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WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
Woman in Music 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE P. UPTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE STANDARD OPERAS," ETC., ETC 
 
 5ec0nlf SEHttton 
 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 
 CHICAGO 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 1886 
 
Copyright, 
 Bv A. C. McClurg and Company, 
 A.D. 1886. 
 
^0 a QLtihntt 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FRIENDSHIP OF A STEADFAST COMRADE, 
 
 AND AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HER 
 HELPFUL SERVICE, 
 
 THESE STUDIES OF MY LEISURE HOURS 
 TO MY WIFE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE first edition of this work appeared in 
 1880 ; but its circulation was interrupted 
 by a fire which destroyed the plates. A re- 
 newed demand for the work seems, however, 
 to warrant the author in presenting a revised 
 and much enlarged edition, in which the scope 
 of the general subject has been widened, and 
 its illustration has been made still more com- 
 plete by additional stories of composers whose 
 success has been due in some degree to the 
 influence of woman. The work has been 
 written in the leisure hours of other pursuits, 
 and of necessity is compiled from the writer's 
 musical readings. A long list of authorities has 
 been consulted for facts bearing upon the sub- 
 ject ; and, so far as is known to the writer, only 
 the highest have been laid under contribution. 
 As a well-stocked musical library is something of 
 a rarity in this country, he ventures to hope that 
 his compilations, and his comments thereon, 
 will be of interest to the musical student, and 
 possibly of value to the general public. 
 
 G. P. U. 
 
 Chicago, 1886. 
 
If to the depths of tenderness and devotion in which the 
 true and irresistible empire of woman must commence, and 
 deprived of which she is only an enigma without a possible 
 solution, Nature should unite the most brilliant gifts of genius, 
 the miraculous spectacle of the Greek Fire would be renewed; 
 the glittering flames would again sport over the abysses of the 
 ocean without being extinguished or submerged in the chilling 
 depths, adding, as the living hues were thrown upon the surging 
 waves, the glowing dyes of the purple fire to the celestial blue of 
 the heaven-reflecting sea. — Liszt, 
 
 There is no living soul so capable of enjoying and cor- 
 rectly judging of a work of art as a finely cultivated woman ; 
 for her whole inner life is in itself a sort of work of art. Even 
 the highest kind of men have something formless and unfinished 
 about their natures. The hasty demands of life do not stop to 
 inquire whether it be Sabbath or not : they surprise man amid 
 the worship of the beautiful, and scarcely give him time to re- 
 frain from profanation of the altar. But the life of woman, — 
 how calm as a festival day, how full of harmony may it not, 
 should it not be! When the storm-bells of passion have rung 
 out, then a pure ether remains behind. ... In such minds the 
 impression made by a work of art is correct and immediate ; for 
 they are prepared to receive it, — themselves serene and pure as 
 bridal devotion. — Ehlert. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Woman in Music 15 
 
 PART II. 
 
 JoHANN Sebastian Bach 35 
 
 George Frederick Handel 48 
 
 LuDWiG van Beethoven 60 
 
 Francis Joseph Haydn 84 
 
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 96 
 
 Franz Schubert 112 
 
 Robert Schumann 125 
 
 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy . . . . 13S 
 
 Frederick Chopin 149 
 
 Carl Maria von Weber 162 
 
 Richard Wagner 177 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Woman as the Interpreter of Music . . 187 
 
 Appendix 209 
 
 Dedications 210 
 
 Index 219 
 
PART I. 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 A GENERAL VIEW OF WOMAN'S INFLUENCE ON 
 MUSIC. — LOVE ATTACHMENTS AND HOME LIFE. 
 — THE FAILURE OF WOMAN IN COMPOSITION. — 
 SOME CONSIDERATION OF REASONS WHY SHE 
 HAS PRODUCED NO ENDURING MUSICAL WORK. 
 
 HE special purpose of this essay is to 
 characterize the real relation which 
 woman holds to music ; and it 
 makes no more pretentious claim than to 
 be a study of the subject, with such illustra- , 
 tions, drawn from the lives of representative 
 composers, as can be furnished by a musical 
 library. It is intended to be historical and 
 aesthetic, rather than philosophical or dog- 
 matic ; and to present facts for consideration 
 by the thoughtful reader, collated from the 
 most authoritative sources, rather than to 
 
1 6 WOMAAT IN MUSIC, 
 
 attempt to explain all the problems of woman's 
 relation to music. 
 
 The subject naturally divides itself into two 
 heads : first, the influence of woman in en- 
 couraging the great composers to labor, and 
 inspiring them in the production of their 
 finest works; and, second, the relations of 
 woman to the performance of vocal and in- 
 strumental music. The latter branch of the 
 subject certainly does not require special at- 
 tention in these days of the great queens of 
 song, whose sway is everywhere acknowledged, 
 and, so far as the scope of this essay is con- 
 cerned, hardly needs more than eulogistic ref- 
 erence. The other branch, however, has been 
 but little considered ; and what little is known 
 is, as a rule, incorrect. The attachments of 
 love, the bonds of friendship, the endearments 
 of home, and the influences of society have 
 played an important part in shaping the ca- 
 reers of the great composers, and in giving 
 color, form, and direction to their music. In 
 all these phases of hfe genius has more than 
 once knelt at the feet of beauty and executed 
 her behests ; and more than one immortal 
 work of music may be traced to the stead- 
 fast love and thoughtful care of woman in 
 the quiet duties of home life. Few students 
 
WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 17 
 
 of music know the effect of these subtile in- 
 fluences, except through the medium of ro- 
 mances and rhapsodies that have been woven 
 about the lives of composers by enthusiasts 
 of the Rau and Polko school, or of pretty fan- 
 cies and legends, current in their time, that 
 have come down to us, and are implicitly be- 
 lieved, though they have no foundations to rest 
 upon. There are probably very few persons, 
 even among musicians, who do not firmly be- 
 lieve that Beethoven addressed his immortal 
 love-song, the ''Adelaide," to some real inam- 
 orata ; that his C sharp minor sonata was in- 
 spired by the moonlight ; that Mozart wrote 
 his ''Requiem" at the request of a myste- 
 rious stranger who was in some manner con- 
 nected with his death ; that Haydn expired 
 in an ecstasy of joy during the performance 
 of his " Creation ; " that Weber died at his 
 piano ; and that Chopin died of a broken 
 heart, because George Sand, tiring of her 
 passion and his morbidness, flung him away. 
 It is easy for the world to accept and believe 
 such fancies, because it is ready to credit gen- 
 ius with anything that is bizarre or romantic, 
 just as it is ready t^) condone excesses and 
 eccentricities that would not be tolerated in 
 the ordinary plodder. 
 
1 8 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 The study of this subject, however, would 
 not be complete without considering one of 
 its phases which is in the nature of an enig- 
 ma, and to which no satisfactory answer has 
 yet been given. The \\Titer does not hope 
 to soh-e the problem, but only to offer 
 such hints as suggest themselves, leaving to 
 others better versed in the mysteries of the 
 female nature and in the peculiar intellectual 
 and emotional qualities necessary to the de- 
 velopment of a great composer, to discover 
 the exact reasons why woman has failed 
 to create important and enduring works in 
 music. 
 
 At the first glance it would seem that 
 musical composition is a province in which 
 woman should excel. It may be laid down, 
 as a fundamental and indisputable proposi- 
 tion, that music is the interpreter and the 
 language of the emotions. It sounds every 
 note in the gamut of human nature, from ec- 
 static joy to profound despair. It is " of all 
 sweet sounds the life and element." It wakes 
 thoughts that do often lie too deep for 
 tears." It inspires, enrages, elevates, sad- 
 dens, cheers, and soothes the soul as no other 
 one of the arts can. It can " swell the soul to 
 rage, or kindle soft desire." It gives voice 
 
IVOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 19 
 
 to love and expression to passion, lends glory 
 to every art, and performs its loftiest hOmage 
 as the handmaid of religion. Why is it, then, 
 that woman, who possesses all these attributes 
 in a more marked degree than man, who is 
 the inspiration of love, who has a more power- 
 ful and at the same time more delicate emo- 
 tional force than man, who is artistic by tem- 
 perament, whose whole organism is sensitively 
 strung, and who is religious by nature, — why 
 is it that woman, with all these musical ele- 
 ments in her nature, is receptive rather than 
 creative? Why is it that music only comes 
 to her as a balm, a rest, or a solace of hap- 
 piness among her pleasures and her sorrows, 
 her commonplaces and her conventionaHties, 
 and that it does not find its highest sources 
 in her? In other fields of art woman has 
 been creative. Rosa Bonheur is man's equal 
 upon canvas. Harriet Hosmer has made 
 the marble Hve with a man's truth and 
 force and skill. Mrs. Browning in poetry, 
 Mary Somer\-ille and Caroline Herschel in 
 science, George Sand, Charlotte Bronte, and 
 Madame de Stael in fiction, have successfully 
 rivalled man in their fields of labor; while 
 George EHot, with almost more than mascu- 
 line force, has grappled with the most ab- 
 
20 
 
 IVOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 struse problems of human life, and though an 
 agnostic has courageously sifted the doubts of 
 science and latter-day cultured unbelief, and 
 plucked many a rose of blessing for suffering 
 humanity from amid its storms of sorrow and 
 pain. 
 
 These may all stand as types of creative 
 power ; but who is to represent woman in the 
 higher realm of music ? While a few women, 
 during the last two centuries, have created a 
 few works, now mostly unknown, no woman 
 during that time has wTitten either an opera, 
 oratorio, symphony, or instrumental work of 
 hrge dimensions that is in the modern rep- 
 ertor}'. Tvlan has been the creative repre- 
 sentative. Beethoven has shown its depth, 
 its majest}', its immortality ; Mendelssohn, its 
 elegance of form ; Handel, its solemnity and 
 grandeur; Mozart, its wondrous grace and 
 sweetness ; Haydn, its purity, freshness, and 
 simplicity ; Schumann, its romance ; Chopin, 
 its poetry and tender melancholy ; Schubert, 
 the richness of its melody ; Bach, its mas- 
 sive foundations ; Berlioz, its grotesquerie and 
 supematuralisms ; and Liszt and Wagner, 
 its poetical idealism. In the s}'mphony, in 
 opera, in oratorio, even in the lesser realm 
 of chamber music, woman has either been 
 
WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 21 
 
 silent, or what she has attempted to create 
 has had but an ephemeral existence. 
 
