Title: The Great German Composers
Author: Ferris, George T. (George Titus), 1840-
Language: English
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THE GREAT GERMAN COMPOSERS


By George T. Ferris


Copyright 1878, by D. Appleton and Company



NOTE.

The sketches of composers contained in this volume may seem arbitrary in
the space allotted to them. The special attention given to certain names
has been prompted as much by their association with great art-epochs as
by the consideration of their absolute rank as composers.

The introduction of Chopin, born a Pole, and for a large part of his
life a resident of France, among the German composers, may require
an explanatory word. Chopin's whole early training was in the German
school, and he may be looked on as one of the founders of the latest
school of pianoforte composition, whose highest development is in
contemporary Germany. He represents German music by his affinities
and his influences in art, and bears too close a relation to important
changes in musical form to be omitted from this series.

The authorities to which the author is most indebted for material are:
Schoelcher's "Life of Handel;" Liszt's "Life of Chopin;" Elise
Polko's "Reminiscences;" Lampadius's "Life of Mendelssohn;" Chorley's
"Reminiscences;" Urbino's "Musical Composers;" Franz Heuffner's "Wagner
and the Music of the Future;" Haweis's "Music and Morals;" and articles
in the leading Cyclopædias.



CONTENTS.

Bach

Handel

Gluck

Haydn

Mozart

Beethoven

Schubert, Schumann, and Franz.    Chopin

Weber

Mendelssohn    Wagner



THE GREAT GERMAN COMPOSERS.



BACH.

I.

The growth and development of German music are eminently noteworthy
facts in the history of the fine arts. In little more than a century
and a half it reached its present high and brilliant place, its progress
being so consecutive and regular that the composers who illustrated
its well-defined epochs might fairly have linked hands in one connected
series.

To Johann Sebastian Bach must be accorded the title of "father of modern
music." All succeeding composers have bowed with reverence before his
name, and acknowledged in him the creative mind which not only placed
music on a deep scientific basis, but perfected the form from Which
have been developed the wonderfully rich and varied phases of orchestral
composition.

Handel, who was his contemporary, having been born the same year, spoke
of him with sincere admiration, and called him the giant of music. Haydn
wrote: "Whoever understands me knows that I owe much to Sebastian Bach,
that I have studied him thoroughly and well, and that I acknowledge him
only as my model." Mozart's unceasing research brought to light many of
his unpublished manuscripts, and helped Germany to a full appreciation
of this great master. In like manner have the other luminaries of music
placed on record their sense of obligation to one whose name is obscure
to the general public in comparison with many of his brother composers.

Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach on the 21st of March, 1685, the son
of one of the court musicians. Left in the care of his elder brother,
who was an organist, his brilliant powers displayed themselves at an
early period. He was the descendant of a race of musicians, and even at
that date the wide-spread branches of the family held annual gatherings
of a musical character. Young Bach mastered for himself, without much
assistance, a thorough musical education at Lüne-burg, where he studied
in the gymnasium and sang in the cathedral choir; and at the age of
eighteen we find him court musician at Weimar, where a few years later
he became organist and director of concerts. He had in the mean time
studied the organ at Lübeck under the celebrated Buxtehude, and made
himself thoroughly a master of the great Italian composers of sacred
music--Palestrina, Lotti, Vivaldi, and others.

At this period Germany was beginning to experience its musical
_renaissance_. The various German courts felt that throb of life and
enthusiasm which had distinguished the Italian principalities in the
preceding century in the direction of painting and sculpture. Every
little capital was a focus of artistic rays, and there was a general
spirit of rivalry among the princes, who aspired to cultivate the arts
of peace as well as those of war. Bach had become known as a gifted
musician, not only by his wonderful powers as an organist, but by two
of his earlier masterpieces--"Gott ist mein König" and "Ich hatte viel
Bektlmmerniss." Under the influence of an atmosphere so artistic, Bach's
ardor for study increased with his success, and his rapid advancement in
musical power met with warm appreciation.

While Bach held the position of director of the chapel of Prince Leopold
of Anhalt-Kothen, which he assumed about the year 1720, he went to
Hamburg on a pilgrimage to see old Reinke, then nearly a centenarian,
whose fame as an organist was national, and had long been the object
of Bach's enthusiasm. The aged man listened while his youthful rival
improvised on the old choral, "Upon the Rivers of Babylon." He shed
tears of joy while he tenderly embraced Bach, and said: "I did think
that this art would die with me; but I see that you will keep it alive."

Our musician rapidly became known far and wide throughout the musical
centres of Germany as a learned and recondite composer, as a brilliant
improviser, and as an organist beyond rivalry. Yet it was in these last
two capacities that his reputation among his contemporaries was the most
marked. It was left to a succeeding generation to fully enlighten the
world in regard to his creative powers as a musical thinker.


II.

Though Bach's life was mostly spent at Weimar and Leipsic, he was at
successive periods chapel-master and concert-director at several of the
German courts, which aspired to shape public taste in matters of musical
culture and enthusiasm. But he was by nature singularly retiring and
unobtrusive, and he recoiled from several brilliant offers which would
have brought him too much in contact with the gay world of fashion,
apparently dreading any diversion from a severe and exclusive art-life;
for within these limits all his hopes, energies, and wishes were
focalized. Yet he was not without that keen spirit of rivalry, that love
of combat, which seems to be native to spirits of the more robust and
energetic type.

In the days of the old Minnesingers, tournaments of music shared the
public taste with tournaments of arms. In Bach's time these public
competitions were still in vogue. One of these was held by Augustus
II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, one of the most munificent
art-patrons of Europe, but best known to fame from his intimate part in
the wars of Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter the Great of Russia. Here
Bach's principal rival was a French _virtuoso_, Marchand, who, an exile
from Paris, had delighted the king by the lightness and brilliancy of
his execution. They were both to improvise on the same theme. Marchand
heard Bach's performance, and signalized his own inferiority by
declining to play, and secretly leaving the city of Dresden. Augustus
sent Bach a hundred louis d'or, but this splendid _douceur_ never
reached him, as it was appropriated by one of the court officials.

In Bach's half-century of a studious musical life there is but little
of stirring incident to record. The significance of his career was
interior, not exterior. Twice married, and the father of twenty
children, his income was always small even for that age. Yet, by
frugality, the simple wants of himself and his family never overstepped
the limit of supply; for he seems to have been happily mated with wives
who sympathized with his exclusive devotion to art, and united with this
the virtues of old-fashioned German thrift.

Three years before his death, Bach, who had a son in the service of the
King of Prussia, yielded to the urgent invitation of that monarch to
go to Berlin. Frederick II., the conqueror of Rossbach, and one of the
greatest of modern soldiers, was a passionate lover of literature and
art, and it was his pride to collect at his court all the leading lights
of European culture. He was not only the patron of Voltaire, whose
connection with the Prussian monarch has furnished such rich material
to the anecdote-history of literature, but of all the distinguished
painters, poets, and musicians, whom he could persuade by his
munificent offers (but rarely fulfilled) to suffer the burden of his
eccentricities. Frederick was not content with playing the part of
patron, but must himself also be poet, philosopher, painter, and
composer.

On the night of Bach's arrival Frederick was taking part in a concert
at his palace, and, on hearing that the great musician whose name was
in the mouths of all Germany had come, immediately sent for him without
allowing him to don a court dress, interrupting his concert with the
enthusiastic announcement, "Gentlemen, Bach is here." The cordial
hospitality and admiration of Frederick was gratefully acknowledged by
Bach, who dedicated to him a three-part fugue on a theme composed by the
king, known under the name of "A Musical Offering." But he could not be
persuaded to remain long from his Leipsic home.

Shortly before Bach's death, he was seized with blindness, brought on by
incessant labor; and his end was supposed to have been hastened by the
severe inflammation consequent on two operations performed by an English
oculist. He departed this life July 30, 1750, and was buried in St.
John's churchyard, universally mourned by musical Germany, though his
real title to exceptional greatness was not to be read until the next
generation.


III.

Sebastian Bach was not only the descendant of a widely-known musical
family, but was himself the direct ancestor of about sixty of the
best-known organists and church composers of Germany. As a master of
organ-playing, tradition tells us that no one has been his equal, with
the possible exception of Handel. He was also an able performer on
various stringed instruments, and his preference for the clavichord *
led him to write a method for that instrument, which has been the basis
of all succeeding methods for the piano. Bach's teachings and influence
may be said to have educated a large number of excellent composers and
organ and piano players, among whom were Emanuel Bach, Cramer, Hummel,
and Clementi; and on his school of theory and practice the best results
in music have been built.

     * An old instrument which may be called the nearest
     prototype of the modern square piano.

That Bach's glory as a composer should be largely posthumous is probably
the result of his exceeding simplicity and diffidence, for he always
shrank from popular applause; therefore we may believe his compositions
were not placed in the proper light during his life. It was through
Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, that the musical world learned what a
master-spirit had wrought in the person of John Sebastian Bach. The
first time Mozart heard one of Bach's hymns, he said, "Thank God! I
learn something absolutely new." Bach's great compositions include his
"Preludes and Fugues" for the organ, works so difficult and elaborate
as perhaps to be above the average comprehension, but sources of delight
and instruction to all musicians; the "Matthäus Passion," for two
choruses and two orchestras, one of the masterpieces in music, which was
not produced till a century after it was written; the "Oratorio of the
Nativity of Jesus Christ;" and a very large number of masses, anthems,
cantatas, chorals, hymns, etc. These works, from their largeness and
dignity of form, as also from their depth of musical science, have been
to all succeeding composers an art-armory, whence they have derived
and furbished their brightest weapons. In the study of Bach's works the
student finds the deepest and highest reaches in the science of music;
for his mind seems to have grasped all its resources, and to have
embodied them with austere purity and precision of form. As Spenser
is called the poet for poets, and Laplace the mathematician for
mathematicians, so Bach is the musician for musicians. While Handel may
be considered a purely independent and parallel growth, it is not too
much to assert that without Sebastian Bach and his matchless studies
for the piano, organ, and orchestra, we could not have had the varied
musical development in sonata and symphony from such masters as
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Three of Sebastian Bach's sons became
distinguished musicians, and to Emanuel we owe the artistic development
of the sonata, which in its turn became the foundation of the symphony.



HANDEL.


I.

To the modern Englishman Handel is almost a contemporary. Paintings and
busts of this great minstrel are scattered everywhere throughout the
land. He lies in Westminster Abbey among the great poets, warriors, and
statesmen, a giant memory in his noble art. A few hours after death
the sculptor Roubiliac took a cast of his face, which he wrought into
imperishable marble; "moulded in colossal calm," he towers above his
tomb, and accepts the homage of the world benignly like a god. Exeter
Hall and the Foundling Hospital in London are also adorned with marble
statues of him.

There are more than fifty known pictures of Handel, some of them by
distinguished artists. In the best of these pictures Handel is seated in
the gay costume of the period, with sword, shot-silk breeches, and coat
embroidered with gold. The face is noble in its repose. Benevolence
is seated about the finely-shaped mouth, and the face wears the
mellow dignity of years, without weakness or austerity. There are few
collectors of prints in England and America who have not a woodcut or
a lithograph of him. His face and his music are alike familiar to the
English-speaking world.

Handel came to England in the year 1710, at the age of twenty-five. Four
years before he had met, at Naples, Scarlatti, Porpora, and Corelli.
That year had been the turning-point in his life. With one stride he
reached the front rank, and felt that no musician alive could teach him
anything.

George Frederick Handel (or Handel, as the name is written in German)
was born at Halle, Lower Saxony, in the year 1685. Like German
literature, German music is a comparatively recent growth. What little
feeling existed for the musical art employed itself in cultivating the
alien flowers of Italian song. Even eighty years after this Mozart and
Haydn were treated like lackeys and vagabonds, just as great actors were
treated in England at the same period. Handel's father looked on music
as an occupation having very little dignity.

Determined that his young son should become a doctor like himself, and
leave the divine art to Italian fiddlers and French buffoons, he did not
allow him to go to a public school even, for fear he should learn the
gamut. But the boy Handel, passionately fond of sweet sounds, had, with
the connivance of his nurse, hidden in the garret a poor spinet, and in
stolen hours taught himself how to play. At last the senior Handel had
a visit to make to another son in the service of the Duke of
Saxe-Weissenfels, and the young George was taken along to the ducal
palace. The boy strayed into the chapel, and was irresistibly drawn to
the organ. His stolen performance was made known to his father and the
duke, and the former was very much enraged at such a direct evidence of
disobedience. The duke, however, being astonished at the performance of
the youthful genius, interceded for him, and recommended that his taste
should be encouraged and cultivated instead of repressed.

From this time forward fortune showered upon him a combination of
conditions highly favorable to rapid development. Severe training,
ardent friendship, the society of the first composers, and incessant
practice were vouchsafed him. As the pupil of the great organist Zachau,
he studied the whole existing mass of German and Italian music, and soon
exacted from his master the admission that he had nothing more to teach
him. Thence he went to Berlin to study the opera-school, where Ariosti
and Bononcini were favorite composers. The first was friendly, but the
latter, who with a first-rate head had a cankered heart, determined
to take the conceit out of the Saxon boy. He challenged him to play at
sight an elaborate piece. Handel played it with perfect precision, and
thenceforward Bononcini, though he hated the youth as a rival, treated
him as an equal.

On the death of his father Handel secured an engagement at the Hamburg
opera-house, where he soon made his mark by the ability with which, on
several occasions, he conducted rehearsals.

At the age of nineteen Handel received the offer of the Lübeck organ, on
condition that he would marry the daughter of the retiring organist. He
went down with his friend Mattheson, who it seems had been offered
the same terms. They both returned, however, in single blessedness to
Hamburg.

Though the Lübeck maiden had stirred no bad blood between them, musical
rivalry did. A dispute in the theatre resulted in a duel. The only thing
that saved. Handel's life was a great brass button that shivered his
antagonist's point, when they were parted to become firm friends again.

While at Hamburg Handel's first two operas were composed, "Almira" and
"Nero." Both of these were founded on dark tales of crime and sorrow,
and, in spite of some beautiful airs and clever instrumentation, were
musical failures, as might be expected.

Handel had had enough of manufacturing operas in Germany, and so in
July, 1706, he went to Florence. Here he was cordially received; for
Florence was second to no city in Italy in its passion for encouraging
the arts. Its noble specimens of art creations in architecture,
painting, and sculpture, produced a powerful impression upon the young
musician. In little more than a week's time he composed an opera,
"Rodrigo," for which he obtained one hundred sequins. His next visit
was to Venice, where he arrived at the height of the carnival. Whatever
effect Venice, with its weird and mysterious beauty, with its marble
palaces, façades, pillars, and domes, its magnificent shrines and
frescoes, produced on Handel, he took Venice by storm. Handel's power as
an organist and a harpsichord player was only second to his strength as
a composer, even when, in the full zenith of his maturity, he composed
the "Messiah" and "Judas Maccabæus."

"Il caro Sassone," the dear Saxon, found a formidable opponent as well
as dear friend in the person of Scarlatti. One night at a masked ball,
given by a nobleman, Handel was present in disguise. He sat at the
harpsichord, and astonished the company with his playing; but no one
could tell who it was that ravished the ears of the assembly. Presently
another masquerader came into the room, walked up to the instrument, and
called out: "It is either the devil or the Saxon!" This was Scarlatti,
who afterward had with Handel, in Florence and Rome, friendly contests
of skill, in which it seemed difficult to decide which was victor. To
satisfy the Venetian public, Handel composed the opera "Agrippina,"
which made a _furore_ among all the connoisseurs of the city.

So, having seen the summer in Florence and the carnival in Venice, he
must hurry on to be in time for the great Easter celebrations in Rome.
Here he lived under the patronage of Cardinal Otto-boni, one of the
wealthiest and most liberal of the Sacred College. The cardinal was
a modern representative of the ancient patrician. Living himself in
princely luxury, he endowed hospitals and surgeries for the public. He
distributed alms, patronized men of science and art, and entertained
the public with comedies, operas, oratorios, puppet-shows, and academic
disputes. Under the auspices of this patron, Handel composed three
operas and two oratorios. Even at this early period the young composer
was parting company with the strict old musical traditions, and his
works showed an extraordinary variety and strength of treatment.

From Rome he went to Naples, where he spent his second Italian summer,
and composed the original Italian "Aci e Galatea," which in its English
version, afterward written for the Duke of Chandos, has continued a
marked favorite with the musical world. Thence, after a lingering return
through the sunny land where he had been so warmly welcomed, and which
had taught him most effectually, in convincing him that his musical life
had nothing in common with the traditions of Italian musical art, he
returned to Germany, settling at the court of George of Brunswick,
Elector of Hanover, and afterward King of England. He received
commission in the course of a few months from the elector to visit
England, having been warmly invited thither by some English noblemen. On
his return to Hanover, at the end of six months, he found the dull and
pompous little court unspeakably tiresome after the bustle of London.
So it is not to be marveled at that he took the earliest opportunity of
returning to the land which he afterward adopted. At this period he was
not yet twenty-five years old, but already famous as a performer on the
organ and harpsichord, and as a composer of Italian operas.

When Queen Anne died and Handel's old patron became King of England,
Handel was forbidden to appear before him, as he had not forgotten the
musician's escapade; but his peace was at last made by a little ruse.
Handel had a friend at court, Baron Kilmansegge, from whom he learned
that the king was, on a certain day, going to take an excursion on the
Thames. So he set to work to compose music for the occasion, which he
arranged to have performed on a boat which followed the king's barge.
As the king floated down the river he heard the new and delightful
"Water-Music." He knew that only one man could have composed such music;
so he sent for Handel, and sealed his pardon with a pension of two
hundred pounds a year.


II.

Let us take a glance at the society in which the composer moved in the
heyday of his youth. His greatness was to be perfected in after-years
by bitter rivalries, persecution, alternate oscillations of poverty
and affluence, and a multitude of bitter experiences. But at this time
Handel's life was a serene and delightful one. Rival factions had not
been organized to crush him. Lord Burlington lived much at his mansion,
which was then out of town, although the house is now in the heart of
Piccadilly. The intimate friendship of this nobleman helped to bring the
young musician into contact with many distinguished people.

It is odd to think of the people Handel met daily without knowing that
their names and his would be in a century famous. The following picture
sketches Handel and his friends in a sprightly fashion:

"Yonder heavy, ragged-looking youth standing at the corner of Regent
Street, with a slight and rather more refined-looking companion, is
the obscure Samuel Johnson, quite unknown to fame. He is walking with
Richard Savage. As Signor Handel, 'the composer of Italian music,'
passes by, Savage becomes excited, and nudges his friend, who takes only
a languid interest in the foreigner. Johnson did not care for music; of
many noises he considered it the least disagreeable.

"Toward Charing Cross comes, in shovel-hat and cassock, the renowned
ecclesiastic Dean Swift. He has just nodded patronizingly to Bononcini
in the Strand, and suddenly meets Handel, who cuts him dead. Nothing
disconcerted, the dean moves on, muttering his famous epigram:

     'Some say that Signor Bononcini,
     Compared to Handel, is a ninny;
     While others vow that to him Handel
     Is hardly fit to hold a candle.
     Strange that such difference should be
     'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee.'

"As Handel enters the 'Turk's Head' at the corner of Regent Street,
a noble coach and four drives up. It is the Duke of Chandos, who is
inquiring for Mr. Pope. Presently a deformed little man, in an iron-gray
suit, and with a face as keen as a razor, hobbles out, makes a low bow
to the burly Handel, who, helping him into the chariot, gets in after
him, and they drive off together to Cannons, the duke's mansion at
Edge-ware. There they meet Mr. Addison, the poet Gay, and the witty
Arbuthnot, who have been asked to luncheon. The last number of the
_Spectator_ is on the table, and a brisk discussion soon arises between
Pope and Addison concerning the merits of the Italian opera, in which
Pope would have the better if he only knew a little more about music,
and could keep his temper. Arbuthnot sides with Pope in favor of Mr.
Handel's operas; the duke endeavors to keep the peace. Handel probably
uses his favorite exclamation, 'Vat te tevil I care!' and consumes the
_recherche_ wines and rare viands with undiminished gusto.

"The Magnificent, or the Grand Duke, as he was called, had built himself
a palace for £230,000. He had a private chapel, and appointed Handel
organist in the room of the celebrated Dr. Pepusch, who retired with
excellent grace before one manifestly his superior. On week-days the
duke and duchess entertained all the wits and grandees in town, and on
Sundays the Edgeware Road was thronged with the gay equipages of those
who went to worship at the ducal chapel and hear Mr. Handel play on the
organ.

"The Edgeware Road was a pleasant country drive, but parts of it were
so solitary that highwaymen were much to be feared. The duke was himself
attacked on one occasion; and those who could afford it never traveled
so far out of town without armed retainers. Cannons was the pride of the
neighborhood, and the duke--of whom Pope wrote,

     'Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight'--

was as popular as he was wealthy. But his name is made still more
illustrious by the Chandos anthems. They were all written at Cannons
between 1718 and 1720, and number in all eleven overtures, thirty-two
solos, six duets, a trio, quartet, and forty-seven choruses. Some of the
above are real masterpieces; but, with the exception of 'The waves of
the sea rage horribly,' and 'Who is God but the Lord?' few of them
are ever heard now. And yet these anthems were most significant in the
variety of the choruses and in the range of the accompaniments; and it
was then, no doubt, that Handel was feeling his way toward the great
and immortal sphere of his oratorio music. Indeed, his first oratorio,
'Esther,' was composed at Cannons, as also the English version of 'Acis
and Galatea.'"

But Handel had other associates, and we must now visit Thomas Britton,
the musical coal-heaver. "There goes the famous small-coal man, a lover
of learning, a musician, and a companion of gentlemen." So the folks
used to say as Thomas Britton, the coal-heaver of Clerkenwell Green,
paced up and down the neighboring streets with his sack of small coal on
his back, destined for one of his customers. Britton was great among the
great. He was courted by the most fashionable folk of his day. He was
a cultivated coal-heaver, who, besides his musical taste and ability,
possessed an extensive knowledge of chemistry and the occult sciences.

Britton did more than this. He gave concerts in Aylesbury Street,
Clerkenwell, where this singular man had formed a dwelling-house, with
a concert-room and a coal-store, out of what was originally a stable.
On the ground-floor was the small-coal repository, and over that the
concert-room--very long and narrow, badly lighted, and with a ceiling
so low that a tall man could scarcely stand upright in it. The stairs to
this room were far from pleasant to ascend, and the following facetious
lines by Ward, the author of the "London Spy," confirm this:

     "Upon Thursdays repair
     To my palace, and there
     Hobble up stair by stair
     But I pray ye take care
     That you break not your shins by a stumble;

     "And without e'er a souse
     Paid to me or my spouse,
     Sit as still as a mouse
     At the top of the house,
     And there you shall hear how we fumble."

Nevertheless beautiful duchesses and the best society in town flocked
to Britton's on Thursdays--not to order coals, but to sit out his
concerts.

Let us follow the short, stout little man on a concert-day. The
customers are all served, or as many as can be. The coal-shed is made
tidy and swept up, and the coal-heaver awaits his company. There he
stands at the door of his stable, dressed in his blue blouse,
dustman's hat, and maroon kerchief tightly fastened round his neck. The
concert-room is almost full, and, pipe in hand, Britton awaits a new
visitor--the beautiful Duchess of B------. She is somewhat late (the
coachman, possibly, is not quite at home in the neighborhood).

Here comes a carriage, which stops at the coal-shop; and, laying down
his pipe, the coal-heaver assists her grace to alight, and in the
genteelest manner escorts her to the narrow staircase leading to
the music-room. Forgetting Ward's advice, she trips laughingly and
carelessly up the stairs to the room, from which proceed faint sounds of
music, increasing to quite an _olla podri-da_ of sound as the apartment
is reached--for the musicians are tuning up. The beautiful duchess is
soon recognized, and as soon in deep gossip with her friends. But who is
that gentlemanly man leaning over the chamber-organ? That is Sir Roger
L'Estrange, an admirable performer on the violoncello, and a great lover
of music. He is watching the subtile fingering of Mr. Handel, as his
dimpled hands drift leisurely and marvelously over the keys of the
instrument.

There, too, is Mr. Bannister with his fiddle--the first Englishman,
by-the-by, who distinguished himself upon the violin; there is Mr.
Woolaston, the painter, relating to Dr. Pepusch of how he had that
morning thrown up his window upon hearing Britton crying "Small coal!"
near his house in Warwick Lane, and, having beckoned him in, had made a
sketch for a painting of him; there, too, is Mr. John Hughes, author of
the "Siege of Damascus." In the background also are Mr. Philip Hart, Mr.
Henry Symonds, Mr. Obadiah Shuttleworth, Mr. Abiell Whichello; while in
the extreme corner of the room is Robe, a justice of the peace, letting
out to Henry Needier of the Excise Office the last bit of scandal that
has come into his court. And now, just as the concert has commenced, in
creeps "Soliman the Magnificent," also known as Mr. Charles Jennens, of
Great Ormond Street, who wrote many of Handel's librettos, and arranged
the words for the "Messiah."

"Soliman the Magnificent" is evidently resolved to do justice to
his title on this occasion with his carefully-powdered wig, frills,
maroon-colored coat, and buckled shoes; and as he makes his progress up
the room, the company draw aside for him to reach his favorite seat near
Handel. A trio of Corelli's is gone through; then Madame Cuzzoni sings
Handel's last new air; Dr. Pepusch takes his turn at the harpsichord;
another trio of Hasse, or a solo on the violin by Bannister; a selection
on the organ from Mr. Handel's new oratorio; and then the day's
programme is over.

Dukes, duchesses, wits and philosophers, poets and musicians, make their
way down the satirized stairs to go, some in carriages, some in chairs,
some on foot, to their own palaces, houses, or lodgings.


III.

We do not now think of Handel in connection with the opera. To the
modern mind he is so linked to the oratorio, of which he was the father
and the consummate master, that his operas are curiosities but little
known except to musical antiquaries. Yet some of the airs from the
Handel operas are still cherished by singers as among the most beautiful
songs known to the concert-stage.

In 1720 Handel was engaged by a party of noblemen, headed by his Grace
of Chandos, to compose operas for the Royal Academy of Music at the
Haymarket. An attempt had been made to put this institution on a firm
foundation by a subscription of £50,000, and it was opened on May 2d
with a full company of singers engaged by Handel. In the course of eight
years twelve operas were produced in rapid succession: "Floridante,"
December 9, 1721; "Ottone," January 12, 1723; "Flavio" and "Giulio
Cesare," 1723; "Tamerlano," 1724; "Rodelinda," 1725; "Scipione," 1726;
"Alessandro," 1726; "Admeto," 727; "Siroe," 1728; and "Tolommeo," 1728.
They made as great a _furore_ among the musical public of that day as
would an opera from Gounod or Verdi in the present. The principal airs
were sung throughout the land, and published as harpsichord pieces; for
in these halcyon days of our composers the whole atmosphere of the land
was full of the flavor and color of Handel. Many of the melodies in
these now forgotten operas have been worked up by modern composers, and
so have passed into modern music unrecognized. It is a notorious fact
that the celebrated song, "Where the Bee sucks," by Dr. Arne, is taken
from a movement in "Rinaldo." Thus the new life of music is ever growing
rich with the dead leaves of the past. The most celebrated of these
operas was entitled "Otto." It was a work composed of one long string of
exquisite gems, like Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and Gounod's "Faust." Dr.
Pepusch, who had never quite forgiven Handel for superseding him as the
best organist in England, remarked, of one of the airs, "That great bear
must have been inspired when he wrote that air." The celebrated Madame
Cuzzoni made her _début_ in it. On the second night the tickets rose
to four guineas each, and Cuzzoni received two thousand pounds for the
season.

The composer had already begun to be known for his irascible temper.
It is refreshing to learn that operatic singers of the day, however
whimsical and self-willed, were obliged to bend to the imperious genius
of this man. In a spirit of ill-timed revolt Cuzzoni declined to sing
an air. She had already given him trouble by her insolence and freaks,
which at times were unbearable. Handel at last exploded. He flew at the
wretched woman and shook her like a rat. "Ah! I always knew you were
a fery tevil," he cried, "and I shall now let you know that I am
Beelzebub, the prince of de tevils!" and, dragging her to the open
window, was just on the point of pitching her into the street when,
in every sense of the word, she recanted. So, when Carestini, the
celebrated tenor, sent back an air, Handel was furious. Rushing into the
trembling Italian's house, he said, in his four- or five-language style:
"You tog! don't I know better as yourself vaat it pest for you to sing?
If you vill not sing all de song vaat I give you, I vill not pay you ein
stiver." Among the anecdotes told of Handel's passion is one growing out
of the composer's peculiar sensitiveness to discords. The dissonance
of the tuning-up period of an orchestra is disagreeable to the most
patient. Handel, being peculiarly sensitive to this unfortunate
necessity, always arranged that it should take place before the
audience assembled, so as to prevent any sound of scraping or blowing.
Unfortunately, on one occasion, some wag got access to the orchestra
where the ready-tuned instruments were lying, and with diabolical
dexterity put every string and crook out of tune. Handel enters. All
the bows are raised together, and at the given beat all start off _con
spirito_. The effect was startling in the extreme. The unhappy _maestro_
rushes madly from his place, kicks to pieces the first double-bass he
sees, and, seizing a kettle-drum, throws it violently at the leader of
the band. The effort sends his wig flying, and, rushing bareheaded to
the footlights, he stands a few moments amid the roars of the house,
snorting with rage and choking with passion. Like Burleigh's nod,
Handel's wig seemed to have been a sure guide to his temper. When things
went well, it had a certain complacent vibration; but when he was out of
humor, the wig indicated the fact in a very positive way. The Princess
of Wales was wont to blame her ladies for talking instead of listening.
"Hush, hush!" she would say. "Don't you see Handel's wig?"

