, tried to help out the family finances by keeping a little shop where needles and thread were sold.
Little Johannes, or Hannes as he was called, was surrounded from his earliest years by a musical atmosphere, and must have shown a great desire to study music. We learn that his father took him to Otto Cossel, to arrange for piano lessons. Hannes was seven years old, pale and delicate looking, fair, with blue eyes and a mass of flaxen hair. The father said:
“Herr Cossel, I wish my son to become your pupil; he wants so much to learn the piano. When he can play as well as you do it will be enough.”
Hannes was docile, eager and quick to learn. He had a wonderful memory and made rapid progress. In three years a concert was arranged for him, at which he played in chamber music with several other musicians of Hamburg. The concert was both a financial and artistic success. Not long after this, Cossel induced Edward Marxsen, a distinguished master and his own teacher, to take full charge of the lad’s further musical training. Hannes was about twelve at the time.
Marxsen’s interest in the boy’s progress increased from week to week, as he realized his talents. “One day I gave him a composition of Weber’s,” he says. “The next week he played it to me so blamelessly that I praised him. ‘I have also practised it in another way,’ he answered, and played me the right hand part with the left hand.” Part of the work of the lessons was to transpose long pieces at sight; later on Bach’s Preludes and Fugues were done in the same way.
Jakob Brahms, who as we have seen was in very poor circumstances, was ready to exploit Hannes’ gift whenever occasion offered. He had the boy play in the band concerts in the Alster Pavillion, which are among the daily events of the city’s popular life, as all know who are acquainted with Hamburg, and his shillings earned in this and similar ways, helped out the family’s scanty means. But late hours began to tell on the boy’s health. His father begged a friend of his, a wealthy patron of music, to take the lad to his summer home, in return for which he would play the piano at any time of day desired and give music lessons to the young daughter of the family, a girl of about his own age.
Thus it came about that early in May, 1845, Hannes had his first taste of the delights of the country. He had provided himself with a small dumb keyboard, to exercise his fingers upon. Every morning, after he had done what was necessary in the house, Hannes was sent afield by the kind mistress of the household, and told not to show himself till dinner time. Perhaps the good mistress did not know that Hannes had enjoyed himself out of doors hours before. He used to rise at four o’clock and begin his day with a bath in the river. Shortly after this the little girl, Lischen, would join him and they would spend a couple of hours rambling about, looking for bird’s nests, hunting butterflies and picking wild flowers. Hannes’ pale cheeks soon became plump and ruddy, as the result of fresh air and country food. Musical work went right on as usual. Studies in theory and composition, begun with Marxsen, were pursued regularly in the fields and woods all summer.
When the summer was over and all were back in Hamburg again, Lischen used to come sometimes to Frau Brahms, of whom she soon grew very fond. But it troubled her tender heart to see the poor little flat so dark and dreary; for even the living room had but one small window, looking into the cheerless courtyard. She felt very sorry for her friends, and proposed to Hannes they should bring some scarlet runners to be planted in the court. He fell in with the idea at once and it was soon carried out. But alas, when the children had done their part, the plants refused to grow.
Johannes had returned home much improved in health, and able to play in several small concerts, where his efforts commanded attention. The winter passed uneventfully, filled with severe study by day and equally hard labor at night in playing for the “lokals.” But the next summer in Winsen brought the country and happiness once more.
Hannes began to be known as a musician among the best families of Winsen, and often played in their homes. He also had the chance to conduct a small chorus of women’s voices, called the Choral Society of Winsen. He was expected to turn his theoretical studies to account by composing something for this choir. It was for them he produced his “A B C” song for four parts, using the letters of the alphabet. The composition ended with the words “Winsen, eighteen-hundred seven and forty,” sung slowly and fortissimo. The little piece was tuneful and was a great favorite with the teachers, from that day to this.
The boy had never heard an opera. During the summer, when Carl Formes, then of Vienna, was making a sensation in Hamburg, Lischen got her father to secure places and take them. The opera was the “Marriage of Figaro.” Hannes was almost beside himself with delight. “Lischen, listen to the music! there was never anything like it,” he cried over and over again. The father, seeing it gave so much pleasure, took the children again to hear another opera, to their great delight.
But the happy summer came to an end and sadness fell, to think Johannes must leave them, for he had found many kind friends in Winsen. He was over fifteen now and well knew he must make his way as a musician, help support the family, and pay for the education of his brother Fritz, who was to become a pianist and teacher. There was a farewell party made for him in Winsen, at which there was much music, speech making and good wishes for his future success and for his return to Winsen whenever he could.
Johannes made his new start by giving a concert of his own on September 21, 1848. The tickets for this concert were one mark; he had the assistance of some Hamburg musicians. In April next, 1849, he announced a second concert, for which the tickets were two marks. At this he played the Beethoven “Waldstein Sonata,” and the brilliant “Don Juan Fantaisie.” These two works were considered about the top of piano virtuosity. Meanwhile the boy was always composing and still with his teacher Marxsen.
The political revolution of 1848, was the cause of many refugees crowding into Hamburg on their way to America. One of these was the violinist, Edward Remenyi, a German Hungarian Jew, whose real name was Hofmann. But it seemed Remenyi was really in no haste to leave Hamburg. Johannes, engaged as accompanist at the house of a wealthy patron, met the violinist and was fascinated by his rendering of national Hungarian music. Remenyi, on his side, saw the advantage of having such an accompanist for his own use. So it happened the two played together frequently for a time, until the violinist disappeared from Germany, for several years. He reappeared in Hamburg at the close of the year 1852. He was then twenty-two, while Brahms was nineteen. It was suggested that the two musicians should do a little concert work together. They began to plan out the trip which became quite a tour by the time they had included all the places they wished to visit.
The tour began at Winsen, then came Cella. Here a curious thing happened. The piano proved to be a half tone below pitch, but Brahms was equal to the dilemma. Requesting Remenyi to tune his violin a half tone higher, making it a whole tone above the piano, he then, at sight, transposed the Beethoven Sonata they were to play. It was really a great feat, but Johannes performed it as though it were an every day affair.
The next place was Luneburg and there the young musician had such success that a second concert was at once announced. Two were next given at Hildesheim. Then came Leipsic, Hanover and after that Weimer, where Franz Liszt and his retinue of famous pupils held court. Here Johannes became acquainted with Raff, Klindworth, Mason, Pruekner and other well-known musicians.
By this time his relations with Remenyi had become somewhat irksome and strained and he decided to break off this connection. One morning he suddenly left Weimar, and traveled to Goettingen. There he met Joseph Joachim, whom he had long wished to know, and who was the reigning violinist of his time. Without any announcement, Johannes walked in on the great artist, and they became fast friends almost at once. Joachim had never known what it was to struggle; he had had success from the very start; life had been one long triumph, whereas Johannes had come from obscurity and had been reared in privation. At this time Johannes was a fresh faced boy, with long fair hair and deep earnest blue eyes. Wuellner, the distinguished musician of Cologne, thus describes him: “Brahms, at twenty, was a slender youth, with long blond hair and a veritable St. John’s head, from whose eyes shone energy and spirit.”
Johannes was at this time deeply engaged on his piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5. He had already written two other piano sonatas, as yet little known. The Op. 5, is now constantly heard in concert rooms, played by the greatest artists of our time.