 It has been claimed by some writers that 
 the folk-songs of many countries belong to 
 women, though the claim is mere surmise, 
 and by others that the trouveresses who ac- 
 companied the troubadours upon their tuneful 
 journeys created melodies ; but even this is 
 mythical, and history, while it has carefully 
 preserved numerous poems and songs of the 
 Provencal troubadours and German minne- 
 singers, has consigned nearly all that was ac- 
 complished by the trouveresses to the Lethe 
 of oblivion. Some of their poems that have 
 survived show much grace and tender feeling, 
 but their musical ability was mostly restricted 
 to the singing of their male companions' songs. 
 That there is a natural aptitude among musi- 
 cal women for the writing of songs and ballads 
 is unquestionable ; but they are mostly short- 
 lived, and are rarely woven into the fabric of 
 national life. That woman has also ventured 
 into the realms of higher music is equally un- 
 questionable, as the list of female composers 
 in the appendix to this essay will show, and 
 as the songs without words of Fanny Hensel, 
 sister of Mendelssohn, and the piano compo- 
 sitions of Madame Schumann attest ; but of 
 
22 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 all the works written by these numerous com- 
 posers, hardly one is known to the lyric stage 
 to-day. And why? 
 
 The most palpable answer, and the only one 
 that is fairly indisputable, is that having had 
 equal advantages with men, they have failed 
 as creators. This somewhat Milesian reply 
 is illustrated in Mr. Bulwer's novel of " The 
 Parisians." Isaura Cicagna, writing to her 
 friend Madame de Grantmesnil, informs her 
 that she has consulted Dr. C. upon the sub- 
 ject of writing music instead of entering stage 
 life as a prima donna; to which the Doctor 
 replied : — 
 
 "My dear child, I should be your worst enemy 
 if 1 encouraged such a notion; cling to the career 
 in which you can be greatest : gain but health, 
 and I wager my reputation on your glorious 
 success on the stage. What can you be as a 
 composer ? You will set pretty music to pretty 
 words, and will be sung in drawing-rooms with 
 the fame a little more or less that generally 
 attends the compositions of female amateurs. 
 Aim at something higher, as I know you would 
 do, and you will not succeed. Is there any in- 
 stance in modern times, perhaps in any times, of 
 a female composer who attains even to the emi- 
 nence of a third-rate opera writer ? Composition 
 in letters may be of no sex. In that Madame 
 Dudevant and your friend Madame de Grant- 
 
WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 23 
 
 mesnil can beat most men ; but the genius of 
 musical composition is homme, and accept it as 
 a compliment when I say that you are essentially 
 fefnme." 
 
 Conceding that music is the highest ex- 
 pression of the emotions, and that woman is 
 emotional by nature, is it not one solution of 
 the problem that woman does not musically 
 reproduce them because she herself is emo- 
 tional by temperament and nature, and cannot 
 project herself outwardly, any more than she 
 can give o.utward expression to other myste- 
 rious and deeply hidden traits of her nature? 
 The emotion is a part of herself, and is as 
 natural to her as breathing. She lives in 
 emotion, and acts from emotion. She feels 
 its influences, its control, and its power ; but 
 she does not see these results as man looks at 
 them. He sees them in their full play, and 
 can reproduce them in musical notation as a 
 painter imitates the landscape before him. It 
 is probably as difficult for her to express them 
 as it would be to explain them. To confine 
 her emotions within musical limits would be 
 as difficult as to give expression to her relig- 
 ious faith in notes. Man controls his emo- 
 tions, and can give an outward expression of 
 them. In woman they are the dominating 
 
24 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 element, and so long as they are dominant 
 she absorbs music. Great actresses who have 
 never been great dramatists may express emo- 
 tions because they express their own natures ; 
 but to treat emotions as if they were mathe- 
 matics, to bind and measure and limit them 
 within the rigid laws of harmony and counter- 
 point, and to express them with arbitrary signs, 
 is a cold-blooded operation, possible only to 
 the sterner and more obdurate nature of man. 
 As I have said, so long as the emotions are 
 dominant, she absorbs music. When the 
 emotions lose their force with age, her musi- 
 cal power weakens. Almost every man who 
 has learned to play an instrument, or to sing, 
 be it ever so poorly, and be his troubles or 
 his cares ever so pressing, continues to play 
 or to sing as long as he has strength. Max 
 Miiller, in his " Deutsche Liebe," has a neat 
 illustration of this. He imagines one return- 
 ing to his native village after an absence of 
 many years. As he wanders about the streets 
 he finds a familiar house : " here the old 
 music-teacher lived. He is dead ; and yet 
 how beautiful it seemed as we stood and lis- 
 tened on summer evenings under the window 
 when the faithful soul indulged in his own en- 
 joyment and played fantasies, as the roaring 
 
WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 25 
 
 and hissing engine lets off the steam which 
 has accumulated during the day." The large 
 majority of women drop their music long be- 
 fore the hair grows gray, or at the first touch 
 of sorrow. This may be due partly to the 
 effect of forced and unwholesome practice in 
 these days, when it is thought that every girl, 
 whether she have musical intelligence and 
 ability or not, must learn to play the piano 
 or to sing, and partly to the engrossing de- 
 mands of household cares ; but these causes 
 do not explain what is a general rule : while, 
 in the matter of care, even the pressure of 
 business does not divert man's attention from 
 his music ; on the other hand, he turns to it, 
 even in his old age, for rest and solace. 
 
 There is another phase of the feminine 
 character which may bear upon the solution 
 of this problem ; and that is the inability of 
 woman to endure the discouragements of the 
 composer, and to battle with the prejudice and 
 indifference, and sometimes with the mahcious 
 opposition, of the world, that obstruct his pro- 
 gress. The lives of the great composers, with 
 scarcely an exception, were spent in constant 
 struggle, and saddened with discouragements, 
 disappointments, the pinching of poverty, the 
 jealousies of rivals, or the contemptuous in- 
 
26 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 difference of contemporaries. Beethoven 
 struggled all his life with adverse fate. Schu- 
 bert's music was hardly known in his life- 
 time, and his best works were not fairly 
 recognized until after his death. Schumann 
 is hardly yet known. There is scarcely a 
 more pitiable picture than that of the great 
 Handel struggling against the maUcious ca- 
 bals of petty and insignificant rivals for popu- 
 lar favor, who now are scarcely known even 
 by name. Mozart's life was a constant war- 
 fare ; and when this wonderful child of genius 
 went to his grave in the paupers' quarter of 
 the churchyard of St. Marx, he went alone, — 
 not one friend accompanied him, and no one 
 has known to this day where he sleeps. Ber- 
 lioz's music is just beginning to be played in 
 his native country. Wagner fought the world 
 all his life with indomitable courage and per- 
 sistence, and died before he had estabhshed 
 a permanent place for his music. There is 
 scarcely a composer known to fame, and 
 whose works are destined to endure, who 
 hved long enough to see his music appreci- 
 ated and accepted by the world for what it 
 was really worth. Such fierce struggles and 
 overwhelming discouragements, such pitiless 
 storms of fate and cruel assaults of poverty, 
 
IVOMA.V IN MUSIC. 
 
 27 
 
 in the pursuit of art, woman is not calculated 
 to endure. If her triumph could be instant ; 
 if work after work were not to be assailed, 
 scoffed at, and rejected ; if she were not lia- 
 ble to personal abuse, to the indifference of 
 her own sex on the one hand and masculine 
 injustice on the other, — there would be more 
 hope for her success in composition : but in- 
 stant triumphs are not the rewards of great 
 composers. The laurels of success may dec- 
 orate their graves, placed there by the ap- 
 plauding hands of admiring posterity, but 
 rarely crown their brows. 
 
 It is a curious fact that nearly all the great 
 music of the world has been produced in 
 humble hfe, and has been developed amid 
 the environments of poverty and in the stern 
 struggle for existence. The aristocracy has 
 contributed very little to music, and that little 
 can be spared without detriment. Nearly all 
 the masters have been of lowly and obscure 
 origin, and have lived and died in comparative 
 poverty ; for, with rare exceptions, musical 
 composition has been miserably unremunera- 
 tive until within the last fifty years. The endur- 
 ing music has been the child of poverty, the 
 outcome of sorrow, the apotheosis of suffering. 
 Sebastian Bach was the son of a hireling 
 
28 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 musician. Beethoven's father was a dissipated 
 singer. Cherubini came from the lowest and 
 poorest ranks of Hfe. Gluck was a forester's 
 son. LulH in his childhood was a page, and 
 slept in palace kitchens. Haydn's father was 
 a wheelwright; and his mother, previous to 
 marriage, was a cook in the kitchen of Count 
 Harrach, the lord of his native village. While 
 on his death-bed, Beethoven called Hummel's 
 attention to a picture, and said : " See, my 
 dear Hummel, the house in which Haydn was 
 born ; to think that so great a man should have 
 first seen the light in a peasant's wretched 
 hut." Mozart's father was a musician in hum- 
 ble circumstances, and his grandfather a book- 
 binder. Handel was the son of a barber and 
 surgeon. Mehul was the son of a cook. 
 Rossini's father was a miserable strolling 
 horn-player, who led a wild Bohemian life. 
 Schubert was the son of a poor schoolmaster ; 
 and his mother, hke Haydn's, was in service 
 as a cook at the time of her marriage. Cima- 
 rosa's father was a mason, and his mother a 
 washerwoman. Schumann was a bookseller's 
 son; and Verdi, the son of a Lombardian 
 peasant. Weber's father was a strolling musi- 
 cian and actor. Wagner, the musician of the 
 future, was born in humble circumstances ; his 
 
WOMAAT IN MUSIC. 
 