For several years after the subscription of the nobility had been
exhausted, our composer, having invested £10,000 of his own in the
Haymarket, produced operas with remarkable affluence, some of them
_pasticcio_ works, composed of all sorts of airs, in which the
singers could give their _bravura songs_. These were "Lotario,"
1729; "Partenope," 1730; "Poro," 1731; "Ezio," 1732; "Sosarme," 1732;
"Orlando," 1733; "Ariadne," 1734; and also several minor works. Handel's
operatic career was not so much the outcome of his choice as dictated
to him by the necessity of time and circumstance. As time went on, his
operas lost public interest. The audiences dwindled, and the overflowing
houses of his earlier experience were replaced by empty benches. This,
however, made little difference with Handel's royal patrons. The king
and the Prince of Wales, with their respective households, made it
an express point to show their deep interest in Handel's success.
In illustration of this, an amusing anecdote is told of the Earl of
Chesterfield. During the performance of "Rinaldo" this nobleman, then
an equerry of the king, was met quietly retiring from the theatre in the
middle of the first act. Surprise being expressed by a gentleman who
met the earl, the latter said: "I don't wish to disturb his Majesty's
privacy."

Handel paid his singers in those days what were regarded as enormous
prices. Senisino and Carestini had each twelve hundred pounds, and
Cuzzoni two thousand, for the season. Toward the end of what may be
called the Handel season nearly all the singers and nobles forsook him,
and supported Farinelli, the greatest singer living, at the rival house
in Lincoln's Inn Fields.


IV.

From the year 1729 the career of Handel was to be a protracted battle,
in which he was sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated, but always
undaunted and animated with a lofty sense of his own superior power.
Let us take a view of some of the rival musicians with whom he came
in contact. Of all these Bononcini was the most formidable. He came to
England in 1720 with Ariosti, also a meritorious composer. Factions
soon began to form themselves around Handel and Bononcini, and a bitter
struggle ensued between these old foes. The same drama repeated itself,
with new actors, about thirty years afterward, in Paris. Gluck was then
the German hero, supported by Marie Antoinette, and Piccini fought for
the Italian opera under the colors of the king's mistress Du Barry,
while all the _litterateurs_ and nobles ranged themselves on either
side in bitter contest. The battle between Handel and Bononcini, as the
exponents of German and Italian music, was also repeated in after-years
between Mozart and Salieri, Weber and Rossini, and to-day is seen in
the acrimonious disputes going on between Wagner and the Italian school.
Bononcini's career in England came to an end very suddenly. It was
discovered that a madrigal brought out by him was pirated from another
Italian composer; whereupon Bononcini left England, humiliated to the
dust, and finally died obscure and alone, the victim of a charlatan
alchemist, who succeeded in obtaining all his savings.

Another powerful rival of Handel was Porpora, or, as Handel used to
call him, "old Borbora." Without Bononcini's fire or Handel's daring
originality, he represented the dry contrapuntal school of Italian
music. He was also a great singing-master, famous throughout Europe,
and upon this his reputation had hitherto principally rested. He came to
London in 1733, under the patronage of the Italian faction, especially
to serve as a thorn in the side of Handel. His first opera, "Ariadne,"
was a great success; but when he had the audacity to challenge the great
German in the field of oratorio, his defeat was so overwhelming that
he candidly admitted his rival's superiority. But he believed that no
operas in the world were equal to his own, and he composed fifty of them
during his life, extending to the days of Haydn, whom he had the honor
of teaching, while the father of the symphony, on the other hand,
cleaned Por-pora's boots and powdered his wig for him.

Another Italian opponent was Hasse, a man of true genius, who in his old
age instructed some of the most splendid singers in the history of the
lyric stage. He also married one of the most gifted and most beautiful
divas of Europe, Faustina Bordoni. The following anecdote does equal
credit to Hasse's heart and penetration: In after-years, when he had
left England, he was again sent for to take Handel's place as conductor
of opera and oratorio. Hasse inquired, "What! is Handel dead?" On
being told no, he indignantly refused, saying he was not worthy to tie
Handel's shoe-latchets.

There are also Dr. Pepusch, the Anglicized Prussian, and Dr. Greene,
both names well known in English music. Pepusch had had the leading
place, before Handel's arrival, as organist and conductor, and made a
distinct place for himself even after the sun of Handel had obscured all
of his contemporaries. He wrote the music of the "Beggar's Opera," which
was the great sensation of the times, and which still keeps possession
of the stage. Pepusch was chiefly notable for his skill in arranging the
popular songs of the day, and probably did more than any other composer
to give the English ballad its artistic form.

The name of Dr. Greene is best known in connection with choral
compositions. His relations with Handel and Bononcini are hardly
creditable to him. He seems to have flattered each in turn. He upheld
Bononcini in the great madrigal controversy, and appears to have wearied
Handel by his repeated visits. The great Saxon easily saw through the
flatteries of a man who was in reality an ambitious rival, and joked
about him, not always in the best taste. When he was told that Greene
was giving concerts at the "Devil Tavern," near Temple Bar, "Ah!" he
exclaimed, "mein poor friend Toctor Greene--so he is gone to de Tevil!"

From 1732 to 1740 Handel's life presents the suggestive and
often-repeated experience in the lives of men of genius--a soul with a
great creative mission, of which it is half unconscious, partly
yielding to and partly struggling against the tendencies of the age, yet
gradually crystallizing into its true form, and getting consecrated to
its true work. In these eight years Handel presented to the public ten
operas and five oratorios. It was in 1731 that the great significant
fact, though unrecognized by himself and others, occurred, which stamped
the true bent of his genius. This was the production of his first
oratorio in England. He was already playing his operas to empty houses,
the subject of incessant scandal and abuse on the part of his enemies,
but holding his way with steady cheerfulness and courage. Twelve years
before this he had composed the oratorio of "Esther," but it was still
in manuscript, uncared for and neglected. It was finally produced by a
society called Philharmonic, under the direction of Bernard Gates, the
royal chapel-master. Its fame spread wide, and we read these significant
words in one of the old English newspapers: "'Esther,' an English
oratorio, was performed six times, and very full."

Shortly after this Handel himself conducted "Esther" at the Haymarket
by royal command. His success encouraged him to write "Deborah," another
attempt in the same field, and it met a warm reception from the public,
March 17, 1733.

For about fifteen years Handel had struggled heroically in the
composition of Italian operas. With these he had at first succeeded; but
his popularity waned more and more, and he became finally the continued
target for satire, scorn, and malevolence. In obedience to the drift
of opinion, all the great singers, who had supported him at the outset,
joined the rival ranks or left England. In fact it may be almost said
that the English public were becoming dissatisfied with the whole system
and method of Italian music. Colley Cibber, the actor and dramatist,
explains why Italian opera could never satisfy the requirement of
Handel, or be anything more than an artificial luxury in England: "The
truth is, this kind of entertainment is entirely sensational." Still
both Handel and his friends and his foes, all the exponents of musical
opinion in England, persevered obstinately in warming this foreign
exotic into a new lease of life.

The quarrel between the great Saxon composer and his opponents
raged incessantly both in public and private. The newspaper and the
drawing-room rang alike with venomous diatribes. Handel was called a
swindler, a drunkard, and a blasphemer, to whom Scripture even was
not sacred. The idea of setting Holy Writ to music scandalized the
Pharisees, who reveled in the licentious operas and love-songs of
the Italian school. All the small wits of the time showered on Handel
epigram and satire unceasingly. The greatest of all the wits, however,
Alexander Pope, was his firm friend and admirer; and in the "Dunciad,"
wherein the wittiest of poets impaled so many of the small fry of the
age with his pungent and vindictive shaft, he also slew some of the most
malevolent of Handel's foes.

Fielding, in "Tom Jones," has an amusing hit at the taste of the period:
"It was Mr. Western's custom every afternoon, as soon as he was drunk,
to hear his daughter play on the harpsichord; for he was a great lover
of music, and perhaps, had he lived in town, might have passed as a
connoisseur, for he always excepted against the finest compositions of
Mr. Handel."

So much had it become the fashion to criticise Handel's new effects in
vocal and instrumental composition, that some years later Mr. Sheridan
makes one of his characters fire a pistol simply to shock the audience,
and makes him say in a stage whisper to the gallery, "This hint,
gentlemen, I took from Handel."

The composer's Oxford experience was rather amusing and suggestive.
We find it recorded that in July, 1733, "one Handell, a foreigner, was
desired to come to Oxford to perform in music." Again the same writer
says: "Handell with his lousy crew, a great number of foreign fiddlers,
had a performance for his own benefit at the theatre." One of the dons
writes of the performance as follows: "This is an innovation; but every
one paid his five shillings to try how a little fiddling would sit upon
him. And, notwithstanding the barbarous and inhuman combination of such
a parcel of unconscionable scamps, he [Handel] disposed of the most of
his tickets."

"Handel and his lousy crew," however, left Oxford with the prestige of
a magnificent victory. His third oratorio, "Athaliah," was received with
vast applause by a great audience. Some of his university admirers, who
appreciated academic honors more than the musician did, urged him to
accept the degree of Doctor of Music, for which he would have to pay a
small fee. The characteristic reply was a Parthian arrow: "Vat te tevil
I trow my money away for dat vich the blockhead vish'? I no vant!"


V.

In 1738 Handel was obliged to close the theatre and suspend payment.
He had made and spent during his operatic career the sum of £10,000
sterling, besides dissipating the sum of £50,000 subscribed by his noble
patrons. The rival house lasted but a few months longer, and the Duchess
of Marlborough and her friends, who ruled the opposition clique and
imported Bononcini, paid £12,000 for the pleasure of ruining Handel. His
failure as an operatic composer is due in part to the same causes
which constituted his success in oratorio and cantata. It is a little
significant to notice that, alike by the progress of his own genius and
by the force of conditions, he was forced out of the operatic field at
the very time when he strove to tighten his grip on it.

His free introduction of choral and instrumental music, his creation of
new forms and remodeling of old ones, his entire subordination of the
words in the story to a pure musical purpose, offended the singers and
retarded the action of the drama in the eyes of the audience; yet it was
by virtue of these unpopular characteristics that the public mind was
being moulded to understand and love the form of the oratorio.

From 1734 to 1738 Handel composed and produced a number of operatic
works, the principal ones of which were "Alcina," 1735; "Arminio," 1737;
and "Berenice," 1737. He also during these years wrote the magnificent
music to Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," and the great funeral anthem on
the occasion of Queen Caroline's death in the latter part of the year
1737.

We can hardly solve the tenacity of purpose with which Handel persevered
in the composition of operatic music after it had ruined him; but it was
still some time before he fully appreciated the true turn of his genius,
which could not be trifled with or ignored. In his adversity he had some
consolation. His creditors were patient, believing in his integrity. The
royal family were his firm friends.

Southey tells us that Handel, having asked the youthful Prince of
Wales, then a child, and afterward George the Third, if he loved music,
answered, when the prince expressed his pleasure: "A good boy, a good
boy! You shall protect my fame when I am dead." Afterward, when the
half-imbecile George was crazed with family and public misfortunes, he
found his chief solace in the Waverley novels and Handel's music.

It is also an interesting fact that the poets and thinkers of the age
were Handel's firm admirers. Such men as Gay, Arbuthnot, Hughes, Colley
Cibber, Pope, Fielding, Hogarth, and Smollett, who recognized the deep,
struggling tendencies of the times, measured Handel truly. They defended
him in print, and never failed to attend his performances, and at
his benefit concerts their enthusiastic support always insured him an
overflowing house.

The popular instinct was also true to him. The aristocratic classes
sneered at his oratorios and complained at his innovations. His music
was found to be good bait for the popular gardens and the holiday-makers
of the period. Jonathan Tyers was one of the most liberal managers
of this class. He was proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens, and Handel
(_incognito_) supplied him with nearly all his music. The composer did
much the same sort of thing for Marylebone Gardens, furbishing up old
and writing new strains with an ease that well became the urgency of the
circumstances.

"My grandfather," says the Rev. J. Fountagne, "as I have been told, was
an enthusiast in music, and cultivated most of all the friendship of
musical men, especially of Handel, who visited him often, and had a
great predilection for his society. This leads me to relate an anecdote
which I have on the best authority. While Marylebone Gardens were
flourishing, the enchanting music of Handel, and probably of Arne, was
often heard from the orchestra there. One evening, as my grandfather and
Handel were walking together and alone, a new piece was struck up by the
band. 'Come, Mr. Fountagne,' said Handel, 'let us sit down and listen
to this piece; I want to know your opinion about it.' Down they sat, and
after some time the old parson, turning to his companion, said, 'It
is not worth listening to; it's very poor stuff.' 'You are right, Mr.
Fountagne,' said Handel, 'it is very poor stuff; I thought so myself
when I had finished it.' The old gentleman, being taken by surprise, was
beginning to apologize; but Handel assured him there was no necessity,
that the music was really bad, having been composed hastily, and his
time for the production limited; and that the opinion given was as
correct as it was honest."


VI.

The period of Handel's highest development had now arrived. For seven
years his genius had been slowly but surely maturing, in obedience
to the inner law of his being. He had struggled long in the bonds of
operatic composition, but even here his innovations showed conclusively
how he was reaching out toward the form with which his name was to
be associated through all time. The year 1739 was one of prodigious
activity. The oratorio of "Saul" was produced, of which the "Dead March"
is still recognized as one of the great musical compositions of all
time, being one of the few intensely solemn symphonies written in a
major key. Several works now forgotten were composed, and the great
"Israel in Egypt" was written in the incredibly short space of
twenty-seven days. Of this work a distinguished writer on music says:
Handel was now fifty-five years old, and had entered, after many a
long and weary contest, upon his last and greatest creative period.
His genius culminates in the 'Israel.' Elsewhere he has produced longer
recitatives and more pathetic arias; nowhere has he written finer tenor
songs than 'The enemy said,' or finer duets than 'The Lord is a man of
war;' and there is not in the history of music an example of choruses
piled up like so many Ossas on Pelions in such majestic strength, and
hurled in open defiance at a public whose ears were itching for Italian
love-lays and English ballads. In these twenty-eight colossal choruses
we perceive at once a reaction against and a triumph over the tastes of
the age. The wonder is, not that the 'Israel' was unpopular, but that
it should have been tolerated; but Handel, while he appears to have been
for years driven by the public, had been, in reality, driving them. His
earliest oratorio, 'Il Trionfo del Tempo' (composed in Italy), had
but two choruses; into his operas more and more were introduced, with
disastrous consequences; but when, at the zenith of his strength, he
produced a work which consisted almost entirely of these unpopular
peculiarities, the public treated him with respect, and actually sat
out three performances in one season! In addition to these two great
oratorios, our composer produced the beautiful music to Dryden's
"St. Cæcilia Ode," and Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso."
Henceforth neither praise nor blame could turn Handel from his appointed
course. He was not yet popular with the musical _dilettanti_, but we
find no more catering to an absurd taste, no more writing of silly
operatic froth.

Our composer had always been very fond of the Irish, and, at the
invitation of the lord-lieutenant and prominent Dublin amateurs,
he crossed the channel in 1741. He was received with the greatest
enthusiasm, and his house became the resort of all the musical people in
the city of Dublin. One after another his principal works were produced
before admiring audiences in the new Music Hall in Fishamble Street. The
crush to hear the "Allegro" and "Penseroso" at the opening performances
was so great that the doors had to be closed. The papers declared there
never had been seen such a scene before in Dublin.

Handel gave twelve performances at very short intervals, comprising
all of his finest works. In these concerts the "Acis and Galatea" and
"Alexander's Feast" were the most admired; but the enthusiasm culminated
in the rendition of the "Messiah," produced for the first time on April
13, 1742. The performance was a beneficiary one in aid of poor and
distressed prisoners for debt in the Marshalsea in Dublin. So, by a
remarkable coincidence, the first performance of the "Messiah" literally
meant deliverance to the captives. The principal singers were Mrs.
Cibber (daughter-in-law of Colley Cibber, and afterward one of the
greatest actresses of her time), Mrs. Avoglio, and Mr. Dubourg. The
town was wild with excitement. Critics, poets, fine ladies, and men of
fashion tore rhetoric to tatters in their admiration. A clergyman so
far forgot his Bible in his rapture as to exclaim to Mrs. Cibber, at
the close of one of her airs, "Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven
thee." The penny-a-liners wrote that "words were wanting to express the
exquisite delight," etc. And--supreme compliment of all, for Handel was
a cynical bachelor--the fine ladies consented to leave their hoops at
home for the second performance, that a couple of hundred or so extra
listeners might be accommodated. This event was the grand triumph of
Handel's life. Years of misconception, neglect, and rivalry were swept
out of mind in the intoxicating delight of that night's success.


VII.

Handel returned to London, and composed a new oratorio, "Samson," for
the following Lenten season. This, together with the "Messiah," heard
for the first time in London, made the stock of twelve performances.
The fashionable world ignored him altogether; the newspapers kept a
contemptuous silence; comic singers were hired to parody his noblest
airs at the great houses; and impudent Horace Walpole had the audacity
to say that he "had hired all the goddesses from farces and singers of
roast-beef, from between the acts of both theatres, with a man with one
note in his voice, and a girl with never a one; and so they sang and
made brave hallelujahs."

The new field into which Handel had entered inspired his genius to
its greatest energy. His new works for the season of 1744 were the
"Det-tingen Te Deum," "Semele," and "Joseph and his Brethren;" for
the next year (he had again rented the Haymarket Theatre), "Hercules,"
"Belshazzar," and a revival of "Deborah." All these works were produced
in a style of then uncommon completeness, and the great expense he
incurred, combined with the active hostility of the fashionable world,
forced him to close his doors and suspend payment. From this time
forward Handel gave concerts whenever he chose, and depended on the
people, who so supported him by their gradually growing appreciation,
that in two years he had paid off all his debts, and in ten years had
accumulated a fortune of £10,000. The works produced during these latter
years were "Judas Maccabæus," 1747; "Alexander," 1748; "Joshua,"
1748; "Susannah," 1749; "Solomon," 1749; "Theodora," 1750; "Choice of
Hercules," 1751; "Jephthah," 1752, closing with this a stupendous series
of dramatic oratorios. While at work on the last, his eyes suffered an
attack which finally resulted in blindness.

Like Milton in the case of "Paradise Lost," Handel preferred one of his
least popular oratorios, "Theodora." It was a great favorite with him,
and he used to say that the chorus, "He saw the lovely youth," was finer
than anything in the "Messiah." The public were not of this opinion, and
he was glad to give away tickets to any professors who applied for them.
When the "Messiah" was again produced, two of these gentlemen who had
neglected "Theodora" applied for admission. "Oh! your sarvant, meine
Herren!" exclaimed the indignant composer. "You are tamnable dainty!
You would not go to 'Theodora'--dere was room enough to dance dere when
dat was perform." When Handel heard that an enthusiast had offered to
make himself responsible for all the boxes the next time the despised
oratorio should be given--"He is a fool," said he; "the Jews will not
come to it as to 'Judas Maccabæus,' because it is a Christian story; and
the ladies will not come, because it is a virtuous one."

Handel's triumph was now about to culminate in a serene and acknowledged
preeminence. The people had recognized his greatness, and the reaction
at last conquered all classes. Publishers vied with each other in
producing his works, and their performance was greeted with great
audiences and enthusiastic applause. His last ten years were a peaceful
and beautiful ending of a stormy career.


VIII.

Thought lingers pleasantly over this sunset period. Handel throughout
life was so wedded to his art, that he cared nothing for the delights of
woman's love. His recreations were simple--rowing, walking, visiting his
friends, and playing on the organ. He would sometimes try to play the
people out at St. Paul's Cathedral, and hold them indefinitely. He would
resort at night to his favorite tavern, the "Queen's Head," where
he would smoke and drink beer with his chosen friends. Here he would
indulge in roaring conviviality and fun, and delight his friends with
sparkling satire and pungent humor, of which he was a great master,
helped by his amusing compound of English, Italian, and German. Often
he would visit the picture galleries, of which he was passionately fond.
His clumsy but noble figure could be seen almost any morning rolling
through Charing Cross; and every one who met old Father Handel treated
him with the deepest reverence.

The following graphic narrative, taken from the "Somerset House
Gazette," offers a vivid portraiture. Schoelcher, in his "Life of
Handel," says that "its author had a relative, Zachary Hardcastle,
a retired merchant, who was intimately acquainted with all the
most distinguished men of his time, artists, poets, musicians, and
physicians." This old gentleman, who lived at Paper Buildings, was
accustomed to take his morning walk in the garden of Somerset House,
where he happened to meet with another old man, Colley Cibber, and
proposed to him to go and hear a competition which was to take place
at midday for the post of organist to the Temple, and he invited him to
breakfast, telling him at the same time that Dr. Pepusch and Dr.
Arne were to be with him at nine o'clock. They go in; Pepusch arrives
punctually at the stroke of nine; presently there is a knock, the door
is opened, and Handel unexpectedly presents himself. Then follows the
scene:

"Handel: 'Vat! mein dear friend Hardgasdle--vat! you are merry py
dimes! Vat! and Misder Golley Cibbers too! ay, and Togder Peepbush
as veil! Vell, dat is gomigal. Veil, mein friendts, andt how vags the
vorldt wid you, mein tdears? Bray, bray, do let me sit town a momend.'

"Pepusch took the great man's hat, Colley Cibber took his stick, and my
great-uncle wheeled round his reading-chair, which was somewhat about
the dimensions of that in which our kings and queens are crowned; and
then the great man sat him down.

"'Vell, I thank you, gentlemen; now I am at mein ease vonce more. Upon
mein vord, dat is a picture of a ham. It is very pold of me to gome
to preak my fastd wid you uninvided; and I have brought along wid me
a nodable abbetite; for the wader of old Fader Dems is it not a fine
pracer of the stomach?'

"'You do me great honor, Mr. Handel,' said my great-uncle. 'I take this
early visit as a great kindness.'

"'A delightful morning for the water,' said Colley Cibber.

"'Pray, did you come with oars or scullers, Mr. Handel?' said Pepusch.

"'Now, how gan you demand of me dat zilly question, you who are a
musician and a man of science, Togder Peepbush? Vat gan it concern you
whether I have one votdermans or two votd-ermans--whether I bull out
mine burce for to pay von shilling or two? Diavolo! I gannot go here, or
I gannot go dere, but some one shall send it to some newsbaber, as
how Misder Chorge Vreder-ick Handel did go somedimes last week in a
votderman's wherry, to preak his fastd wid Misder Zac. Hardgasdle; but
it shall be all the fault wid himself, if it shall be but in print,
whether I was rowed by one votdermans or by two votdermans. So, Togder
Peepbush, you will blease to excuse me from dat.'

"Poor Dr. Pepusch was for a moment disconcerted, but it was soon
forgotten in the first dish of coffee.

"'Well, gentlemen,' said my great-uncle Zachary, looking at his tompion,
'it is ten minutes past nine. Shall we wait more for Dr. Arne?"

"'Let us give him another five minutes' chance, Master Hardcastle,' said
Colley Cibber; 'he is too great a genius to keep time.'

"'Let us put it to the vote,' said Dr. Pepusch, smiling. 'Who holds up
hands?'

"'I will segond your motion wid all mine heardt,' said Handel. 'I will
hold up mine feeble hands for mine oldt friendt Custos (Arne's name was
Augustine), for I know not who I wouldt waidt for, over andt above mine
oldt rival, Master Dom (meaning Pepusch). Only by your bermission, I
vill dake a snag of your ham, andt a slice of French roll, or a modicum
of chicken; for to dell you the honest fagd, I am all pote famished,
for I laid me down on mine billow in bed the lastd nightd widout
mine supper, at the instance of mine physician, for which I am not
altogeddere inglined to extend mine fastd no longer.' Then, laughing:
'Berhaps, Mister Golley Cibbers, you may like to pote this to the vote?
But I shall not segond the motion, nor shall I holdt up mine hand, as I
will, by bermission, embloy it some dime in a better office. So, if you
blease, do me the kindness for to gut me a small slice of ham.'

"At this instant a hasty footstep was heard on the stairs, accompanied
by the humming of an air, all as gay as the morning, which was beautiful
and bright. It was the month of May.

"'Bresto! be quick,' said Handel; he knew it was Arne; 'fifteen minutes
of dime is butty well for an _ad libitum_.'

"'Mr. Arne,' said my great-uncle's man.

"A chair was placed, and the social party commenced their déjeuner.

"'Well, and how do you find yourself, my dear sir?' inquired Arne, with
friendly warmth.

"'Why, by the mercy of Heaven, and the waders of Aix-la-Chapelle, andt
the addentions of mine togders andt physicians, and oggulists, of lade
years, under Providence, I am surbrizingly pedder--thank you kindly,
Misder Custos. Andt you have also been doing well of lade, as I am
bleased to hear. You see, sir,' pointing to his plate, 'you see, sir,
dat I am in the way for to regruit mine flesh wid the good viands of
Misder Zachary Hardgasdle.'

"'So, sir, I presume you are come to witness the trial of skill at
the old round church? I understand the amateurs expect a pretty sharp
contest,' said Arne.

"'Gondest,' echoed Handel, laying down his knife and fork. 'Yes, no
doubt; your amadeurs have a bassion for gondest. Not vot it vos in our
remembrance. Hey, mine friendt? Ha, ha, ha!'

"'No, sir, I am happy to say those days of envy and bickering, and party
feeling, are gone and past. To be sure we had enough of such disgraceful
warfare: it lasted too long.'

"'Why, yes; it tid last too long, it bereft me of mine poor limbs: it
tid bereave of that vot is the most blessed gift of Him vot made us,
andt not wee ourselves. And for vot? Vy, for nod-ing in the vorldt pode
the bleasure and bastime of them who, having no widt, nor no want, set
at loggerheads such men as live by their widts, to worry and destroy
one andt anodere as wild beasts in the Golloseum in the dimes of the
Romans.'

"Poor Dr. Pepusch during this conversation, as my great-uncle observed,
was sitting on thorns; he was in the confederacy professionally only.

"'I hope, sir,' observed the doctor, 'you do not include me among those
who did injustice to your talents?'

"'Nod at all, nod at all, God forbid! I am a great admirer of the airs
of the 'Peggar's Obéra,' andt every professional gendtleman must do
his best for to live.'

"This mild return, couched under an apparent compliment, was well
received; but Handel, who had a talent for sarcastic drolling, added:

"'Pute why blay the Peggar yourself, togder, andt adapt oldt pallad
humsdrum, ven, as a man of science, you could gombose original airs of
your own? Here is mine friendt, Custos Arne, who has made a road for
himself, for to drive along his own genius to the demple of fame.' Then,
turning to our illustrious Arne, he continued, 'Min friendt Custos,
you and I must meed togeder some dimes before it is long, and hold a
_têde-à-têde_ of old days vat is gone; ha, ha! Oh! it is gomigal now dat
id is all gone by. Custos, to nod you remember as it was almost only of
yesterday dat she-devil Guzzoni, andt dat other brecious taugh-ter of
iniquity, Pelzebub's spoiled child, the bretty-f aced Faustina? Oh! the
mad rage vot I have to answer for, vot with one and the oder of these
fine latdies' airs andt graces. Again, to you nod remember dat ubstardt
buppy Senesino, and the goxgomb Farinelli? Next, again, mine some-dimes
nodtable rival Bononcini, and old Borbora? Ha, ha, ha! all at war wid
me, andt all at war wid themselves. Such a gonfusion of rivalshibs, andt
double-facedness, andt hybocrisy, and malice, vot would make a gomigal
subject for a boem in rhymes, or a biece for the stage, as I hopes to be
saved.'"


IX.

We now turn from the man to his music. In his daily life with the world
we get a spectacle of a quick, passionate temper, incased in a
great burly frame, and raging into whirlwinds of excitement at small
provocation; a gourmand devoted to the pleasure of the table, sometimes
indeed gratifying his appetite in no seemly fashion, resembling his
friend Dr. Samuel Johnson in many notable ways. Handel as a man was
of the earth, earthy, in the extreme, and marked by many whimsical and
disagreeable faults. But in his art we recognize a genius so colossal,
massive, and self-poised as to raise admiration to its superlative of
awe. When Handel had disencumbered himself of tradition, convention,
the trappings of time and circumstance, he attained a place in musical
creation, solitary and unique. His genius found expression in forms
large and austere, disdaining the luxuriant and trivial. He embodied
the spirit of Protestantism in music; and a recognition of this fact
is probably the key of the admiration felt for him by the Anglo-Saxon
races.

Handel possessed an inexhaustible fund of melody of the noblest order;
an almost unequaled command of musical expression; perfect power over
all the resources of his science; the faculty of wielding huge masses
of tone with perfect ease and felicity; and he was without rival in the
sublimity of ideas. The problem which he so successfully solved in the
oratorio was that of giving such dramatic force to the music, in which
he clothed the sacred texts, as to be able to dispense with all scenic
and stage effects. One of the finest operatic composers of the time,
the rival of Bach as an instrumental composer, and performer on the
harpsichord or organ, the unanimous verdict of the musical world is that
no one has ever equaled him in completeness, range of effect, elevation
and variety of conception, and sublimity in the treatment of sacred
music. We can readily appreciate Handel's own words when describing
his own sensations in writing the "Messiah:" "I did think I did see all
heaven before me, and the great God himself."