In disposition Hannes was kindly and sincere; as a youth merry and gay. A friend in Duesseldorf, where he now spent four weeks, thus describes him:
“He was a most unusual looking young musician, hardly more than a boy, in his short summer coat, with his high-pitched voice and long fair hair. Especially fine was his energetic, characteristic mouth, and his earnest, deep gaze. His constitution was thoroughly healthy; the most strenuous mental exercise hardly fatigued him and he could go to sleep at any hour of the day he pleased. He was apt to be full of pranks, too. At the piano he dominated by his characteristic, powerful, and when necessary, extraordinarily tender playing.” Schumann, whom he now came to know in Duesseldorf, called him the “young eagle–one of the elect.” In fact Schumann, in his musical journal, praised the young musician most highly. And his kindness did not stop there. He wrote to Hannes’ father, Jakob Brahms, in Hamburg, commending in glowing terms his son’s compositions. This letter was sent to Johannes and the result was the offering of some of his compositions to Breitkopf and Haertel for publication. He had already written two Sonatas, a Scherzo, and a Sonata for piano and violin. The Sonata in C, now known as Op. I, although not his first work, was the one in which he introduced himself to the public. For, as he said: “When one first shows one’s self, it is to the head and not to the heels that one wishes to draw attention.”
Johannes made his first appearance in Leipsic, as pianist and composer, at one of the David Quartet Concerts, at which he played his C major Sonata and the Scherzo. His success was immediate, and as a result, he was able to secure a second publisher for his Sonata Op. 5.
And now, after months of traveling, playing in many towns and meeting with many musicians and distinguished people, Johannes turned his steps toward Hamburg, and was soon in the bosom of the home circle. It is easy to imagine the mother’s joy, for Hannes had always been the apple of her eye, and she had kept her promise faithfully, to write him a letter every week. But who shall measure the father’s pride and satisfaction to have his boy return a real musical hero?
The concert journey just completed was the bridge over which Johannes Brahms passed from youth to manhood. With the opening year of 1854, he may be said to enter the portals of a new life.
He now betook himself to Hanover, to be near his devoted friend Joachim, plunged into work and was soon absorbed in the composition of his B major Piano Trio. Later Schumann and his charming wife, the pianist, came to Hanover for a week’s visit, which was the occasion for several concerts in which Brahms, Joachim and Clara Schumann took part. Soon after this Schumann’s health failed and he was removed to a sanatorium. In sympathy for the heavy trial now to be borne by Clara Schumann, both young artists came to Duesseldorf, to be near the wife of their adored master, Robert Schumann. There they remained and by their encouragement so lifted the spirits of Frau Clara that she was able to resume her musical activities.
Johann had been doing some piano teaching when not occupied with composition. But now, on the advice of his musical friends, he decided to try his luck again as a concert pianist. He began by joining Frau Clara and Joachim in a concert at Danzig. Each played solos. Johann’s were Bach’s “Chromatic Fantaisie” and several manuscript pieces of his own. After this the young artist went his own way. He played with success in Bremen, also in Hamburg. It is said he was always nervous before playing, but especially so in his home city. However all passed off well. He now settled definitely in Hamburg, making musical trips to other places when necessary.
Robert Schumann rallied for a while from his severe malady, and hopes were held out of his final recovery. Frau Clara, having her little family to support, resumed her concert playing in good earnest, and appeared with triumphant success in Vienna, London and many other cities. When possible Brahms and Joachim accompanied her. Then Schumann’s malady took an unfavorable turn. When the end was near, Brahms and Frau Clara went to Endenich and were with the master till all was over. On July 31, 1856, a balmy summer evening, the mortal remains of the great composer were laid to rest in the little cemetery at Bonn, on the Rhine. The three chief mourners were: Brahms–who carried a laurel wreath from the wife–Joachim and Dietrich.
Frau Schumann returned to Duesseldorf the next day, accompanied by Brahms and Joachim. Together they set in order the papers left by the composer, and assisted the widow in many little ways. A little later she went to Switzerland to recover her strength, accompanied by Brahms and his sister Elise. A number of weeks were spent in rest and recuperation. By October the three musicians were ready to take up their ordinary routine again. Frau Clara began practising for her concert season, Joachim returned to his post in Hanover, and Johann turned his face toward Hamburg, giving some concerts on the way, in which he achieved pronounced success.
The season of 1856-7, was passed uneventfully by Brahms, in composing, teaching and occasional journeys. He may be said to have had four homes, besides that of his parents in Hamburg. In Duesseldorf, Hanover, Goettingen and Bonn he had many friends and was always welcome.
It may be asked why Brahms, who had the faculty of endearing himself so warmly to his friends, never married. It is true he sometimes desired to found a home of his own, but in reality the mistress of his absorbing passion was his art, to which everything else remained secondary. He never swerved a hair’s breadth from this devotion to creative art, but accepted poverty, disappointment, loneliness and often failure in the eyes of the world, for the sake of this, his true love.
Johannes was now engaged as conductor of a Choral Society in Detmold, also as Court Pianist and teacher in the royal family. The post carried with it free rooms and living, and he was lodged at the Hotel Stadt Frankfort, a comfortable inn, exactly opposite the Castle, and thus close to the scene of his new labors.
He began his duties by going through many short choral works of the older and modern masters. With other musicians at Court much chamber music was played, in fact almost the entire repertoire. The young musician soon became a favorite at Court, not only on account of his musical genius but also because of the general culture of his mind. He could talk on almost any subject. “Whoever wishes to play well must not only practise a great deal but read many books,” was one of his favorite sayings. One of his friends said, of meetings in Brahms’ rooms at night, when his boon companions reveled in music: “And how Brahms loved the great masters! How he played Haydn and Mozart! With what beauty of interpretation and delicate shading of tone. And then his transposing!” Indeed Johann thought nothing of taking up a new composition and playing it in _any_ key, without a mistake. His score reading was marvelous. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, all seemed to flow naturally from under his fingers.
The post in Detmold only required Brahms’ presence a part of the year, but he was engaged for a term of years. The other half of the year was spent in Hamburg, where he resumed his activities of composing and teaching. The summer after his first winter in Detmold was spent in Goettingen with warm friends. Clara Schumann was there with her children, and Johann was always one of the family–as a son to her. He was a famous playfellow for the children, too. About this time he wrote a book of charming Children’s Folk Songs, dedicated to the children of Robert and Clara Schumann. Johann was occupied with his Piano Concerto in D minor. His method of working was somewhat like Beethoven’s, as he put down his ideas in notebooks. Later on he formed the habit of keeping several compositions going at once.
The prelude to Johann’s artistic life was successfully completed. Then came a period of quiet study and inward growth. A deeper activity was to succeed. It opened early in the year 1859, when the young musician traveled to Hanover and Leipsic, bringing out his Concerto in D minor. He performed it in the first named city, while Joachim conducted the orchestra. It was said the work “with all its serious striving, its rejection of the trivial, its skilled instrumentation, seemed difficult to understand; but the pianist was considered not merely a virtuoso but a great artist of piano playing.”