 29 
 
 father having been a petty municipal officer, 
 and his stepfather an unpretentious portrait- 
 painter, who at one time had also been a very 
 poor actor. Among all the prominent com- 
 posers, but three were bom in affluence, — 
 Auber, Meyerbeer, and Mendelssohn. With 
 these three exceptions, they developed the 
 grandeur, the sublimity, the passion, and the 
 majesty of their music out of the storms of 
 life, the pangs of sorrow, and the hard battle 
 with fate. In this sphere of life, where music 
 seems to have had its origin, the lot of woman 
 is bounded by homely but unintermitting cares. 
 Her existence is mainly devoted to the same 
 tedious routine of labor from the rising to the 
 setting sun, which has few intervals of relaxa- 
 tion, certainly no leisure for musical effort. Its 
 demands are so exacting that she has neither 
 time nor disposition for the theoretical appli- 
 cation which musical composition requires. 
 
 But even assuming that woman had the dis- 
 position and the leisure to devote to musical 
 composition, would she then succeed? The 
 bluntest answer to this is that she has not suc- 
 ceeded when she has had the opportunity. 
 But there is another way, perhaps, of arriv- 
 ing at an answer. Woman reaches results 
 mainly by intuitions. Her susceptibility to 
 
30 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 impressions and her finely tempered organi- 
 zation enable her to feel and perceive, where 
 man has to reach results by the slow processes 
 of reason. So far as music is a matter of emo- 
 tion, she is more immediately sensitive to it 
 than man ; she absorbs it more quickly, if not 
 so thoroughly; she discriminates with more 
 nicety, and often judges with more impartial- 
 ity ; she recognizes what is true and what is 
 false more quickly. If music were only an 
 object of the perceptions or a matter of in- 
 stinct; if it simply addressed itself to the 
 senses ; if it were but an art composed of rav- 
 ishing melody, of passionate outbursts, — of 
 the attributes of joy, grief, and exaltation, and 
 vague, dreamy sensations without any deter- 
 minate ideas, — woman possibly would have 
 grasped it long ago, and flooded the world with 
 harmony as she has with song : but music is all 
 this and more, for these are only effects. It is 
 not only an art, but an exact science, and, in its 
 highest form, mercilessly logical and unrelent- 
 ingly mathematical. Its mastery requires long 
 years of patient toil and continuous appHca- 
 tion. The imagination does not have a free 
 flight, but is bounded within the limits of form. 
 The mere possession of the poetical imagina- 
 tion and the capacity to receive music in its 
 
WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 31 
 
 fullest emotional power will not lead one to the 
 highest achievements in musical art. With 
 these subjective qualities must be combined 
 the mastery of the theoretical intricacies, the 
 logical sequences, and the mathematical prob- 
 lems which are the foundation principles of 
 music. It has every technical detail that 
 characterizes absolute science in its most rigid 
 forms. In this direction woman, except in 
 very rare instances, has never achieved great 
 results. Her grandest performances have been 
 in the regions of romance, of imagination, of 
 intuition, of poetical feeling and expression, 
 or in those still higher duties which call for 
 the exercise of religious "faith and works." 
 
 For these and many other reasons growing 
 out of the peculiar organization of woman, the 
 sphere in which she moves, the training which 
 she receives, and the duties she has to fulfil, 
 it does not seem that woman will ever origi- 
 nate music in its fullest and grandest harmonic 
 forms. She will always be the recipient and 
 interpreter, but there is little hope she will be 
 the creator. 
 
 However this may be, there is a field in 
 which she has accomplished great results ; 
 namely, her influence upon the production of 
 music. She has done so much for music 
 
32 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 that it is not exaggeration to claim that with- 
 out her influence many of the masterpieces 
 which we now so much admire might not 
 have been accomphshed at all ; that the great 
 composers have often written through her in- 
 spiration ; and that she has, in numerous no- 
 table instances, been their impulse, support, 
 and consolation. 
 
 What music owes to her I shall try to 
 show by reference to the lives and labors of 
 Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, 
 Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schubert, Weber, 
 Chopin, and Wagner, — eleven of the repre- 
 sentative names in the highest forms of com- 
 position, — and thus establish the first branch 
 of the general subject that was laid down in 
 the beginning of this essay. 
 
PART II. 
 
 BACH, HANDEL, HAYDN, MOZART, BEETHOVEN, 
 SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN, MENDELSSOHN, WEBER, 
 CHOPIN, AND WAGNER : THE INFLUENCE OF 
 WOMAN UPON THEIR MUSICAL PRODUCTIVITY. 
 
 3 
 
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH. 
 
 I, my Fabius, who am in other respects an ad- 
 mirer of antiquity, am of opinion that my Bach, and 
 others like him, unite in their own persons many 
 Orpheuses and twenty Arions. — Gesner. 
 
 O thoroughly appreciate the influence 
 of woman upon Sebastian Bach in 
 his musical development and crea- 
 tions, it is necessary to regard the modest and 
 God-fearing cantor of St. Thomas not only as 
 a musician but also as a man. He has left 
 an imperishable name, and his musical crea- 
 tions are the very foundations of the art ; and 
 yet his life was mainly spent within the fam- 
 ily circle, where, in the true patriarchal spirit, 
 he ruled over his numerous progeny. This 
 domestic characteristic distinguished all the 
 Bachs, from the time when Veit Bach, the 
 old baker who played his zither while his miU 
 
36 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 was running, and the founder of the family, 
 travelled into Thuringia from Hungary, that 
 he might be free to worship God as he 
 pleased. They were all musicians ; and their 
 love of music, as well as their remarkable 
 purity of sentiment and strength of family 
 affection, bound them closely together. At 
 one time there were no less than thirty Bachs 
 who were organists in Thuringia, Franconia, 
 and Saxony. Nothing is more beautiful in 
 the records of music than their anniversary 
 meetings, upon which occasions they gathered 
 together from all parts of Germany, and en- 
 joyed a genuine feast of music in singing cho- 
 rals and folk-songs, and improvising. No jar 
 or disagreement ever disturbed these meetings. 
 They were as calm and peaceful as the move- 
 ment of the chorals which opened and closed 
 them. They were simple, unaffected, pious 
 people, remarkably gifted in musical knowl- 
 edge, — in fact, renowned all over Germany for 
 their skill, — and yet to a large extent living 
 within themselves, and depending upon their 
 homes for their enjoyment. 
 
 Of this constellation, Johann Sebastian Bach 
 was the very sun and centre. He seems to 
 have had none o'f the contrarieties or eccentrici- 
 ties which have characterized so many other 
 
J OH ANN SEBASTIAN BACH. 
 
 musical geniuses. His mother died shortly 
 after he was born, and his father when the 
 boy was but ten years of age. His youth was 
 spent in the home of his elder brother, Johann 
 Christoph, an organist and music-master, who 
 brought him up with an austerity of discipline 
 which seems very harsh, and which particu- 
 larly manifested itself, for some unaccountable 
 reason, in the apparent determination to crush 
 out his musical impulses and ambitions. His 
 severe training, however, gave him self-reliance. 
 He grew up to be a self-sustained, evenly 
 poised man, simple and unostentatious in his 
 bearing, strictly honorable in his intercourse 
 with men, strong and unvarying in his home 
 love, and guided in every event of life by a 
 strict morality born of sincere religion. The 
 spot where Luther translated the Bible into 
 German overlooked his native place, and on 
 the same spot the minnesingers had fought 
 their romantic battles of song; and the re- 
 ligion of the one and the romance of the 
 other affected his life until its close. He was 
 an affectionate father, laboring manfully and 
 incessantly to support his large family ; a good 
 citizen, faithfully fulfilling all his duties and 
 commanding universal respect ; a plain, hum- 
 ble man, despising rank and show, making no 
 
38 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 boast of his grand achievements, and yet rec- 
 ognized in the court of Frederick the Great 
 as above courtiers and nobility, by the title of 
 his genius. 
 
 Such a man, domestic by nature, spending 
 most of his time and doing most of his work 
 at home, and, more than all, doing this work 
 for what seems now a beggarly pittance, 
 needed for a companion a sensible, practical, 
 industrious, and economical woman, capable 
 of administering the affairs of the family in 
 such manner that his musical labor, which was 
 incessant, might not be disturbed by house- 
 hold cares, or solicitude as to the ability of the 
 lean family purse to meet the demands upon 
 it. Such a woman he found in his cousin 
 Maria Barbara Bach, the youngest daughter 
 of Johann Michael Bach, of Gehren, himself a 
 composer of no mean ability. He made her 
 acquaintance in Arnstadt, where he was ap- 
 pointed first organist of the new church in 
 1703. He was at that time too poor to 
 marry; but the attachment between them 
 was so strong that they mutually agreed to 
 wait until a position lucrative enough to sup- 
 port them should offer itself. They did not 
 have to wait long. In 1 706 he was success- 
 ful in obtaining the position of organist of 
 
J OH ANN SEBASTIAN BACH. 
 
 St. Blasius Church, at Mlihlhaiisen, and was 
 left free to fix his own salary. Although upon 
 the verge of mamage, the contract made with 
 the town authorities shows that his require- 
 ments for establishing a family and founding 
 a home were modest in the extreme. The 
 contract reads : " Eighty-five guldens (a little 
 more than thirty-five dollars), three makers of 
 corn, two clafters of wood (one of beech and 
 one of other wood), and six schock of small 
 firewood, to be brought to his door." He 
 also requests that he may be helped "with 
 the loan of a cart in bringing his furniture 
 from Arnstadt." He assumed his duties at 
 Miihlhausen in 1707 ; and in October of that 
 year he and Maria Barbara were married, 
 starting in life with the modest outfit already 
 mentioned. Very little is known of her, ex- 
 cept that she was an affectionate and dutiful 
 wife, of even temper and sunny disposition, 
 contented with her lot, and so prudent and 
 thrifty in her management that the home of 
 Johann Sebastian was always a happy one, and 
 his musical labors were never disturbed by 
 the interposition of household troubles and an- 
 noyances. She died in 1720, during Bach's 
 absence at Carlsbad with Prince Leopold, and 
 so suddenly that no news of it reached him 
 
40 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 until after she was buried. She bore him eight 
 children, five sons and three daughters, — 
 Carohne Dorothea, bom in 1 708 ; Wilhelm 
 Friedemann, bom in 1710, died at Berlin in 
 1784; Carl Philipp Emanuel, bom in 1714, 
 and commonly known as the " Berlin Bach," 
 who died at Hamburg in 1 788 ; Johann Gott- 
 fried Bemhard, bom in 1715 ; and Leopold 
 August, bom in 1 718. In addition to these, 
 there were a pair of twins, who died before 
 they were a year old ; and a daughter, who 
 died very young. 
 