The great man died on Good Friday night, 1759, aged seventy-five years.
He had often wished "he might breathe his last on Good Friday, in
hope," he said, "of meeting his good God, his sweet Lord and Saviour, on
the day of his resurrection." The old blind musician had his wish.



GLUCK


Gluck is a noble and striking figure in musical history, alike in the
services he rendered to his art and the dignity and strength of his
personal character. As the predecessor of Wagner and Meyerbeer, who
among the composers of this century have given opera its largest and
noblest expression, he anticipated their important reforms, and in his
musical creations we see all that is best in what is called the new
school.

The man, the Ritter Christoph Wilibald von Gluck, is almost as
interesting to us as the musician. He moved in the society of princes
with a calm and haughty dignity, their conscious peer, and never
prostituted his art to gain personal advancement or to curry favor with
the great ones of the earth. He possessed a majesty of nature which was
the combined effect of personal pride, a certain lofty self-reliance,
and a deep conviction that he was the apostle of an important musical
mission.

Gluck's whole life was illumined by an indomitable sense of his own
strength, and lifted by it into an atmosphere high above that of his
rivals, whom, the world has now almost forgotten, except as they were
immortalized by being his enemies. Like Milton and Bacon, who put on
record their knowledge that they had written for all time, Gluck had a
magnificent consciousness of himself. "I have written," he says, "the
music of my 'Ar-mida' in such a manner as to prevent its soon growing
old." This is a sublime vanity inseparable from the great aggressive
geniuses of the world, the wind of the speed which measures their force
of impact.

Duplessis's portrait of Gluck almost takes the man out of paint to put
him in flesh and blood. He looks down with wide-open eyes, swelling
nostrils, firm mouth, and massive chin. The noble brow, dome-like
and expanded, relieves the massiveness of his face; and the whole
countenance and figure express the repose of a powerful and passionate
nature schooled into balance and symmetry: altogether the presentment
of a great man, who felt that he could move the world and had found the
_pou sto_. Of a large and robust type of physical beauty, Nature seems
to have endowed him on every hand with splendid gifts. Such a man as
this could say with calm simplicity to Marie Antoinette, who inquired
one night about his new opera of "Armida," then nearly finished:
"_Madame, il est bientôt fini, et vraiment ce sera superbe._"

One night Handel listened to a new opera from a young and unknown
composer, the "Caduta de' Giganti," one of Gluck's very earliest works,
written when he was yet corrupted with all the vices of the Italian
method. "Mein Gott! he is an idiot," said Handel; "he knows no more of
counterpoint then mein cook." Handel did not see with prophetic eyes. He
never met Gluck afterward, and we do not know his later opinion of the
composer of "Orpheus and Eurydice" and "Iphigenia in Tauris." But Gluck
had ever the profoundest admiration for the author of the "Messiah."
There was something in these two strikingly similar, as their music was
alike characterized by massive simplicity and strength, not rough-hewn,
but shaped into austere beauty.

Before we relate the great episode of our composer's life, let us take
a backward glance at his youth. He was the son of a forester in the
service of Prince Lobkowitz born at Weidenwang in the Upper Palatinate,
July 2,1714. Gluck was devoted to music from early childhood, but
received, in connection with the musical art, an excellent education at
the Jesuit College of Kommotau. Here he learned singing, the organ, the
violin and harpsichord, and had a mind to get his living by devoting
his musical talents to the Church. The Prague public recognized in him
a musician of fair talent, but he found but little encouragement to stay
at the Bohemian capital. So he decided to finish his musical education
at Vienna, where more distinguished masters could be had. Prince
Lobkowitz, who remembered his gamekeeper's son, introduced the young man
to the Italian Prince Melzi, who induced him to accompany him to Milan.
As the pupil of the Italian organist and composer, Sammartini, he made
rapid progress in operatic composition. He was successful in pleasing
Italian audiences, and in four years produced eight operas, for which
the world has forgiven him in forgetting them. Then Gluck must go to
London to see what impression he could make on English critics; for
London then, as now, was one of the great musical centres, where every
successful composer or singer must get his brevet.

Gluck's failure to please in London was, perhaps, an important epoch
in his career. With a mind singularly sensitive to new impressions, and
already struggling with fresh ideas in the laws of operatic composition,
Handel's great music must have had a powerful effect in stimulating
his unconscious progress. His last production in England, "Pyramus and
Thisbe," was a _pasticcio_ opera, in which he embodied the best bits out
of his previous works. The experiment was a glaring failure, as it ought
to have been; for it illustrated the Italian method, which was designed
for mere vocal display, carried to its logical absurdity.


II.

In 1748 Gluck settled in Vienna, where almost immediately his opera of
"Semiramide" was produced. Here he conceived a passion for Marianne, the
daughter of Joseph Pergin, a rich banker; but on account of the father's
distaste for a musical son-in-law, the marriage did not occur till 1750.
"Telemacco" and "Clemenza di Tito" were composed about this time, and
performed in Vienna, Rome, and Naples. In 1755 our composer received the
order of the Golden Spur from the Roman pontiff in recognition of the
merits of two operas performed at Rome, called "Il Trionfo di Camillo"
and "Antigono." Seven years were now actively employed in producing
operas for Vienna and Italian cities, which, without possessing great
value, show the change which had begun to take place in this composer's
theories of dramatic music. In Paris he had been struck with the operas
of Rameau, in which the declamatory form was strongly marked. His early
Italian training had fixed in his mind the importance of pure melody.
From Germany he obtained his appreciation of harmony, and had made a
deep study of the uses of the orchestra. So we see this great reformer
struggling on with many faltering steps toward that result which he
afterward summed up in the following concise description: "My purpose
was to restrict music to its true office, that of ministering to the
expression of poetry, without interrupting the action."

In Calzabigi Gluck had met an author who fully appreciated his ideas,
and had the talent of writing a libretto in accordance with them. This
coadjutor wrote all the librettos that belonged to Gluck's greatest
period. He had produced his "Orpheus and Eurydice" and "Alceste" in
Vienna with a fair amount of success; but his tastes drew him strongly
to the French stage, where the art of acting and declamation was
cultivated then, as it is now, to a height unknown in other parts of
Europe. So Ave find him gladly accepting an offer from the managers of
the French Opera to migrate to the great city, in which were fermenting
with much noisy fervor those new ideas in art, literature, politics,
and society, which were turning the eyes of all Europe to the French
capital.

The world's history has hardly a more picturesque and striking
spectacle, a period more fraught with the working of powerful forces,
than that exhibited by French society in the latter part of Louis XV.'s
reign. We see a court rotten to the core with indulgence in every form
of sensuality and vice, yet glittering with the veneer of a social
polish which made it the admiration of the world. A dissolute king
was ruled by a succession of mistresses, and all the courtiers vied in
emulating the vice and extravagance of their master. Yet in this foul
compost-heap art and literature nourished with a tropical luxuriance.
Voltaire was at the height of his splendid career, the most brilliant
wit and philosopher of his age. The lightnings of his mockery attacked
with an incessant play the social, political, and religious shams of
the period. People of all classes, under the influence of his unsparing
satire, were learning to see with clear eyes what an utterly artificial
and polluted age they lived in, and the cement which bound society in a
compact whole was fast melting under this powerful solvent.

Rousseau, with his romantic philosophy and eloquence, had planted his
new ideas deep in the hearts of his contemporaries, weary with the
artifice and the corruption of a time which had exhausted itself and had
nothing to promise under the old social _regime_. The ideals uplifted in
the "Nouvelle Héloïse" and the "Confessions" awakened men's minds with
a great rebound to the charms of Nature, simplicity, and a social order
untrammeled by rules or conventions. The eloquence with which these
theories were propounded carried the French people by storm, and
Rousseau was a demigod at whose shrine worshiped alike duchess and
peasant. The Encyclopedists stimulated the ferment by their literary
enthusiasm, and the heartiness with which they cooperated with the whole
current of revolutionary thought.

The very atmosphere was reeking with the prophecy of imminent
change. Versailles itself did not escape the contagion. Courtiers
and aristocrats, in worshiping the beautiful ideals set up by the new
school, which were as far removed as possible from their own effete
civilization, did not realize that they were playing with the fire which
was to burn out the whole social edifice of France with such a terrible
conflagration; for, back and beneath all this, there was a people
groaning under long centuries of accumulated wrong, in whose imbruted
hearts the theories applauded by their oppressors with a sort of
_doctrinaire_ delight were working with a fatal fever.


III.

In this strange condition of affairs Gluck found his new sphere of
labor--Gluck, himself overflowing with the revolutionary spirit, full
of the enthusiasm of reform. At first he carried everything before him.
Protected by royalty, he produced, on the basis of an admirable libretto
by Du Rollet, one of the great wits of the time, "Iphigenia in Aulis."
It was enthusiastically received. The critics, delighted to establish
the reputation of one especially favored by the Dau-phiness Marie
Antoinette, exhausted superlatives on the new opera. The Abbé Arnaud,
one of the leading _dilettanti_, exclaimed: "With such music one might
found a new religion!" To be sure, the connoisseurs could not
understand the complexities of the music; but, following the rule of all
connoisseurs before or since, they considered it all the more learned
and profound. So led, the general public clapped their hands, and agreed
to consider Gluck as a great composer. He was called the Hercules of
music; the opera-house was crammed night after night; his footsteps
were dogged in the streets by admiring enthusiasts; the wits and poets
occupied themselves with composing sonnets in his praise; brilliant
courtiers and fine ladies showered valuable gifts on the new musical
oracle; he was hailed as the exponent of Rousseauism in music. We read
that it was considered to be a priceless privilege to be admitted to
the rehearsal of a new opera, to see Gluck conduct in nightcap and
dressing-gown.

Fresh adaptations of "Orpheus and Eurydice" and of "Alceste" were
produced. The first, brought out in 1784, was received with an
enthusiasm which could be contented only with forty-nine consecutive
performances. The second act of this work has been called one of the
most astonishing productions of the human mind. The public began to show
signs of fickleness, however, on the production of the "Alceste." On the
first night a murmur arose among the spectators: "The piece has fallen."
Abbé Arnaud, Gluck's devoted defender, arose in his box and replied:
"Yes! fallen from heaven." While Mademoiselle Levasseur was singing one
of the great airs, a voice was heard to say, "Ah! you tear out my ears;"
to which the caustic rejoinder was: "How fortunate, if it is to give
you others!"

Gluck himself was badly bitten, in spite of his hatred of shams and
shallowness, with the pretenses of the time, which professed to dote on
nature and simplicity. In a letter to his old pupil, Marie Antoinette,
wherein he disclaims any pretension of teaching the French a new school
of music, he says: "I see with satisfaction that the language of Nature
is the universal language."

So, here on the crumbling crust of a volcano, where the volatile French
court danced and fiddled and sang, unreckoning of what was soon to
come, our composer and his admirers patted each other on the back with
infinite complacency.

But after this high tide of prosperity there was to come a reverse. A
powerful faction, that for a time had been crushed by Gluck's triumph,
after a while raised their heads and organized an attack. There were
second-rate composers whose scores had been laid on the shelf in the
rage for the new favorite; musicians who were shocked and enraged at the
difficulties of his instrumentation; wits who, having praised Gluck for
a while, thought they could now find a readier field for their quills
in satire; and a large section of the public who changed for no earthly
reason but that they got tired of doing one thing.

Therefore, the Italian Piccini was imported to be pitted against the
reigning deity. The French court was broken up into hostile ranks. Marie
Antoinette was Gluck's patron, but Madame Du Barry, the king's mistress,
declared for Piccini. Abbé Arnaud fought for Gluck; but the witty
Marmontel was the advocate of his rival. The keen-witted Du Rollet
was Gluckist; but La Harpe, the eloquent, was Piccinist. So this
battle-royal in art commenced and raged with virulence. The green-room
was made unmusical with contentions carried out in polite Billingsgate.
Gluck tore up his unfinished score in rage when he learned that his
rival was to compose an opera on the same libretto. La Harpe said: "The
famous Gluck may puff his own compositions, but he can't prevent them
from boring us to death." Thus the wags of Paris laughed and wrangled
over the musical rivals. Berton, the new director, fancied he could
soften the dispute and make the two composers friends; so at a
dinner-party, when they were all in their cups, he proposed that they
should compose an opera jointly. This was demurred to; but it was
finally arranged that they should compose an opera on the same subject.

"Iphigenia in Tauris," Gluck's second "Iphigenia," produced in 1779, was
such a masterpiece that his rival shut his own score in his portfolio,
and kept it two years. All Paris was enraptured with this great work,
and Gluck's detractors were silenced in the wave of enthusiasm which
swept the public. Abbé Arnaud's opinion was the echo of the general
mind: "There was but one beautiful part, and that was the whole of it."
This opera may be regarded as the most perfect example of Gluck's
school in making the music the full reflex of the dramatic action. While
Orestes sings in the opera, "My heart is calm," the orchestra continues
to paint the agitation of his thoughts. During the rehearsal the
musician failed to understand the exigency and ceased playing. The
composer cried out, in a rage: "Don't you see he is lying? Go on, go
on; he as just killed his mother." On one occasion, when he was praising
Rameau's chorus of "Castor and Pollux," an admirer of his flattered him
with the remark, "But what a difference between this chorus and that of
your 'Iphigénie'!" "Yet it is very well done," said Gluck; "one is only
a religious ceremony, the other is a real funeral." He was wont to say
that in composing he always tried to forget he was a musician.

Gluck, however, a few months subsequent to this, was so much humiliated
at the non-success of "Echo and Narcissus," that he left Paris in bitter
irritation, in spite of Marie Antoinette's pleadings that he should
remain at the French capital.

The composer was now advanced in years, and had become impatient and
fretful. He left Paris for Vienna in 1780, having amassed considerable
property. There, as an old, broken-down man, he listened to the young
Mozart's new symphonies and operas, and applauded them with great zeal;
for Gluck, though fiery and haughty in the extreme, was singularly
generous in recognizing the merits of others.

This was exhibited in Paris in his treatment of Méhul, the Belgian
composer, then a youth of sixteen, who had just arrived in the gay city.
It was on the eve of the first representation of "Iphigenia in Tauris,"
when the operatic battle was agitating the public. With all the ardor
of a novice and a devotee, the young musical student immediately threw
himself into the affray, and by the aid of a friend he succeeded in
gaining admittance to the theatre for the final rehearsal of Gluck's
opera. This so enchanted him that he resolved to be present at the
public performance. But, unluckily for the resolve, he had no money, and
no prospect of obtaining any; so, with a determination and a love for
art which deserve to be remembered, he decided to hide himself in one of
the boxes and there to wait for the time of representation.

"At the end of the rehearsal," writes George Hogarth in his "Memoirs
of the Drama," "he was discovered in his place of concealment by the
servants of the theatre, who proceeded to turn him out very roughly.
Gluck, who had not left the house, heard the noise, came to the
spot, and found the young man, whose spirit was roused, resisting the
indignity with which he was treated. Méhul, finding in whose presence
he was, was ready to sink with confusion; but, in answer to Gluck's
questions, he told him that he was a young musical student from the
country, whose anxiety to be present at the performance of the opera
had led him into the commission of an impropriety. Gluck, as may be
supposed, was delighted with a piece of enthusiasm so flattering to
himself, and not only gave his young admirer a ticket of admission, but
desired his acquaintance." From this artistic _contretemps_, then, arose
a friendship alike creditable to the goodness and generosity of Gluck,
as it was to the sincerity and high order of Méhul's musical talent.

Gluck's death, in 1787, was caused by overindulgence in wine at a dinner
which he gave to some of his friends. The love of stimulants had grown
upon him in his old age, and had become almost a passion. An enforced
abstinence of some months was succeeded by a debauch, in which he drank
an immense quantity of brandy. The effects brought on a fit of apoplexy,
of which he died, aged seventy-three.

Gluck's place in musical history is peculiar and well marked, he entered
the field of operatic composition when it was hampered with a great
variety of dry forms, and utterly without soul and poetic spirit. The
object of composers seemed to be to show mere contrapuntal learning, or
to furnish singers opportunity to display vocal agility. The opera, as
a large and symmetrical expression of human emotions, suggested in the
collisions of a dramatic story, was utterly an unknown quantity in art.
Gluck's attention was early called to this radical inconsistency; and,
though he did not learn for many years to develop his musical ideas
according to a theory, and never carried that theory to the logical
results insisted on by his great after-type, Wagner, he accomplished
much in the way of sweeping reform. He elaborated the recitative or
declamatory element in opera with great care, and insisted that his
singers should make this the object of their most careful efforts. The
arias, duos, quartets, etc., as well as the choruses and orchestral
parts, were made consistent with the dramatic motive and situations.
In a word, Gluck aimed with a single-hearted purpose to make music the
expression of poetry and sentiment.

The principles of Gluck's school of operatic writing may be briefly
summarized as follows: That dramatic music can only reach its highest
power and beauty when joined to a simple and poetic text, expressing
passions true to Nature; that music can be made the language of all the
varied emotions of the heart; that the music of an opera must exactly
follow the rhythm and melody of the words; that the orchestra must be
only used to strengthen and intensify the feeling embodied in the
vocal parts, as demanded by the text or dramatic situation. We get some
further light on these principles from Gluck's letter of dedication to
the Grand-Duke of Tuscany on the publication of "Alceste." He writes: "I
am of opinion that music must be to poetry what liveliness of color and
a happy mixture of light and shade are for a faultless and well-arranged
drawing, which serve to add life to the figures without injuring the
outlines;... that the overture should prepare the auditors for the
character of the action which is to be presented, and hint at the
progress of the same; that the instruments must be employed according to
the degree of interest and passion; that the composer should avoid too
marked a disparity in the dialogue-between the air and recitative, in
order not to break the sense of a period, or interrupt the energy of the
action.... Finally, I have even felt compelled to sacrifice rules to the
improvement of the effect."

We find in this composer's music, therefore, a largeness and dignity
of treatment which have never been surpassed. His command of melody is
quite remarkable, but his use of it is under severe artistic restraint;
for it is always characterized by breadth, simplicity, and directness.
He aimed at and attained the symmetrical balance of an old Greek play.



HAYDN.


I.

"Papa Haydn!" Thus did Mozart ever speak of his foster-father in music,
and the title, transmitted to posterity, admirably expressed the sweet,
placid, gentle nature, whose possessor was personally beloved no less
than he was admired. His life flowed, broad and unruffled, like some
great river, unvexed for the most part by the rivalries, jealousies, and
sufferings, oftentimes self-inflicted, which have harassed the careers
of other great musicians. He remained to the last the favorite of the
imperial court of Vienna, and princes followed his remains to their last
resting-place.

Joseph Haydn was the eldest of the twenty children of Matthias Haydn, a
wheelwright at Rohrau, Lower Austria, where he was born in 1732. At
the age of twelve years he was engaged to sing in Vienna. He became a
chorister in St. Stephen's Church, but offended the choir-master by the
revolt on the part of himself and parents from submitting to the usual
means then taken to perpetuate a fine soprano in boys. So Haydn, who had
surreptitiously picked up a good deal of musical knowledge apart from
the art of singing, was at the age of sixteen turned out on the world.
A compassionate barber, however, took him in, and Haydn dressed and
powdered wigs down-stairs, while he worked away at a little worm-eaten
harpsichord at night in his room. Unfortunate boy! he managed to get
himself engaged to the barber's daughter, Anne Keller, who was for a
good while the Xantippe of his gentle life, and he paid dearly for his
father-in-law's early hospitality.

The young musician soon began to be known, as he played the violin in
one church, the organ in another, and got some pupils. His first rise
was his acquaintance with Metastasio, the poet laureate of the court.
Through him, Haydn got introduced to the mistress of the Venetian
embassador, a great musical enthusiast, and in her circle he met
Porpora, the best music-master in the world, but a crusty, snarling old
man. Porpora held at Vienna the position of musical dictator and censor,
and he exercised the tyrannical privileges of his post mercilessly.
Haydn was a small, dark-complexioned, insignificant-looking youth, and
Porpora, of course, snubbed him most contemptuously. But Haydn wanted
instruction, and no one in the world could give it so well as the savage
old _maestro_. So he performed all sorts of menial services for him,
cleaned his shoes, powdered his wig, and ran all his errands. The
result was that Porpora softened and consented to give his young admirer
lessons--no great hardship, for young Haydn proved a most apt and
gifted pupil. And it was not long either before the young musician's
compositions attracted public attention and found a sale. The very
curious relations between Haydn and Porpora are brilliantly sketched in
George Sand's "Consuelo."

At night Haydn, accompanied by his friends, was wont to wander about
Vienna by moonlight, and serenade his patrons with trios and quartets of
his own composition. He happened one night to stop under the window
of Bernardone Kurz, a director of a theatre and the leading clown of
Vienna. Down rushed Kurz very excitedly. "Who are you?" he shrieked.
"Joseph Haydn." "Whose music is it?" "Mine." "The deuce it is! And
at your age, too!" "Why, I must begin with something." "Come along
up-stairs."

The enthusiastic director collared his prize, and was soon deep in
explaining a wonderful libretto, entitled "The Devil on Two Sticks."
To write music for this was no easy matter; for it was to represent all
sorts of absurd things, among others a tempest. The tempest made Haydn
despair, and he sat at the piano, banging away in a reckless fashion,
while the director stood behind him, raving in a disconnected way as
to his meaning. At last the distracted pianist brought his fists
simultaneously down upon the key-board, and made a rapid sweep of all
the notes.

"Bravo! bravo! that is the tempest!" cried Kurz.

The buffoon also laid himself on a chair, and had it carried about the
room, during which he threw out his limbs in imitation of the act of
swimming. Haydn supplied an accompaniment so suitable that Kurz soon
landed on _terra firma_, and congratulated the composer, assuring him
that he was the man to compose the opera. By this stroke of good luck
our young musician received one hundred and thirty florins.


II.

At the age of twenty-eight Haydn composed his first symphony. Soon after
this he attracted the attention of the old Prince Esterhazy, all the
members of whose family have become known in the history of music as
generous Mæcenases of the art.

"What! you don't mean to say that little blackamoor" (alluding to
Haydn's brown complexion and small stature) "composed that symphony?"

"Surely, prince," replied the director Friedburg, beckoning to Joseph
Haydn, who advanced toward the orchestra.

"Little Moor," says the old gentleman, "you shall enter my service. I am
Prince Esterhazy. What's your name?"

"Haydn."

"Ah! I've heard of you. Get along and dress yourself like a
_Kapellmeister_. Clap on a new coat, and mind your wig is curled. You're
too short. You shall have red heels; but they shall be high, that your
stature may correspond with your merit."

So he went to live at Eisenstadt in the Esterhazy household, and
received a salary of four hundred florins, which was afterward raised to
one thousand by Prince Nicholas Esterhazy. Haydn continued the intimate
friend and associate of Prince Nicholas for thirty years, and death only
dissolved the bond between them. In the Esterhazy household the life of
Haydn was a very quiet one, a life of incessant and happy industry; for
he poured out an incredible number of works, among them not a few of
his most famous ones. So he spent a happy life in hard labor, alternated
with delightful recreations at the Esterhazy country-seat, mountain
rambles, hunting and fishing, open-air concerts, musical evenings, etc.

A French traveler who visited Esterhaz about 1782 says: "The château
stands quite solitary, and the prince sees nobody but his officials
and servants, and strangers who come hither from curiosity. He has
a puppet-theatre, which is certainly unique in character. Here the
grandest operas are produced. One knows not whether to be amazed or to
laugh at seeing 'Alceste,' 'Alcides,' etc., put on the stage with all
due solemnity and played by puppets. His orchestra is one of the best
I ever heard, and the great Hadyn is his court and theatre composer.
He employs a poet for his singular theatre, whose humor and skill
in suiting the grandest subjects for the stage, and in parodying the
gravest effects, are often exceedingly happy. He often engages a troupe
of wandering players for months at a time, and he himself and his
retinue form the entire audience. They are allowed to come on the stage
uncombed, drunk, their parts not half learned, and half dressed. The
prince is not for the serious and tragic, and he enjoys it when the
players, like Sancho Panza, give loose reins to their humor."

Yet Haydn was not perfectly contented. He would have been had it not
been for his terrible wife, the hair-dresser's daughter, who had a
dismal, mischievous, sullen nature, a venomous tongue, and a savage
temper. She kept Haydn in hot water continually, till at last he broke
loose from this plague by separating from her. Scandal says that
Haydn, who had a very affectionate and sympathetic nature, found ample
consolation for marital infelicity in the charms and society of the
lovely Boselli, a great singer. He had her picture painted, and humored
all her whims and caprices, to the sore depletion of his pocket.

In after-years again he was mixed up in a little affair with the great
Mrs. Billington, whose beautiful person was no less marked than her fine
voice. Sir Joshua Reynolds was painting her portrait for him, and had
represented her as St. Cecilia listening to celestial music. Haydn paid
her a charming compliment at one of the sittings.

"What do you think of the charming Billington's picture?" said Sir
Joshua.

"Yes," said Haydn, "it is indeed a beautiful picture. It is just like
her, but there's a strange mistake."

"What is that?"

"Why, you have painted her listening to the angels, when you ought to
have painted the angels listening to her."

At one time, during Haydn's connection with Prince Esterhazy, the
latter, from motives of economy, determined to dismiss his celebrated
orchestra, which he supported at great expense. Haydn was the leader,
and his patron's purpose caused him sore pain, as indeed it did all the
players, among whom were many distinguished instrumentalists. Still,
there was nothing to be done but for all concerned to make themselves as
cheerful as possible under the circumstances; so, with that fund of wit
and humor which seems to have been concealed under the immaculate coat
and formal wig of the straitlaced Haydn, he set about composing a work
for the last performance of the royal band, a work which has ever since
borne the appropriate title of the "Farewell Symphony."

On the night appointed for the last performance a brilliant company,
including the prince, had assembled. The music of the new symphony began
gayly enough--it was even merry. As it went on, however, it became
soft and dreamy. The strains were sad and "long drawn out." At length a
sorrowful wailing began. One instrument after another left off, and each
musician, as his task ended, blew out his lamp and departed with his
music rolled up under his arm.

Haydn was the last to finish, save one, and this was the prince's
favorite violinist, who said all that he had to say in a brilliant
violin cadenza, when, behold! he made off.

The prince was astonished. "What is the meaning of all this?" cried he.

"It is our sorrowful farewell," answered Haydn.

This was too much. The prince was overcome, and, with a good laugh,
said: "Well, I think I must reconsider my decision. At any rate, we will
not say 'good-by' now."


III.

During the thirty years of Haydn's quiet life with the Esterhazys he had
been gradually acquiring an immense reputation in France, England, and
Spain, of which he himself was unconscious. His great symphonies had
stamped him worldwide as a composer of remarkable creative genius.
Haydn's modesty prevented him from recognizing his own celebrity.
Therefore, we can fancy his astonishment when, shortly after the death
of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, a stranger called on him and said: "I am
Salomon, from London, and must strike a bargain with you for that city
immediately."

Haydn was dazed with the suddenness of the proposition, but the old ties
were broken up, and his grief needed recreation and change. Still, he
had many beloved friends, whose society it was hard to leave. Chief
among these was Mozart. "Oh, papa," said Mozart, "you have had no
training for the wide world, and you speak so few languages." "Oh, my
language is understood all over the world," said Papa Haydn, with a
smile. When he departed for England, December 15, 1790, Mozart could
with difficulty tear himself away, and said, with pathetic tears, "We
shall doubtless now take our last farewell."

Haydn and Mozart were perfectly in accord, and each thought and did well
toward the other. Mozart, we know, was born when Haydn had just reached
manhood, so that when Mozart became old enough to study composition
the earlier works of Haydn's chamber music had been written; and these
undoubtedly formed the studies of the boy Mozart, and greatly influenced
his style; so that Haydn was the model and, in a sense, the instructor
of Mozart. Strange is it then to find, in after-years, the master
borrowing (perhaps with interest!) from the pupil. Such, however, was
the fact, as every amateur knows. At this we can hardly wonder, for
Haydn possessed unbounded admiration not only for Mozart, but also for
his music, which the following shows. Being asked by a friend at Prague
to send him an opera, he replied:

"With all my heart, if you desire to have it for yourself alone, but if
you wish to perform it in public, I must be excused; for, being written
specially for my company at the Esterhazy Palace, it would not produce
the proper effect elsewhere. I would do a new score for your theatre;
but what a hazardous step it would be to stand in comparison with
Mozart! Oh, Mozart! If I could instill into the soul of every lover of
music the admiration I have for his matchless works, all countries would
seek to be possessed of so great a treasure. Let Prague keep him, ah!
and well reward him, for without that the history of geniuses is bad;
alas! we see so many noble minds crushed beneath adversity. Mozart is
incomparable, and I am annoyed that he is unable to obtain any court
appointment. Forgive me if I get excited when speaking of him, I am so
fond of him."

Mozart's admiration for Haydn's music, too, was very marked. He and
Herr Kozeluch were one day listening to a composition of Haydn's which
contained some bold modulations. Kozeluch thought them strange, and
asked Mozart whether he would have written them. "I think not," smartly
replied Mozart, "and for this reason: because they would not have
occurred either to you or me!"