The composer had now to hurry to Leipsic, as he was to play with the famous Gewandhaus orchestra. How would Leipsic behave towards this new and serious music? Johann was a dreamer, inexperienced in the ways of the world; he was an idealist–in short, a genius gifted with an “imagination, profound, original and romantic.” The day after the concert he wrote Joachim he had made a brilliant and decided failure. However he was not a whit discouraged by the apathy of the Leipsigers toward his new work. He wrote: “The Concerto will please some day, when I have made some improvements, and a second shall sound quite different.”
It has taken more than half a century to establish the favor of the Concerto, which still continues on upward wing. The writer heard the composer play this Concerto in Berlin, toward the end of his life. He made an unforgettable figure, as he sat at the piano with his long hair and beard, turning to gray; and while his technic was not of the virtuoso type, he created a powerful impression by his vivid interpretation.
After these early performances of the Concerto, Johann returned to Hamburg, to his composing and teaching. He, however, played the Concerto in his native city on a distinguished occasion, when Joachim was a soloist in Spohr’s Gesang-Scene, Stockhausen in a magnificent Aria, and then Johann, pale, blond, slight, but calm and self controlled. The Concerto scored a considerable success at last, and the young composer was content.
In the autumn of this year, Johann paid his third visit to Detmold, and found himself socially as well as musically the fashion. It was the correct thing to have lessons from him and his presence gave distinction to any assemblage. But Johann did not wish to waste his time at social functions; when obliged to be present at some of these events he would remain silent the entire evening, or else say sharp or biting things, making the hosts regret they had asked him. His relations with the Court family, however, remained very pleasant. Yet he began to chafe under the constant demands on his time, and the rigid etiquette of the little Court. The next season he definitely declined the invitation to revisit Detmold, the reason given was that he had not the time, as he was supervising the publication of a number of his works. Brahms had become interested in writing for the voice, and had already composed any number of beautiful vocal solos and part songs.
We are told that Frau Schumann, Joachim and Stockhausen came frequently to Hamburg during the season of 1861, and all three made much of Johannes. All four gave concerts together, and Johannes took part in a performance of Schumann’s beautiful Andante and Variations, for two pianos, while Stockhausen sang entrancingly Beethoven’s Love Songs, accompanied by Brahms. On one occasion Brahms played his Variations on a Handel Theme, “another magnificent work, splendidly long, the stream of ideas flowing inexhaustibly. And the work was wonderfully played by the composer; it seemed like a miracle. The composition is so difficult that none but a great artist can attempt it.” So wrote a listener at the time. That was in 1861. We know this wonderful work in these days, for all the present time artists perform it. At each of Frau Schumann’s three appearances in Hamburg during the autumn of this year, she performed one of Brahms’ larger compositions; one of them was the Handel Variations.
Although one time out of ten Johann might be taciturn or sharp, the other nine he would be agreeable, always pleased–good humored, satisfied, like a child with children. Every one liked his earnest nature, his gaiety and humor.
Johann had had a great longing to see Vienna, the home of so many great musicians; but felt that when the right time came, the way would open. And it did. Early in September, 1862, he wrote a friend: “I am leaving on Monday, the eighth, for Vienna. I look forward to it like a child.”
He felt at home in Vienna from the start, and very soon met the leading lights of the Austrian capital. On November 16, he gave his first concert, with the Helmesberger Quartet, and before a crowded house. It was a real success for “Schumann’s young prophet.” Although concert giving was distasteful, he appeared again on December 20, and then gave a second concert on January 6, 1863, when he played Bach’s Chromatic Fantaisie, Beethoven’s Variations in C minor, his own Sonata Op. 5, and Schumann’s Sonata OP. 11.
Johann returned home in May, and shortly after was offered the post of Conductor of the Singakademie, which had just become vacant. He had many plans for the summer, but finally relinquished them and sent an acceptance. By the last of August he was again in Vienna.
Now followed years of a busy musical life. Brahms made his headquarters in Vienna, and while there did much composing. The wonderful Piano Quintette, one of his greatest works, the German Requiem, the Cantata Rinaldo and many beautiful songs came into being during this period. Every little while concert tours and musical journeys were undertaken, where Brahms often combined with other artists in giving performances of his compositions. A series of three concerts in Vienna in February and March, 1869, given by Brahms and Stockhausen, were phenomenally successful, the tickets being sold as soon as the concerts were announced. The same series was given in Budapest with equal success.
Early in the year 1872, when our composer was nearly forty, we find him installed in the historic rooms in the third floor of Number 4 Carl’s Gasse, Vienna, which were to remain to the end of his life the nearest approach to an establishment of his own. There were three small rooms. The largest contained his grand piano, writing table, a sofa with another table in front of it. The composer was still smooth of face and looked much as he did at twenty, judging from his pictures. It was not until several years later, about 1880, that he was adorned by the long heavy beard, which gave his face such a venerable appearance.
The year 1874, was full of varied excitement. Many invitations were accepted to conduct his works in North Germany, the Rhine, Switzerland, and other countries. A tour in Holland in 1876, brought real joy. He played his D minor Concerto in Utrecht and other cities, conducted his works and was everywhere received with honors. But the greatest event of this year was the appearance of his first Symphony. It was performed for the first time from manuscript in Carlsruhe and later in many other cities. In this work “Brahms’ close affinity with Beethoven must become clear to every musician, who has not already perceived it,” wrote Hanslick, the noted critic.
We have now to observe the unwearied energy with which Brahms, during the years that followed added one after another to his list, in each and every branch of serious music; songs, vocal duets, choral and instrumental works. In the summer of 1877 came the Second Symphony. In 1879 appeared the great Violin Concerto, now acclaimed as one of the few masterpieces for that instrument. It was performed by Joachim at the Gewandhaus, Leipsic, early in the year. There were already four Sonatas for Piano and Violin. The Sonata in G, the Rhapsodies Op. 79 and the third and fourth books of Hungarian Dances, as duets, were the publications of 1880. He now wrote a new Piano Concerto, in B flat, which he played in Stuttgart for the first time, November 22, 1881. In 1883 the Third Symphony appeared, which revealed him at the zenith of his powers. This work celebrated his fiftieth birthday.
The Fourth Symphony was completed during the summer of 1885. Then came the Gipsy Songs.
From 1889 onward, Brahms chose for his summer sojourn the town of Ischl, in the Salzkammergut. The pretty cottage where he stayed was on the outskirts of the town, near the rushing river Traun. He always dined at the “Keller” of the Hotel Elizabeth, which was reached by a flight of descending steps. In this quiet country, among mountain, valley and stream, he could compose at ease and also see his friends at the end of the day.
A visit to Italy in the spring of 1890, afforded rest, refreshment and many pleasant incidents.
The “Four Serious Songs,” were published in the summer of 1896. At this time Brahms had been settled in his rooms at Ischl scarcely a fortnight when he was profoundly shaken by news of Clara Schumann’s death. She passed peacefully away in Frankfort, and was laid beside her husband, in Bonn, May 24. Brahms was present, together with many musicians and celebrities.
The master felt this loss keenly. He spent the summer in Ischl as usual, composing, among other things, the Eleven Choral Preludes. Most of these have death for their subject, showing that his mind was taken up with the idea. His friends noticed he had lost his ruddy color and that his complexion was pale. In the autumn he went to Carlsbad for the cure.