 There is no record to show that his first 
 wife was a musician, or that she had musical 
 taste or feeling ; but it is on record that the 
 thirteen years of hard labor and of incessant 
 stmggle with the necessities of life were years 
 of mutual happiness, respect, and affection. 
 She was thrifty, contented, industrious, and 
 withal unselfish, — qualities which are very 
 essential to happiness in hfe on an income of 
 less than fifty dollars a year and perquisites of 
 the most meagre description. We may there- 
 fore conclude that Sebastian Bach sincerely 
 mourned the loss of the companion so sud- 
 denly snatched away from him. His situation 
 in life was such, however, that he could not 
 sorrow long. The necessities of constant 
 
J OH ANN SEBASTIAN BACH. 41 
 
 labor, the daily recurrence of multifarious 
 household duties, and the pressing cares of 
 his little flock of children, all appealed to him 
 to supply the place of her who had gone, so 
 that he might be relieved of these exacting 
 and worrying household cares, and give his 
 sole attention to his art. A year and a half 
 after her death, in the year 1721, he mar- 
 ried Anna Magdalena Wiilkens, the young- 
 est daughter of a trumpeter, court musician 
 to the Duke of Weissenfeld. He was then 
 thirty-six years of age, and she was fifteen 
 years his junior. This disparity of years, 
 however, never threw a shadow upon the af- 
 fections of the two, which remained beautiful 
 and undisturbed until his death. The union 
 was a perfect one, perhaps more perfect than 
 the first ; for, in addition to her devotion to 
 household duties and her prudent and eco- 
 nomical management of their little income, 
 she was a musician of exceptional talent and 
 had a very fine voice. His income, although 
 larger than he had received heretofore, was 
 still small ; for two years after his marriage, 
 when he signed his contracts as cantor of St. 
 Thomas, at Leipzig, his yearly stipend was 
 eighty-seven thalers and twelve groschen 
 (about sixty-five dollars) ; sixteen scheftel of 
 
42 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 com; thirteen thalers, three groschen, for wood 
 and candles ; one thaler, eight groschen, in- 
 terest on a legacy ; lodging and firewood free. 
 This sum, with certain fees for services at 
 marriages and funerals, was his only recom- 
 pense for the arduous labors at the St. Thomas 
 School, and the equally arduous labor of com- 
 posing and conducting the music for four 
 churches= Under her prudent management, 
 however, they lived very comfortably ; and a 
 new element of happiness sprang up in his 
 home, growing out of her knowledge and 
 love of music. She had a soprano voice of 
 beautiful quality, and a knowledge of the tech- 
 nique of music of such a decided character 
 that for five years after her marriage she and 
 the children studied with Bach in thorough- 
 bass and piano music ; the father finding time 
 in the midst of his many duties to give them 
 the benefits of his knowledge. He uTOte out 
 for her the rules of thorough-bass ; and there 
 still exists a testimonial of his great interest 
 in her musical progress in the collection of 
 " easy pieces for the piano," written in 1722, 
 and inscribed with the autograph, " Clavier 
 Biichlein vor Anna Magdalena Bach." Three 
 years later he had completed for her a whole 
 volume of music, containing forty-six preludes, 
 
J OH ANN SEBASTIAN BACH. 43 
 
 minuets, rondos, polonaises, etc., thirty-five of 
 which are for the piano ; among them the fa- 
 vorite C major prelude, No. i of the " Wohl- 
 temperirte Clavier ; " five chorals, — " Wer 
 nur den lieben Gott lasst walten," " Gieb dich 
 zufrieden," " Schaff 's mit mir Gott," " Dir, 
 Jehovah, will ich singen," and " O Ewigkeit, 
 Du Donnerwort ; " and, lastly, seven songs, 
 followed by a wedding poem, which are not 
 only of peculiar interest because they were 
 written for his wife, but also because they are 
 the only short songs, not of a sacred char- 
 acter, which Bach has left. To these songs 
 Bach probably furnished words as well as 
 music ; and one of them, the ^' Willst du dein 
 Herz mir schenken," was inspired by his love 
 for her in the days of their brief courtship. 
 Nearly all of them are filled with true and 
 tender devotion, none more so than that 
 which asks the question so happily answered 
 by a hfetime of love, — the song of their 
 courtship, which brought them together in 
 a bond of love too strong for anything but 
 death to sever. In this volume, written in 
 figured basses, her own handiwork appears, 
 where she has filled in the chords ; and his 
 corrections scattered through them leave an 
 interesting and touching souvenir of the great 
 
44 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 master, and the pupil who was to him the 
 nearest and dearest of all. 
 
 Bach died on the 28th of July, 1750, after 
 long and keen suffering, during the midst of 
 which he did not cease work. Only a short 
 time before his death, he dictated his last 
 work, " Wenn wir in hochsten Nothen sein," 
 — a choral born of his suffering and inspired 
 by his religion, a touching reflex of his own 
 pitiable condition. He died in his sleep, and 
 no stone marks the spot in the Leipzig church- 
 yard where his body rests. The only record 
 which is left is to be found in the register of 
 deaths, which thus affirms : "A man, age 67, 
 M. Johann Sebastian Bach, Musical Director 
 and Singing-Master at the St. Thomas School, 
 was carried to his grave in the hearse, July 
 30, 1750." His widow survived him. seven 
 years, supporting herself as she best could 
 upon the scanty pension granted to cantors, 
 and by the sale of her husband's manuscripts. 
 She bore him thirteen children, but six of 
 whom survived their father's death, — among 
 them, Johann Christoph Friedrich, born in 
 1732, known as the "Biickeburger Bach;" 
 and Johann Christian, born in 1735, who 
 became famous as the London Bach." Only 
 one daughter, Regina Susanna, survived the 
 
J OH ANN SEBASTIAN BACH. 
 
 mother, whose extreme poverty aroused a wide- 
 spread feehng of compassion, which took the 
 form of a public contribution in 1801, and 
 becomes more than usually interesting, as it 
 allies the name of Beethoven with that of Bach. 
 On the 19th of May, 1801, Friedrich Roch- 
 htz, one of Bach's most zealous admirers, 
 and the editor of the Leipzig "Allgemeine 
 Musikzeitung," wTites : — 
 
 Our appeal for the support of the only 
 survivor of the Bach family, Sebastian Bach's 
 youngest daughter, has not been overlooked by 
 the public. . . . With deep emotion we received 
 on the loth of May, through the Viennese musi- 
 cian, Herr Andreas Streicher, the considerable 
 sum of 307 Viennese florins, exchanged by the 
 banker Lohr of this city for 200 Reichthaler 
 from the undersigned persons. 
 
 The collection was made by the musician 
 above mentioned, with the assistance of Count 
 Fries in Vienna. ... At the same time the 
 celebrated Viennese composer and pianist Herr 
 von Beethoven, volunteered to publish one of 
 his newest works, through Messrs. Breitkopf 
 and Hartel, for the sole benefit of Bach's daugh- 
 ter, that the good old woman might from time 
 to time derive benefits from it, at the same time 
 using all his efforts for the most speedy publi- 
 cation possible, that she may not perchance die 
 before this object is attained." 
 
46 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Destiny ordered kindly for Sebastian Bach 
 in the arrangement of his domestic life with 
 reference to his musical creations. Notwith- 
 standing his immense and incessant labors, 
 especially in connection with the St. Thomas 
 School and the Leipzig churches, the cares 
 and troubles naturally created by such a large 
 family of children, and the small compensation 
 received for his work, his Ufa ran smoothly, 
 and the grand monument he was erecting for 
 posterity never suffered either in its fair pro- 
 portions or its complete form. At the outset 
 of his career, and before he entered upon the 
 really great work of his life, he needed for a 
 companion a thrifty, prudent woman, of even 
 disposition and contented nature ; and such 
 a one he found in his cousin Maria Barbara. 
 After her death, and when his name had 
 begun to be known as a great organist and 
 composer beyond mere local limits, he still 
 needed a thrifty and prudent and even- 
 tempered woman, but, still more than this, a 
 woman who could sympathize with him, and 
 encourage, assist, and inspire him in his mu- 
 sical labors ; and such a one he found in 
 Anna Magdalena. There can be no doubt 
 that the second marriage was the happier, 
 although she was the wife of his prime, and 
 
J OH ANN SEBASTIAN BACH. 
 
 the romance of youth had faded away before 
 the reahties of hfe, with so many of which 
 Bach had to contend. How great that in- 
 spiration was his music shows. It is doubly 
 inscribed. First, hke Haydn, he ^^TOte upon 
 his scores his reverence to God, — S. D. G. 
 {Soli Deo Gloria)^ — and then his love for 
 his wife. 
 