On another occasion we find Mozart taking to task a Viennese professor
of some celebrity, who used to experience great delight in turning to
Haydn's compositions to find therein any evidence of the master's want
of sound theoretical training--a quest in which the pedant occasionally
succeeded. One day he came to Mozart with a great crime to unfold.
Mozart as usual endeavored to turn the conversation, but the learned
professor still went chattering on, till at last Mozart shut his mouth
with the following pill: "Sir, if you and I were both melted down
together, we should not furnish materials for one Haydn."

It was one of the most beautiful friendships in the history of art;
full of tender offices, and utterly free from the least taint of envy or
selfishness.


IV.

Haydn landed in England after a voyage which delighted him in spite of
his terror of the sea--a feeling which seems to be usual among people of
very high musical sensibilities. In his diary we find recorded: "By four
o'clock we had come twenty miles. The large vessel stood out to sea five
hours longer, till the tide carried it into the harbor. I remained
on deck the whole passage, in order to gaze my fill at that huge
monster--the ocean."

The novelty of Haydn's concerts--of which he was to give twenty at fifty
pounds apiece--consisted of their being his own symphonies, conducted
by himself in person. Haydn's name, during his serene, uneventful years
with the Ester-hazys, had become world-famous. His reception was most
brilliant. Dinner parties, receptions, invitations without end, attested
the enthusiasm of the sober English; and his appearance at concerts and
public meetings was the signal for stormy applause. How, in the press of
all this pleasure in which he was plunged, he continued to compose the
great number of works produced at this time, is a marvel. He must have
been little less than a Briareus. It was in England that he wrote the
celebrated Salomon symphonies, the "twelve grand," as they are called.
They may well be regarded as the crowning-point of Haydn's efforts in
that form of writing. He took infinite pains with them, as, indeed,
is well proved by an examination of the scores. More elaborate, more
beautiful, and scored for a fuller orchestra than any others of the one
hundred and twenty or thereabouts which he composed, the Salomon set
also bears marks of the devout and pious spirit in which Haydn ever
labored.

It is interesting to see how, in many of the great works which have won
the world's admiration, the religion of the author has gone hand in hand
with his energy and his genius; and we find Haydn not ashamed to indorse
his score with his prayer and praise, or to offer the fruits of his
talents to the Giver of all. Thus, the symphony in D (No. 6) bears on
the first page of the score the inscription, "In nomine Domini: di me
Giuseppe Haydn, maia 1791, in London;" and on the last page, "Fine, Laus
Deo, 238."

That genius may sometimes be trusted to judge of its own work may be
gathered from Haydn's own estimate of these great symphonies.

"Sir," said the well-satisfied Salomon, after a successful performance
of one of them, "I am strongly of opinion that you will never surpass
these symphonies."

"No!" replied Haydn; "I never mean to try."

The public, as we have said, was enthusiastic; but such a full banquet
of severe orchestral music was a severe trial to many, and not a few
heads would keep time to the music by steady nods during the slow
movements. Haydn, therefore, composed what is known as the "Surprise"
symphony. The slow movement is of the most lulling and soothing
character, and about the time the audience should be falling into its
first snooze, the instruments having all died away into the softest
_pianissimo_, the full orchestra breaks out with a frightful BANG. It is
a question whether the most vigorous performance of this symphony would
startle an audience nowadays, accustomed to the strident effects of
Wagner and Liszt. A wag in a recent London journal tells us, indeed,
that at the most critical part in the work a gentleman opened one eye
sleepily and said, "Come in."

Simple-hearted Haydn was delighted at the attention lavished on him
in London. He tells us how he enjoyed his various entertainments and
feastings by such dignitaries as William Pitt, the Lord Chancellor, and
the Duke of Lids (Leeds). The gentlemen drank freely the whole night,
and the songs, the crazy uproar, and smashing of glasses were very
great. He went down to stay with the Prince of Wales (George IV.) who
played on the violoncello, and charmed the composer by his kindness. "He
is the handsomest man on God's earth. He has an extraordinary love of
music, and a great deal of feeling, but very little money."

To stem the tide of Haydn's popularity, the Italian faction had recourse
to Giardini; and they even imported a pet pupil of Haydn, Pleyel, to
conduct the rival concerts. Our composer kept his temper, and wrote: "He
[Pleyel] behaves himself with great modesty." Later we read, "Pleyel's
presumption is a public laughingstock;" but he adds, "I go to all his
concerts and applaud him."

Far different were the amenities that passed between Haydn and Giardini.
"I won't know the German hound," says the latter. Haydn wrote, "I
attended his concert at Ranelagh, and he played the fiddle like a hog."

Among the pleasant surprises Haydn had in England was his visit to
Herschel, the great astronomer, in whom he recognized one of his old
oboe-players. The big telescope amazed him, and so did the patient
star-gazer, who often sat out-of-doors in the most intense cold for five
or six hours at a time.

Our composer returned to Vienna in May, 1795. with the little fortune of
12,000 florins in his pocket.


V.

In his charming little cottage near Vienna Haydn was the centre of a
brilliant society. Princes and nobles were proud to do honor to him;
and painters, poets, scholars, and musicians made a delightful coterie,
which was not even disturbed by the political convulsions of the time.
The baleful star of Napoleon shot its disturbing influences throughout
Europe, and the roar of his cannon shook the established order of things
with the echoes of what was to come. Haydn was passionately attached to
his country and his emperor, and regarded anxiously the rumblings and
quakings of the period; but he did not intermit his labor, or allow
his consecration to his divine art to be in the least shaken. Like
Archimedes of old, he toiled serenely at his appointed work, while the
political order of things was crumbling before the genius and energy of
the Corsican adventurer.

In 1798 he completed his great oratorio of "The Creation," on which he
had spent three years of toil, and which embodied his brightest genius.
Haydn was usually a very rapid composer, but he seems to have labored
at the "Creation" with a sort of reverential humility, which never
permitted him to think his work worthy or complete. It soon went the
round of Germany, and passed to England and France, everywhere awakening
enthusiasm by its great symmetry and beauty. Without the sublimity
of Handel's "Messiah," it is marked by a richness of melody, a serene
elevation, a matchless variety in treatment, which make it the most
characteristic of Haydn's works. Napoleon, the first consul, was
hastening to the opera-house to hear this, January 24, 1801, when he was
stopped by an attempt at assassination.

Two years after "The Creation" appeared "The Seasons," founded on
Thomson's poem, also a great work, and one of his last; for the grand
old man was beginning to think of rest, and he only composed two or
three quartets after this. He was now seventy years old, and went but
little from his own home. His chief pleasure was to sit in his shady
garden, and see his friends, who loved to solace the musical patriarch
with cheerful talk and music. Haydn often fell into deep melancholy, and
he tells us that God revived him; for no more sweet, devout nature ever
lived. His art was ever a religion. A touching incident of his old age
occurred at a grand performance of "The Creation" in 1808. Haydn was
present, but he was so old and feeble that he had to be wheeled in a
chair into the theatre, where a princess of the house of Ester-hazy
took her seat by his side. This was the last time that Haydn appeared
in public, and a very impressive sight it must have been to see the aged
father of music listening to "The Creation" of his younger days, but too
old to take any active share in the performance. The presence of the old
man roused intense enthusiasm among the audience, which could no longer
be suppressed as the chorus and orchestra burst in full power upon the
superb passage, "And there was light."

Amid the tumult of the enraptured audience the old composer was seen
striving to raise himself. Once on his feet, he mustered up all his
strength, and, in reply to the applause of the audience, he cried out
as loud as he was able: "No, no! not from me, but," pointing to heaven,
"from thence--from heaven above--comes all!" saying which, he fell back
in his chair, faint and exhausted, and had to be carried out of the
room.

One year after this Vienna was bombarded by the French, and a shot fell
in Haydn's garden. He requested to be led to his piano, and played the
"Hymn to the Emperor" three times over with passionate eloquence and
pathos. This was his last performance. He died five days afterward, aged
seventy-seven, and lies buried in the cemetery of Gumpfenzdorf, in his
own beloved Vienna.


VI.

The serene, genial face of Haydn, as seen in his portraits, measures
accurately the character of his music. In both we see health fulness,
good-humor, vivacity, devotional feeling, and warm affections; a mind
contented, but yet attaching high importance to only one thing in life,
the composing of music. Haydn pursued this with a calm, insatiable
industry, without haste, without rest. His works number eight hundred,
comprising cantatas, symphonies, oratorios, masses, concertos, trios,
sonatas, quartets, minuets, etc., and also twenty-two operas, eight
German and fourteen Italian.

As a creative mind in music, Haydn was the father of the quartet and
symphony. Adopting the sonata form as scientifically illustrated by
Emanuel Bach, he introduced it into compositions for the orchestra
and the chamber. He developed these into a completeness and full-orbed
symmetry, which have never been improved. Mozart is richer, Beethoven
more sublime, Schubert more luxuriant, Mendelssohn more orchestral and
passionate; but Haydn has never been surpassed in his keen perception
of the capacities of instruments, his subtile distribution of parts, his
variety in treating his themes, and his charmingly legitimate effects.
He fills a large space in musical history, not merely from the number,
originality, and beauty of his compositions, but as one who represents
an era in art-development.

In Haydn genius and industry were happily united. With a marvelously
rich flow of musical ideas, he clearly knew what he meant to do, and
never neglected the just elaboration of each one. He would labor on a
theme till it had shaped itself into perfect beauty.

Haydn is illustrious in the history of art as a complete artistic life,
which worked out all of its contents as did the great Goethe. In the
words of a charming writer: "His life was a rounded whole. There was no
broken light about it; it orbed slowly, with a mild, unclouded lustre,
into a perfect star. Time was gentle with him, and Death was kind, for
both waited upon his genius until all was won. Mozart was taken away at
an age when new and dazzling effects had not ceased to flash through
his brain: at the very moment when his harmonies began to have a
prophetic ring of the nineteenth century, it was decreed that he should
not see its dawn. Beethoven himself had but just entered upon an unknown
'sea whose margin seemed to fade forever and forever as he moved;' but
good old Haydn had come into port over a calm sea and after a prosperous
voyage. The laurel wreath was this time woven about silver locks; the
gathered-in harvest was ripe and golden."



MOZART.


I.

The life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the immortal names in music,
contradicts the rule that extraordinary youthful talent is apt to be
followed by a sluggish and commonplace maturity. His father entered the
room one day with a friend, and found the child bending over a music
score. The little Mozart, not yet five years old, told his father he was
writing a concerto for the piano. The latter examined it, and tears of
joy and astonishment rolled down his face on perceiving its accuracy.

"It is good, but too difficult for general use," said the friend.

"Oh," said Wolfgang, "it must be practised till it is learned. This is
the way it goes." So saying, he played it with perfect correctness.

About the same time he offered to take the violin at a performance of
some chamber music. His father refused, saying, "How can you? You have
never learned the violin."

"One needs not study for that," said this musical prodigy; and taking
the instrument, he played second violin with ease and accuracy. Such
precocity seems almost incredible, and only in the history of music does
it find any parallel.

Born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756, he was carefully trained by his
father, who resigned his place as court musician to devote himself
more exclusively to his family. From the earliest age he showed an
extraordinary passion for music and mathematics, scrawling notes and
diagrams in every place accessible to his insatiate pencil.

Taken to Vienna, the six-year-old virtuoso astonished the court by his
brilliant talents. The future Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was
particularly delighted with him, and the little Mozart naively said he
would like to marry her, for she was so good to him. His father devoted
several years to an artistic tour, with him and his little less talented
sister, through the German cities, and it was also extended to Paris and
London. Everywhere the greatest enthusiasm was evinced in this charming
bud of promise. The father writes home: "We have swords, laces,
mantillas, snuff-boxes, gold cases, sufficient to furnish a shop; but as
for money, it is a scarce article, and I am positively poor."

At Paris they were warmly received at the court, and the boy is said
to have expressed his surprise when Mme. Pompadour refused to kiss him,
saying: "Who is she, that she will not kiss me? Have I not been kissed
by the queen?" In London his improvisations and piano sonatas excited
the greatest admiration. Here he also published his third work. These
journeys were an uninterrupted chain of triumphs for the child-virtuoso
on the piano, organ, violin, and in singing. He was made honorary member
of the Academies of Bologna and Verona, decorated with orders,
and received at the age of thirteen an order to write the opera of
"Mithridates," which was successfully produced at Milan in 1770. Several
other fine minor compositions were also written to order at this time
for his Italian admirers. At Rome Mozart attended the Sistine Chapel
and wrote the score of Allegri's great mass, forbidden by the pope to be
copied, from the memory of a single performance.

The record of Mozart's youthful triumphs might be extended at great
length; but aside from the proof they furnish of his extraordinary
precocity, they have lent little vital significance in the great problem
of his career, except so far as they stimulated the marvelous boy to lay
a deep foundation for his greater future, which, short as it was, was
fruitful in undying results.


II.

Mozart's life in Paris, where he lived with his mother in 1778 and
1779, was a disappointment, for he despised the French nation. His deep,
simple, German nature revolted from Parisian frivolity, in which he
found only sensuality and coarseness, disguised under a thin veneering
of social grace. He abhorred French music in these bitter terms: "The
French are and always will be downright donkeys. They cannot sing, they
scream." It was just at this time that Gluck and Piccini were having
their great art-duel. We get a glimpse of the pious tendency of the
young composer in his characterization of Voltaire: "The ungodly
arch-villain, Voltaire, has just died like a dog." Again he writes:
"Friends who have no religion cannot long be my friends.... I have such
a sense of religion that I shall never do anything that I would not do
before the whole world."

With Mozart's return to Germany in 1779, being then twenty-three years
of age, comes the dawn of his classical period as a composer. The
greater number of his masses had already been written, and now he
settled himself in serious earnest to the cultivation of a true German
operatic school. This found its dawn in the production of "Idomeneo,"
his first really great work for the lyric stage.

The young composer had hard struggles with poverty in these days. His
letters to his father are full of revelations of his friction with
the little worries of life. Lack of money pinched him close, yet his
cheerful spirit was ever buoyant. "I have only one small room; it is
quite crammed with a piano, a table, a bed, and a chest of drawers," he
writes.

Yet he would marry; for he was willing to face poverty in the
companionship of a loving woman who dared to face it with him. At
Mannheim he had met a beautiful young singer, Aloysia Weber, and he went
to Munich to offer her marriage. She, however, saw nothing attractive
in the thin, pale young man, with his long nose, great eyes, and
little head; for he was anything but prepossessing. A younger sister,
Constance, however, secretly loved Mozart, and he soon transferred his
repelled affections to this charming woman, whom he married in 1782 at
the house of Baroness Waldstetten. His _naïve_ reasons for marrying show
Mozart's ingenuous nature. He had no one to take care of his linen, he
would not live dissolutely like other young men, and he loved Constance
Weber. His answer to his father, who objected on account of his poverty,
is worth quoting:

"Constance is a well-conducted, good girl, of respectable parentage, and
I am in a position to earn at least _daily bread_ for her. We love
each other, and are resolved to marry. All that you have written or
may possibly write on the subject can be nothing but well-meant advice,
which, however good and sensible, can no longer apply to a man who has
gone so far with a girl."

Poor as Mozart was, he possessed such integrity and independence that
he refused a most liberal offer from the King of Prussia to become his
chapel-master, for some unexplained reason which involved his sense of
right and wrong. The first year of his marriage he wrote "Il Seraglio,"
and made the acquaintance of the aged Gluck, who took a deep interest in
him and warmly praised his genius. Haydn, too, recognized his brilliant
powers. "I tell you, on the word of an honest man," said the author of
the "Creation" to Leopold Mozart, the father, who asked his opinion,
"that I consider your son the greatest composer I have ever heard. He
writes with taste, and possesses a thorough knowledge of composition."

Poverty and increasing expense pricked Mozart into intense, restless
energy. His life had no lull in its creative industry. His splendid
genius, insatiable and tireless, broke down his body, like a sword
wearing out its scabbard. He poured out symphonies, operas, and sonatas
with such prodigality as to astonish us, even when recollecting how
fecund the musical mind has often been. Alike as artist and composer, he
never ceased his labors. Day after day and night after night he hardly
snatched an hour's rest. We can almost fancy he foreboded how short
his brilliant life was to be, and was impelled to crowd into its brief
compass its largest measure of results.

Yet he was always pursued by the spectre of want. Oftentimes his sick
wife could not obtain needed medicines. He made more money than most
musicians, yet was always impoverished. But it was his glory that he
was never impoverished by sensual indulgence, extravagance, and riotous
living, but by his lavish generosity to those who in many instances
needed help less than himself. Like many other men of genius and
sensibility, he could not say "no" to even the pretense of distress and
suffering.


III.

The culminating point of Mozart's artistic development was in 1786. The
"Marriage of Figaro" was the first of a series of masterpieces which
cannot be surpassed alike for musical greatness and their hold on
the lyric stage. The next year "Don Giovanni" saw the light, and was
produced at Prague. The overture of this opera was composed and scored
in less than six hours. The inhabitants of Prague greeted the work with
the wildest enthusiasm, for they seemed to understand Mozart better than
the Viennese.

During this period he made frequent concert tours to recruit his
fortunes, but with little financial success. Presents of watches,
snuff-boxes, and rings were common, but the returns were so small that
Mozart was frequently obliged to pawn his gifts to purchase a dinner and
lodging. What a comment on the period which adored genius, but allowed
it to starve! His audiences could be enthusiastic enough to carry him
to his hotel on their shoulders, but probably never thought that the
wherewithal of a hearty supper was a more seasonable homage. So our
musician struggled on through the closing years of his life with the
wolf constantly at his door, and an invalid wife whom he passionately
loved, yet must needs see suffer from the want of common necessaries. In
these modern days, when distinguished artists make princely fortunes
by the exercise of their musical gifts, it is not easy to believe that
Mozart, recognized as the greatest pianoforte player and composer of his
time by all of musical Germany, could suffer such dire extremes of want
as to be obliged more than once to beg for a dinner. In 1791 he composed
the score of the "Magic Flute" at the request of Schikaneder, a Viennese
manager, who had written the text from a fairy tale, the fantastic
elements of which are peculiarly German in their humor. Mozart put
great earnestness into the work, and made it the first German opera of
commanding merit, which embodied the essential intellectual sentiment
and kindly warmth of popular German life. The manager paid the composer
but a trifle for a work whose transcendent success enabled him to build
a new opera-house and laid the foundation of a large fortune. We are
told, too, that at the time of Mozart's death in extreme want, when his
sick wife, half maddened with grief, could not buy a coffin for the dead
composer, this hard-hearted wretch, who owed his all to the genius of
the great departed, rushed about through Vienna bewailing the loss to
music with sentimental tears, but did not give the heart-broken widow
one kreutzer to pay the expense of a decent burial.

In 1791 Mozart's health was breaking down with great rapidity, though
he himself would never recognize his own swiftly advancing fate. He
experienced, however, a deep melancholy which nothing could remove. For
the first time his habitual cheerfulness deserted him. His wife had been
enabled through the kindness of her friends to visit the healing waters
of Baden, and was absent.

An incident now occurred which impressed Mozart with an ominous chill.
One night there came a stranger, singularly dressed in gray, with an
order for a requiem to be composed without fail within a month. The
visitor, without revealing his name, departed in mysterious gloom, as
he came. Again the stranger called and solemnly reminded Mozart of his
promise. The composer easily persuaded himself that this was a visitor
from the other world, and that the requiem would be his own; for he
was exhausted with labor and sickness, and easily became the prey of
superstitious fancies. When his wife returned, she found him with a
fatal pallor on his face, silent and melancholy, laboring with intense
absorption on the funereal mass. He would sit brooding over the score
till he swooned away in his chair, and only come to consciousness to
bend his waning energies again to their ghastly work. The mysterious
visitor, whom Mozart believed to be the precursor of his death, we now
know to have been Count Walseck, who had recently lost his wife, and
wished a musical memorial.

His final sickness attacked the composer while laboring at the requiem.
The musical world was ringing with the fame of his last opera. To the
dying man was brought the offer of the rich appointment of organist of
St. Stephen's Cathedral. Most flattering propositions were made him by
eager managers, who had become thoroughly awake to his genius when it
was too late. The great Mozart was dying in the very prime of his youth
and his powers, when success was in his grasp and the world opening wide
its arms to welcome his glorious gifts with substantial recognition;
but all too late; for he was doomed to die in his spring-tide, though "a
spring mellow with all the fruits of autumn."

The unfinished requiem lay on the bed, and his last efforts were to
imitate some peculiar instrumental effects, as he breathed out his life
in the arms of his wife and his friend Süssmaier.

The epilogue to this life-drama is one of the saddest in the history of
art: a pauper funeral for one of the world's greatest geniuses. "It was
late one winter afternoon," says an old record, "before the coffin was
deposited on the side aisles on the south side of St. Stephen's. Van
Swieten, Salieri, Süssmaier, and two unknown musicians were the only
persons present besides the officiating priest and the pall-bearers.
It was a terribly inclement day; rain and sleet came down fast; and an
eye-witness describes how the little band of mourners stood shivering
in the blast, with their umbrellas up, round the hearse, as it left
the door of the church. It was then far on in the dark cold December
afternoon, and the evening was fast closing in before the solitary
hearse had passed the Stubenthor, and reached the distant graveyard of
St. Marx, in which, among the 'third class,' the great composer of the
'G minor Symphony' and the 'Requiem' found his resting-place. By this
time the weather had proved too much for all the mourners; they had
dropped off one by one, and Mozart's body was accompanied only by the
driver of the carriage. There had been already two pauper funerals that
day--one of them a midwife--and Mozart was to be the third in the grave
and the uppermost.

"When the hearse drew up in the slush and sleet at the gate of the
graveyard, it was welcomed by a strange pair, Franz Harruschka, the
assistant grave-digger, and his mother Katharina, known as 'Frau Katha,'
who filled the quaint office of official mendicant to the place.

"The old woman was the first to speak: 'Any coaches or mourners coming?'

"A shrug from the driver of the hearse was the only response.

"'Whom have you got there, then?' continued she.

"'A band-master,' replied the other.

"'A musician? they're a poor lot; then I've no more money to look for
to-day. It is to be hoped we shall have better luck in the morning.'

"To which the driver said, with a laugh: 'I'm devilish thirsty, too--not
a kreutzer of drink-money have I had.'

"After this curious colloquy the coffin was dismounted and shoved into
the top of the grave already occupied by the two paupers of the morning;
and such was Mozart's last appearance on earth."

To-day no stone marks the spot where were deposited the last remains
of one of the brightest of musical spirits; indeed, the very grave is
unknown, for it was the grave of a pauper.


IV.

Mozart's charming letters reveal to us such a gentle, sparkling,
affectionate nature, as to inspire as much love for the man as
admiration for his genius. Sunny humor and tenderness bubble in almost
every sentence. A clever writer says that "opening these is like
opening a painted tomb.... The colors are all fresh, the figures are all
distinct."

No better illustration of the man Mozart can be had than in a few
extracts from his correspondence.

He writes to his sister from Rome while yet a mere lad:

"I am, thank God! except my miserable pen, well, and send you and mamma
a thousand kisses. I wish you were in Rome; I am sure it would please
you. Papa says I am a little fool, but that is nothing new. Here we have
but one bed; it is easy to understand that I can't rest comfortably
with papa. I shall be glad when we get into new quarters. I have just
finished drawing the Holy Peter with his keys, the Holy Paul with his
sword, and the Holy Luke with my sister. I have had the honor of kissing
St. Peter's foot; and because I am so small as to be unable to reach it,
they had to lift me up. I am the same old
"Wolfgang."

Mozart was very fond of this sister Nannerl, and he used to write to
her in a playful mosaic of French, German, and Italian. Just after his
wedding he writes:

"My darling is now a hundred times more joyful at the idea of going to
Salzburg, and I am willing to stake--ay, my very life, that you will
rejoice still more in my happiness when you know her; if, indeed, in
your estimation, as in mine, a high-principled, honest, virtuous, and
pleasing wife ought to make a man happy."

Late in his short life he writes the following characteristic note to a
friend, whose life does not appear to have been one of the most regular:

"Now tell me, my dear friend, how you are. I hope you are all as well as
we are. You cannot fail to be happy, for you possess everything that
you can wish for at your age and in your position, especially as you
now seem to have entirely given up your former mode of life. Do you not
every day become more convinced of the truth of the little lectures I
used to inflict on you? Are not the pleasures of a transient, capricious
passion widely different from the happiness produced by rational and
true love? I feel sure that you often in your heart thank me for my
admonitions. I shall feel quite proud if you do. But, jesting apart,
you do really owe me some little gratitude if you are become worthy of
Fräulein N------, for I certainly played no insignificant part in your
improvement or reform.

"My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother,
who in turn told it to her daughter, my mother, who repeated it to her
daughter, my own sister, that it was a very great art to talk eloquently
and well, but an equally great one to know the right moment to stop. I
therefore shall follow the advice of my sister, thanks to our mother,
grandmother, and great-grandmother, and thus end, not only my moral
ebullition, but my letter."

His playful tenderness lavished itself on his wife in a thousand quaint
ways. He would, for example, rise long before her to take his horseback
exercise, and always kiss her sleeping face and leave a little note like
the following resting on her forehead: "Good-morning, dear little wife!
I hope you have had a good sleep and pleasant dreams. I shall be back in
two hours. Behave yourself like a good little girl, and don't run away
from your husband."

Speaking of an infant child, our composer would say merrily, "That boy
will be a true Mozart, for he always cries in the very key in which I am
playing."

Mozart's musical greatness, shown in the symmetry of his art as well as
in the richness of his inspirations, has been unanimously acknowledged
by his brother composers. Meyerbeer could not restrain his tears when
speaking of him. Weber, Mendelssohn, Rossini, and Wagner always praise
him in terms of enthusiastic admiration. Haydn called him the greatest
of composers. In fertility of invention, beauty of form, and exactness
of method, he has never been surpassed, and has but one or two rivals.
The composer of three of the greatest operas in musical history, besides
many of much more than ordinary excellence; of symphonies that rival
Haydn's for symmetry and melodic affluence; of a great number of
quartets, quintets, etc.; and of pianoforte sonatas which rank high
among the best; of many masses that are standard in the service of the
Catholic Church; of a great variety of beautiful songs--there is hardly
any form of music which he did not richly adorn with the treasures of
his genius. We may well say, in the words of one of his most competent
critics:

"Mozart was a king and a slave--king in his own beautiful realm of
music; slave of the circumstances and the conditions of this world.
Once over the boundaries of his own kingdom, and he was supreme; but the
powers of the earth acknowledged not his sovereignty."



BEETHOVEN.


I.

The name and memory of this composer awaken, in the heart of the lover
of music, sentiments of the deepest reverence and admiration. His life
was so marked with affliction and so isolated as to make him, in his
environment of conditions as a composer, a unique figure.

The principal fact which made the exterior life of Beethoven so bare of
the ordinary pleasures that brighten and sweeten existence, his total
deafness, greatly enriched his spiritual life. Music finally became to
him a purely intellectual conception, for he was without any sensual
enjoyment of its effects. To this Samson of music, for whom the ear was
like the eye to other men, Milton's lines may indeed well apply:

     "Oh! dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon!
     Irrecoverably dark--total eclipse,
     Without all hope of day!
     Oh first created Beam, and thou, great Word,
     'Let there be light,' and light was over all,
     Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?
     The sun to me is dark."

To his severe affliction we owe alike many of the defects of his
character and the splendors of his genius. All his powers, concentrated
into a spiritual focus, wrought such things as lift him into a solitary
greatness. The world has agreed to measure this man as it measures
Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. We do not compare him with others.

Beethoven had the reputation among his contemporaries of being harsh,
bitter, suspicious, and unamiable. There is much to justify this in the
circumstances of his life; yet our readers will discover much to show,
on the other hand, how deep, strong, and tender was the heart which was
so wrung and tortured, and wounded to the quick by--

"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Weber gives a picture of Beethoven: "The square Cyclopean figure attired
in a shabby coat with torn sleeves." Everybody will remember his noble,
austere face, as seen in the numerous prints: the square, massive head,
with the forest of rough hair; the strong features, so furrowed with the
marks of passion and sadness; the eyes, with their look of introspection
and insight; the whole expression of the countenance as of an ancient
prophet. Such was the impression made by Beethoven on all who saw him,
except in his moods of fierce wrath, which toward the last were not
uncommon, though short-lived. A sorely tried, sublimely gifted man, he
met his fate stubbornly, and worked out his great mission with all his
might and main, through long years of weariness and trouble. Posterity
has rewarded him by enthroning him on the highest peaks of musical fame.


II.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born at Bonn, in 1770. It is a singular fact
that at an early age he showed the deepest distaste for music, unlike
the other great composers, who evinced their bent from their earliest
years. His father was obliged to whip him severely before he would
consent to sit down at the harpsichord; and it was not till he was
past ten that his genuine interest in music showed itself. His first
compositions displayed his genius. Mozart heard him play them, and said,
"Mind, you will hear that boy talked of." Haydn, too, met Beethoven for
the first and only time when the former was on his way to England,
and recognized his remarkable powers. He gave him a few lessons in
composition, and was after that anxious to claim the young Titan as a
pupil.

"Yes," growled Beethoven, who for some queer reason never liked Haydn,
"I had some lessons of him, indeed, but I was not his disciple. I never
learned anything from him."