After six weeks he returned to Vienna, but not improved, as he had become very thin and walked with faltering step. He loved to be with his friends, the Fellingers, as much as possible, as well as with other friends. He spent Christmas eve with them, and dined there the next day. From this time on he grew worse. He was very gentle the last months of his life, and touchingly grateful for every attention shown him. Every evening he would place himself at the piano and improvise for half an hour. When too fatigued to continue, he would sit at the window till long after darkness had fallen. He gradually grew weaker till he passed peacefully away, April 3, 1897.
The offer of an honorary grave was made by the city of Vienna, and he has found resting place near Beethoven and Mozart, just as he had wished.
Memorial tablets have been placed on the houses in which Brahms lived in Vienna, Ischl and Thun, also on the house of his birth, in Hamburg.
XIX
EDWARD GRIEG
“_From every point of view Grieg is one of the most original geniuses in the musical world of the present or past. His songs are a mine of melody, surpassed in wealth only by Schubert, and that only because there are more of Schubert’s. In originality of harmony and modulation he has only six equals. Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Wagner and Liszt. In rhythmic invention and combination he is inexhaustible, and as orchestrator he ranks among the most fascinating_.”
HENRY T. FINCK
Edward Hargarup Grieg, “the Chopin of the North,” was a unique personality, as well as an exceptional musician and composer. While not a “wonder child,” in the sense that Mozart, Chopin and Liszt were, he early showed his love for music and his rapt enjoyment of the music of the home circle. Fortunately he lived and breathed in a musical atmosphere from his earliest babyhood. His mother was a fine musician and singer herself, and with loving care she fostered the desire for it and the early studies of it in her son. She was his first teacher, for she kept up her own musical studies after her marriage, and continued to appear in concerts in Bergen, where the family lived. Little Edward, one of five children, seemed to inherit the mother’s musical talent and had vivid recollections of the rhythmic animation and spirit with which she played the works of Weber, who was one of her favorite composers.
The piano was a world of mystery to the sensitive musical child. His baby fingers explored the white keys to see what they sounded like. When he found two notes together, forming an interval of a third, they pleased him better than one alone. Afterwards three keys as a triad, were better yet, and when he could grasp a chord of four or five tones with both hands, he was overjoyed. Meanwhile there was much music to hear. His mother practised daily herself, and entertained her musical friends in weekly soirees. Here the best classics were performed with zeal and true feeling, while little Edward listened and absorbed music in every pore.
When he was six years old piano lessons began. Mme. Grieg proved a strict teacher, who did not allow any trifling; the dreamy child found he could not idle away his time. As he wrote later: “Only too soon it became clear to me I had to practise just what was unpleasant. Had I not inherited my mother’s irrepressible energy as well as her musical capacity, I should never have succeeded in passing from dreams to deeds.”
But dreams were turned into deeds before long, for the child tried to set down on paper the little melodies that haunted him. It is said he began to do this at the age of nine. A really serious attempt was made when he was twelve or thirteen. This was a set of variations for piano, on a German melody. He brought it to school one day to show one of the boys. The teacher caught sight of it and reprimanded the young composer soundly, for thus idling his time. It seems that in school he was fond of dreaming away the hours, just as he did at the piano.
The truth was that school life was very unsympathetic to him, very narrow and mechanical, and it is no wonder that he took every opportunity to escape and play truant. He loved poetry and knew all the poems in the reading books by heart; he was fond, too, of declaiming them in season and out of season.
With the home atmosphere he enjoyed, the boy Grieg early became familiar with names of the great composers and their works. One of his idols was Chopin, whose strangely beautiful harmonies were just beginning to be heard, though not yet appreciated. His music must have had an influence over the lad’s own efforts, for he always remained true to this ideal.
Another of his admirations was for Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian violinist. One day in summer, probably in 1858, when Edward was about fifteen, this “idol of his dreams” rode up to the Grieg home on horseback. The family had lived for the past five years at the fine estate of Landaas, near Bergen. The great violinist had just returned from America and was visiting his native town, for he too was born in Bergen. That summer he came often to the Griegs’ and soon discovered the great desire of young Edward for a musical career. He got the boy to improvise at the piano, and also to show him the little pieces he had already composed. There were consultations with father and mother, and then, finally, the violinist came to the boy, stroked his cheek and announced; “You are to go to Leipsic and become a musician.”
Edward was overjoyed. To think of gaining his heart’s desire so easily and naturally; it all seemed like a fairy tale, too good to be true.
The Leipsic Conservatory, which had been founded by Mendelssohn, and later directed for a short time by Schumann, was now in the hands of Moscheles, distinguished pianist and conductor. Richter and Hauptmann, also Papperitz, taught theory; Wenzel, Carl Reinecke and Plaidy, piano.
Some of these later gained the reputation of being rather dry and pedantic; they certainly were far from comprehending the romantic trend of the impressionable new pupil, for they tried to curb his originality and square it with rules and customs. This process was very irksome, for the boy wanted to go his own gait.
Among his fellow students at the Conservatory were at least a half dozen who later made names for themselves. They were: Arthur Sullivan, Walter Bache, Franklin Taylor, Edward Dannreuther and J.F. Barnett. All these were making rapid progress in spite of dry methods. So Edward Grieg began to realize that if he would also accomplish anything, he must buckle down to work. He now began to study with frantic ardor, with scarcely time left for eating and sleeping. The result of this was a complete breakdown in the spring of 1860, with several ailments, incipient lung trouble being the most serious. Indeed it was serious enough to deprive Grieg of one lung, leaving him for the remainder of his life somewhat delicate.
When his mother learned of his illness, she hurried to Leipsic and took him back to Bergen, where he slowly regained his health. His parents now begged him to remain at home, but he wished to return to Leipsic. He did so, throwing himself into his studies with great zeal. In the spring of 1862, after a course of four years, he passed his examinations with credit. On this occasion he played some of his compositions–the four which have been printed as Op. 1–and achieved success, both as composer and pianist.
After a summer spent quietly with his parents at Landaas, he began to prepare for coming musical activities. The next season he gave his first concert in Bergen, at which the piano pieces of Op. 1, Four Songs for Alto, and a String Quartet were played. With the proceeds of this concert he bought orchestral and chamber music, and began to study score, which he had not previously learned to do. In the spring of 1863–he was hardly twenty then–he left home and took up his residence in Copenhagen, a much larger city, offering greater opportunities for an ambitious young musician. It was also the home of Niels W. Gade, the foremost Scandinavian composer.
Of course Grieg was eager to meet Gade, and an opportunity soon occurred. Gade expressed a willingness to look at some of his compositions, and asked if he had anything to show him. Edward modestly answered in the negative. “Go home and write a symphony,” was the retort. This the young composer started obediently to do, but the work was never finished in this form. It became later Two Symphonic Pieces for Piano, Op. 14.
Two sources of inspiration for Grieg were Ole Bull and Richard Nordraak. We remember that Ole Bull was the means of influencing his parents to send Edward to Leipsic. That was in 1858. Six years later, when Ole Bull was staying at his country home, near Bergen, where he always tried to pass the summers, the two formed a more intimate friendship. They played frequently together, sonatas by Mozart and others, or trios, in which Edward’s brother John played the ‘cello parts. Or they wandered together to their favorite haunts among mountains, fjords or flower clad valleys. They both worshiped nature in all her aspects and moods, and each, the one on his instrument, the other in his music, endeavored to reproduce these endless influences.