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 
 
 Remember Handel ! who that was not born 
 Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets. 
 Or can, the more than Homer of his age ? 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 T is said by all his biographers that 
 Handel was never a victim of the 
 tender passion, though many ladies 
 paid homage to his genius by laying siege to 
 his heart. There was one love, however, in 
 the manifestation of which he was both ar- 
 dent and constant ; that was his love for 
 his mother. Handel's father, George, had 
 studied the rude surgery of the time, with 
 Christoph Oettinger, the town barber of 
 Halle, and eventually married his widow, 
 Frau Anna Oettinger, Feb. 20, 1643, and 
 continued the business of his employer. 
 Frau Anna gave birth to six children, and 
 
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 49 
 
 died in 1682, at the advanced age of seventy- 
 two. In less than six months the bereaved 
 husband contracted a second marriage with 
 Dorothea, daughter of Pastor Taust, of Gie- 
 bichenstein, who is described by Rochstro as 
 " a lady equally respected for the gentleness 
 of her demeanor, her loving submission to 
 parental and conjugal authority, her earnest 
 piety, and her reverence for, and intimate 
 acquaintance with, the text and teaching of 
 the Holy Scriptures, — qualities which were 
 all faithfully reproduced in the character of 
 her children." These children were a son 
 who died at birth ; two daughters, Dorothea 
 Sophie and Johanna Christiana ; and George 
 Frederick, the subject of this sketch. Al- 
 though the family was not an artistic one in 
 any sense, — indeed, the father was so averse 
 to music that he declared he would have no 
 such "jingling " in the house, — his childhood 
 was a happy one. The old surgeon was reso- 
 lutely bent upon making a lawyer of his son ; 
 but as usual the maternal instincts appre- 
 hended the true bent of the boy's passion, 
 and we may well imagine that she found 
 more than one way to encourage him, in 
 spite of the father's opposition. The same 
 authority quoted above says he was "the 
 4 
 
50 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 fondest hope of a mother, to whose ten- 
 der solicitude he owed the training which, 
 through all the trials and vicissitudes of a 
 long and more than ordinarily eventful life, 
 kept him honest and just and true, and se- 
 cured him the respect of princes, and the 
 affection of all who were not blinded by jeal- 
 ousy to the splendor of his genius and the 
 depth of his moral worth." She superin- 
 tended his education, and prepared him for 
 his life- struggle with tender devotion, even 
 stinting herself, after his father's death, to 
 provide him with the means of continuing 
 his musical studies. Although it has been 
 said of him, by some of the earher biogra- 
 phers, that his social affections were not very 
 strong, he was not lacking in filial piety. In 
 June, 1725, he writes a very cordial letter 
 from London to his brother-in-law at Halle, 
 expressing his deep regret that he cannot 
 spare time to visit his mother. " I cannot be 
 so ungrateful," he says, as to pass over in 
 silence the goodness you have shown to my 
 mother in her advanced age, for which I 
 offer you my very humble thanks. You 
 know how deeply I am interested in all that 
 concerns her, and can therefore judge the 
 depth of the obligation under which you have 
 
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 51 
 
 placed me." He was always loyal in his af- 
 fection for her, and in his numerous journeys 
 never failed to find time to visit her. While 
 in Venice in 1729, he received a letter from 
 his brother-in-law, informing him that his 
 mother had been seized with a paralytic at- 
 tack. He hurried to Halle with all possible 
 despatch, and found her sufficiently recovered 
 to be able to walk about, though she had lost 
 her sight and could only recognize him by 
 the pressure of the hand. The meeting was 
 a very sorrowful one to both, though mutual 
 love lightened the pain. A year afterward 
 she died suddenly, while Handel was in Lon- 
 don ; and in the funeral oration delivered over 
 her grave, this love which had so strongly af- 
 fected their lives was particularly dwelt upon. 
 In his reply to the letter informing him of her 
 death, Handel gives still another evidence of 
 his great love for the mother to whom he 
 owed so much. He says : — 
 
 "I cannot yet restrain my tears. But it has 
 pleased the Most High to enable me to submit 
 with Christian calmness to his holy will. Your 
 thoughtfulness will never pass from my remem- 
 brance until, after this life, we are once more 
 united, which may the All-good God in his 
 mercy grant us ! " 
 
52 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 The loving mother prepared him for his 
 career, and upon its very threshold he again 
 experienced the beneficence of woman's in- 
 fluence. Friedrich, the Elector of Branden- 
 burg, afterward King Friedrich I. of Prussia, 
 was a generous patron of arts. His consort, 
 the Electress Sophie Charlotte, who was sub- 
 sequently styled the " Philosophic Queen," 
 was not only a warm friend of artists, but was 
 herself one of the most accomplished musi- 
 cians in Europe, and more than once occu- 
 pied the conductor's desk in concerts and 
 at operatic performances. The Electoral pal- 
 ace was the favorite resort of artists from all 
 parts of Europe, and thither Handel was sent 
 as a child. He was most kindly received by 
 the Electress. She was delighted with his per- 
 formances, introduced him to prominent artists 
 who gave him many valuable hints, — among 
 them, Ariosti and Buononcini, — and at last of- 
 fered to take him into the service of the Court, 
 send him free of expense to Italy to complete 
 his education, and upon his return to give him 
 an important position. His father, however, 
 declined the offer. Hamburg meanwhile was 
 rapidly competing with Berlin as an art centre ; 
 and after the death of the generous Electress, 
 thither went Handel to continue his studies. 
 
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 53 
 
 About this time an odd experience befell 
 him, and all the more comical when his aver- 
 sion to matrimony is considered. Buxtehude, 
 the veteran organist at Liibeck, was about to 
 retire from his position, and the place was of- 
 fered for competition. Handel, in company 
 with IMattheson, the principal tenor of the 
 Hamburg Theatre, went to Liibeck to com- 
 pete for it. Mattheson himself relates their 
 experiences : — 
 
 " We played on almost tvery organ and 
 harpsichord in the place, and with regard to 
 our performances, agreed between ourselves that 
 he should play only upon the organ and I upon 
 the harpsichord. We listened also to the vet- 
 eran performer, in the Marienkirche, with deep 
 attention. But because the question of succes- 
 sion involved also that of a marriage contract, into 
 which we neither of us had the slightest desire 
 to enter, we left the place, after receiving many 
 compliments, unusual honors, and very pleasant 
 entertainment. Johann Christian Schieferdecker 
 afterward brought the affair to a more satisfac- 
 tory conclusion : accepted the bride, after the 
 death of her father, Buxtehude, in 1707, and 
 obtained the coveted appointment." 
 
 The royal ladies of the English Court were 
 the devoted friends of Handel. He had a 
 handsome pension from the bounty of Queen 
 
54 
 
 WOMAN /N MUSIC. 
 
 Anne. When George I. succeeded to the 
 throne, he and the royal family were regular 
 attendants at the theatre whenever his operas 
 were given. Eventually the King added a 
 second pension of £^200 a year, and ap- 
 pointed him music-master to the daughters 
 of the Prince of Wales, afterward George II., 
 which brought him a third pension of ^200 
 from the private purse of the Princess, after- 
 ward Queen Caroline. Her death, in 1737, 
 deprived him of one of his most devoted 
 friends. How deeply he was attached to her 
 is evidenced by the exquisitely beautiful an- 
 them he wrote for her funeral, " The Ways of 
 Zion do mourn." He gave lessons to all the 
 children of the royal family. The Princess 
 Anne was devotedly attached to him ; and 
 when she left England, her last act of kind- 
 ness to him was to commend him to the favor 
 of Lord Harvey, a favorite of the Queen. 
 This royal favor must have been particularly 
 grateful to him, as it was bestowed at a time 
 when his Italian rivals were organizing cabals 
 against him and seeking in every way to under- 
 mine and ruin him. And yet, indebted as he 
 was to them, he never restrained his temper 
 when they violated the proprieties. Schoel- 
 cher relates the following incident : — 
 
GEORGE FREDERICK: HANDEL. 55 
 
 "At the concerts which he conducted for 
 Frederick, Prince of Wales, if the Prince and 
 his wife were not punctual to the stated time, 
 we are told that the conductor used to be very 
 violent ; and the son of George II. — to his great 
 honor be it said — respected him too much to be 
 offended. If the ladies of the Princess talked 
 instead of listening, his rage was uncontrollable, 
 and sometimes carried him to the length of 
 swearing and caUing names, even in the pres- 
 ence of royalty; whereupon the gentle Princess, 
 who loved him much, would say to the talkative 
 ones : ' Hush ! hush ! Handel is in a passion.'" 
 
 Another instance of his terrible temper is 
 related by Rochstro : — 
 
 At the first rehearsal of ' Ottone,' Francesca 
 Cuzzoni flatly refused to sing the lovely aria 
 ' Falsa immagine,' which Handel had written 
 expressly for her. Said Handel : ' I know, Ma- 
 dame, that you are a very devil, but I will let 
 you see that I am Beelzebub, the prince of 
 devils ; ' and with that he seized her in his arms 
 and threatened to throw her out of the window, 
 whereupon she yielded in terror to his superior 
 will, sang the song in exact accordance with his 
 directions, and achieved in it one of her most 
 brilHant triumphs." 
 
 In view of his success with refractory song- 
 stresses, one is disposed to wish that the con- 
 ductors of our own time had an equally healthy 
 
WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 discipline in the ranks of their capricious and 
 moody prime do7ine. 
 
 Handel, as has akeady been said, was averse 
 to matrimony. More than this, he was not 
 very social by nature and not at all domestic 
 in his habits. His complete devotion to his 
 art, his impatience with whatever crossed him, 
 his hot temper, and the peculiar idiosyncra- 
 sies of his nature illy fitted him to make any 
 woman happy ; hence it was fortunate that he 
 was never in love with any of the sex except 
 his mother. In his long and eventful career 
 he was constantly associated with ladies, and 
 was much admired by them ; but none of 
 them touched his heart. It is said by his 
 biographers that he spent many of his after- 
 noons at the organ of St. Paul's, in the midst 
 of his admirers, and at night resorted to the 
 Queen's Arms, a tavern near by, where he 
 played the harpsichord, smoked his pipe, and 
 drank his beer. As he became more absorbed 
 in his compositions he cut loose from all so- 
 ciety, and only associated with three intimate 
 friends, not one of whom had musical tastes. 
 His chief amusement was to visit exhibitions 
 of pictures. Hawkins says of him : — 
 
 " His social affections were not very strong, 
 and to this it may be imputed that he spent his 
 
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 
 
 whole life in ceHbacy. No impertineiit visits and 
 few engagements to parties of pleasure were suf- 
 fered to interrupt the coarse of his studies." 
 