Beethoven made a profound impression even as a youth on all who
knew him. Aside from the palpable marks of his power, there was
an indomitable _hauteur_, a mysterious, self-wrapped air as of one
constantly communing with the invisible, an unconscious assertion of
mastery about him, which strongly impressed the imagination.

At the very outset of his career, when life promised all fair and bright
things to him, two comrades linked themselves to him, and ever after
that refused to give him up--grim poverty and still grimmer disease.
About the same time that he lost a fixed salary through the death of
his friend the Elector of Cologne, he began to grow deaf. Early in
1800, walking one day in the woods with his devoted friend and pupil,
Ferdinand Ries, he disclosed the sad secret to him that the whole joyous
world of sound was being gradually closed up to him; the charm of the
human voice, the notes of the woodland birds, the sweet babblings of
Nature, jargon to others, but intelligible to genius, the full-born
splendors of _heard_ music--all, all were fast receding from his grasp.

Beethoven was extraordinarily sensitive to the influences of Nature.
Before his disease became serious he writes: "I wander about here with
music-paper among the hills, and dales, and valleys, and scribble a good
deal. No man on earth can love the country as I do." But one of Nature's
most delightful modes of speech to man was soon to be utterly lost to
him. At last he became so deaf that the most stunning crash of thunder
or the _fortissimo_ of the full orchestra were to him as if they were
not. His bitter, heartrending cry of agony, when he became convinced
that the misfortune was irremediable, is full of eloquent despair: "As
autumn leaves wither and fall, so are my hopes blighted. Almost as I
came, I depart. Even the lofty courage, which so often animated me in
the lovely days of summer, is gone forever. O Providence! vouchsafe me
one day of pure felicity! How long have I been estranged from the glad
echo of true joy! When, O my God! when shall I feel it again in the
temple of Nature and man? Never!"

And the small-souled, mole-eyed gossips and critics called him hard,
churlish, and cynical--him, for whom the richest thing in Nature's
splendid dower had been obliterated, except a soul, which never in its
deepest sufferings lost its noble faith in God and man, or allowed its
indomitable courage to be one whit weakened. That there were periods
of utterly rayless despair and gloom we may guess; but not for long did
Beethoven's great nature cower before its evil genius.


III.

Within three years, from 1805 to 1808, Beethoven composed some of his
greatest works: the oratorio of "The Mount of Olives," the opera of
"Fidelio," and the two noble symphonies, "Pastorale" and "Eroica,"
besides a large number of concertos, sonatas, songs, and other
occasional pieces. However gloomy the externals of his life, his
creative activities knew no cessation.

The "Sinfonia Eroica," the "Choral" only excepted, is the longest of
the immortal nine, and is one of the greatest examples of musical
portraiture extant. All the great composers from Handel to Wagner have
attempted what is called descriptive music with more or less success,
but never have musical genius and skill achieved a result so admirable
in its relation to its purpose and by such strictly legitimate means as
in this work.

"The 'Eroica,'" says a great writer, "is an attempt to draw a musical
portrait of an historical character--a great statesman, a great
general, a noble individual; to represent in music--Beethoven's own
language--what M. Thiers has given in words and Paul Delaroche in
painting." Of Beethoven's success another writer has said: "It wants
no title to tell its meaning, for throughout the symphony the hero is
visibly portrayed."

It is anything but difficult to realize why Beethoven should have
admired the first Napoleon. Both the soldier and musician were made
of that sturdy stuff which would and did defy the world; and it is not
strange that Beethoven should have desired in some way--and he knew
of no better course than through his art--to honor one so
characteristically akin to himself, and who at that time was the most
prominent man in Europe. Beethoven began the work in 1802, and in 1804
it was completed, and bore the following title:

       Sinfonia grande

     "Napoleon Bonaparte"

        1804 in August

          del Sigr

     Louis van Beethoven

         Sinfonia 3.

          Op. 55.


This was copied and the original score dispatched to the embassador for
presentation, while Beethoven retained the copy. Before the composition
was laid before Napoleon, however, the great general had accepted the
title of Emperor. No sooner did Beethoven hear of this from his pupil
Ries than he started up in a rage, and exclaimed: "After all, then, he's
nothing but an ordinary mortal! He will trample the rights of men under
his feet!" saying which, he rushed to his table, seized the copy of the
score, and tore the title-page completely off. From this time Beethoven
hated Napoleon, and never again spoke of him in connection with the
symphony until he heard of his death in St. Helena, when he observed, "I
have already composed music for this calamity," evidently referring to
the "Funeral March" in this symphony.

The opera of "Fidelio," which he composed about the same time, may be
considered, in the severe sense of a great and symmetrical musical work,
the finest lyric drama ever written, with the possible exception of
Gluck's "Orpheus and Eurydice" and "Iphigenia in Tauris." It is rarely
performed, because its broad, massive, and noble effects are beyond
the capacity of most singers, and belong to the domain of pure music,
demanding but little alliance with the artistic clap-trap of startling
scenery and histrionic extravagance. Yet our composer's conscience shows
its completeness in his obedience to the law of opera; for the music he
has written to express the situations cannot be surpassed for beauty,
pathos, and passion. Beethoven, like Mendelssohn, revolted from the idea
of lyric drama as an art-inconsistency, but he wrote "Fidelio" to show
his possibilities in a direction with which he had but little sympathy.

He composed four overtures for this opera at different periods, on
account of the critical caprices of the Viennese public--a concession to
public taste which his stern independence rarely made.


IV.

Beethoven's relations with women were peculiar and characteristic, as
were all the phases of a nature singularly self-poised and robust. Like
all men of powerful imagination and keen (though perhaps not delicate)
sensibility, he was strongly attracted toward the softer sex. But a
certain austerity of morals, and that purity of feeling which is the
inseparable shadow of one's devotion to lofty aims, always kept
him within the bounds of Platonic affection. Yet there is enough
in Beethoven's letters, as scanty as their indications are in this
direction, to show what ardor and glow of feeling he possessed.

About the time that he was suffering keenly with the knowledge of his
fast-growing infirmity, he was bound by a strong tie of affection to
Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, his "immortal beloved," "his angel,"
"his all," "his life," as he called her in a variety of passionate
utterances. It was to her that he dedicated his song "Adelaida," which
as an expression of lofty passion is world-famous. Beethoven was very
much dissatisfied with the work even in the glow of composition. Before
the notes were dry on the music paper, the composer's old friend Barth
was announced. "Here," said Beethoven, putting a roll of score paper in
Earth's hands, "look at that. I have just finished it, and don't like
it. There is hardly fire enough in the stove to burn it, but I will
try." Barth glanced through the composition, then sang it, and soon grew
into such enthusiasm as to draw from Beethoven the expression, "No?
then we will not burn it, old fellow." Whether it was the reaction of
disgust, which so often comes to genius after the tension of work, or
whether his ideal of its lovely theme was so high as to make all effort
seem inadequate, the world came very near losing what it could not
afford to have missed.

The charming countess, however, preferred rank, wealth, and unruffled
ease to being linked even with a great genius, if, indeed, the affair
ever looked in the direction of marriage. She married another, and
Beethoven does not seem to have been seriously disturbed. It may be
that, like Goethe, he valued the love of woman not for itself or its
direct results, but as an art-stimulus which should enrich and fructify
his own intellectual life.

We get glimpses of successors to the fair countess. The beautiful Marie
Pachler was for some time the object of his adoration. The affair is a
somewhat mysterious one, and the lady seems to have suffered from the
fire through which her powerful companion passed unscathed. Again,
quaintest and oddest of all, is the fancy kindled by that "mysterious
sprite of genius," as one of her contemporaries calls her, Bettina
Brentano, the gifted child-woman, who fascinated all who came within her
reach, from Goethe and Beethoven down to princes and nobles. Goethe's
correspondence with this strange being has embalmed her life in classic
literature.

Our composer's intercourse with women--for he was always alive to the
charms of female society--was for the most part homely and practical in
the extreme, after his deafness destroyed the zest of the more romantic
phases of the divine passion. He accepted adoration, as did Dean Swift,
as a right. He permitted his female admirers to knit him stockings and
comforters, and make him dainty puddings and other delicacies, which he
devoured with huge gusto. He condescended, in return, to go to sleep on
their sofas, after picking his teeth with the candle-snuffers (so
says scandal), while they thrummed away at his sonatas, the artistic
slaughter of which Beethoven was mercifully unable to hear.


V.

The friendship of the Archduke Rudolph relieved Beethoven of the
immediate pressure of poverty; for in 1809 he settled a small
life-pension upon him. The next ten years were passed by him in
comparative ease and comfort, and in this time he gave to the world five
of his immortal symphonies, and a large number of his finest sonatas and
masses. His general health improved very much; and in his love for his
nephew Karl, whom Beethoven had adopted, the lonely man found an outlet
for his strong affections, which was medicine for his soul, though the
object was worthless and ungrateful.

We get curious and amusing insights into the daily tenor of Beethoven's
life during this period--things sometimes almost grotesque, were they
not so sad. The composer lived a solitary life, and was very much at the
mercy of his servants on account of his self-absorption and deafness.
He was much worried by these prosaic cares. One story of a slatternly
servant is as follows: The master was working at the mass in D, the
great work which he commenced in 1819 for the celebration of the
appointment of the Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmutz, and which
should have been completed by the following year. Beethoven, however,
became so engrossed with his work, and increased its proportions so
much, that it was not finished until some two years after the event
which it was intended to celebrate. While Beethoven was engaged upon
this score, he one day woke up to the fact that some of his pages were
missing. "Where on earth could they be?" he asked himself, and the
servant too; but the problem remained unsolved. Beethoven, beside
himself, spent hours and hours in searching, and so did the servant, but
it was all in vain. At last they gave up the task as a useless one, and
Beethoven, mad with despair, and pouring the very opposite to blessings
upon the head of her who, he believed, was the author of the mischief,
sat down with the conclusion that he must rewrite the missing part. He
had no sooner commenced a new Kyrie--for this was the movement which was
not to be found--than some loose sheets of score paper were discovered
in the kitchen! Upon examination they proved to be the identical pages
that Beethoven so much desired, and which the woman, in her anxiety to
be "tidy" and to "keep things straight," had appropriated at some time
or other for wrapping up, not only old boots and clothes, but also some
superannuated pots and pans that were greasy and black!

Thus he was continually fretted by the carelessness or the rascality of
the servants in whom he was obliged to trust. He writes in his diary:
"Nancy is too uneducated for a housekeeper--indeed, quite a beast." "My
precious servants were occupied from seven o'clock till ten trying to
kindle a fire." "The cook's off again." "I shied half a dozen books at
her head." They made his dinner so nasty he couldn't eat it. "No soup
to-day, no beef, no eggs. Got something from the inn at last."

His temper and peculiarities, too, made it difficult for him to live in
peace with landlords and fellow-lodgers. As his deafness increased, he
struck and thumped harder at the keys of his piano, the sound of which
he could scarcely hear. Nor was this all. The music that filled his
brain gave him no rest. He became an inspired madman. For hours he would
pace the room "howling and roaring" (as his pupil Ries puts it); or he
would stand beating time with hand and foot to the music which was
so vividly present to his mind. This soon put him into a feverish
excitement, when, to cool himself, he would take his water-jug, and,
thoughtless of everything, pour its contents over his hands, after which
he could sit down to his piano. With all this it can easily be imagined
that Beethoven was frequently remonstrated with. The landlord complained
of a damaged ceiling, and the fellow-lodgers declared that either they
or the madman must leave the house, for they could get no rest where he
was. So Beethoven never for long had a resting-place. Impatient at being
interfered with, he immediately packed up and went off to some other
vacant lodging. From this cause he was at one time paying the rent of
four lodgings at once. At times he would get tired of this changing from
one place to another--from the suburbs to the town--and then he would
fall back upon the hospitable home of a patron, once again taking
possession of an apartment which he had vacated, probably without
the least explanation or cause. One admirer of his genius, who always
reserved him a chamber in his establishment, used to say to his
servants: "Leave it empty; Beethoven is sure to come back again."

The instant that Beethoven entered the house he began to write and
cipher on the walls, the blinds, the table, everything, in the most
abstracted manner. He frequently composed on slips of paper, which he
afterward misplaced, so that he had great difficulty in finding them. At
one time, indeed, he forgot his own name and the date of his birth.

It is said that he once went into a Viennese restaurant, and, instead of
giving an order, began to write a score on the back of the bill-of-fare,
absorbed and unconscious of time and place. At last he asked how much
he owed. "You owe nothing, sir," said the waiter. "What! do you think I
have not dined?" "Most assuredly." "Very well, then, give me something."
"What do you wish?" "Anything."

These infirmities do not belittle the man of genius, but set off his
greatness as with a foil. They illustrate the thought of Goethe: "It is
all the same whether one is great or small, he has to pay the reckoning
of humanity."


VI.

Yet beneath these eccentricities what wealth of tenderness, sympathy,
and kindliness existed! His affection for his graceless nephew Karl is a
touching picture. With the rest of his family he had never been on very
cordial terms. His feeling of contempt for snobbery and pretense is very
happily illustrated in his relations with his brother Johann. The latter
had acquired property, and he sent Ludwig his card, inscribed "Johann
van Beethoven, land-owner." The caustic reply was a card, on which
was written, "Ludwig van Beethoven, brain-owner." But on Karl all the
warmest feelings of a nature which had been starving to love and be
loved poured themselves out. He gave the scapegrace every luxury and
indulgence, and, self-absorbed as he was in an ideal sphere, felt the
deepest interest in all the most trivial things that concerned him. Much
to the uncle's sorrow, Karl cared nothing for music; but, worst of
all, he was an idle, selfish, heartless fellow, who sneered at his
benefactor, and valued him only for what he could get from him. At last
Beethoven became fully aware of the lying ingratitude of his nephew, and
he exclaims: "I know now you have no pleasure in coming to see me, which
is only natural, for my atmosphere is too pure for you. God has never
yet forsaken me, and no doubt some one will be found to close my eyes."
Yet the generous old man forgave him, for he says in the codicil of his
will, "I appoint my nephew Karl my sole heir."

Frequently, glimpses of the true vein showed themselves in such little
episodes as that which occurred when Moscheles, accompanied by his
brother, visited the great musician for the first time.

"Arrived at the door of the house," writes Moscheles, "I had some
misgivings, knowing Beethoven's strong aversion to strangers. I
therefore told my brother to wait below. After greeting Beethoven, I
said: 'Will you permit me to introduce my brother to you?'

"'Where is he?' he suddenly replied.

"'Below.'

"'What, down-stairs?' and Beethoven immediately rushed off, seized hold
of my brother, saying: 'Am I such a savage that you are afraid to come
near me?'

"After this he showed great kindness to us."

While referring to the relations of Moscheles and Beethoven, the
following anecdote related by Mme. Moscheles will be found suggestive.
The pianist had been arranging some numbers of "Fidelio," which he
took to the composer. He, _à la_ Haydn, had inscribed the score with the
words, "By God's help." Beethoven did not fail to perceive this, and he
wrote underneath this phylactory the characteristic advice: "O man, help
thyself."

The genial and sympathetic nature of Beethoven is illustrated in this
quaint incident:

It was in the summer of 1811 that Ludwig Lowe, the actor, first met
Beethoven in the dining-room of the Blue Star at Toplitz. Lowe was
paying his addresses to the landlord's daughter; and conversation being
impossible at the hour he dined there, the charming creature one day
whispered to him: "Come at a later hour when the customers are gone and
only Beethoven is here. He cannot hear, and will therefore not be in
the way." This answered for a time; but the stern parents, observing
the acquaintanceship, ordered the actor to leave the house and not to
return. "How great was our despair!" relates Lowe. "We both desired to
correspond, but through whom? Would the solitary man at the opposite
table assist us? Despite his serious reserve and seeming churlishness,
I believe he is not unfriendly. I have often caught a kind smile across
his bold, defiant face." Lôwe determined to try. Knowing Beethoven's
custom, he contrived to meet the master when he was walking in the
gardens. Beethoven instantly recognized him, and asked the reason why he
no longer dined at the Blue Star. A full confession was made, and then
Lowe timidly asked if he would take charge of a letter to give to the
girl.

"Why not?" pleasantly observed the rough-looking musician. "You mean
what is right."

So pocketing the note, he was making his way onward when Lowe again
interfered.

"I beg your pardon, Herr van Beethoven, that is not all."

"So, so," said the master.

"You must also bring back the answer," Lowe went on to say.

"Meet me here at this time to-morrow," said Beethoven.

Lowe did so, and there found Beethoven awaiting him, with the coveted
reply from his lady-love. In this manner Beethoven carried the letters
backward and forward for some five or six weeks--in short, as long as he
remained in the town.

His friendship with Ferdinand Ries commenced in a way which testified
how grateful he was for kindness. When his mother lay ill at Bonn, he
hurried home from Vienna just in time to witness her death. After the
funeral he suffered greatly from poverty, and was relieved by Ries the
violinist. Years afterward young Ries waited on Beethoven with a letter
of introduction from his father. The composer received him with cordial
warmth, and said: "Tell your father I have not forgotten the death of
my mother." Ever afterward he was a helpful and devoted friend to young
Ries, and was of inestimable value in forwarding his musical career.

Beethoven in his poverty never forgot to be generous. At a concert given
in aid of wounded soldiers, where he conducted, he indignantly refused
payment with the words: "Say Beethoven never accepts anything where
humanity is concerned." To an Ursuline convent he gave an entirely new
symphony to be performed at their benefit concert. Friend or enemy
never applied to him for help that he did not freely give, even to the
pinching of his own comfort.


VII.

Rossini could write best when he was under the influence of Italian wine
and sparkling champagne. Paesiello liked the warm bed in which to jot
down his musical notions, and we are told that "it was between the
sheets that he planned the 'Barber of Seville,' the 'Molinara,' and so
many other _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of ease and gracefulness." Mozart could chat
and play at billiards or bowls at the same time that he composed the
most beautiful music. Sacchini found it impossible to write anything of
any beauty unless a pretty woman was by his side, and he was surrounded
by his cats, whose graceful antics stimulated and affected him in a
marked fashion. "Gluck," Bombet says, "in order to warm his imagination
and to transport himself to Aulis or Sparta, was accustomed to place
himself in the middle of a beautiful meadow. In this situation, with his
piano before him, and a bottle of champagne on each side, he wrote in
the open air his two 'Iphigenias,' his 'Orpheus,' and some other
works." The agencies which stimulated Beethoven's grandest thoughts
are eminently characteristic of the man. He loved to let the winds
and storms beat on his bare head, and see the dazzling play of the
lightning. Or, failing the sublimer moods of Nature, it was his
delight to walk in the woods and fields, and take in at every pore the
influences which she so lavishly bestows on her favorites. His true life
was his ideal life in art. To him it was a mission and an inspiration,
the end and object of all things; for these had value only as they fed
the divine craving within.

"Nothing can be more sublime," he writes, "than to draw nearer to the
Godhead than other men, and to diffuse here on earth these Godlike rays
among mortals." Again: "What is all this compared to the grandest of all
Masters of Harmony--above, above?"

     "All experience seemed an arch, wherethrough
     Gleamed that untraveled world, whose margin fades
     Forever and forever as we move."

The last four years of our composer's life were passed amid great
distress from poverty and feebleness. He could compose but little; and,
though his friends solaced his latter days with attention and kindness,
his sturdy independence would not accept more. It is a touching fact
that Beethoven voluntarily suffered want and privation in his last
years, that he might leave the more to his selfish and ungrateful
nephew. He died in 1827, in his fifty-seventh year, and is buried in
the Wahring Cemetery near Vienna. Let these extracts from a testamentary
paper addressed to his brothers in 1802, in expectation of death, speak
more eloquently of the hidden life of a heroic soul than any other words
could:

"O ye, who consider or declare me to be hostile, obstinate, or
misanthropic, what injustice ye do me! Ye know not the secret causes of
that which to you wears such an appearance. My heart and my mind were
from childhood prone to the tender feelings of affection. Nay, I was
always disposed even to perform great actions. But, only consider that,
for the last six years, I have been attacked by an incurable complaint,
aggravated by the unskillful treatment of medical men, disappointed from
year to year in the hope of relief, and at last obliged to submit to the
endurance of an evil the cure of which may last perhaps for years, if
it is practicable at all. Born with a lively, ardent disposition,
susceptible to to the diversions of society, I was forced at an early
age to renounce them, and to pass my life in seclusion. If I strove at
any time to set myself above all this, oh how cruelly was I driven back
by the doubly painful experience of my defective hearing! and yet it
was not possible for me to say to people, 'Speak louder--bawl--for I
am deaf!' Ah! how could I proclaim the defect of a sense that I once
possessed in the highest perfection--in a perfection in which few of my
colleagues possess or ever did possess it? Indeed, I cannot! Forgive
me, then, if ye see me draw back when I would gladly mingle among you.
Doubly mortifying is my misfortune to me, as it must tend to cause me to
be misconceived. From recreation in the society of my fellow-creatures,
from the pleasures of conversation, from the effusions of friendship, I
am cut off. Almost alone in the world, I dare not venture into society
more than absolute necessity requires. I am obliged to live as an
exile. If I go into company, a painful anxiety comes over me, since I am
apprehensive of being exposed to the danger of betraying my situation.
Such has been my state, too, during this half year that I have spent in
the country. Enjoined by my intelligent physician to spare my hearing
as much as possible, I have been almost encouraged by him in my present
natural disposition, though, hurried away by my fondness for society, I
sometimes suffered myself to be enticed into it. But what a humiliation
when any one standing beside me could hear at a distance a flute that I
could not hear, or any one heard the shepherd singing, and I could
not distinguish a sound! Such circumstances brought me to the brink of
despair, and had well-nigh made me put an end to my life: nothing but
my art held my hand. Ah! it seemed to me impossible to quit the world
before I had produced all that I felt myself called to accomplish. And
so I endured this wretched life--so truly wretched, that a somewhat
speedy change is capable of transporting me from the best into the
worst condition. Patience--so I am told--I must choose for my guide.
Steadfast, I hope, will be my resolution to persevere, till it shall
please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread. Perhaps there may be an
amendment--perhaps not; I am prepared for the worst--I, who so early
as my twenty-eighth year was forced to become a philosopher--it is not
easy--for the artist more difficult than for any other. O God! thou
lookest down upon my misery; thou knowest that it is accompanied with
love of my fellow-creatures, and a disposition to do good! O men! when
ye shall read this, think that ye have wronged me; and let the child of
affliction take comfort on finding one like himself, who, in spite of
all the impediments of Nature, yet did all that lay in his power to
obtain admittance into the rank of worthy artists and men.... I go to
meet death with joy. If he comes before I have had occasion to develop
all my professional abilities, he will come too soon for me, in spite
of my hard fate, and I should wish that he had delayed his arrival. But
even then I am content, for he will release me from a state of endless
suffering. Come when thou wilt, I shall meet thee with firmness.
Farewell, and do not quite forget me after I am dead; I have deserved
that you should think of me, for in my lifetime I have often thought of
you to make you happy. May you ever be so!"


VIII.

The music of Beethoven has left a profound impress on art. In speaking
of his genius it is difficult to keep expression within the limits of
good taste. For who has so passed into the very inner _penetralia_ of
his great art, and revealed to the world such heights and depths of
beauty and power in sound?

Beethoven composed nine symphonies, which, by one voice, are ranked as
the greatest ever written, reaching in the last, known as the "Choral,"
the full perfection of his power and experience. Other musicians have
composed symphonic works remarkable for varied excellences, but in
Beethoven this form of writing seems to have attained its highest
possibilities, and to have been illustrated by the greatest variety of
effects, from the sublime to such as are simply beautiful and melodious.
His hand swept the whole range of expression with unfaltering mastery.
Some passages may seem obscure, some too elaborately wrought, some
startling and abrupt, but on all is stamped the die of his great genius.

Beethoven's compositions for the piano, the sonatas, are no less notable
for range and power of expression, their adaptation to meet all the
varied moods of passion and sentiment. Other pianoforte composers have
given us more warm and vivid color, richer sensual effects of tone, more
wild and bizarre combination, perhaps even greater sweetness in melody;
but we look in vain elsewhere for the spiritual passion and poetry, the
aspiration and longing, the lofty humanity, which make the Beethoven
sonatas the _suspiria de pro-fundis_ of the composer's inner life. In
addition to his symphonies and sonatas, he wrote the great opera of
"Fidelio," and in the field of oratorio asserted his equality with
Handel and Haydn by composing "The Mount of Olives." A great variety of
chamber music, masses, and songs, bear the same imprint of power. He
may be called the most original and conscientious of all the composers.
Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn were inveterate
thieves, and pilfered the choicest gems from old and forgotten writers
without scruple. Beethoven seems to have been so fecund in great
conceptions, so lifted on the wings of his tireless genius, so austere
in artistic morality, that he stands for the most part above the
reproach deservedly borne by his brother composers.

Beethoven's principal title to fame is in his superlative place as a
symphonic composer. In the symphony music finds its highest intellectual
dignity; in Beethoven the symphony has found its loftiest master.



SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN, AND FRANZ.


I.

Heinrich Heine, in his preface to a translation of "Don Quixote,"
discusses the creative powers of different peoples. To the Spaniard
Cervantes is awarded the first place in novel-writing, and to our own
Shakespeare, of course, the transcendent rank in drama.

"And the Germans," he goes on to say, "what palm is due to them? Well,
we are the best writers of songs in the world. No people possesses such
beautiful _Lieder_ as the Germans. Just at present the nations have too
much political business on hand; but, after that has once been settled,
we Germans, English, Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Italians, will all go to
the green forest and sing, and the nightingale shall be umpire. I feel
sure that in this contest the song of Wolfgang Goethe will gain the
prize."

There are few, if any, who will be disposed to dispute the verdict of
the German poet, himself no mean rival, in depth and variety of lyric
inspiration, even of the great Goethe. But a greater poet than either
one of this great pair bears the suggestive and impersonal name of "The
People." It is to the countless wealth of the German race in folk-songs,
an affluence which can be traced back to the very dawn of civilization
among them, that the possibility of such lyric poets as Goethe, Heine,
Ruckert, and Uhland is due. From the days of the "Nibelungenlied," that
great epic which, like the Homeric poems, can hardly be credited to any
one author, every hamlet has rung with beautiful national songs, which
sprung straight from the fervid heart of the people. These songs are
balmy with the breath of the forest, the meadow, and river, and
have that simple and bewitching freshness of motive and rhythm which
unconsciously sets itself to music.

The German _Volkslied_, as the exponent of the popular heart, has a wide
range, from mere comment on historical events, and quaint, droll
satire, such as may be found in Hans Sachs, to the grand protest against
spiritual bondage which makes the burden of Luther's hymn, "Ein' feste
Burg." But nowhere is the beauty of the German song so marked as in
those _Lieder_ treating of love, deeds of arms, and the old mystic
legends so dear to the German heart. Tieck writes of the "Minnesinger
period:" "Believers sang of faith, lovers of love; knights described
knightly actions and battles, and loving, believing knights were their
chief audiences. The spring, beauty, gayety, were objects that could
never tire; great duels and deeds of arms carried away every hearer, the
more surely the stronger they were painted; and as the pillars and dome
of the church encircled the flock, so did Religion, as the highest,
encircle poetry and reality, and every heart in equal love humbled
itself before her."

A similar spirit has always inspired the popular German song, a simple
and beautiful reverence for the unknown, the worship of heroism, a vital
sympathy with the various manifestations of Nature. Without the fire
of the French _chansons_, the sonorous grace of the Tuscan _stornelli_,
these artless ditties, with their exclusive reliance on true feeling,
possess an indescribable charm.

The German _Lied_ always preserved its characteristic beauty. Goethe,
and the great school of lyric poets clustered around him, simply
perfected the artistic form, without departing from the simplicity and
soulfulness of the stock from which it came. Had it not been for the
rich soil of popular song, we should not have had the peerless lyrics
of modern Germany. Had it not been for the poetic inspiration of
such word-makers as Goethe and Heine, we should not have had such
music-makers in the sphere of song as Schubert and Franz.

The songs of these masters appeal to the interest and admiration of the
world, then, not merely in virtue of musical beauty, but in that they
are the most vital outgrowths of Teutonic nationality and feeling.

The immemorial melodies to which the popular songs of Germany were
set display great simplicity of rhythm, even monotony, with frequent
recurrence of the minor keys, so well adapted to express the melancholy
tone of many of the poems. The strictly strophic treatment is used, or,
in other words, the repetition of the melody of the first stanza in all
the succeeding ones. The chasm between this and the varied form of the
artistic modern song is deep and wide, yet it was overleaped in a single
swift bound by the remarkable genius of Franz Schubert, who, though his
compositions were many and matchless of their kind, died all too young;
for, as the inscription on his tombstone pathetically has it, he was
"rich in what he gave, richer in what he promised."


II.