Richard Nordraak was a young Norwegian composer of great talent, who, in his brief career, created a few excellent works. The two musicians met in the winter of 1864 and were attracted to each other at once. Nordraak visited Grieg in his home, where they discussed music and patriotism to their hearts’ content. Nordraak was intensely patriotic, and wished to see the establishment of Norse music. Grieg, who had been more or less influenced by German ideas, since Leipsic days, now cast off the fetters and placed himself on the side of Norwegian music. To prove this he composed the Humoresken, Op. 6, and dedicated them to Nordraak. From now on he felt free to do as he pleased in music–to be himself.
In 1864 Grieg became engaged to his cousin, Nina Hargerup, a slender girl of nineteen, who had a lovely voice and for whom he wrote many of his finest songs. He returned to Christiania from a visit to Rome, and decided to establish himself in the Norwegian capital. Soon after his arrival, in the autumn of 1856, he gave a concert, assisted by his fiancee and Mme. Norman Neruda, the violinist. The program was made up entirely of Norwegian music, and contained his Violin Sonata Op. 8, Humoresken, Op. 6, Piano Sonata, Op. 7. There were two groups of songs, by Nordraak and Kjerulf respectively. The concert was a success with press and public and the young composer’s position seemed assured. He secured the appointment of Conductor of the Philharmonic Society, and was quite the vogue as a teacher. He married Nina Hargerup the following June, 1867, and they resided in Christiania for the next eight years.
Grieg could not endure “amateurish mediocrity,” and made war upon it, thus drawing jealous attacks upon himself. His great friend and ally, Nordraak, passed away in 1868, and the next year his baby daughter, aged thirteen months, the only child he ever had, left them.
In spite of these discouragements, some of his finest compositions came into being about this period of his life. Songs, piano pieces and the splendid Concerto followed each other in quick succession.
Another satisfaction to Grieg was a most sympathetic and cordial letter from Liszt on making acquaintance with his Sonata for violin and piano, Op. 8, which he praised in high terms. He invited Grieg to come and visit him, that they might become better acquainted. This unsolicitated appreciation from the famous Liszt was a fine honor for the young composer, and was the means of inducing the Norwegian Government to grant him an annuity. This sum enabled him the following year, to go to Rome and meet Liszt personally.
He set out on this errand in October, and later wrote his parents of his visits to Liszt. The first meeting took place at a monastery near the Roman Forum, where Liszt made his home when in town.
“I took with me my last violin Sonata, the Funeral March on the death of Nordraak and a volume of songs. I need not have been anxious, for Liszt was kindness itself. He came smiling towards me and said in the most genial manner:
“‘We have had some little correspondence, haven’t we?’
“I told him it was thanks to his letters that I was now here. He eyed somewhat hungrily the package under my arm, his long, spider-like fingers approaching it in such an alarming manner that I thought it advisable to open at once. He turned over the leaves, reading through the Sonata. He had now become interested, but my courage dropped to zero when he asked me to play the Sonata, but there was no help for it.
“So I started on his splendid American Chickering grand. Right in the beginning, where the violin starts in, he exclaimed: ‘How bold that is! Look here, I like that; once more please.’ And where the violin again comes in _adagio_, he played the part on the upper octaves with an expression so beautiful, so marvelously true and singing, it made me smile inwardly. My spirits rose because of his lavish approval, which did me good. After the first movement, I asked his permission to play a solo, and chose the Minuet, from the Humoresken.”
At this point Grieg was brave enough to ask Liszt to play for him. This the master did in a superb manner. To go on with the letter:
“When this was done, Liszt said jauntily, ‘Now let us go on with the Sonata’; to which I naturally retorted, ‘No thank you, not after this.’
“‘Why not? Then give it to me, I’ll do it.’ And what does Liszt do? He plays the whole thing, root and branch, violin and piano; nay more, for he plays it fuller and more broadly. He was literally over the whole piano at once, without missing a note. And how he did play! With grandeur, beauty, unique comprehension.
“Was this not geniality itself? No other great man I have met is like him. I played the Funeral March, which was also to his taste. Then, after a little talk, I took leave, with the consciousness of having spent two of the most interesting hours of my life.”
The second meeting with Liszt took place soon after this. Of it he writes in part:
“I had fortunately received the manuscript of my Concerto from Leipsic, and took it with me. A number of musicians were present.
“‘Will you play?’ asked Liszt. I answered in the negative, as you know I had never practised it. Liszt took the manuscript, went to the piano, and said to the assembled guests: ‘Very well, then, I will show you that I also cannot.’ Then he began. I admit that he took the first part too fast, but later on, when I had a chance to indicate the tempo, he played as only he can play. His demeanor is worth any price to see. Not content with playing, he at the same time converses, addressing a bright remark now to one, now to another of his guests, nodding from right to left, particularly when something pleases him. In the Adagio, and still more in the Finale, he reached a climax, both in playing and in the praise he bestowed.
“When all was over, he handed me the manuscript, and said, in a peculiarly cordial tone: ‘Keep steadily on; you have the ability, and–do not let them intimidate you!’
“This final admonition was of tremendous importance to me; there was something in it like a sanctification. When disappointment and bitterness are in store for me, I shall recall his words, and the remembrance of that hour will have a wonderful power to uphold me in days of adversity.”
When Edward Grieg was a little over thirty, in the year 1874, the Norwegian Government honored him with an annuity of sixteen hundred crowns a year, for life. Another good fortune was a request from the distinguished poet, Henrik Ibsen, to produce music for his drama of “Peer Gynt.”
With the help of the annuity Grieg was able to give up teaching and conducting and devote himself to composition. He left Christiania, where he and Mme. Grieg had resided for eight years, and came back for a time to Bergen. Here, in January 1874, Ibsen offered him the proposition of writing music for his work, for which he was arranging a stage production.
Grieg was delighted with the opportunity, for such a task was very congenial. He completed the score in the autumn of 1875. The first performance was given on February 24, 1876, at Christiania. Grieg himself was not present, as he was then in Bergen. The play proved a real success and was given thirty-six times that season, for which success the accompanying original and charming music was largely responsible.
Norway is a most picturesque country, and no one could be more passionately fond of her mountains, fjords, valleys and waterfalls than Edward Grieg. For several years he now chose to live at Lofthus, a tiny village, situated on a branch of the Hardanger Fjord. It is said no spot could have been more enchanting. The little study, consisting of one room, where the composer could work in perfect quiet, was perched among the trees above the fjord, with a dashing waterfall near by. No wonder Grieg could write of the “Butterfly,” the “Little Bird,” and “To the Spring,” in such poetical, vivid harmonies. He had only to look from his window and see the marvels of nature about him.
A few years later he built a beautiful villa at Troldhaugen, not far from Bergen, where he spent the rest of his life. Some American friends who visited them in 1901, speak of the ideal existence of the artist pair. Grieg himself is described as very small and frail looking, with a face as individual, as unique and attractive as his music–the face of a thinker, a genius. His eyes were keen and blue; his hair, almost white, was brushed backward like Liszt’s. His hands were thin and small; they were wonderful hands and his touch on the piano had the luscious quality of Paderewski’s. Mme. Grieg received them with a fascinating smile and won all hearts by her appearance and charm of manner. She was short and plump, with short wavy gray hair and dark blue eyes. Her sister, who resembled her strongly, made up the rest of the family. Grieg called her his “second wife” and they seemed a most united family.