 He had no passion except for music, and 
 yet the opportunities for the exercise of the 
 all-engrossing passion were not lacking. While 
 he was in Italy, being then in his twenty-fourth 
 year, the Prince of Tuscany, brother of the 
 Grand Duke John Gaston de Medicis, was 
 present at performances of his operas "Al- 
 meria " and " Florinda," and was so delighted 
 with them that he gave him an invitation to 
 go to Florence. When the opportunity came 
 he went there and brought out the opera of 
 " Roderigo," written for the occasion, for 
 which he was honored by the Grand Duke 
 with a present in money and a service of 
 plate. It was often the custom at that day 
 for the ladies of the Courts to sing in the 
 works produced in the royal presence ; and 
 upon this occasion the Archduchess Vittoria, 
 a beautiful woman, took the principal role. 
 Bumey describes her as " a songstress of great 
 talent." She conceived so \-iolent a passion 
 for him that she even followed him from Flor- 
 ence to Venice, and literally demanded that 
 he should marry her, after he had manifested a 
 repugnance to her approaches. The choleric 
 
58 
 
 WOMAN m MUSIC. 
 
 Handel, however, repelled her suit with dis- 
 dain, and she gave up the chase. His de- 
 cision, or rather his indifference, fortunately 
 saved him from disastrous consequences, as 
 the lady who had been so importunate was 
 the mistress of the Prince who had invited 
 him to Florence. 
 
 The author of the " Anecdotes of Handel " 
 also relates the following incidents, in which 
 he was a party of the second part : — 
 
 " When he was young, two of his scholars, 
 ladies of considerable fortune, were so much 
 enamoured of him that each was desirous of a 
 matrimonial alliance. The first is said to have 
 fallen a victim to her attachment. Handel would 
 have married her, but his pride was stung by 
 the coarse declaration of her mother, that she 
 never would consent to the marriage of her 
 daughter with a fiddler; and, indignant at the 
 expression, he declined all further intercourse. 
 After the death of the mother the father renewed 
 the acquaintance, and informed him that all ob- 
 stacles were removed, but he replied that the 
 time was now past ; and the young lady fell into 
 a decline, which soon terminated her existence. 
 The second attachment was a lady splendidly 
 related, whose hand he might have obtained by 
 renouncing his profession. That condition he 
 resolutely refused, and laudably declined the 
 connection which was to prove a restriction on 
 the great faculties of his mind." 
 
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 59 
 
 It may be remarked that the first story does 
 not comport with the well-known character 
 of Handel, and as it is not mentioned in any 
 of his biographies, may be set down as one of 
 those popular romances which attach to the 
 careers of all geniuses. The second, how- 
 ever, is characteristic of him, though it is to 
 be regretted that the details of his refusal are 
 not given. It would be refreshing to know 
 what the irascible composer would have said 
 to the proposition that he should exchange 
 his music for a wife. No woman touched 
 him so nearly as to affect his music ; and 
 yet, without his mother's warm affection and 
 sympathy for him in his unartistic home, 
 and her determination that he should follow 
 the course he had marked out for himself, he 
 would have lost many of his early advantages. 
 Had it not been also for the devoted friend- 
 ship and generous support of good Queen 
 Caroline and the princesses of her Court, he 
 would have fared badly, in England, at the 
 hands of his Italian rivals. 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 
 
 He lived in the ideal world which Petrarch and 
 Dante described, and his passion took nothing from 
 his austerity. Unable to marry, he remained chaste ; 
 and he loved as purely as he wrote. He hated li- 
 centious speech, and blamed the " Don Giovanni " of 
 Mozart, because a thing so holy as art should not 
 so prostitute itself as to serve to link together so 
 scandalous a story. — M. Taine. 
 
 ENZ says in one of his rhapsodies : 
 " In the arts the animating or life- 
 giving element is furnished by the 
 sentiment of love." In music it finds its 
 highest and truest expression, and in no 
 music more clearly than in the immortal 
 works of Beethoven. No other creation in 
 tones has done so much to dignify and en- 
 noble love as his one opera, " Fidelio ; " no 
 song has so expressed its beauty and its ardor 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 6 1 
 
 as that most perfect amatory l)Tic, the " Ade- 
 laide." If the passion of love which is pic- 
 tured in these two works and in nearly all the 
 others which he created, whether song, sonata, 
 or symphony, and the ardent aspiration as well 
 as profound self-abasement of religion which 
 characterize the Second Mass and clothe its 
 measures with the divine presence, had been 
 wanting in his life, it is almost unquestionable 
 that he would have yielded in the bitter strug- 
 gle with adverse circumstances, and that he 
 would not remain to-day as the one composer 
 to whom all the world does homage. No 
 musician has ever so completely imbued his 
 music with feeling, — that feeling which im- 
 plies sympathy with passion in all its heights 
 and depths, with the inner life of humanity, 
 with the noblest fomis of emotion in man, and 
 with the grandest aspects of Nature, — that 
 feeling which could not have existed without 
 this great underlying principle of love, joined 
 with a naturally reverential and devotional 
 habit of being. 
 
 Beethoven's life was a battle with circum- 
 stances, commenced in his boyhood, end- 
 ing only on his death-bed, and fitly t}pified 
 by the fearful thunders and lightnings of 
 the storm that raged about him in his last 
 
62 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 moments. The dissipations of his father, 
 a drunken musician, cast a gloom over his 
 earher hfe. The drudgery and the misery 
 of his home fostered a misanthropic feeling. 
 The want of general and liberal culture which 
 he might have had under more favorable cir- 
 cumstances annoyed him all through hfe. In 
 the midst of the corrupt society of Vienna he 
 had led a blameless career; but even this 
 could not save him from feeling the wretched 
 effects of this corruption in his own family. 
 His nephew Karl was left to his care by his 
 father ; but to secure the boy, whom he loved 
 as if he were his son, he had to prove that 
 the mother was a dissolute woman. He 
 abandoned his bachelor habits, and com- 
 menced housekeeping on the boy's account ; 
 he hoarded up his money to educate him ; 
 he lavished his affection upon him ; and the 
 graceless wretch requited it all by the most 
 infamous career of dissipation, making the 
 uncle all the more suspicious and misan- 
 thropic. From this point on, the story is one 
 of the most pitiful kind. Painful physical 
 troubles set in one after the other, the most 
 painful being his deafness, which so increased 
 upon him that in the latter years of his life, 
 during which he produced his greatest works, 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 63 
 
 — the Mass in D, the Choral Symphony, and 
 the last sonatas and quartets, — he could hear 
 nothing. Miser et pauper sum, he writes 
 in his journal at this time. Over his sonata 
 for violoncello, Op. 59, he writes, Liter la- 
 crymas et hutitrn.'" Where in all history is 
 there a sadder wail of despair, a more pitiable 
 outburst of grief, than is to be found in his 
 utterance : " I have drunk to the dregs a cup 
 of bitter sorrow, and already earned martyr- 
 dom in art"? or in this extract from a letter 
 to his friend Wegeler : — 
 
 " How often have I cursed my existence ! 
 Plutarch has led me to resignation. I will, if 
 possible, set fate at defiance, although there 
 must be moments in my life when I shall be the 
 most unhappy of God's creatures. I entreat you 
 to say nothing of my affliction to any one, not 
 even to Lorchen. . . . Resignation ! what a mis- 
 erable refuge ! and yet it is my sole remaining 
 one." 
 
 In the midst of this life, in which this mu- 
 sical colossus was not only struggling with 
 painful physical ailments and severe mental 
 troubles, but was also annoyed with a swarm 
 of petty household discomforts brought upon 
 himself by his love for his worthless nephew, 
 there are episodes upon which it is pleasant 
 
64 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 to dwell, growing out of his relations to the 
 other sex, of whom, most unquestionably, he 
 was a passionate though very diffusive ad- 
 mirer; and just as his inner life developed 
 more and more grandly, as his deafness com- 
 pelled him to retire within himself, and gave 
 birth to his most sublime creations, so the in- 
 fluence of woman, previous to this time, had 
 aroused in him a wonderful sense of beauty 
 and depth of tenderness, which were helping 
 to prepare the way for the more majestic and 
 enduring works which were to crown the close 
 of his remarkable career. 
 
 Beethoven's earliest attachment was to the 
 Breuning family in Bonn, who were held in 
 the highest esteem in that city. They were 
 among his earliest friends and protectors, and 
 they clove to him to the last. Frau von 
 Breuning took a deep interest in him, and he 
 regarded her in the sacred light of a mother. 
 Her son Stephen was one of his warmest 
 friends ; likewise Eleanore, the daughter, who 
 subsequently married Dr. Wegeler, then his 
 friend, and after his death his biographer. 
 Some writers, more particularly those of the 
 Rau and " Furioso " class, who have rhapso- 
 dized over the memory of a man in whose 
 life there was not a trace of romance, have 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 65 
 
 sought to make it appear that Eleanore was 
 Beethoven's first love ; but there is nothing 
 in his relations to her, or in his correspondence 
 with her or with the family, that indicates any 
 sentiment on his part except that of warm and 
 exalted friendship. After a year's absence 
 from the family, during which there had been 
 an estrangement between them, he writes to 
 Eleanore from Vienna (Nov. 2, 1793) : — 
 
 " Little as I may deserve favor in your eyes, 
 believe me, my dear friend (let me still call you 
 so), I have suffered and still suffer severely from 
 the privation of your friendship. Never can I 
 forget you and your dear mother." 
 
 And with this letter he sends her, as a souve- 
 nir, his variations upon the " Se vuol ballare " 
 of Mozart. Nothing more ardent than ex- 
 pressions of this kind appear in any of his 
 letters to her. It was in the Breuning house 
 that he always found shelter from the mis- 
 ery and squalor of his own home. It was 
 through this family that he first made acquaint- 
 ance with German literature and the poets, 
 whose creations he so often set to music, and 
 whose lofty and majestic spirit is so clearly 
 reflected in his larger works. All the mem- 
 bers of the family were musical, Frau von 
 Breuning not the least so ; and it was her 
 5 
 
66 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Strong influence that kept him at work, and 
 directed his genius in the highest and best 
 ways. She understood his eccentric moods, 
 and could make allowance for them. She 
 knew when to urge him on to his best en- 
 deavor, how to encourage him, and how to 
 manage his resdess, wayward, and gloomy dis- 
 position. This woman, more than all others, 
 helped to lay the broad and strong founda- 
 tion upon which Beethoven's fame now rests ; 
 and to her, more than to any other, should 
 be due the credit for the lofty position he 
 holds in the world of music. He came to her 
 as a son would come to his mother for aid and 
 counsel ; and she, better than all others, un- 
 derstood him. She foresaw his future, because 
 she recognized his genius ; and she not only 
 urged him on to the accomplishment of its 
 mission, but she helped to direct it in the right 
 course by supplying it with the noblest and 
 most dignified examples of art for study. 
 