The great masters of the last century tried their hands in the domain
of song with only comparative success, partly because they did not fully
realize the nature of this form of art, partly because they could
not limit the sweep of the creative power within such narrow limits.
Schubert was a revelation to his countrymen in his musical treatment
of subjective passion, in his instinctive command over condensed,
epigrammatic expression. This rich and gifted life, however quiet in its
exterior facts, was great in its creative and spiritual manifestation.
Born at Vienna of humble parents, January 31, 1797, the early life of
Franz Schubert was commonplace in the extreme, the most interesting
feature being the extraordinary development of his genius. At the age of
fourteen he had made himself a master of counterpoint and harmony, and
composed a large mass of chamber-music and works for the piano. His
poverty was such that he was oftentimes unable to obtain the music-paper
with which to fasten the immortal thoughts that thronged through his
brain. It was two years later that his special creative function found
exercise in the production of the two great songs, the "Erl-King" and
the "Serenade," the former of which proved the source of most of the
fame and money emolument he enjoyed during life. It is hardly needful to
speak of the power and beauty of this composition, the weird sweetness
of its melodies, the dramatic contrasts, the wealth of color and
shading in its varying phrases, the subtilty of the accompaniment, which
elaborates the spirit of the song itself. The piece was composed in
less than an hour. One of Schubert's intimates tells us that he left him
reading Goethe's great poem for the first time. He instantly conceived
and arranged the melody, and when the friend returned after a short
absence Schubert was rapidly noting the music from his head on paper.
When the song was finished he rushed to the Stadtconvict school, his
only _alma mater_, and sang it to the scholars. The music-master,
Rucziszka, was overwhelmed with rapture and astonishment, and embraced
the young composer in a transport of joy. When this immortal music was
first sung to Goethe, the great poet said: "Had music, instead of words,
been my instrument of thought, it is so I would have framed the legend."

The "Serenade" is another example of the swiftness of Schubert's
artistic imagination. He and a lot of jolly boon-companions sat one
Sunday afternoon in an obscure Viennese tavern, known as the Biersack.
The surroundings were anything but conducive to poetic fancies--dirty
tables, floor, and ceiling, the clatter of mugs and dishes, the loud
dissonance of the beery German roisterers, the squalling of children,
and all the sights and noises characteristic of the beer-cellar. One of
our composer's companions had a volume of poems, which Schubert looked
at in a lazy way, laughing and drinking the while. Singling out some
verses, he said: "I have a pretty melody in my head for these lines, if
I could only get a piece of ruled paper." Some staves were drawn on the
back of a bill-of-fare, and here, amid all the confusion and riot, the
divine melody of the "Serenade" was born, a tone-poem which embodies the
most delicate dream of passion and tenderness that the heart of man ever
conceived.

Both these compositions were eccentric and at odds with the old canons
of song, fancied with a grace, warmth, and variety of color hitherto
characteristic only of the more pretentious forms of music, which had
already been brought to a great degree of perfection. They inaugurate
the genesis of the new school of musical lyrics, the golden wedding of
the union of poetry with music.

For a long time the young composer was unsuccessful in his attempts to
break through the barren and irritating drudgery of a schoolmaster's
life. At last a wealthy young dilettante, Franz von Schober, who had
become an admirer of Schubert's songs, persuaded his mother to offer him
a fixed home in her house. The latter gratefully accepted the overture
of friendship, and thence became a daily guest at Schober's house. He
made at this time a number of strong friendships with obscure poets,
whose names only live through the music of the composer set to verses
furnished by them; for Schubert, in his affluence of creative power,
merely needed the slightest excuse for his genius to flow forth. But,
while he wrote nothing that was not beautiful, his masterpieces are
based only on themes furnished by the lyrics of such poets as Goethe,
Heine, and Rilckert. It is related, in connection with his friendship
with Mayrhofer, one of his rhyming associates of these days, that he
would set the verses to music much faster than the other could compose
them.

The songs of the obscure Schubert were gradually finding their way to
favor among the exclusive circles of Viennese aristocracy. A celebrated
singer of the opera, Vogl, though then far advanced in years, was much
sought after for the drawing-room concerts so popular in Vienna, on
account of the beauty of his art. Vogl was a warm admirer of Schubert's
genius, and devoted himself assiduously to the task of interpreting
it--a friendly office of no little value. Had it not been for this, our
composer would have sunk to his early grave probably without even the
small share of reputation and monetary return actually vouchsafed
to him. The strange, dreamy unconsciousness of Schubert is very well
illustrated in a story told by Vogl after his friend's death. One day
Schubert left a new song at the singer's apartments, which, being too
high, was transposed. Vogl, a fortnight afterward, sang it in the lower
key to his friend, who remarked: "Really, that _Lied_ is not so bad; who
composed it?"


III.

Our great composer, from the peculiar constitution of his gifts, the
passionate subjectiveness of his nature, might be supposed to have been
peculiarly sensitive to the fascinations of love, for it is in this
feeling that lyric inspiration has found its most fruitful root. But
not so. Warmly susceptible to the charms of friendship, Schubert for
the most part enacted the _rôle_ of the woman-hater, which was not all
affected; for the Hamletlike mood is only in part a simulated madness
with souls of this type. In early youth he would sneer at the amours
of his comrades. It is true he fell a victim to the charms of Theresa
Grobe, a beautiful soprano, who afterward became the spouse of a
master-baker. But the only genuine love-sickness of Schubert was of a
far different type, and left indelible traces on his nature, as its very
direction made it of necessity unfortunate. This was his attachment to
Countess Caroline Esterhazy.

The Count Esterhazy, one of those great feudal princes still extant
among the Austrian nobility, took a traditional pride in encouraging
genius, and found in Franz Schubert a noble object for the exercise of
his generous patronage. He was almost a boy (only nineteen), except in
the prodigious development of his genius, when he entered the Esterhazy
family as teacher of music, though always treated as a dear and familiar
friend. During the summer months, Schubert went with the Esterhazy s to
their country-seat at Zelész, in Hungary. Here, amid beautiful scenery,
and the sweetness of a social life perfect of its kind, our poet's life
flew on rapid wings, the one bright, green spot of unalloyed happiness,
for the dream was delicious while it lasted. Here, too, his musical
life gathered a fresh inspiration, since he became acquainted with the
treasures of the national Hungarian music, with its weird, wild rhythms
and striking melodies. He borrowed the motives of many of his most
characteristic songs from these reminiscences of hut and hall, for
the Esterhazys were royal in their hospitality, and exercised a wide
patriarchal sway.

The beautiful Countess Caroline, an enthusiastic girl of great beauty,
became the object of a romantic passion. A young, inexperienced maiden,
full of _naive_ sweetness, the finest flower of the haughty Austrian
caste, she stood at an infinite distance from Schubert, while she
treated him with childlike confidence and fondness, laughing at his
eccentricities, and worshiping his genius, lie bowed before this idol,
and poured out all the incense of his heart. Schubert's exterior was
anything but that of the ideal lover. Rude, unshapely features, thick
nose, coarse, protruding mouth, and a shambling, awkward figure, were
redeemed only by eyes of uncommon splendor and depth, aflame with the
unmistakable light of the soul.

The inexperienced maiden hardly understood the devotion of the artist,
which found expression in a thousand ways peculiar to himself. Only
once he was on the verge of a full revelation. She asked him why he
had dedicated nothing to her. With abrupt, passionate intensity of tone
Schubert answered, "What's the use of that? Everything belongs to you!"
This brink of confession seems to have frightened him, for it is said
that after this he threw much more reserve about his intercourse with
the family, till it was broken off. Hints in his letters, and the deep
despondency which increased after this, indicate, however, that the
humbly-born genius never forgot his beautiful dream.

He continued to pour out in careless profusion songs, symphonies,
quartets, and operas, many of which knew no existence but in the score
till after his death, hardly knowing of himself whether the productions
had value or not. He created because it was the essential law of his
being, and never paused to contemplate or admire the beauties of his own
work. Schubert's body had been mouldering for several years, when his
wonderful symphony in C major, one of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of orchestral
composition, was brought to the attention of the world by the critical
admiration of Robert Schumann, who won the admiration of lovers of
music, not less by his prompt vindication of neglected genius than by
his own creative powers.

In the contest between Weber and Rossini which agitated Vienna,
Schubert, though deeply imbued with the seriousness of art, and
by nature closely allied in sympathies with the composer of "Der
Freischütz," took no part. He was too easy-going to become a volunteer
partisan, too shy and obscure to make his alliance a thing to be sought
after. Besides, Weber had treated him with great brusqueness, and damned
an opera for him, a slight which even good-natured Franz Schubert could
not easily forgive.

The fifteen operas of Schubert, unknown now except to musicians, contain
a wealth of beautiful melody which could easily be spread over a score
of ordinary works. The purely lyric impulse so dominated him that
dramatic arrangement was lost sight of, and the noblest melodies were
likely to be lavished on the most unworthy situations. Even under
the operatic form he remained essentially the song-writer. So in
the symphony his affluence of melodic inspiration seems actually
to embarrass him, to the detriment of that breadth and symmetry of
treatment so vital to this form of art. It is in the musical lyric that
our composer stands matchless.

During his life as an independent musician at Vienna, Schubert lived
fighting a stern battle with want and despondency, while the publishers
were commencing to make fortunes by the sale of his exquisite _Lieder_.
At that time a large source of income for the Viennese composers was the
public performance of their works in concerts under their own direction.
From recourse to this, Schubert's bashfulness and lack of skill as a
_virtuoso_ on any instrument helped to bar him, though he accompanied
his own songs with exquisite effect. Once only his friends organized
a concert for him, and the success was very brilliant. But he was
prevented from repeating the good fortune by that fatal illness
which soon set in. So he lived out the last glimmers of his life,
poverty-stricken, despondent, with few even of the amenities of
friendship to soothe his declining days. Yet those who know the
beautiful results of that life, and have even a faint glow of sympathy
with the life of a man of genius, will exclaim with one of the most
eloquent critics of Schubert:

"But shall we, therefore, pity a man who all the while reveled in the
treasures of his creative ore, and from the very depths of whose despair
sprang the sweetest flowers of song? Who would not battle with the
iciest blast of the north if out of storm and snow he could bring back
to his chamber the germs of the 'Winterreise?' Who would grudge the
moisture of his eyes if he could render it immortal in the strains of
Schubert's 'Lob der Thrâne?'"

Schubert died in the flower of his youth, November 19, 1828; but he left
behind him nearly a thousand compositions, six hundred of which were
songs. Of his operas only the "Enchanted Harp" and "Rosamond" were put
on the stage during his lifetime. "Fierabras," considered to be his
finest dramatic work, has never been produced. His church music,
consisting of six masses, many offertories, and the great "Hallelujah"
of Klopstock, is still performed in Germany. Several of his symphonies
are ranked among the greatest works of this nature. His pianoforte
compositions are brilliant, and strongly in the style of Beethoven,
who was always the great object of Schubert's devoted admiration, his
artistic idol and model. It was his dying request that he should be
buried by the side of Beethoven, of whom the art-world had been deprived
the year before.

Compared with Schubert, other composers seem to have written in prose.
His imagination burned with a passionate love of Nature. The lakes, the
woods, the mountain heights, inspired him with eloquent reveries that
burst into song; but he always saw Nature through the medium of human
passion and sympathy, which transfigured it. He was the faithful
interpreter of spiritual suffering, and the joy which is born thereof.

The genius of Schubert seems to have been directly formed for the
expression of subjective emotion in music. That his life should have
been simultaneous with the perfect literary unfolding of the old
_Volkslied_ in the superb lyrics of Goethe, Heine, and their school,
is quite remarkable. Poe-try and song clasped hands on the same lofty
summits of genius. Liszt has given to our composer the title of _le
musicien le plus poétique_, which very well expresses his place in art.

In the song as created by Schubert and transmitted to his successors,
there are three forms, the first of which is that of the simple _Lied_,
with one unchanged melody. A good example of this is the setting of
Goethe's "Haideroslein," which is full of quaint grace and simplicity.
A second and more elaborate method is what the Germans call
"through-composed," in which all the different feelings are successively
embodied in the changes of the melody, the sense of unity being
preserved by the treatment of the accompaniment, or the recurrence of
the principal motive at the close of the song. Two admirable models of
this are found in the "Lindenbaum" and "Serenade."

The third and finest art-method, as applied by Schubert to lyric music,
is the "declamatory." In this form we detect the consummate flower of
the musical lyric. The vocal part is lifted into a species of passionate
chant, full of dramatic fire and color, while the accompaniment, which
is extremely elaborate, furnishes a most picturesque setting. The genius
of the composer displays itself here fully as much as in the vocal
treatment. When the lyric feeling rises to its climax it expresses
itself in the crowning melody, this high tide of the music and poetry
being always in unison. As masterpieces of this form may be cited "Die
Stadt" and "Der Erlkönig," which stand far beyond any other works of the
same nature in the literature of music.


IV.

Robert Schumann, the loving critic, admirer, and disciple of Schubert in
the province of song, was in most respects a man of far different
type. The son of a man of wealth and position, his mind and tastes were
cultivated from early youth with the utmost care. Schumann is known
in Germany no less as a philosophical thinker and critic than as
a composer. As the editor of the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_, he
exercised a powerful influence over contemporary thought in art-matters,
and established himself both as a keen and incisive thinker and as a
master of literary style. Schumann was at first intended for the law,
but his unconquerable taste for music asserted itself in spite of family
opposition. His acquaintance with the celebrated teacher Wieck, whose
gifted daughter Clara afterward became his wife, finally established
his career; for it was through Wieck's advice that the Schumann family
yielded their opposition to the young man's bent.

Once settled in his new career, Schumann gave himself up to work with
the most indefatigable ardor. The early part of the present century was
a halcyon time for the _virtuosi_, and the fame and wealth that poured
themselves on such players as Paganini and Liszt made such a pursuit
tempting in the extreme. Fortunately, the young musician was saved from
such a career. In his zeal of practice and desire to attain a perfectly
independent action for each finger on the piano, Schumann devised some
machinery, the result of which was to weaken the sinews of his third
finger by undue distention. By this he lost the effective use of the
whole right hand, and of course his career as a _virtuoso_ practically
closed.

Music gained in its higher walks what it lost in a lower. Schumann
devoted himself to composition and aesthetic criticism, after he had
passed through a thorough course of preparatory studies. Both as a
writer and a composer Schumann fought against Philistinism in music.
Ardent, progressive, and imaginative, he soon became the leader of the
romantic school, and inaugurated the crusade which had its parallel in
France in that carried on by Victor Hugo in the domain of poetry. His
early pianoforte compositions bear the strong impress of this fiery,
revolutionary spirit. I lis great symphonic works belong to a later
period, when his whole nature had mellowed and ripened without losing
its imaginative sweep and brilliancy. Schumann's compositions for the
piano and orchestra are those by which his name is most widely honored,
but nowhere do we find a more characteristic exercise of his genius than
in his songs, to which this article will call more special attention.

Such works as the "Etudes Symphoniques" and the "Kreisleriana" express
much of the spirit of unrest and longing aspiration, the struggle to
get away from prison-bars and limits, which seem to have sounded the
key-note of Schumann's deepest nature. But these feelings could only
find their fullest outlet in the musical form expressly suited to
subjective emotion. Accordingly, the "Sturm and Drang" epoch of his
life, when all his thoughts and conceptions were most unsettled and
visionary, was most fruitful in lyric song. In Heinrich Heine he found
a fitting poetical co-worker, in whose moods he seemed to see a perfect
reflection of his own--Heine, in whom the bitterest irony was wedded to
the deepest pathos, "the spoiled favorite of the Graces," "the knight
with the laughing tear in his scutcheon"--Heine, whose songs are
charged with the brightest light and deepest gloom of the human heart.

Schumann's songs never impress us as being deliberate attempts at
creative effort, consciously selected forms through which to express
thoughts struggling for speech. They are rather involuntary experiments
to relieve one's self of some wo-ful burden, medicine for the soul.
Schumann is never distinctively the lyric composer; his imagination had
too broad and majestic a wing. But in those moods, peculiar to genius,
where the soul is flung back on itself with a sense of impotence, our
composer instinctively burst into song. He did not in the least advance
or change its artistic form, as fixed by Schubert. This, indeed, would
have been irreconcilable with his use of the song as a simple medium of
personal feeling, an outlet and safeguard.

The peculiar place of Schumann as a songwriter is indicated by his being
called the musical exponent of Heine, who seems to be the other half of
his soul. The composer enters into each shade and detail of the poet's
meaning with an intensity and fidelity which one can never cease
admiring. It is this phase which gives the Schumann songs their great
artistic value. In their clean-cut, abrupt, epigrammatic force there is
something different from the work of any other musical lyrist. So much
has this impressed the students of the composer that more than one
able critic has ventured to prophesy that Schumann's greatest claim to
immortality would yet be found in such works as the settings of "Ich
grolle nicht" and the "Dichterliebe" series--a perverted estimate,
perhaps, but with a large substratum of truth. The duration of
Schumann's song-time was short, the greater part of his _Lieder_
having been written in 1840. After this he gave himself up to oratorio,
symphony, and chamber-music.


V.

Among the contemporary masters of the musical lyric, the most shining
name is that of Robert Franz, a marked individuality, and, though
indirectly moulded by the influence of Schubert and Schumann, a creative
mind of a striking type.

The art-impulse, strikingly characteristic of Franz as a song composer,
or, perhaps, to express it more accurately, the art-limitation, is that
the musical inspiration is directly dependent on the poetic strength of
the _Lied_. He would be utterly at a loss to treat a poem which lacked
beauty and force. With but little command over absolute music, that flow
of melody which pours from some natures like a perennial spring, the
poetry of word is necessary to evoke poetry of tone.

Robert Franz, like Schumann, was embarrassed in his youth by the bitter
opposition of his family to his adoption of music, and, like the great
apostle of romantic music, his steady perseverance wore it out. He made
himself a severe student of the great masters, and rapidly acquired a
deep knowledge of the mysteries of harmony and counterpoint. There are
no songs with such intricate and difficult accompaniments, though always
vital to the lyrical motive, as those of Robert Franz. For a long time,
even after he felt himself fully equipped, Franz refrained from artistic
production, waiting till the processes of fermenting and clarifying
should end, in the mean while promising he would yet have a word to say
for himself.

With him, as with many other men of genius, the blow which broke the
seal of inspiration was an affair of the heart. He loved a beautiful and
accomplished woman, but loved unfortunately. The catastrophe ripened him
into artistic maturity, and the very first effort of his lyric power was
marked by surprising symmetry and fullness of power. He wrote to give
overflow to his deep feelings, and the song came from his heart of
hearts. Robert Schumann, the generous critic, gave this first work an
enthusiastic welcome, and the young composer leaped into reputation at a
bound. Of the four hundred or more songs written by Robert Franz, there
are perhaps fifty which rank as masterpieces. His life has passed
devoid of incident, though rich in spiritual insight and passion, as
his _Lieder_ unmistakably show. Though the instrumental setting of this
composer's songs is so elaborate and beautiful oftentimes, we frequently
find him at his best in treating words full of the simplicity and
_naïvete_ of the old _Volkslied_. Many of his songs are set to the poems
of Robert Burns, one of the few British poets who have been able to give
their works the subtile singing quality which comes not merely of the
rhythm but of the feeling of the verse. Heine also furnished him with
the themes of many of his finest songs, for this poet has been an
inexhaustible treasure-trove to the modern lyric composer. One of the
most striking features of Franz as a composer is found in the delicate
light and shade, introduced into the songs by the simplest means, which
none but the man of genius would think of; for it is the great artist
who attains his ends through the simplest effects.

While the same atmosphere of thought and feeling is felt in the
spiritual life of Robert Franz which colored the artistic being of
Schubert and Schumann, there is a certain repose and balance all
his own. We get the idea of one never carried away by his genius, or
delivering passionate utterances from the Delphic tripod, but the
master of all his powers, the conscious and skillful ruler of his own
inspirations. If the sense of spontaneous freshness is sometimes lost,
perhaps there is a gain in breadth and finish. If Schubert has unequaled
melody and dramatic force, Schumann drastic and pointed intensity,
Robert Franz deserves the palm for the finish and symmetry of his work.

Of the great song composers, Franz Schubert is the unquestioned master.
To him the modern artistic song owes its birth, and, as in the myth of
Pallas, we find birth and maturity simultaneous. It bloomed at once into
perfect flower, and the wrorld will probably never see any essential
advances in it. It is this form of music which appeals most widely to
the human heart, to old and young, high and low, learned and ignorant.
It has "the one touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin." Even
the mind not attuned to sympathy with the more elaborate forms of music
is soothed and delighted by it; for--

     "It is old and plain;
     The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
     And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
     Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
     And dallies with the innocence of love
     Like the old age."



CHOPIN.


I.

Never has Paris, the Mecca of European art, genius, and culture,
presented a more brilliant social spectacle than it did in 1832. Hither
ward came pilgrims from all countries, poets, painters, and musicians,
anxious to breathe the inspiring air of the French capital, where
society laid its warmest homage at the feet of the artist. Here came,
too, in dazzling crowds, the rich nobles and the beautiful women of
Europe to find the pleasure, the freedom, the joyous unrestraint, with
which Paris offers its banquet of sensuous and intellectual delights
to the hungry epicure. Then as now the queen of the art-world, Paris
absorbed and assimilated to herself the most brilliant influences in
civilization.

In all of brilliant Paris there was no more charming and gifted circle
than that which gathered around the young Polish pianist and composer,
Chopin, then a recent arrival in the gay city. His peculiarly original
genius, his weird and poetic style of playing, which transported his
hearers into a mystic fairy-land of sunlight and shadow, his strangely
delicate beauty, the alternating reticence and enthusiasm of his
manners, made him the idol of the clever men and women, who courted the
society of the shy and sensitive musician; for to them he was a fresh
revelation. Dr. Franz Liszt gives the world some charming pictures of
this art-coterie, which was wont often to assemble at Chopin's rooms in
the Chaussée d'Antin.

His room, taken by surprise, is all in darkness except the luminous ring
thrown off by the candles on the piano, and the flashes flickering from
the fireplace. The guests gather around informally as the piano sighs,
moans, murmurs, or dreams under the fingers of the player. Hein-rich
Heine, the most poetic of humorists, leans on the instrument, and asks,
as he listens to the music and watches the firelight, "if the roses
always glowed with a flame so triumphant? if the trees at moonlight sang
always so harmoniously?" Meyerbeer, one of the musical giants, sits near
at hand lost in reverie; for he forgets his own great harmonies, forged
with hammer of Cyclops, listening to the dreamy passion and poetry woven
into such quaint fabrics of sound.

Adolphe Nourrit, passionate and ascetic, with the spirit of some
mediaeval monastic painter, an enthusiastic servant of art in its
purest, severest form, a combination of poet and anchorite, is also
there; for he loves the gentle musician, who seems to be a visitor from
the world of spirits. Eugène Delacroix, one of the greatest of modern
painters, his keen eyes half closed in meditation, absorbs the vague
mystery of color which imagination translates from the harmony,
and attains new insight and inspiration through the bright links of
suggestion by which one art lends itself to another. The two great
Polish poets, Nierncewicz and Mickiewicz (the latter the Dante of the
Slavic race), exiles from their unhappy land, feed their sombre sorrow,
and find in the wild, Oriental rhythms of the player only melancholy
memories of the past. Perhaps Victor Hugo, Balzac, Lamartine, or the
aged Chateaubriand, also drop in by-and-by, to recognize, in the music,
echoes of the daring romanticism which they opposed to the classic and
formal pedantry of the time.

Buried in a fauteuil, with her arms resting upon a table, sits Mme.
George Sand (that name so tragically mixed with Chopin's life),
"curiously attentive, gracefully subdued." With the second sight of
genius, which pierces through the mask, she saw the sweetness, the
passion, the delicate emotional sensibility of Chopin; and her insatiate
nature must unravel and assimilate this new study in human enjoyment and
suffering. She had then just finished "Lelia," that strange and
powerful creation, in which she embodied all her hatred of the forms and
tyrannies of society, her craving for an impossible social ideal, her
tempestuous hopes and desires, in such startling types. Exhausted by the
struggle, she panted for the rest and luxury of a companionship in
which both brain and heart could find sympathy. She met Chopin, and she
recognized in the poetry of his temperament and the fire of his genius
what she desired. Her personality, electric, energetic, and imperious,
exercised the power of a magnet on the frail organization of Chopin, and
he loved once and forever, with a passion that consumed him; for in Mme.
Sand he found the blessing and curse of his life. This many-sided woman,
at this point of her development, found in the fragile Chopin one phase
of her nature which had never been expressed, and he was sacrificed
to the demands of an insatiable originality, which tried all things in
turn, to be contented with nothing but an ideal which could never be
attained.

About the time of Chopin's arrival in Paris the political effervescence
of the recent revolution had passed into art and letters. It was the
oft-repeated battle of Romanticism against Classicism. There could be no
truce between those who believed that everything must be fashioned after
old models, that Procrustes must settle the height and depth, the length
and breadth of art-forms, and those who, inspired with the new wine of
liberty and free creative thought, held that the rule of form should
always be the mere expression of the vital, flexible thought. The one
side argued that supreme perfection already reached left the artist hope
only in imitation; the other, that the immaterial beautiful could have
no fixed absolute form. Victor Hugo among the poets, Delacroix among the
painters, and Berlioz among the musicians, led the ranks of the romantic
school.

Chopin found himself strongly enlisted in this contest on the side of
the new school. His free, unconventional nature found in its teachings
a musical atmosphere true to the artistic and political proclivities of
his native Poland; for Chopin breathed the spirit and tendencies of his
people in every fibre of his soul, both as man and artist. Our
musician, however, in freeing himself from all servile formulas, sternly
repudiated the charlatanism which would replace old abuses with new
ones.

Chopin, in his views of his art, did not admit the least compromise
with those who failed earnestly to represent progress, nor, on the other
hand, with those who sought to make their art a mere profitable
trade. With him, as with all the great musicians, his art was a
religion--something so sacred that it must be approached with unsullied
heart and hand. This reverential feeling was shown in the following
touching fact: It was a Polish custom to choose the garments in which
one would be buried. Chopin, though among the first of contemporary
artists, gave fewer concerts than any other; but, notwithstanding this,
he left directions to be borne to the grave in the clothes he had worn
on such occasions.


II.

Frederick Francis Chopin was born near Warsaw, in 1810, of French
extraction. He learned music at the age of nine from Ziwny, a pupil of
Sebastian Bach, but does not seem to have impressed any one with his
remarkable talent except Madame Catalani, the great singer, who gave
him a watch. Through the kindness of Prince Radziwill, an enthusiastic
patron of art, he was sent to Warsaw College, where his genius began to
unfold itself. He afterward became a pupil of the Warsaw Conservatory,
and acquired there a splendid mastery over the science of music. His
labor was prodigious in spite of his frail health; and his knowledge of
contrapuntal forms was such as to exact the highest encomiums from his
instructors.

Through his brother pupils he was introduced to the highest Polish
society, for his fellows bore some of the proudest names in Poland.
Chopin seems to have absorbed the peculiarly romantic spirit of his
race, the wild, imaginative melancholy, which, almost gloomy in the
Polish peasant, when united to grace and culture in the Polish noble,
offered an indescribable social charm. Balzac sketches the Polish woman
in these picturesque antitheses: "Angel through love, demon through
fantasy; child through faith, sage through experience; man through
the brain, woman through the heart; giant through hope, mother through
sorrow; and poet through dreams." The Polish gentleman was chivalrous,
daring, and passionate; the heir of the most gifted and brilliant of the
Slavic races, with a proud heritage of memory which gave his bearing
an indescribable dignity, though the son of a fallen nation. Ardently
devoted to pleasure, the Poles embodied in their national dances wild
and inspiring rhythms, a glowing poetry of sentiment as well as motion,
which mingled with their Bacchanal fire a chaste and lofty meaning that
became at times funereal. Polish society at this epoch pulsated with an
originality, an imagination, and a romance, which transfigured even the
common things of life.

It was amid such an atmosphere that Chopin's early musical career was
spent, and his genius received its lasting impress. One afternoon in
after-years he was playing to one of the most distinguished women in
Paris, and she said that his music suggested to her those gardens in
Turkey where bright parterres of flowers and shady bowers were strewed
with gravestones and burial mounds.

This underlying depth of melancholy Chopin's music expresses most
eloquently, and it may be called the perfect artistic outcome of his
people; for in his sweetest tissues of sound the imagination can detect
agitation, rancor, revolt, and menace, sometimes despair. Chateaubriand
dreamed of an Eve innocent, yet fallen; ignorant of all, yet knowing
all; mistress, yet virgin. He found this in a Polish girl of seventeen,
whom he paints as a "mixture of Odalisque and Valkyr." The romantic
and fanciful passion of the Poles, bold, yet unworldly, is shown in the
habit of drinking the health of a sweetheart from her own shoe.

Chopin, intensely spiritual by temperament and fragile in health, born
an enthusiast, was colored through and through with the rich dyes of
Oriental passion; but with these were mingled the fantastic and ideal
elements which,

"Wrapped in sense, yet dreamed of heavenlier joys."

And so he went to Paris, the city of his fate, ripe for the tragedy of
his life. After the revolution of 1830, he started to go to London, and,
as he said, "passed through Paris." Yet Paris he did not leave till he
left it with Mme. Sand to live a brief dream of joy in the beautiful
isle of Majorca.


III.

Liszt describes Chopin in these words: "His blue eyes were more
spiritual than dreamy; his bland smile never writhed into bitterness.
The transparent delicacy of his complexion pleased the eye; his fair
hair was soft and silky; his nose slightly aquiline; his bearing so
distinguished, and his manners stamped with such high breeding, that
involuntarily he was always treated _en prince_. His gestures were many
and graceful; the tones of his voice veiled, often stifled. His stature
was low, his limbs were slight." Again, Mme. Sand paints him even more
characteristically in her novel "Lucrezia Floriani:" "Gentle, sensitive,
and very lovely, he united the charm of adolescence with the suavity of
a more mature age; through the want of muscular development he retained
a peculiar beauty, an exceptional physiognomy, which, if we may venture
so to speak, belonged to neither age nor sex.... It was more like the
ideal creations with which the poetry of the middle ages adorned
the Christian temples. The delicacy of his constitution rendered him
interesting in the eyes of women. The full yet graceful cultivation of
his mind, the sweet and captivating originality of his conversation,
gained for him the attention of the most enlightened men; while those
less highly cultivated liked him for the exquisite courtesy of his
manners."