Here, too, Grieg had his little work cabin away from the house, down a steep path, among the trees of the garden. In this tiny retreat he composed many of his unique pieces.
As a pianist, there are many people living who have heard Grieg play, and all agree that his performance was most poetical and beautiful. He never had great power, for a heavy wagon had injured one of his hands, and he had lost the use of one of his lungs in youth. But he always brought out lyric parts most expressively, and had a “wonderfully crisp and buoyant execution in rhythmical passages.” He continued to play occasionally in different cities, and with increased frequency made visits to England, France and Germany, to make known his compositions. He was in England in the spring of 1888, for on May 3, the London Philharmonic gave almost an entire program of Grieg’s music. He acted in the three-fold capacity of composer, conductor and pianist. It was said by one of the critics: “Mr. Grieg played his own Concerto in A minor, after his own manner; it was a revelation.” Another wrote; “The Concerto is very beautiful. The dreamy charm of the opening movement, the long-drawn sweetness of the Adagio, the graceful, fairy music of the final Allegro–all this went straight to the hearts of the audience. Grieg as a conductor gave equal satisfaction. It is to be hoped the greatest representative of ‘old Norway’ will come amongst us every year.”
Grieg did return the next year and appeared with the Philharmonic, March 14, 1889. The same critic then wrote:
“The hero of the evening was unquestionably Mr. Grieg, the heroine being Madame Grieg, who sang in her own unique and most artistic fashion, a selection of her husband’s songs, he accompanying with great delicacy and poetic feeling. Grieg is so popular in London, both as composer and pianist, that when he gave his last concert, people were waiting in the street before the doors from eleven in the morning, quite as in the old Rubinstein days.”
In only a few cities did the artist pair give their unique piano and song recitals. These were: Christiania, Copenhagen, Leipsic, Rome, Paris, London and Edinburgh. They were indeed artistic events, in which Nina Grieg was also greatly admired. While not a great singer, it was said she had the captivating abandon, dramatic vivacity and soulful treatment of the poem, which reminded of Jenny Lind.
Mme. Grieg made her last public appearance in London in 1898. After that she sang only for her husband and his friends. Grieg’s sixtieth birthday, June 15, 1903, was celebrated in the cities of Scandanavia, throughout Europe and also in America: thus he lived to see the recognition of his unique genius in many parts of the world.
Grieg was constantly using up his strength by too much exertion. To a friend in 1906, he wrote: “Yes, at your age it is ever hurrah-vivat. At my age we say, sempre diminuendo. And I can tell you it is not easy to make a beautiful diminuendo.” Yet he still gave concerts, saying he had not the strength of character to refuse. Indeed he had numerous offers to go to America, which he refused as he felt he could not endure the sea voyage. Always cheerful, even vivacious, he kept up bravely until almost the end of his life, but finally, the last of August, 1907, he was forced to go to a hospital in Bergen. On the night of September 3, his life ebbed away in sleep.
The composer who through his music had endeared himself to the whole world, was granted a touching funeral, at which only his own music was heard, including his Funeral March, which he had composed for his friend Nordraak. The burial place is as romantic as his music. Near his home there is a steep cliff, about fifty feet high, projecting into the fjord. Half way up there is a natural grotto, which can only be reached by water. In this spot, chosen by Grieg himself, the urn containing his ashes was deposited some weeks after the funeral. Then the grotto was closed and a stone slab with the words “Edward Grieg” cut upon it, was cemented in the cliff.
XX
PETER ILYITCH TSCHAIKOWSKY
Russian composers and Russian music are eagerly studied by those who would keep abreast of the time. This music is so saturated with strong, vigorous life that it is inspiring to listen to. Its rugged strength, its fascinating rhythms, bring a new message. It is different from the music of other countries and at once attracts by its unusual melodies and its richness of harmony.
Among the numerous composers of modern Russia, the name of Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky stands out most prominently. This distinctive composer was born on April 28, 1840, in Votinsk, where his father, who was a mining engineer, had been appointed inspector of the mines at Kamsko-Votinsk. The position of manager of such important mines carried with it much luxury, a fine house, plenty of servants and an ample salary. Thus the future young musician’s home life was not one of poverty and privation, as has been the lot of so many gifted ones, who became creators in the beautiful art of music.
Peter Ilyitch was less than five years old when a new governess came into the family, to teach his elder brother Nicholas and his cousin Lydia. As a little boy he was apt to be untidy, with buttons missing and rumpled hair. But his nature was so affectionate and sympathetic that he charmed every one with his pretty, loving ways. This natural gift he always retained. The governess was a very superior person and her influence over her young charges was healthful and beneficial. The child Peter was most industrious at his lessons; but for recreation often preferred playing the piano, reading, or writing poetry, to playing with other children.
When Peter was eight, the family moved to St. Petersburg, and the two younger boys were sent to boarding school. The parting from his home but especially from his mother–though he saw her once a week–nearly broke his heart. Such a school was no place for a sensitive, high-strung boy like Peter, who needed the most tender fostering care. The work of the school was very heavy, the hours long. The boys often sat over their books till far into the night. Besides the school work, Peter had music lessons of the pianist Philipov, and made rapid progress. At this time music in general excited the boy abnormally; a hand organ in the street would enchant him, an orchestra strangely agitated him. He seemed to live at a high strung, nervous tension, and had frequent ailments, which kept him out of school.
In 1849 the father secured another appointment, this time at Alapaiev, a little town, where, though there was not so much luxury, the family tried to revive the home life of Votinsk.
No one at Alapaiev seemed to take any interest in the boy Peter’s music. He was really making great progress, for he had learned much in the lessons he had taken in St. Petersburg. He studied many pieces by himself, and often improvised at the piano. His parents did nothing to further his musical education; this may have been because they were afraid of a return of the nervous disorders that the quiet of the present home surroundings had seemed to cure.
From the fact that the father had held government appointments, his sons were eligible for education at the School of Jurisprudence. Peter was accordingly entered there as a scholar, and completed his course at the age of nineteen. In those nine years the child Peter developed into maturity. During this period he suffered the loss of his mother, a handsome and very estimable woman, whom he adored with passionate devotion, and from whom he could never bear to be separated.
While attending the Law School, music had to be left in the background. His family and companions only considered it as a pastime at best, and without serious significance; he therefore kept his aspirations to himself. The old boyish discontent and irritability, which were the result of his former nervous condition, had now given place to his natural frankness of character and charm of manner, which attracted all who came in contact with him.
In 1859, when Peter had finished his studies at the School of Jurisprudence, he received an appointment in the Ministry of Justice, as clerk of the first class. This would have meant much to some young men, but did not greatly impress Peter, as he did not seem to take his work very seriously. During the three years in which he held the post, he followed the fashion of the day, attended the opera and theater, meanwhile receiving many impressions which molded his character and tastes. The opera “Don Giovanni,” Mozart’s masterpiece, made a deep impression upon him, also the acting of Adelaide Ristori and the singing of Lagrona.