 While there was no more ardent feeling than 
 that of friendship in the breast of Beethoven 
 towards the Breuning family, there came one 
 day into the circle a friend of Eleanore's who 
 aroused the first manifestation of love on 
 his part. It was a sudden flame, suddenly 
 extinguished. The friend was Jeannette 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 67 
 
 d'Honrath, a young lady of Cologne, who was a 
 frequent visitor at the Breuning house, a beau- 
 tiful blonde, a person of amiable disposition, a 
 good singer, and a confirmed coquette withal. 
 She bestowed her favor so equally between 
 Beethoven and Stephen Breuning, and yet so 
 deftly, that each believed himself to be an 
 accepted lover. She laid sportive siege to 
 the infatuated Beethoven with a well-known 
 song of that day, — 
 
 " What ! part with thee this very day ? 
 My heart a thousand times says, Nay!" 
 
 And when he was away, the same song did 
 good service for Stephen. Thus each victim 
 was enmeshed in the fair singer's toils, un- 
 known to the other ; and it was not until she 
 had flitted away, with much feigned regret, 
 that the two luckless suitors discovered she 
 was affianced all this time to a young Austrian 
 officer. Major Greth, whom she afterward 
 married, and who subsequently rose to the 
 rank of general. The fair Jeannette and her 
 gallant husband passed away in due time, and, 
 like many other nobodies, have come down to 
 posterity by virtue of some slight connection 
 with Beethoven. It is to be presumed that 
 neither Ludwig nor Stephen brooded long 
 
68 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 over their slight at the hands of the Cologne 
 beauty, since we find them not long after- 
 ward paying assiduous court in the train of 
 suitors and admirers that thronged about Bar- 
 bara Koch, the beauty of Bonn. Her mother, 
 a widow, kept a coffee-house which was the 
 favorite resort of professors and students. The 
 fair Barbara herself was a very cultivated per- 
 son, and she drew about her those of like char- 
 acter; and in the pleasant evenings at the 
 coffee-house, art, philosophy, and music were 
 discussed, all having a direct bearing upon 
 the future development of the young musi- 
 cian. There is nothing to indicate that the 
 acquaintance left any lasting impression upon 
 him ; though he corresponded with her after 
 he had left Bonn, as we find, in a letter to 
 Eleanore von Breuning, who was her friend, 
 his complaint that he had written twice to 
 Barbara and she had not answered, which 
 may be accounted for by her marriage not 
 long after to Count Anton von Belderbusch, 
 in whose family she had previously served as 
 governess. 
 
 Wegeler, his biographer, says of him, " Bee- 
 thoven war immer in Liebesverhaltnissen ; " 
 and he himself said that he once loved the 
 same woman for seven whole months, — not a 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 69 
 
 flippant remark, as would seem at the first 
 glance, but indicating a mood of his being 
 which may well be described in his own 
 words : — 
 
 " I was born with a passionate and excitable 
 temperament; I am keenly susceptible to the 
 pleasures of society ; my heart and mind were, 
 even from childhood, prone to the most tender 
 feelings of affection." 
 
 With such a temperament, one may well 
 fancy that the Hst of his attachments was a long 
 one ] though the most of them were by no 
 means serious, since it was his fate as a rule to 
 bestow them upon ladies whose rank forbade 
 any possibiHty of requital. These must be 
 passed over lightly, though in the case of some 
 there is a degree of interest attaching to them 
 that warrants a detailed consideration. They 
 were nearly all his pupils. Among them was 
 Mile, de Gerardi, of whom we know very 
 little, who laid siege to the susceptible Bee- 
 thoven in verse, but without any more practical 
 result than, as he says in a letter, his serious 
 annoyance. The young Baroness von Dross- 
 dich, a somewhat volatile and eccentric person 
 whom he addresses in his letters as " My 
 esteemed Th^rese," was a favorite with him. 
 In a letter written in 1809, he urges her not 
 
70 
 
 IVOMAIV IN MUSIC. 
 
 to forget her music, and mentions sending 
 her several of his compositions. Upon one 
 occasion he paid her a visit at Modling, and, 
 not finding her at home, tore a sheet of music- 
 paper from a book, wrote upon it some music 
 for her, set to a verse of Matthisson's, and on 
 the reverse dedicated it " To my dear The- 
 rese." The close of the letter to which I 
 have referred clearly shows the strength of 
 his regard for her : — 
 
 " Farewell, my esteemed Therese. I wish 
 you all the good and charm that life can offer. 
 Think of me kindly, and forget my follies. Rest 
 assured that no one would more rejoice to hear 
 of your happiness, even were you to feel no in- 
 terest in your devoted servant and friend." 
 
 After his rupture with Therese, another in- 
 timate affection consoled him for her absence. 
 In 1811 his pecuniary troubles and physical 
 ailments influenced him to quit Vienna for a 
 time. His first thought was to go to Italy ; 
 but by the advice of his physicians he changed 
 his intentions, and selected Teplitz, the Httle 
 Bohemian town, where two years later the 
 King of Prussia and the Emperors of Austria 
 and Russia signed the treaty of the Tloly 
 Alliance. It was always a favorite resort with 
 artists and the aristocracy. In the select 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 
 
 71 
 
 society to which he had the e?ifree he met many 
 old acquaintances and made some new ones, 
 — among them, the poet Tiedge. There was 
 one, however, who made a deeper impression 
 than all the rest. It was Amelia de Sebald, a 
 young and beautiful concert-singer, who cul- 
 tivated music as an amateur, but had, it is 
 said, a very sympathetic voice and genuine 
 talent. When the fair singer left Teplitz, the 
 master first became aware of the real impres- 
 sion she had made upon him, and in a letter 
 to Tiedge he thus unbosoms himself: — 
 
 '* Two affectionate words for a farewell would 
 have sufficed me ; alas ! not even one was said 
 to me ! The Countess von der Recke sends 
 me a pressure of the hand ; it is something, and 
 I kiss her hands as a token of gratitude ; but 
 Amelia has not even saluted me. Every day I 
 am angry at myself in not having profited by 
 her sojourn at Teplitz, seeking her companion- 
 ship sooner. It is a frightful thing to make the 
 acquaintance of such a sweet creature, and to lose 
 her immediately ; and nothing is more insup- 
 portable than thus to have to confess one's own 
 foolishness. I propose to remain here until the 
 end of the month of September. Write me as 
 to how long you reckon to remain in Dresden ; 
 it is not impossible that I may take a run to the 
 Saxon metropolis. ... Be happy, if suffering 
 humanity can be. Give, on my part, to the 
 
72 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Countess a cordial but respectful pressure of 
 the hand, and to Amelia a tender kiss — if no- 
 body there can see." 
 
 The next year Beethoven again visited 
 TepHtz, with the hope of seeing her ; but the 
 fair vision had vanished. His only consola- 
 tion, if consolation it can be called, was the 
 opportunity it gave him of making the ac- 
 quaintance of Goethe. Except in so far as 
 this acquaintance led to the friendship be- 
 tween himself and the wonderful child Bet- 
 tina, of which more hereafter, his relations to 
 the great poet were of no special value to him. 
 Goethe had too little music in his composition 
 to appreciate him at his true value, and he 
 was too much of a king-worshipper to suit 
 such a red republican as Beethoven. 
 
 The Baroness Dorothea Van Ertmann was 
 another tided pupil whom he held in affec- 
 tionate esteem, who inspired his wonderful 
 sonata. Op. loi, and who was afterward a 
 warm friend of Mendelssohn. She was the 
 wife of an Austrian captain at eighteen, who 
 died subsequently as a field-marshal at Milan. 
 She commenced her musical studies at a very 
 early age, and made the acquaintance of Bee- 
 thoven by chance, while playing some of his 
 sonatas for the first time. He accidentally 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 73 
 
 overheard her, and was so captivated with 
 her style that he offered to teach her, and 
 soon became a daily visitor at her house. As 
 a teacher he was severe with her ; as a friend, 
 affectionate ; and when she had lost the last 
 of her children, he shared her grief and gave 
 expression to it by extemporizing upon the 
 piano in her apartments for her. It is said 
 that when he ended his fantasie, her eyes 
 were filled with tears so that she could not 
 speak to him. Among others who captivated 
 him during his orchestral career in Bonn, was 
 a fair and brilliant singer, Magdalena Will- 
 mann, filling at that time an engagement in 
 the Court Opera at Vienna, to whom, it is 
 intimated, he offered his hand in marriage. 
 It would appear that his offer was a serious 
 one ; but the repulse was prompt and mer- 
 ciless, the great songstress, afterward Mrs. 
 Galvani, declaring that she rejected him be- 
 cause he was ''so ugly and half cracked." 
 
 Mile. Marie Koschak, who subsequently 
 married Dr. Pachler, an advocate in Gratz, a 
 very beautiful woman, and an amateur musi- 
 cian of extraordinary merit, inspired in Bee- 
 thoven a glow warmer than that of friendship, 
 or even affection. In one of his letters he 
 writes : — 
 
74 
 
 IVOMA/V IN MUSIC. 
 
 "Love alone, yes, love alone, can make your 
 life happier. O God ! grant that I may at last 
 find her who can strengthen me in virtue, whom 
 I can legitimately call my own. On July 27, 
 1812, when she drove past me in Baden, she 
 seemed to gaze at me." 
 
 " She " was Marie Koschak. It was an un- 
 happy love. In 18 16 he writes to Ries : — 
 
 "My kind regards to your wife. I, alas! 
 have none. One, alone, I wished to possess 
 but never shall I call her mine." 
 