All this reminds us of Shelley's dream of Hermaphroditus, or perhaps of
Shelley himself, for Chopin was the Shelley of music.

His life in Paris was quiet and retired. The most brilliant and
beautiful women desired to be his pupils, but Chopin refused except
where he recognized in the petitioners exceptional earnestness and
musical talent. He gave but few concerts, for his genius could not cope
with great masses of people. He said to Liszt: "I am not suited for
concert-giving. The public intimidate me, their breath stifles me. You
are destined for it; for when you do not gain your public, you have the
force to assault, to overwhelm, to compel them." It was his delight to
play to a few chosen friends, and to evoke for them such dreams from the
ivory gate, which Virgil fabled to be the portal of Elysium, as to make
his music

     "The silver key of the fountain of tears,
     Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild:
     Softest grave of a thousand fears,
     Where their mother, Care, like a weary child,
     Is laid asleep in a hed of flowers."

He avoided general society, finding in the great artists and those
sympathetic with art his congenial companions. His life was given up to
producing those unique compositions which make him, _par excellence_,
the king of the pianoforte. He was recognized by Liszt, Kalkbrenner, Pie
y el, Field, and Meyerbeer, as being the most wonderful of players; yet
he seemed to disdain such a reputation as a cheap notoriety, ceasing
to appear in public after the first few concerts, which produced much
excitement and would have intoxicated most performers. He sought largely
the society of the Polish exiles, men and women of the highest rank who
had thronged to Paris.

His sister Louise, whom he dearly loved, frequently came to Paris from
Warsaw to see him; and he kept up a regular correspondence with his own
family. Yet he abhorred writing so much that he would go to any shifts
to avoid answering a note. Some of his beautiful countrywomen, however,
possess precious memorials in the shape of letters written in Polish,
which he loved much more than French. His thoughtfulness was continually
sending pleasant little gifts and souvenirs to his Warsaw friends.
This tenderness and consideration displayed itself too in his love of
children. He would spend whole evenings in playing blind-man's-buff or
telling them charming fairy-stories from the folk-lore in which Poland
is singularly rich.

Always gentle, he yet knew how to rebuke arrogance, and had sharp
repartees for those who tried to force him into musical display. On one
occasion, when he had just left the dining-room, an indiscreet host, who
had had the simplicity to promise his guests some piece executed by him
as a rare dessert, pointed him to an open piano. Chopin quietly refused,
but on being pressed said, with a languid and sneering drawl: "Ah, sir,
I have just dined; your hospitality, I see, demands payment."


IV.

Mme. Sand, in her "Lettres d'un Voyageur," depicts the painful lethargy
which seizes the artist when, having incorporated the emotion which
inspired him in his work, his imagination still remains under the
dominance of the insatiate idea, without being able to find a new
incarnation. She was suffering in this way when the character of Chopin
excited her curiosity and suggested a healthful and happy relief. Chopin
dreaded to meet this modern Sibyl. The superstitious awe he felt was a
premonition whose meaning was hidden from him. They met, and Chopin lost
his fear in one of those passions which feed on the whole being with a
ceaseless hunger.

In the fall of 1837 Chopin yielded to a severe attack of the disease
which was hereditary in his frame. In company with Mme. Sand, who had
become his constant companion, he went to the isle of Majorca, to find
rest and medicine in the balmy breezes of the Mediterranean. All the
happiness of Chopin's life was gathered in the focus of this experience.
He had a most loving and devoted nurse, who yielded to all his whims,
soothed his fretfulness, and watched over him as a mother does over
a child. The grounds of the villa where they lived were as perfect as
Nature and art could make them, and exquisite scenes greeted the eye at
every turn. Here they spent long golden days.

The feelings of Chopin for his gifted companion are best painted
by herself in the pages of "Lucrezia Floriani," where she is the
"Floriani," Liszt "Count Salvator Albani," and Chopin "Prince Karol:"
"It seemed as if this fragile being was absorbed and consumed by the
strength of his affection.... But he loved for the sake of loving....
His love was his life, and, delicious or bitter, he had not the power
of withdrawing himself a single moment from its domination." Slowly she
nursed him back into temporary health, and in the sunlight of her love
his mind assumed a gayety and cheerfulness it had never known before.

It had been the passionate hope of Chopin to marry Mme. Sand, but
wedlock was alien alike to her philosophy and preference. After a
protracted intimacy, she wearied of his persistent entreaties, or
perhaps her self-development had exhausted what it sought in the
poet-musician. An absolute separation came, and his mistress buried
the episode in her life with the epitaph: "Two natures, one rich in its
exuberance, the other in its exclusiveness, could never really mingle,
and a whole world separated them." Chopin said: "All the cords that bind
me to life are broken." His sad summary of all was that his life had
been an episode which began and ended in Paris. What a contrast to the
being of a few years before, of whom it is written: "He was no longer
on the earth; he was in an empyrean of golden clouds and perfumes; his
imagination, so full of exquisite beauty, seemed engaged in a monologue
with God himself!"*

     * "Lucrezia Floriani."

Both Liszt and Mme. Dudevant have painted Chopin somewhat as a sickly
sentimentalist, living in an atmosphere of moonshine and unreality.
Yet this was not precisely true. In spite of his delicacy of frame and
romantic imagination, Chopin was never ill till within the last ten
years of his life, when the seeds of hereditary consumption developed
themselves. As a young man he was lively and joyous, always ready
for frolic, and with a great fund of humor, especially in caricature.
Students of human character know how consistent these traits are with
a deep undercurrent of melancholy, which colors the whole life when the
immediate impulse of joy subsides.

From the date of 1840 Chopin's health declined; but through the
seven years during which his connection with Mme. Sand continued, he
persevered actively in his work of composition. The final rupture with
the woman he so madly loved seems to have been his death-blow. He spoke
of Mme. Sand without bitterness, but his soul pined in the bitter-sweet
of memory. He recovered partially, and spent a short season of
concert-giving in London, where he was feted and caressed by the best
society as he had been in Paris. Again he was sharply assailed by his
fatal malady, and he returned to Paris to die. Let us describe one of
his last earthly experiences, on Sunday, the 15th of October, 1849.

Chopin had lain insensible from one of his swooning attacks for some
time. His sister Louise was by his side, and the Countess Delphine
Potocka, his beautiful countrywoman and a most devoted friend, watched
him with streaming eyes. The dying musician became conscious, and
faintly ordered a piano to be rolled in from the adjoining room. He
turned to the countess, and whispered, feebly, "Sing." She had a lovely
voice, and, gathering herself for the effort, she sang that famous
canticle to the Virgin which, tradition says, saved Stradella's life
from assassins. "How beautiful it is!" he exclaimed. "My God! how very
beautiful!" Again she sang to him, and the dying musician passed into
a trance, from which he never fully aroused till he expired, two days
afterward, in the arms of his pupil, M. Gutman.

Chopin's obsequies took place at the Madeleine Church, and Lablache sang
on this occasion the same passage, the "Tuba Mirum" of Mozart's Requiem
Mass, which he had sung at the funeral of Beethoven in 1827; while the
other solos were given by Mme. Viardot Garcia and Mme. Castellan. He
lies in Père Lachaise, beside Cherubini and Bellini.


V.

The compositions of Chopin were exclusively for the piano; and alike as
composer and virtuoso he is the founder of a new school, or perhaps
may be said to share that honor with Robert Schumann--the school which
to-day is represented in its advanced form by Liszt and Von Billow.
Schumann called him "the boldest and proudest poetic spirit of
the times." In addition to this remarkable poetic power, he was a
splendidly-trained musician, a great adept in style, and one of the most
original masters of rhythm and harmony that the records of music show.
All his works, though wanting in breadth and robustness of tone, are
characterized by the utmost finish and refinement. Full of delicate and
unexpected beauties, elaborated with the finest touch, his effects are
so quaint and fresh as to fill the mind of the listener with pleasurable
sensations, perhaps not to be derived from grander works.

Chopin was essentially the musical exponent of his nation; for he
breathed in all the forms of his art the sensibilities, the fires, the
aspirations, and the melancholy of the Polish race. This is not only
evident in his polonaises, his waltzes and mazurkas, in which the wild
Oriental rhythms of the original dances are treated with the creative
skill of genius; but also in the _études_, the preludes, nocturnes,
scherzos, ballads, etc., with which he so enriched musical literature.
His genius could never confine itself within classic bonds, but,
fantastic and impulsive, swayed and bent itself with easy grace to
inspirations that were always novel and startling, though his boldness
was chastened by deep study and fine art-sense.

All of the suggestions of the quaint and beautiful Polish dance-music
were worked by Chopin into a variety of forms, and were greatly enriched
by his skill in handling. He dreamed out his early reminiscences in
music, and these national memories became embalmed in the history of
art. The polonaises are marked by the fire and ardor of his soldier
race, and the mazurkas are full of the coquetry and tenderness of his
countrywomen; while the ballads are a free and powerful rendering of
Polish folk-music, beloved alike in the herdsman's hut and the palace of
the noble. In deriving his inspiration direct from the national heart,
Chopin did what Schumann, Schubert, and Weber did in Germany, what
Rossini did in Italy, and shares with them a freshness of melodic power
to be derived from no other source. Rather tender and elegiac than
vigorous, the deep sadness underlying the most sparkling forms of his
work is most notable. One can at times almost recognize the requiem of
a nation in the passionate melancholy on whose dark background his fancy
weaves such beautiful figures and colors.

Franz Liszt, in characterizing Chopin as a composer, furnishes an
admirable study: "We meet with beauties of a high order, expressions
entirely new, and a harmonic tissue as original as erudite. In his
compositions boldness is always justified; richness, often exuberance,
never interferes with clearness; singularity never degenerates into the
uncouth and fantastic; the sculpturing is never disordered; the luxury
of ornament never overloads the chaste eloquence of the principal lines.
His best works abound in combinations which may be said to be an epoch
in the handling of musical style. Daring, brilliant, and attractive,
they disguise their profundity under so much grace, their science
under so many charms, that it is with difficulty we free ourselves
sufficiently from their magical inthrallment, to judge coldly of their
theoretical value."

As a romance composer Chopin struck out his own path, and has no
rival. Full of originality, his works display the utmost dignity and
refinement. He revolted from the bizarre and eccentric, though the
peculiar influences which governed his development might well have
betrayed one less finely organized.

As a musical poet, embodying the feelings and tendencies of a people,
Chopin advances his chief claim to his place in art. He did not task
himself to be a national musician; for he is utterly without pretense
and affectation, and sings spontaneously without design or choice, from
the fullness of a rich nature. He collected "in luminous sheaves the
impressions felt everywhere through his country--vaguely felt, it is
true, yet in fragments pervading all hearts."

Chopin was repelled by the lusty and almost coarse humor sometimes
displayed by Schubert, for he was painfully fastidious. He could not
fully understand nor appreciate Beethoven, whose works are full of
lion-marrow, robust and masculine alike in conception and treatment. He
did not admire Shakespeare, because his great delineations are too vivid
and realistic. Our musician was essentially a dreamer and idealist. His
range was limited, but within it he reached perfection of finish
and originality never surpassed. But, with all his limitations, the
art-judgment of the world places him high among those

     ".... whom Art's service pure
     Hallows and claims, whose hearts are made her throne,
     "Whose lips her oracle, ordained secure
     To lead a priestly life and feed the ray
     Of her eternal shrine; to them alone
     Her glorious countenance unveiled is shown."



WEBER.


I.

The genius which inspired the three great works, "Der Freischutz,"
"Euryanthe," and "Oberon," has stamped itself as one of the most
original and characteristic in German music. Full of bold and surprising
strokes of imagination, these operas are marked by the true atmosphere
of national life and feeling, and Ave feel in them the fresh, rich color
of the popular traditions, and song-music which make the German _Lieder_
such an inexhaustible treasure-trove. As Weber was maturing into that
fullness of power which gave to the world his greater works, Germany had
been wrought into a passionate patriotism by the Napoleonic wars. The
call to arms resounded from one end of the Fatherland to the other.
Every hamlet thrilled with fervor, and all the resources of national
tradition were evoked to heighten the love of country into a puissance
which should save the land. Germany had been humiliated by a series of
crushing defeats, and national pride was stung to vindicate the
grand old memories. France, in answer to a similar demand for some
art-expression of its patriotism, had produced its Rouget de-Lisle;
Germany produced the poet Korner and the musician Weber.

It is not easy to appreciate the true quality and significance of
Weber's art-life without considering the peculiar state of Germany at
the time; for if ever creative imagination was forged and fashioned by
its environments into a logical expression of public needs and impulses,
it was in the case of the father of German romantic opera. This
inspiration permeated the whole soil of national thought, and its
embodiment in art and letters has hardly any parallel except in that
brilliant morning of English thought which we know as the Elizabethan
era. To understand Weber the composer, then, we must think of him not
only as the musician, but as the patriot and revivalist of ancient
tendencies in art, drawn directly from the warm heart of the people.

Karl Maria von Weber was born at Eutin, in Holstein, December 18, 1786.
His father had been a soldier, but, owing to extravagance and folly, had
left the career of arms, and, being an educated musician, had become by
turns attached to an orchestra, director of a theatre, Kapellmeister,
and wandering player--never remaining long in one position, for he was
essentially vagrant and desultory in character. Whatever Karl Maria had
to suffer from his father's folly and eccentricity, he was indebted to
him for an excellent training in the art of which he was to become
so brilliant an ornament. He had excellent masters in singing and the
piano, as also in drawing and engraving. So he grew up a melancholy,
imaginative, recluse, absorbed in his studies, and living in a
dream-land of his own, which he peopled with ideal creations. His
passionate love of Nature, tinged with old German superstition, planted
in his imagination those fruitful germs which bore such rich results in
after-years.

In 1797 Weber studied the piano and composition under Ilanschkel, a
thoroughly scientific musician, and found in his severe drill a happy
counter-balancing influence to the more desultory studies which had
preceded. Major Weber's restless tendencies did not permit his family
to remain long in one place. In 1798 they moved to Salzburg, where
young Weber was placed at the musical institute of which Michael Haydn,
brother of the great Joseph, was director. Here a variety of misfortunes
assailed the Weber family. Major Franz Anton was unsuccessful in all
his theatrical undertakings, and extreme poverty stared them all in the
face. The gentle mother, too, whom Karl so dearly loved, sickened and
died. This was a terrible blow to the affectionate boy, from which he
did not soon recover.

The next resting-place in the pilgrimage of the Weber family was Munich,
where Major Weber, who, however flagrant his shortcomings in other ways,
was resolved that the musical powers of his son should be thoroughly
trained, placed him under the care of the organist Kalcher for studies
in composition.

For several years, Karl was obliged to lead the same shifting, nomadic
sort of life, never stopping long, but dragged hither and thither in
obedience to his father's vagaries and necessities, but always studying
under the best masters who could be obtained. While under Kalcher,
several masses, sonatas, trios, and an opera, "Die Macht der Liebe und
des Weins" ("The Might of Love and Wine"), were written. Another opera,
"Das Waldmäd-chen" ("The Forest Maiden"), was composed and produced
when he was fourteen; and two years later in Salzburg he composed "Peter
Schmoll und seine Nachbarn," an operetta, which exacted warm praise from
Michael Haydn.

At the age of seventeen he became the pupil of the great teacher Abbé
Vogler, under whose charge also Meyerbeer was then studying. Our young
composer worked with great assiduity under the able instruction of
Vogier, who was of vast service in bringing the chaos of his previous
contradictory teachings into order and light. All these musical
_Wanderjahre_, however trying, had steeled Karl Maria into a stern
self-reliance, and he found in his skill as an engraver the means to
remedy his father's wastefulness and folly.


II.

A curious episode in Weber's life was his connection with the royal
family of Wurtemberg, where he found a dissolute, poverty-stricken
court, and a whimsical, arrogant, half-crazy king. Here he remained four
years in a half-official musical position, his nominal duty being that
of secretary to the king's brother, Prince Ludwig. This part of
his career was almost a sheer waste, full of dreary and irritating
experiences, which Weber afterward spoke of with disgust and regret.
His spirit revolted from the capricious tyranny which he was obliged to
undergo, but circumstances seem to have coerced him into a protracted
endurance of the place. His letters tell us how bitterly he detested the
king and his dull, pompous court, though Prince Ludwig in a way seemed
to have been attached to his secretary. One of his biographers says:

"Weber hated the king, of whose wild caprice and vices he witnessed
daily scenes, before whose palace-gates he was obliged to slink
bareheaded, and who treated him with unmerited ignominy. Sceptre and
crown had never been imposing objects in his eyes, unless worn by a
worthy man; and consequently he was wont, in the thoughtless levity
of youth, to forget the dangers he ran, and to answer the king with a
freedom of tone which the autocrat was all unused to hear. In turn he
was detested by the monarch. As negotiator for the spendthrift Prince
Ludwig, he was already obnoxious enough; and it sometimes happened that,
by way of variety to the customary torrent of invective, the king, after
keeping the secretary for hours in his antechamber, would receive him
only to turn him rudely out of the room, without hearing a word he had
to say."

At last Karl Maria's indignation burst over bounds at some unusual
indignity; and he played a practical joke on the king. Meeting an old
woman in the palace one day near the door of the royal sanctum, she
asked him where she could find the court-washerwoman. "There," said the
reckless Weber, pointing to the door of the king's cabinet. The
king, who hated old women, was in a transport of rage, and, on her
terror-stricken explanation of the intrusion, had no difficulty in
fixing the mischief in the right quarter. Weber was thrown into prison,
and had it not been for Prince Ludwig's intercession he would have
remained there for several years. While confined he managed to compose
one of his most beautiful songs, "Ein steter Kampf ist unser Leben." He
had not long been released when he was again imprisoned on account of
some of his father's wretched follies, that arrogant old gentleman being
utterly reckless how he involved others, so long as he carried out his
own selfish purposes and indulgence. His friend Danzi, director of the
royal opera at Stuttgart, proved his good genius in this instance; for
he wrangled with the king till his young friend was released.

Weber's only consolations during this dismal life in Stuttgart were the
friendship of Danzi, and his love for a beautiful singer named Gretchen.
Danzi was a true mentor and a devoted friend. He was wont to say to
Karl: "To be a true artist, you must be a true man." But the lovely
Gretchen, however she may have consoled his somewhat arid life, was not
a beneficial influence, for she led him into many sad extravagances and
an unwholesome taste for playing the cavalier.

In spite of his discouraging surroundings, Weber's creative power was
active during this period, and showed how, perhaps unconsciously to
himself, he was growing in power and depth of experience. He wrote the
cantata "Der erste Ton," a large number of songs, the first of his great
piano sonatas, several overtures and symphonies, and the opera "Sylvana"
("Das Waldmädchen" rewritten and enlarged), which, both in its music
and libretto, seems to have been the precursor of his great works "Der
Freischutz" and "Euryanthe." At the first performance of "Sylvana" in
Frankfort, September 16, 1810, he met Miss Caroline Brandt, who sang
the principal character. She afterward became his wife, and her love and
devotion were the solace of his life.

Weber spent most of the year 1810 in Darmstadt, where he again met
Vogler and Meyerbeer. Vogler's severe artistic instructions were of
great value to Weber in curbing his extravagance, and impressing on him
that restraint was one of the most valuable factors in art. What Vogler
thought of Weber we learn from a letter in which he writes: "Had I been
forced to leave the world before I found these two, Weber and Meyerbeer,
I should have died a miserable man."


III.

It was about this time, while visiting Mannheim, that the idea of "Der
Freischutz" first entered his mind. His friend the poet Kind was with
him, and they were ransacking an old book, Apel's "Ghost Stories."
One of these dealt with the ancient legend of the hunter Bartusch, a
woodland myth ranking high in German folk-lore. They were both delighted
with the fantastic and striking story, full of the warm coloring of
Nature, and the balmy atmosphere of the forest and mountain. They
immediately arranged the framework of the libretto, afterward written by
Kind, and set to such weird and enchanting music by Weber.

In 1811 Weber began to give concerts, for his reputation was becoming
known far and wide as a brilliant composer and virtuoso. For two years
he played a round of concerts in Munich, Leipsic, Gotha, Weimar, Berlin,
and other places. He was everywhere warmly welcomed. Lichten-stein, in
his "Memoir of Weber," writes of his Berlin reception: "Young artists
fell on their knees before him; others embraced him wherever they could
get at him. All crowded around him, till his head was crowned, not with
a chaplet of flowers, but a circlet of happy faces." The devotion of his
friends, his happy family relations, the success of his published works,
conspired to make Weber cheerful and joyous beyond his wont, for he was
naturally of a melancholy and serious turn, disposed to look at life
from its tragic side.

In 1813 he was called to Prague to direct the music of the German opera
in that Bohemian capital. The Bohemians had always been a highly musical
race, and their chief city is associated in the minds of the students of
music as the place where many of the great operas were first presented
to the public. Mozart loved Prague, for he found in its people the
audiences who appreciated and honored him the most. Its traditions were
honored in their treatment of Weber, for his three years there were
among the happiest of his life.

Our composer wrote his opera of "Der Freischütz" in Dresden. It was
first produced in the opera-house of that classic city, but it was
not till 1821, when it was performed in Berlin, that its greatness was
recognized. Weber can best tell the story of its reception himself. In
his letter to his co-author, Kind, he writes:

"The free-shooter has hit the mark. The second representation has
succeeded as well as the first; there was the same enthusiasm. All the
places in the house are taken for the third, which comes off to-morrow.
It is the greatest triumph one can have. You cannot imagine what a
lively interest your text inspires from beginning to end. How happy I
should have been if you had only been present to hear it for yourself!
Some of the scenes produced an effect which I was far from anticipating;
for example, that of the young girls. If I see you again at Dresden, I
will tell you all about it; for I cannot do it justice in writing. How
much I am indebted to you for your magnificent poem! I embrace you with
the sincerest emotion, returning to your muse the laurels I owe her.
God grant that you may be happy. Love him who loves you with infinite
respect. "Your Weber."

"Der Freischütz" was such a success as to place the composer in the
front ranks of the lyric stage. The striking originality, the fire, the
passion of his music, the ardent national feeling, and the freshness of
treatment, gave a genuine shock of delight and surprise to the German
world.


IV.

The opera of "Preciosa," also a masterpiece, was given shortly after
with great _eclat_, though it failed to inspire the deep enthusiasm
which greeted "Der Freischütz." In 1823, "Euryanthe" was produced in
Berlin--a work on which Weber exhausted all the treasures of his musical
genius. Without the elements of popular success which made his first
great opera such an immediate favorite, it shows the most finished and
scholarly work which Weber ever attained. Its symmetry and completeness,
the elaboration of all the forms, the richness and variety of the
orchestration, bear witness to the long and thoughtful labor expended
on it. It gradually won its way to popular recognition, and has always
remained one of the favorite works of the German stage.

The opera of "Oberon" was Weber's last great production. The celebrated
poet Wieland composed the poem underlying the libretto, from the
mediæval romance of Huon of Bordeaux. The scenes are laid in fairy-land,
and it may be almost called a German "Midsummer-Night's Dream,"
though the story differs widely from the charming phantasy of our own
Shakespeare. The opera of "Oberon" was written for Kemble, of the Covent
Garden theatre, in London, and was produced by Weber under circumstances
of failing health and great mental depression. The composer pressed
every energy to the utmost to meet his engagement, and it was feared by
his friends that he would not live to see it put on the stage. It did,
indeed, prove the song of the dying swan, for he only lived four months
after reaching London. "Oberon" was performed with immense success under
the direction of Sir George Smart, and the fading days of the author
were cheered by the acclamations of the English public; but the work
cost him his life. He died in London, June 5,1826. His last words were:
"God reward you for all your kindness to me.--Now let me sleep."

Apart from his dramatic compositions, Weber is known for his many
beautiful overtures and symphonies for the orchestra, and his various
works for the piano, from sonatas to waltzes and minuets. Among his most
pleasing piano-works are the "Invitation to the Waltz," the "Perpetual
Rondo," and the "Polonaise in E major." Many of his songs rank among the
finest German lyrics. He would have been recognized as an able composer
had he not produced great operas; but the superior excellence of these
cast all his other compositions in the shade.

Weber was fortunate in having gifted poets to write his dramas. As rich
as he was in melodic affluence, his creative faculty seems to have had
its tap-root in deep personal feelings and enthusiasms. One of the
most poetic and picturesque of composers, he needed a powerful exterior
suggestion to give his genius wings and fire. The Germany of his time
was alive with patriotic ardor, and the existence of the nation gathered
from its emergencies new strength and force. The heart of Weber beat
strong with the popular life. Romantic and serious in his taste, his
imagination fed on old German tradition and song, and drew from them its
richest food. The whole life of the Fatherland, with its glow of
love for home, its keen sympathies with the influences of Nature, its
fantastic play of thought, its tendency to embody the primitive forces
in weird myths, found in Weber an eloquent exponent; and we perceive in
his music all the color and vividness of these influences.

Weber's love of Nature was singularly keen. The woods, the mountains,
the lakes, and the streams, spoke to his soul with voices full of
meaning. He excelled in making these voices speak and sing; and he may,
therefore, be entitled the father of the romantic and descriptive school
in German operatic music. With more breadth and robustness, he expressed
the national feelings of his people, even as Chopin did those of dying
Poland. Weber's motives are generally caught from the immemorial airs
which resound in every village and hamlet, and the fresh beat of the
German heart sends its thrill through almost every bar of his music.
Here is found the ultimate significance of his art-work, apart from the
mere musical beauty of his compositions.



MENDELSSOHN.


I.

Few careers could present more startling contrasts than those of Mozart
and Mendelssohn, in many respects of similar genius, but utterly opposed
in the whole surroundings of their lives. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
was the grandson of the celebrated philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and
the son of a rich Hamburg banker. His uncles were distinguished in
literary and social life. His friends from early childhood were eminent
scholars, poets, painters, and musicians, and his family moved in the
most refined and wealthy circles. He was nursed in the lap of luxury,
and never knew the cold and hunger of life. All the good fairies and
graces seemed to have smiled benignly on his birth, and to have showered
on him their richest gifts. Many successful wooers of the muse have
been, fortunately for themselves, the heirs of poverty, and became
successful only to yield themselves to fat and slothful ease. But, with
every incitement to an idle and contented life, Mendelssohn toiled like
a galley-slave, and saw in his wealth only the means of a more exclusive
consecration to his art. A passionate impulse to labor was the law of
his life.

Many will recollect the brilliant novel "Charles Auchester," in which,
under the names of Seraphael, Aronach, Charles Auchester, Julia Bennett,
and Starwood Burney, are painted the characters of Mendelssohn, Zelter
his teacher, Joachim the violinist, Jenny Lind, and Sterndale Bennett
the English composer. The brilliant coloring does not disguise nor
flatter the lofty Christian purity, the splendid genius, and the great
personal charm of the composer, who shares in largest measure the homage
which the English public lays at the feet of Handel.

As child and youth Mendelssohn, born at Hamburg, February 3, 1809,
displayed the same precocity of talent as was shown by Mozart. Sir
Julius Benedict relates his first meeting with him. He was walking in
Berlin with Von Weber, and the latter called his attention to a boy
about eleven years old, who, perceiving the author of "Der Freischütz,"
gave him a hearty greeting. "'Tis Felix Mendelssohn," said Weber,
introducing the marvelous boy. Benedict narrates his amazement to find
the extraordinary attainments of this beautiful youth, with curling
auburn hair, brilliant clear eyes, and lips smiling with innocence and
candor. Five minutes after young Mendelssohn had astonished his English
friend by his admirable performance of several of his own compositions,
he forgot Weber, quartets, and counterpoint, to leap over the garden
hedges and climb the trees like a squirrel. When scarcely twenty years
old he had composed his octet, three quartets for the piano and strings,
two sonatas, two symphonies, his first violin quartet, various operas,
many songs, and the immortal overture of "A Midsummer-Night's Dream."

Mendelssohn received an admirable education, was an excellent classicist
and linguist, and during a short residence at Dusseldorf showed such
talent for painting as to excite much wonder. Before he was twenty he
was the friend of Goethe and Herder, who delighted in a genius so
rich and symmetrical. Some of Goethe's letters are full of charming
expressions of praise and affection, for the aged Jupiter of German
literature found in the promise of this young Apollo something of the
many-sided power which made himself so remarkable.


II.

The Mendelssohn family had moved to Berlin when Felix was only three
years old, and the Berliners always claimed him as their own. Strange
to say, the city of his birth did not recognize his talent for many
years. At the age of twenty he went to England, and the high breeding,
personal beauty, and charming manner of the young musician gave him
the _entrée_ into the most fastidious and exclusive circles. His first
symphony and the "Midsummer-Night's Dream" overture stamped his power
with the verdict of a warm enthusiasm; for London, though cold and
conservative, is prompt to recognize a superior order of merit.