The new Conservatoire of Music was founded at St. Petersburg in 1862, with Anton Rubinstein as director, and Tschaikowsky lost no time in entering as a pupil, studying composition and kindred subjects with Professor Zaremba. His progress was so rapid in the several branches he took up–piano, organ and flute–that Rubinstein advised him to make music his profession, and throw his law studies to the winds. Thanks to Rubinstein, he secured some pupils and also engagements as accompanist. Meanwhile he worked industriously at composition, and one of his pieces was a Concert Overture in F, scored for small orchestra. In 1865 he took his diploma as a musician and also secured a silver medal for a cantata. One year after this the Moscow Conservatoire was founded, with Nicholas Rubinstein at its head. The position of Professor of Composition and Musical History was offered to Tschaikowsky, then only twenty-six. It was a flattering offer for so young a man, when many older heads would have liked to secure such an honor. He moved to Moscow, and retained his position in the Conservatoire for at least twelve years, in the meantime making many friends for himself and his art, as his fame as a composer grew. One of these friends was the publisher Jurgenson, who was to play rather an important part in the composer’s life, through accepting and putting forth his compositions.
During those first years in Moscow, Tschaikowsky made his home with Nicholas Rubinstein. His life was of the simplest, his fare always so. Later on when money was more abundant, and he had his own house in the country, he lived with just the same simplicity. One would think that all this care and thought for expense would have taught him the value of money. Not at all. He never could seem to learn its value, never cared for it, and never could keep it. He liked to toss his small change among groups of street boys, and it is said he once spent his last roubles in sending a cablegram to von Buelow in America, to thank him for his admirable performance of his first Piano Concerto. Often his friends protested against this prodigality, but it was no use to protest, and at last they gave up in despair.
Soon after he began his professorship in Moscow, he composed a Concert Overture in C minor. To his surprise and disappointment, Rubinstein disapproved of the work in every way. This was a shock, after the lack of encouragement in St. Petersburg. But he recovered his poise, though he made up his mind to try his next work in St. Petersburg instead of Moscow. He called the new piece a Symphonic Poem, “Winter Daydreams,” but it is now known as the First Symphony, Op. 13. About the end of 1866, he started out with it, only to be again rebuffed and cast down. The two men whose good opinion he most desired, Anton Rubinstein and Professor Zaremba, could find nothing good in his latest work, and the young composer returned to Moscow to console himself with renewed efforts in composition. Two years later the “Winter Daydreams” Symphony was produced in Moscow with great success, and its author was much encouraged by this appreciation. He was, like most composers, very sensitive to criticism and had a perfect dread of controversy. Efforts to engage him in arguments of this sort only made him withdraw into himself.
Tschaikowsky held the operas of Mozart before him as his ideal. He cared little for Wagner, considering his music dramas to be built on false principles. Thus his first opera, “Voivoda,” composed in 1866, evidently had his ideal, Mozart, clearly in mind. It is a somewhat curious fact that Tschaikowsky, who was almost revolutionary in other forms of music, should go back to the eighteenth century for his ideal of opera. Soon after it was completed “Voivoda” was accepted to be produced at the Moscow Grand Theater. The libretto was written by Ostrowsky, one of the celebrated dramatists of the day. The first performance took place on January 30, 1869. We are told it had several performances and considerable popular success. But the composer was dissatisfied with its failure to win a great artistic success, and burnt the score. He did the same with his next work, an orchestral fantaisie, entitled “Fatum.” Again he did the same with the score of a complete opera, “Undine,” finished in 1870, and refused at the St. Petersburg Opera, where he had offered it.
“The Snow Queen,” a fairy play with music, was the young Russian’s next adventure; it was mounted and produced with great care, yet it failed to make a favorable impression. But these disappointments did not dampen the composer’s ardor for work. Now it was in the realm of chamber music. Up to this time he had not seemed to care greatly for this branch of his art, for he had always felt the lack of tone coloring and variety in the strings. The first attempt at a String Quartet resulted in the one in D major, Op. 11. To-day, fifty years after, we enjoy the rich coloring, the characteristic rhythms of this music; the Andante indeed makes special appeal. A bit of history about this same Andante shows how the composer prized national themes and folk tunes, and strove to secure them. It is said that morning after morning he was awakened by the singing of a laborer, working on the house below his window. The song had a haunting lilt, and Tschaikowsky wrote it down. The melody afterwards became that touching air which fills the Andante of the First String Quartet. Another String Quartet, in F major, was written in 1814, and at once acclaimed by all who heard it, with the single exception of Anton Rubinstein.
Tschaikowsky wrote six Symphonies in all. The Second, in C minor was composed in 1873; in this he used themes in the first and last movements, which were gathered in Little Russia. The work was produced with great success in Moscow in 1873. The next orchestral composition was a Symphonic Poem, called “The Tempest,” with a regular program, prepared by Stassow. It was brought out in Paris at the same time it was heard in Moscow. Both at home and in France it made a deep impression. The next work was the splendid piano Concerto in B flat minor, Op. 23, the first of three works of this kind. At a trial performance of it, his friend and former master, Nicholas Rubinstein, to whom it was dedicated, and who had promised to play the piano part, began to criticize it unmercifully and ended by saying it was quite unplayable, and unsuited to the piano.
No one could blame the composer for being offended and hurt. He at once erased the name of Nicholas Rubinstein from the title page and dedicated the work to Hans von Billow, who not long after performed it with tremendous success in America, where he was on tour. When we think of all the pianists who have won acclaim in this temperamental, inspiring work, from Carreno to Percy Grainger, to mention two who have aroused special enthusiasm by their thrilling performance of it, we can but wonder that his own countrymen were so short sighted at the time it was composed. Later on Nicholas Rubinstein gave a superb performance of the Concerto in Moscow, thus making some tardy amends for his unkindness.
Tschaikowsky was now thirty-five. Most of his time was given to the Conservatoire, where he often worked nine hours a day. Besides, he had written a book on harmony, and was contributing articles on music to two journals. In composition he had produced large works, including up to this time, two Symphonies, two Operas, the Concerto, two String Quartets and numerous smaller pieces. To accomplish such an amount of work, he must have possessed immense energy and devotion to his ideals.
One of the operas just mentioned was entitled “Vakoula the Smith.” It bears the date of 1874, and was first offered in competition with others. The result was that it not only was considered much the best work of them all but it won both the first and second prizes. “Vakoula” was splendidly mounted and performed in St. Petersburg, at the Marinsky Theater at least seventeen times. Ten years later, in January 1887, it appeared again. The composer meanwhile had re-written a good part of it and now called it “Two Little Shoes.” This time Tschaikowsky was invited to conduct his own work. The invitation filled him with alarm, for he felt he had no gift in that direction, as he had tried a couple of times in the early years of his career and had utterly failed. However, he now, through the cordial sympathy of friends, decided to make the attempt. Contrary to his own fears, he obtained a successful performance of the opera.
It proved an epoch-making occasion. For this first success as conductor led him to undertake a three months’ tour through western Europe in 1888. On his return to St. Petersburg he conducted a program of his own compositions for the Philharmonic Society, which was also successful, in spite of the intense nervousness which he always suffered. As a result of his concert he received offers to conduct concerts in Hamburg, Dresden, Leipsic, Vienna, Copenhagen and London, many of which he accepted.
To go back a bit in our composer’s life story, to an affair of the heart which he experienced in 1868. He became engaged to the well-known singer Desiree Artot; the affair never went further, for what reason is not known. He was not yet thirty, impressionable and intense. Later on, in the year 1877, at the age of thirty-seven, he became a married man. How this happened was doubtless told in his diaries, which were written with great regularity: but unfortunately he destroyed them all a few years before his death. The few facts that have been gleaned from his intimate friend, M. Kashkin, are that he was engaged to the lady in the spring of this year, and married her a month or so afterward. It was evidently a hasty affair and subsequently brought untold suffering to the composer. When the professors of his Conservatoire re-assembled in the autumn, Tschaikowsky appeared among them a married man, but looking the picture of despair. A few weeks later he fled from Moscow, and when next heard of was lying dangerously ill in St. Petersburg. One thing was evident, the ill-considered marriage came very near ruining his life. The doctors ordered rest and change of scene, and his brother Modeste Ilyitch took him to Switzerland and afterward to Italy. The peaceful life and change of scene did much to restore his shattered nerves. Just at this time a wealthy widow lady, Madame von Meek, a great admirer of Tschaikowsky’s music, learning of his sad condition, settled on him a generous yearly allowance for life. He was now independent and could give his time to composition.
The following year he returned to Moscow and seemed quite his natural self. A fever of energy for work took possession of him. He began a new opera, “Eugen Onegin,” and completed his Fourth Symphony, in F minor. The score of the opera was finished in February, 1878, and sent at once to Moscow, where the first performance was given in March 1879. In the beginning the opera had only a moderate success, but gradually grew in favor till, after five years, it was performed in St. Petersburg and had an excellent reception. It is considered Tschaikowsky’s most successful opera, sharing with Glinka’s “Life of the Tsar” the popularity of Russian opera. In 1881 he was invited to compose an orchestral work for the consecration of the Temple of Christ in Moscow. The “Solemn Overture 1812,” Op. 49, was the outcome of this. Later in the year he completed the Second Piano Concerto. The Piano Trio in A minor, “To the memory of a great artist,” Op. 50, refers to his friend and former master, Nicholas Rubinstein, who passed away in Paris, in 1881.
Tschaikowsky’s opera, “Mazeppa,” was his next important work. In the same year the Second Orchestral Suite, Op. 53, and the Third, Op. 55, followed. Two Symphonic Poems, “Manfred” and “Hamlet” came next. The latter of these was written at the composer’s country house, whose purchase had been made possible by the generosity of his benefactress, and to which he retired at the age of forty-five, to lead a peaceful country life. He had purchased the old manor house of Frovolo, on the outskirts of the town of Klin, near Moscow. Here his two beautiful ballets and two greatest Symphonies, the Fifth and Sixth, were written. The Fifth Symphony was composed in 1888 and published the next year. On its first hearing it made little impression and was scarcely heard again till Nikisch, with unerring judgment, rescued it from neglect; then the world discovered it to be one of the composer’s greatest works.
Tschaikowsky’s two last operas, the “Pique Dame” (Queen of Spades), Op. 68, and “King Rene’s Daughter” are not considered in any way distinctive, although the former was performed in New York, at the Metropolitan. The Third Piano Concerto, Op. 75, occupied the master during his last days at Frovolo; it was left unfinished by him and was completed by the composer Taneiev. The wonderful Sixth Symphony, Op. 74, is a superb example of Tschaikowsky’s genius. It was composed in 1893, and the title “Pathetic” was given it by the composer after its first performance, in St. Petersburg, shortly before his death, as the reception of it by the public did not meet his anticipations. In this work the passion and despair which fill so many of the master’s finest compositions, rise to the highest tragic significance. The last movement, with its prophetic intimation of his coming death, is heart-breaking. One cannot listen to its poignant phrases without deep emotion. The score is dated August 81, 1893. On October twelfth, Tschaikowsky passed away in St. Petersburg, a victim of cholera.
A couple of years before he passed away, Tschiakowsky came to America. In May, 1891, he conducted four concerts connected with the formal opening of Carnegie Hall, New York. We well remember his interesting personality, as he stood before the orchestra, conducting many of his own works, with Adele Aus der Ohe playing his famous Concerto in B flat minor.
The music of this representative Russian composer has made rapid headway in the world’s appreciation, during the last few years. Once heard it will always be remembered. For we can never forget the deeply human and touching message which is brought to us through the music of Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky.
XXI
EDWARD MACDOWELL
Edward MacDowell has been acclaimed America’s greatest composer. If we try to substitute another name in its place, one of equal potency cannot be found.
Our composer’s ancestors were Irish and Scotch, though his father was born in New York City and his mother was an American girl. Edward was their third son, and appeared December 18, 1861; this event happened at the home of his parents, 220 Clinton Street, New York.
The father was a man of artistic instincts, and as a youth, fond of drawing and painting. His parents had been Quakers of a rather severe sort and had discouraged all such artistic efforts. Little Edward seems to have inherited his father’s artistic gifts, added to his own inclination toward music.
The boy had his first piano lessons when he was about eight years old, from a family friend, Mr. Juan Buitrago, a native of Bogota, South America. Mr. Buitrago became greatly interested in Edward and asked permission to teach him his notes. At that time the boy was not considered a prodigy, or even precocious, though he seemed to have various gifts. He was fond of covering his music and exercise books with little drawings, which showed he had the innate skill of a born artist. Then he liked to scribble bits of verses and stories and invent fairy tales. He could improvise little themes at the piano, but was not fond of technical drudgery at the instrument in those early days.
The lessons with Mr. Buitrago continued for several years, and then he was taken to a professional piano teacher, Paul Desvernine, with whom he remained till he was fifteen. During this time he received occasional lessons from the brilliant Venezuelan pianist, Teresa Carreno, who admired his gifts and later played his piano concertos.
Edward was now fifteen, and his family considered he was to become a musician. In those days and for long after, even to the present moment, it was thought necessary for Americans to go to Europe for serious study and artistic finish. It was therefore determined the boy should go to Paris for a course in piano and theory at the Conservatoire. In April, 1876, accompanied by his mother, he left America for France.
He passed the examinations and began the autumn term as a pupil of Marmontel in piano and of Savard in theory and composition.
Edward’s knowledge of French was very uncertain, and while he could get along fairly well in the piano class, he had considerable trouble in following the lessons in theory. He determined to make a special study of the language, and a teacher was engaged to give him private lessons.
His passion for drawing was liable to break out at any moment. During one of the lesson hours he was varying the monotony by drawing, behind his book, a picture of his teacher, whose special facial characteristic was a very large nose. Just as the sketch was finished he was detected and was asked to show the result. The professor, instead of being angry, considered it a remarkable likeness and asked to keep it. Shortly after this the professor called on Mrs. MacDowell, telling her he had shown the drawing to an eminent painter, also an instructor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The painter had been so greatly impressed with the boy’s talent that he offered him a three years’ course of free instruction, under his own supervision. He also promised to be responsible for Edward’s support during that time.
This was a vital question to decide; the boy’s whole future hung in the balance. Mrs. MacDowell, in her perplexity, laid the whole matter before Marmontel, who strongly advised against diverting her son from a musical career. The decision was finally left to Edward himself, and he chose to remain at the Conservatoire.
Conditions there, however, were not just to his liking, and after two years he began to think the school was not the place for him. It was the summer of 1878, the year of the Exposition. Edward and his mother