His travels through Scotland inspired Mendelssohn with sentiments
of great admiration. The scenery filled his mind with the highest
suggestions of beauty and grandeur. He afterward tells us that "he
preferred the cold sky and the pines of the north to charming scenes in
the midst of landscapes bathed in the glowing rays of the sun and azure
light." The vague Ossianic figures that raised their gigantic heads in
the fog-wreaths of clouded mountain-tops and lonely lochs had a peculiar
fascination for him, and acted like wine on his imagination. The
"Hebrides" overture was the fruit of this tour, one of the most powerful
and characteristic of his minor compositions. His sister Fanny (Mrs.
Hensel) asked him to describe the gray scenery of the north, and
he replied in music by improvising his impressions. This theme was
afterward worked out in the elaborate overture.

We will not follow him in his various travels through France and Italy.
Suffice it to say that his keen and passionate mind absorbed everything
in art which could feed the divine hunger, for he was ever discontented,
and had his mind fixed on an absolute and determined ideal. During this
time of travel he became intimate with the sculptor Thorwaldsen, and
the painters Leopold Robert and Horace Vernet. This period produced
"Walpurgis Night," the first of the "Songs without Words," the great
symphony in A major, and the "Melusine" overture. He is now about to
enter on the epoch which puts to the fullest test the varied resources
of his genius. To Moscheles he writes, in answer to his old teacher's
warm praise: "Your praise is better than three orders of nobility." For
several years we see him busy in multifarious ways, composing, leading
musical festivals, concert-giving, directing opera-houses, and
yet finding time to keep up a busy correspondence with the most
distinguished men in Europe; for Mendelssohn seemed to find in
letter-writing a rest for his overtaxed brain.

In 1835 he completed his great oratorio of "St. Paul," for Leipsic. The
next year he received the title of Doctor of Philosophy and the Fine
Arts; and in 1837 he married the charming Cécile Jean-renaud, who made
his domestic life so gentle and harmonious. It has been thought strange
that Mendelssohn should have made so little mention of his lovely wife
in his letters, so prone as he was to speak of affairs of his daily
life. Be this as it may, his correspondence with Moscheles, Devrient,
and others, as well as the general testimony of his friends, shows us
unmistakably that his home-life was blessed in an exceptional degree
with intellectual sympathy, and the tenderest, most thoughtful love.

In 1841 Mendelssohn became Kapellmeister of the Prussian court. He now
wrote the "Athalie" music, the "Midsummer-Night's Dream," and a large
number of lesser pieces, including the "Songs without Words," and piano
sonatas, as well as much church music. The greatest work of this
period was the "Hymn of Praise," a symphonic cantata for the Leipsic
anniversary of the invention of printing, regarded by many as his finest
composition.

Mendelssohn always loved England, and made frequent visits across the
Channel; for he felt that among the English he was fully appreciated,
both as man and composer.

His oratorio of "Elijah" was composed for the English public, and
produced at the great Birmingham festival in 1846, under his own
direction, with magnificent success. It was given a second time in
April, 1847, with his final refinements and revisions; and the event was
regarded in England as one of the greatest since the days of Handel, to
whom, as well as to Haydn and Beethoven, Mendelssohn showed himself
a worthy rival in the field of oratorio composition. Of this visit to
England Lampadius, his friend and biographer, writes: "Her Majesty,
who as well as her husband was a great friend of art, and herself a
distinguished musician, received the distinguished German in her own
sitting-room, Prince Albert being the only one present besides herself.
As he entered she asked his pardon for the somewhat disorderly state
of the room, and began to rearrange the articles with her own hands,
Mendelssohn himself gallantly offering his assistance. Some parrots
whose cages hung in the room she herself carried into the next room, in
which Mendelssohn helped her also. She then requested her guest to play
something, and afterward sang some songs of his which she had sung at
a court concert soon after the attack on her person. She was not wholly
pleased, however, with her own performance, and said pleasantly to
Mendelssohn: 'I can do better--ask Lablache if I cannot; but I am afraid
of you!'"

This anecdote was related by Mendelssohn himself to show the
graciousness of the English queen. It was at this time that Prince
Albert sent to Mendelssohn the book of the oratorio "Elijah" with
which he used to follow the performance, with the following autographic
inscription:

"To the noble artist, who, surrounded by the Baal worship of corrupted
art, has been able by his genius and science to preserve faithfully like
another Elijah the worship of true art, and once more to accustom our
ear, lost in the whirl of an empty play of sounds, to the pure notes of
expressive composition and legitimate harmony--to the great master, who
makes us conscious of the unity of his conception through the whole maze
of his creation, from the soft whispering to the mighty raging of
the elements: Written in token of grateful remembrance by Albert.
"Buckingham Palace, April 24, 1847."

An occurrence at the Birmingham festival throws a clear light
on Mendelssohn's presence of mind, and on his faculty of instant
concentration. On the last day, among other things, one of Handel's
anthems was given. The concert was already going on, when it was
discovered that the short recitative which precedes the "Coronation
Hymn," and which the public had in the printed text, was lacking in the
voice parts. The directors were perplexed. Mendelssohn, who was sitting
in an ante-room of the hall, heard of it, and said, "Wait, I will help
you." He sat down directly at a table, and composed the music for the
recitative and the orchestral accompaniment in about half an hour. It
was at once transcribed, and given without any rehearsal, and went very
finely.

On returning to Leipsic he determined to pass the summer in Vevay,
Switzerland, on account of his failing health, which had begun to alarm
himself and his friends. His letters from Switzerland at this period
show how the shadow of rapidly approaching death already threw a deep
gloom over his habitually cheerful nature. He returned to Leipsic, and
resumed hard work. His operetta entitled "Return from among Strangers"
was his last production, with the exception of some lively songs and a
few piano pieces of the "Lieder ohne Worte," or "Songs without Words,"
series. Mendelssohn was seized with an apoplectic attack on October
9,1847. Second and third seizures quickly followed, and he died November
4th, aged thirty-eight years.

All Germany and Europe sorrowed over the loss of this great musician,
and his funeral was attended by many of the most distinguished persons
from all parts of the land, for the loss was felt to be something like a
national calamity.


III.

Mendelssohn was one of the most intelligent and scholarly composers of
the century. Learned in various branches of knowledge, and personally
a man of unusual accomplishments, his career was full of manly energy,
enlightened enthusiasm, and severe devotion to the highest forms of the
art of music. Not only his great oratorios, "St. Paul" and "Elijah," but
his music for the piano, including the "Songs without Words," sonatas,
and many occasional pieces, have won him a high place among his musical
brethren. As an orchestral composer, his overtures are filled with
strikingly original thoughts and elevated conceptions, expressed with
much delicacy of instrumental coloring. He was brought but little in
contact with the French and Italian schools, and there is found in his
works a severity of art-form which shows how closely he sympathized with
Bach and Handel in his musical tendencies. He died while at the very
zenith of his powers, and we may well believe that a longer life would
have developed much richer beauty in his compositions. Short as his
career was, however, he left a great number of magnificent works, which
entitle him to a place among the Titans of music.



RICHARD WAGNER.


I.

It is curious to note how often art-controversy has become edged with
a bitterness rivaling even the gall and venom of religious dispute.
Scholars have not yet forgotten the fiery war of words which raged
between Richard Bentley and his opponents concerning the authenticity
of the "Epistles of Phalaris," nor how literary Germany was divided into
two hostile camps by Wolf's attack on the personality of Homer. It is
no less fresh in the minds of critics how that modern Jupiter, Lessing,
waged a long and bitter battle with the Titans of the French
classical drama, and finally crushed them with the thunderbolt of the
"Dramaturgie;" nor what acrimony sharpened the discussion between
the rival theorists in music, Gluck and Piccini, at Paris. All of the
intensity of these art-campaigns, and many of the conditions of
the last, enter into the contest between Richard Wagner and the
_Italianissimi_ of the present day.

The exact points at issue were for a long time so befogged by the smoke
of the battle that many of the large class who are musically interested,
but never had an opportunity to study the question, will find an
advantage in a clear and comprehensive sketch of the facts and
principles involved. Until recently, there were still many people who
thought of Wagner as a youthful and eccentric enthusiast, all afire with
misdirected genius, a mere carpet-knight on the sublime battle-field
of art, a beginner just sowing his wild-oats in works like "Lohengrin,"
"Tristan and Iseult," or the "Rheingold." It is a revelation full of
suggestive value for these to realize that he is a musical thinker, ripe
with sixty years of labor and experience; that he represents the rarest
and choicest fruits of modern culture, not only as musician, but as poet
and philosopher; that he is one of the few examples in the history of
the art where massive scholarship and the power of subtile analysis
have been united, in a preeminent degree, with great creative genius.
Preliminary to a study of what Wagner and his disciples entitle the
"Artwork of the Future," let us take a swift survey of music as a medium
of expression for the beautiful, and some of the forms which it has
assumed.

This Ariel of the fine arts sends its messages to the human soul by
virtue of a fourfold capacity: Firstly, the imitation of the voices
of Nature, such as the winds, the waves, and the cries of animals;
secondly, its potential delight as melody, modulation, rhythm,
harmony--in other words, its simple worth as a "thing of beauty,"
without regard to cause or consequence; thirdly, its force of boundless
suggestion; fourthly, that affinity for union with the more definite
and exact forms of the imagination (poetry), by which the intellectual
context of the latter is raised to a far higher power of grace, beauty,
passion, sweetness, without losing individuality of outline--like,
indeed, the hazy aureole which painters set on the brow of the man
Jesus, to fix the seal of the ultimate Divinity. Though several or all
of these may be united in the same composition, each musical work may
be characterized in the main as descriptive, sensuous, suggestive, or
dramatic, according as either element contributes most largely to its
purpose. Simple melody or harmony appeals mostly to the sensuous love
of sweet sounds. The symphony does this in an enlarged and complicated
sense, but is still more marked by the marvelous suggestive energy
with which it unlocks all the secret raptures of fancy, floods the
border-lands of thought with a glory not to be found on sea or land,
and paints ravishing pictures, that come and go like dreams, with colors
drawn from the "twelve-tinted tone-spectrum."

Shelley describes this peculiar influence of music in his "Prometheus
Unbound," with exquisite beauty and truth:

     "My soul is an enchanted boat,
     Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
     Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
     And thine doth like an angel sit
     Beside the helm conducting it,
     While all the waves with melody are ringing.
     It seems to float ever, forever,
     Upon that many-winding river,
     Between mountains, woods, abysses,
     A paradise of wildernesses."

As the symphony best expresses the suggestive potency in music, the
operatic form incarnates its capacity of definite thought, and the
expression of that thought. The term "lyric," as applied to the genuine
operatic conception, is a misnomer. Under the accepted operatic form,
however, it has relative truth, as the main musical purpose of opera
seems, hitherto, to have been less to furnish expression for exalted
emotions and thoughts, or exquisite sentiments, than to grant the vocal
_virtuoso_ opportunity to display phenomenal qualities of voice and
execution. But all opera, however it may stray from the fundamental
idea, suggests this dramatic element in music, just as mere lyricism
in the poetic art is the blossom from which is unfolded the full-blown
perfection of the word-drama, the highest form of all poetry.


II.

That music, by and of itself, cannot express the intellectual element in
the beautiful dream-images of art with precision, is a palpable truth.
Yet, by its imperial dominion over the sphere of emotion and sentiment,
the connection of the latter with complicated mental phenomena is
made to bring into the domain of tone vague and shifting fancies and
pictures. How much further music can be made to assimilate to the other
arts in directness of mental suggestion, by wedding to it the noblest
forms of poetry, and making each the complement of the other, is the
knotty problem which underlies the great art-controversy about which
this article concerns itself. On the one side we have the claim that
music is the all-sufficient law unto itself; that its appeal to
sympathy is through the intrinsic sweetness of harmony and tune, and the
intellect must be satisfied with what it may accidentally glean in
this harvest-field; that, in the rapture experienced in the sensuous
apperception of its beauty, lies the highest phase of art-sensibility.
Therefore, concludes the syllogism, it matters nothing as to the
character of the libretto or poem to whose words the music is arranged,
so long as the dramatic framework suffices as a support for the flowery
festoons of song, which drape its ugliness and beguile attention by the
fascinations of bloom and grace. On the other hand, the apostles of the
new musical philosophy insist that art is something more than a vehicle
for the mere sense of the beautiful, an exquisite provocation wherewith
to startle the sense of a selfish, epicurean pleasure; that its highest
function--to follow the idea of the Greek Plato, and the greatest of his
modern disciples, Schopenhauer--is to serve as the incarnation of the
true and the good; and, even as Goethe makes the Earth-Spirit sing in
"Faust"--

     "'Tis thus over at the loom of Time I ply,
     And weave for God the garment thou seest him by"--

so the highest art is that which best embodies the immortal thought of
the universe as reflected in the mirror of man's consciousness; that
music, as speaking the most spiritual language of any of the art-family,
is burdened with the most pressing responsibility as the interpreter
between the finite and the infinite; that all its forms must be measured
by the earnestness and success with which they teach and suggest what is
best in aspiration and truest in thought; that music, when wedded to the
highest form of poetry (the drama), produces the consummate art-result,
and sacrifices to some extent its power of suggestion, only to acquire
a greater glory and influence, that of investing definite intellectual
images with spiritual raiment, through which they shine on the supreme
altitudes of ideal thought; that to make this marriage perfect as an
art-form and fruitful in result, the two partners must come as equals,
neither one the drudge of the other; that in this organic fusion
music and poetry contribute, each its best, to emancipate art from its
thralldom to that which is merely trivial, commonplace, and accidental,
and make it a revelation of all that is most exalted in thought,
sentiment, and purpose. Such is the aesthetic theory of Richard Wagner's
art-work.


III.

It is suggestive to note that the earliest recognized function of music,
before it had learned to enslave itself to mere sensuous enjoyment, was
similar in spirit to that which its latest reformer demands for it in
the art of the future. The glory of its birth then shone on its brow. It
was the handmaid and minister of the religious instinct. The imagination
became afire with the mystery of life and Nature, and burst into the
flames and frenzies of rhythm. Poetry was born, but instantly sought the
wings of music for a higher flight than the mere word would permit. Even
the great epics of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" were originally sung or
chanted by the Ilomerido, and the same essential union seems to have
been in some measure demanded afterward in the Greek drama, which, at
its best, was always inspired with the religious sentiment. There
is every reason to believe that the chorus of the drama ofÆschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides uttered their comments on the action of the
play with such a prolongation and variety of pitch in the rhythmic
intervals as to constitute a sustained and melodic recitative. Music at
this time was an essential part of the drama. When the creative genius
of Greece had set toward its ebb, they were divorced, and music was only
set to lyric forms. Such remained the status of the art till, in the
Italian Renaissance, modern opera was born in the reunion of music and
the drama. Like the other arts, it assumed at the outset to be a mere
revival of antique traditions. The great poets of Italy had then passed
way, and it was left for music to fill the void.

The muse, Polyhymnia, soon emerged from the stage of childish
stammering. Guittone di Arezzo taught her to fix her thoughts in
indelible signs, and two centuries of training culminated in the
inspired composers, Orlando di Lasso and Pales-trina. Of the gradual
degradation of the operatic art as its forms became more elaborate and
fixed; of the arbitrary transfer of absolute musical forms like the
aria, duet, finale, etc., into the action of the opera without regard to
poetic propriety; of the growing tendency to treat the human voice like
any other instrument, merely to show its resources as an organ; of
the final utter bondage of the poet to the musician, till opera became
little more than a congeries of musico-gymnastic forms, wherein the
vocal soloists could display their art, it needs not to speak at length,
for some of these vices have not yet disappeared. In the language of
Dante's guide through the Inferno, at one stage of their wanderings,
when the sights were peculiarly mournful and desolate--


     "Non raggioniam da lor, ma guarda e passa."


The loss of all poetic verity and earnestness in opera furnished the
great composer Gluck with the motive of the bitter and protracted
contest which he waged with varying success throughout Europe, though
principally in Paris. Gluck boldly affirmed, and carried out the
principle in his compositions, that the task of dramatic music was to
accompany the different phases of emotion in the text, and give them
their highest effect of spiritual intensity. The singer must be the
mouthpiece of the poet, and must take extreme care in giving the full
poetical burden of the song. Thus, the declamatory music became of
great importance, and Gluck's recitative reached an unequaled degree of
perfection.

The critics of Gluck's time hurled at him the same charges which are
familiar to us now as coming from the mouths and pens of the enemies of
Wagner's music. Yet Gluck, however conscious of the ideal unity between
music and poetry, never thought of bringing this about by a sacrifice
of any of the forms of his own peculiar art. His influence, however, was
very great, and the traditions of the great _maestro's_ art have
been kept alive in the works of his no less great disciples, Méhul,
Cherubini, Spontini, and Meyerbeer.

Two other attempts to ingraft new and vital power on the rigid and
trivial sentimentality of the Italian forms of opera were those of
Rossini and Weber. The former was gifted with the greatest affluence
of pure melodiousness ever given to a composer. But even his sparkling
originality and freshness did little more than reproduce the old forms
under a more attractive guise. Weber, on the other hand, stood in the
van of a movement which had its fountain-head in the strong romantic and
national feeling, pervading the whole of society and literature. There
was a general revival of mediaeval and popular poetry, with its balmy
odor of the woods, and fields, and streams. Weber's melody was the
direct offspring of the tunefulness of the German _Volkslied_, and so
it expressed, with wonderful freshness and beauty, all the range
of passion and sentiment within the limits of this pure and simple
language. But the boundaries were far too narrow to build upon them the
ultimate union of music and poetry, which should express the perfect
harmony of the two arts. While it is true that all of the great German
composers protested, by their works, against the spirit and character
of the Italian school of music, Wagner claims that the first abrupt and
strongly-defined departure toward a radical reform in art is found in
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with chorus. Speaking of this remarkable leap
from instrumental to vocal music in a professedly symphonic composition,
Wagner, in his "Essay on Beethoven," says: "We declare that the work of
art, which was formed and quickened entirely by that deed, must present
the most perfect artistic form, i.e., that form in which, as for the
drama, so also and especially for music, every conventionality would
be abolished." Beethoven is asserted to have founded the new musical
school, when he admitted, by his recourse to the vocal cantata in the
greatest of his symphonic works, that he no longer recognized absolute
music as sufficient unto itself.

In Bach and Handel, the great masters of fugue and counterpoint; in
Rossini, Mozart, and Weber, the consummate creators of melody--then,
according to this view, we only recognize thinkers in the realm of pure
music. In Beethoven, the greatest of them all, was laid the basis of the
new epoch of tone-poetry. In the immortal songs of Schubert, Schumann,
Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Franz, and the symphonies of the first four,
the vitality of the reformatory idea is richly illustrated. In the
music-drama of Wagner, it is claimed by his disciples, is found the full
flower and development of the art-work.

William Richard Wagner, the formal projector of the great changes whose
details are yet to be sketched, was born at Leipsic in 1813. As a child
he displayed no very marked artistic tastes, though his ear and memory
for music were quite remarkable. When admitted to the Kreuzschule of
Dresden, the young student, however, distinguished himself by his very
great talent for literary composition and the classical languages. To
this early culture, perhaps, we are indebted for the great poetic power
which has enabled him to compose the remarkable libretti which have
furnished the basis of his music. His first creative attempt was a
blood-thirsty drama, where forty-two characters are killed, and the few
survivors are haunted by the ghosts. Young Wagner soon devoted himself
to the study of music, and, in 1833, became a pupil of Theodor Weinlig,
a distinguished teacher of harmony and counterpoint. His four years of
study at this time were also years of activity in creative experiment,
as he composed four operas.

His first opera of note was "Rienzi," with which he went to Paris
in 1837. In spite of Meyerbeer's efforts in its favor, this work was
rejected, and laid aside for some years. Wagner supported himself by
musical criticism and other literary work, and soon was in a position
to offer another opera, "Der fliegende Hollander," to the authorities of
the Grand Opera-House. Again the directors refused the work, but were so
charmed with the beauty of the libretto that they bought it to be
reset to music. Until the year 1842, life was a trying struggle for the
indomitable young musician. "Rienzi" was then produced at Dresden, so
much to the delight of the King of Saxony that the composer was made
royal Kapellmeister and leader of the orchestra. The production of
"Der fliegende Hollander" quickly followed; next came "Tanhäuser"
and "Lohengrin," to be swiftly succeeded by the "Meistersinger von
Nürnberg." This period of our _maestro's_ musical activity also
commenced to witness the development of his theories on the philosophy
of his art, and some of his most remarkable critical writings were then
given to the world.

Political troubles obliged Wagner to spend seven years of exile in
Zurich; thence he went to London, where he remained till 1861 as
conductor of the London Philharmonic Society. In 1861 the exile
returned to his native country, and spent several years in Germany and
Russia--there having arisen quite a _furore_ for his music in the latter
country. The enthusiasm awakened in the breast of King Louis of Bavaria
by "Der fliegende Holländer" resulted in a summons to Wagner to settle
at Munich, and with the glories of the Royal Opera-House in that
city his name has since been principally connected. The culminating
art-splendor of his life, however, was the production of his stupendous
tetralogy, the "Ring der Nibelungen," at the great opera-house at
Baireuth, in the summer of the year 1876.


IV.

The first element to be noted in Wagner's operatic forms is the
energetic protest against the artificial and conventional in music. The
utter want of dramatic symmetry and fitness in the operas we have been
accustomed to hear could only be overlooked by the force of habit, and
the tendency to submerge all else in the mere enjoyment of the music.
The utter variance of music and poetry was to Wagner the stumbling-block
which, first of all, must be removed. So he crushed at one stroke all
the hard, arid forms which existed in the lyrical drama as it had been
known. His opera, then, is no longer a congeries of separate musical
numbers, like duets, arias, chorals, and finales, set in a flimsy web
of formless recitative, without reference to dramatic economy. His great
purpose is lofty dramatic truth, and to this end he sacrifices the whole
framework of accepted musical forms, with the exception of the chorus,
and this he remodels. The musical energy is concentrated in the dialogue
as the main factor of the dramatic problem, and fashioned entirely
according to the requirements of the action. The continuous flow of
beautiful melody takes the place alike of the dry recitative and the set
musical forms which characterize the accepted school of opera. As
the dramatic _motif_ demands, this "continuous melody" rises into the
highest ecstasies of the lyrical fervor, or ebbs into a chant-like
swell of subdued feeling, like the ocean after the rush of the storm.
If Wagner has destroyed musical forms, he has also added a positive
element. In place of the aria we have the _logos_. This is the musical
expression of the principal passion underlying the action of the drama.
Whenever, in the course of the development of the story, this passion
comes into ascendency, the rich strains of the _logos_ are heard anew,
stilling all other sounds. Gounod has, in part, applied this principle
in "Faust." All opera-goers will remember the intense dramatic effect
arising from the recurrence of the same exquisite lyric outburst from
the lips of Marguerite.

The peculiar character of Wagner's word-drama next arouses critical
interest and attention. The composer is his own poet, and his creative
genius shines no less here than in the world of tone. The musical energy
flows entirely from the dramatic conditions, like the electrical current
from the cups of the battery; and the rhythmical structure of the
_melos_ (tune) is simply the transfiguration of the poetical basis. The
poetry, then, is all-important in the music-drama. Wagner has rejected
the forms of blank verse and rhyme as utterly unsuited to the lofty
purposes of music, and has gone to the metrical principle of all the
Teutonic and Slavonic poetry. This rhythmic element of alliteration,
or _staffrhyme_, we find magnificently illustrated in the Scandinavian
Eddas, and even in our own Anglo-Saxon fragments of the days of Cædmon
and Alcuin. By the use of this new form, verse and melody glide together
in one exquisite rhythm, in which it seems impossible to separate the
one from the other. The strong accents of the alliterating syllables
supply the music with firmness, while the low-toned syllables give
opportunity for the most varied _nuances_ of declamation.

The first radical development of Wagner's theories we see in "The Flying
Dutchman." In "Tanhhäser" and "Lohengrin" they find full sway. The utter
revolt of his mind from the trivial and commonplace sentimentalities of
Italian opera led him to believe that the most heroic and lofty motives
alone should furnish the dramatic foundation of opera. For a while he
oscillated between history and legend, as best adapted to furnish his
material. In his selection of the dream-land of myth and legend, we
may detect another example of the profound and _exigeant_ art-instincts
which have ruled the whole of Wagner's life. There could be no question
as to the utter incongruity of any dramatic picture of ordinary events,
or ordinary personages, finding expression in musical utterance. Genuine
and profound art must always be consistent with itself, and what we
recognize as general truth. Even characters set in the comparatively
near hack-ground of history are too closely related to our own familiar
surroundings of thought and mood to be regarded as artistically natural
in the use of music as the organ of the every-day life of emotion and
sentiment. But with the dim and heroic shapes that haunt the border-land
of the supernatural, which we call legend, the case is far different.
This is the drama of the demigods, living in a different atmosphere from
our own, however akin to ours may be their passions and purposes. For
these we are no longer compelled to regard the medium of music as a
forced and untruthful expression, for do they not dwell in the magic
lands of the imagination? All sense of dramatic inconsistency instantly
vanishes, and the conditions of artistic illusion are perfect.

     "'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
     And clothes the mountains with their azure hue."

Thus all of Wagner's works, from "Der fliegende Hollander" to the "Ring
der Nibelungen," have been located in the world of myth, in obedience
to a profound art-principle. The opera of "Tristan and Iseult," first
performed in 1865, announced Wagner's absolute emancipation, both in
the construction of music and poetry, from the time-honored and
time-corrupted canons, and, aside from the last great work, it may be
received as the most perfect representation of his school.

The third main feature in the Wagner music is the wonderful use of the
orchestra as a factor in the solution of the art-problem. This is no
longer a mere accompaniment to the singer, but translates the passion
of the play into a grand symphony, running parallel and commingling with
the vocal music. Wagner, as a great master of orchestration, has had
few equals since Beethoven; and he uses his power with marked effect to
heighten the dramatic intensity of the action, and at the same time
to convey certain meanings which can only find vent in the vague and
indistinct forms of pure music. The romantic conception of the mediæval
love, the shudderings and raptures of Christian revelation, have certain
phases that absolute music alone can express. The orchestra, then,
becomes as much an integral part of the music-drama, in its actual
current movement, as the chorus or the leading performers. Placed on the
stage, yet out of sight, its strains might almost be fancied the sound
of the sympathetic communion of good and evil spirits, with whose
presence mystics formerly claimed man was constantly surrounded.
Wagner's use of the orchestra may be illustrated from the opera of
"Lohengrin."

The ideal background, from which the emotions of the human actors in the
drama are reflected with supernatural light, is the conception of the
"Holy Graal," the mystic symbol of the Christian faith, and its descent
from the skies, guarded by hosts of seraphim. This is the subject of the
orchestral prelude, and never have the sweetnesses and terrors of the
Christian ecstasy been more potently expressed. The prelude opens with
long-drawn chords of the violins, in the highest octaves, in the most
exquisite _pianissimo_. The inner eye of the spirit discerns in this the
suggestion of shapeless white clouds, hardly discernible from the aerial
blue of the sky. Suddenly the strings seem to sound from the farthest
distance, in continued _pianissimo_, and the melody, the Graal-motive,
takes shape. Gradually, to the fancy, a group of angels seem to reveal
themselves, slowly descending from the heavenly heights, and bearing
in their midst the _Sangréal_. The modulations throb through the air,
augmenting in richness and sweetness, till the _fortissimo_ of the full
orchestra reveals the sacred mystery. With this climax of spiritual
ecstasy the harmonious waves gradually recede and ebb away in dying
sweetness, as the angels return to their heavenly abode. This orchestral
movement recurs in the opera, according to the laws of dramatic fitness,
and its melody is heard also in the _logos_ of Lohengrin, the knight of
the Graal, to express certain phases of his action. The immense power
which music is thus made to have in dramatic effect can easily be
fancied.

A fourth prominent characteristic of the Wagner music-drama is that, to
develop its full splendor, there must be a cooperation of all the arts,
painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as poetry and music.
Therefore, in realizing its effects, much importance rests in the
visible beauties of action, as they may be expressed by the painting
of scenery and the grouping of human figures. Well may such a grand
conception be called the "Art-work of the Future."

Wagner for a long time despaired of the visible execution of his
ideas. At last the celebrated pianist Tausig suggested an appeal to the
admirers of the new music throughout the world for means to carry
out the composer's great idea, viz., to perform the "Nibelungen" at a
theatre to be erected for the purpose, and by a select company, in the
manner of a national festival, and before an audience entirely removed
from the atmosphere of vulgar theatrical shows. After many delays
Wagner's hopes were attained, and in the summer of 1876 a gathering of
the principal celebrities of Europe was present to criticise the fully
perfected fruit of the composer's theories and genius. This festival
was so recent, and its events have been the subject of such elaborate
comment, that further description will be out of place here.

As a great musical poet, rather epic than dramatic in his powers,
there can be no question as to Wagner's rank. The performance of the
"Nibelungenring," covering "Rheingold," "Die Walküren," "Siegfried," and
"Götterdämmerung," was one of the epochs of musical Germany. However
deficient Wagner's skill in writing for the human voice, the power and
symmetry of his conceptions, and his genius in embodying them in
massive operatic forms, are such as to storm even the prejudices of his
opponents. The poet-musician rightfully claims that in his music-drama
is found that wedding of two of the noblest of the arts, pregnantly
suggested by Shakespeare:

     "If Music and sweet Poetry both agree,
     As they must needs, the sister and the brother;
     One God is God of both, as poets feign."

THE END.





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