 In this ^connection a statement made in the 
 *'Grenzboten," by Fraulein del Rio, of a con- 
 versation between her father and Beethoven, 
 confirms the unhappiness of his attachment 
 for the beautiful Marie. She writes : — 
 
 " My father's idea was that marriage alone 
 could remedy the sad condition of Beethoven's 
 household matters ; so he asked him whether 
 he knew any one, etc. Our long existing pre- 
 sentiment was then realized. His love was 
 unfortunate. Five years ago he had become 
 acquainted with a person with whom he would 
 have esteemed it the highest felicity of his life 
 to have entered into closer ties ; but it was vain 
 to think of it, being almost an impossibility, a 
 chimera ; and yet his feelings remained the 
 same as on the very first day he had seen her. 
 He added that never before had he found such 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 75 
 
 harmony; but no declaration had ever been 
 made, not being able to prevail upon himself 
 to do so." 
 
 Marie Pachler and her husband were also 
 friends of Franz Schubert, and to her he 
 dedicated a number of his songs as a token 
 of his esteem and friendship. It is touching 
 to think that Beethoven, who had never made 
 the acquaintance of Schubert, though living 
 near him, did not really appreciate or recog- 
 nize the beauty of his music until he was on 
 his death-bed, when the songs dedicated to 
 Marie were handed to him. He examined 
 them, and exclaimed, "Truly, Schubert is 
 animated by a spark of the sacred fire ! " 
 One year later Schubert passed away, almost 
 his last words being the expression of a desire 
 to be buried by the side of Beethoven. And 
 now the world's greatest musician and Ger- 
 many's greatest song-writer, strangers in life, 
 sleep side by side. 
 
 There were two other attachm.ents of Bee- 
 thoven's which unquestionably exercised a 
 strong influence upon his creative power. 
 The first of these was for Bettina von Arnim, 
 nee Brentano, the wonderful child whom 
 Goethe has immortalized no less than Bee- 
 thoven. She it was who brought these two 
 
76 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 giants together. She keenly and thoroughly 
 appreciated and understood the great mas- 
 ter ; and to her he explained, not only his 
 own music, but all music, with an enthusiasm 
 of manner, as well as closeness of analysis, 
 that have never been excelled. One cannot 
 read that extraordinary letter written by Bet- 
 tina to Goethe, in which she prepares the 
 way for a meeting between them, without 
 feeling how closely Beethoven penetrated to 
 the very soul of music, and how sacred his 
 art was to him. The real meaning and char- 
 acter of music are better set forth in the few 
 lines of this letter than in many volumes that 
 have been written. Bettina, with a genius 
 akin to that of Beethoven's, clearly compre- 
 hended him, and laid his very soul before 
 Goethe with her glowing and enthusiastic 
 eloquence, so that he was ready to embrace 
 it, though the difference between the spirit- 
 ual nature of the composer and the sensual 
 nature of the poet was a radical one. Bee- 
 thoven's attachment to Bettina was purely 
 Platonic, and yet it was strong. His three 
 celebrated letters to her furnish proofs of its 
 strength, and equal proofs of the great in- 
 fluence she exerted upon him. On the nth 
 of August, 1810, he writes to her: — 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 'jj 
 
 " Art I Who comprehends it ? With whom 
 can I discuss this mighty goddess ? How pre- 
 cious to me were the few days when we talked 
 together, or, I should rather say, corresponded ! 
 I have carefully preserved the little notes with 
 your clever, charming, most charming answers; 
 so I have to thank my defective hearing for the 
 greater part of our fugitive intercourse being 
 written down. Since you left I have had some 
 unhappy hours, — hours of the deepest gloom, 
 when I could do nothing. I wandered for three 
 hours in the Schonbrunn Allee after you left us ; 
 but no angel met me there to take possession of 
 me as you did." 
 
 In 1811, about the time she was married, 
 he wTites : — 
 
 " I carried your letter about with me the whole 
 summer, and it often made me feel very happy. 
 Though I do not frequently write to you, and 
 you never see me, still I write you letters by 
 thousands in my thoughts. I can easily im- 
 agine what you feel at Berlin in witnessing all 
 the noxious frivolity of the world's rabble, even 
 had you not written it to me yourself. Such 
 prating about art, and yet no results ! " 
 
 In still another letter, written to her a year 
 later, he bears direct testimony to her power 
 over his musical creative ability : — 
 
 "Heavens! if I could have lived with you 
 as [Goethe] did, beheve me, I should have 
 
78 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 produced far greater things. A musician is also 
 a poet ; he, too, can feel himself transported into 
 a brighter world by a pair of fine eyes, where 
 loftier spirits sport with him and impose heavy 
 tasks upon him. What thoughts rushed into 
 my mind when I first saw you in the observa- 
 tory, during a refreshing May shower, so fertil- 
 izing to me also ! The most beautiful themes 
 stole from your eyes into my heart, which shall 
 yet enchant the world when Beethoven no longer 
 directs." 
 
 Elsewhere in the same letter he says : — 
 
 "Spirits may love one another, and I shall 
 ever woo yours. Your approval is dearer to me 
 than all else in the world." 
 
 The second attachment was for the beauti- ' 
 ful Countess Guiletta Guiccardi, — one of his 
 pupils, around whom popular fancies of all 
 sorts have clustered, and several writers have 
 woven very pretty romances. Mr. Thayer, in 
 his biography, has done much to divest this 
 attachment of its romance with his merciless 
 dates and hard facts ; but so long as it has 
 probability on its side, and it has been be- 
 lieved for years without question, even as it 
 was during his own life, let us still believe that 
 she was the " Immortal Beloved " to whom 
 he addressed such passionate letters, and of 
 whom he writes to Wegeler : — 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 
 
 " I am leading a more agreeable and less mis- 
 anthropic life. This change has been wrought 
 by a lovely, fascinating girl who loves me, and 
 whom I love. It is the first time I ever felt 
 that marriage could make me happy. Unluckily, 
 she is not in my rank in life ; and indeed at this 
 moment I can marry no one." 
 
 His feelings towards her admit of no ques- 
 tion, as the following extract from one of the 
 letters will show, which, Mr. Thayer to the 
 contrary notwithstanding, we will assume was 
 written to the Countess : — 
 
 " My angel, my all, my self, — A few words 
 only to-day in pencil — your pencil \init Dei7te?n, 
 the D21 being used throughout the original] : 
 only till to-morrow is my lodging fixed; what 
 miserable waste of time ! Why this deep grief 
 when necessity speaks ? Can our love exist ex- 
 cept by sacrifice, by not demanding all ? Can you 
 help not being quite mine, I not quite yours? 
 Ah, God ! look into beautiful Nature, and calm 
 your mind over what must be. Love demands 
 all, and justly ; so it is from me to you, from you 
 to me; only you forget too often that I must live 
 for myself and for you. If we were quite united, 
 you would feel this grief no more than I. . . . 
 My journey was terrible ; I did not arrive till 
 four in the morning : for want of sufficient horses 
 the mail-coach chose a different route ; and what 
 a terrible road ! At the last station they warned 
 me not to travel at night, and frightened me with 
 
8o 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 a wood ; but that only tempted me, and I was 
 wrong. The carriage could not but collapse in 
 the terrible road, bottomless, a mere country 
 road ; but for my postilions I should have stuck 
 there. . . . Now quickly from the external to 
 the internal. We shall probably see one an- 
 other soon ; and to-day I cannot tell you the 
 thoughts I had regarding my life during these 
 few days. Were our hearts but always close 
 together, I should have none such. My heart is 
 full : I have much to say to you. Oh ! there 
 are moments when I find that language is 
 nothing. Be cheerful ; remain my faithful sole 
 treasure, my all, as I am yours ; the rest the 
 gods must send, what shall be and must be. 
 Your faithful 
 
 LUDWIG. 
 
 Incoherent eloquence ; but could there be a 
 surer proof of love than its very incoherence ? 
 When Beethoven first knew the Countess, she 
 was a lovely girl of seventeen, his pupil, and an 
 excellent musician as well as a skilful linguist. 
 She was possessed of every quality to attract 
 him, — exquisite personal beauty, rare intel- 
 lectual ability, irreproachable character, and 
 withal was proud of his admiration, or rather 
 adoration, of her. Beethoven then was twice 
 her age ; but disparity in years did not occur 
 to him as an obstacle to their union, any more 
 than disparity in rank, though he after^vard 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 8 1 
 
 discovered the effectual bar in the latter. 
 There is every reason to believe that he 
 offered her his hand, and that she would 
 have accepted it had it not been for her 
 father's opposition. She yielded to his re- 
 monstrances, and, at his solicitation, two years 
 later married Count Gallenberg, an impresario 
 and very prolific writer of very poor dance- 
 music. The affair, therefore, was mortifying 
 to Beethoven in a double sense, — first, that 
 he should have been rejected at all ; and, sec- 
 ond, that he should have been rejected in 
 favor of such an insignificant rival. It is said 
 that upon her refusal he fled to the villa of 
 her friend, the Countess Erdody, then disap- 
 peared for two days, and was eventually found, 
 exhausted with exposure and fasting, in a dis- 
 tant part of her grounds. Certain it is that he 
 never entirely recovered from the pain and 
 mortification of the rejection. He always 
 spoke of her with tenderness ; and nearly 
 twenty years after, in a conversation with 
 Schindler, alluded to his discomfiture with a 
 sort of subdued bitterness. Of her influence 
 upon him in his music there remains no ques- 
 tion. If no other proof were at hand, the 
 exquisite C sharp minor sonata, so familiarly 
 known as the " Moonlight," which she inspired, 
 6 
 
82 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 and which he dedicated to her, would be 
 sufficient testimony, in its wealth of beauty, 
 tenderness, and passion, to the magic power of 
 this woman's love over him. It is not unfair 
 to assume that all he wrote during this period 
 was made brighter, purer, and more majestic 
 by her memory. Lost from his home and his 
 heart, she shone resplendent in his music. 
 
 The instances I have cited — and to these 
 many others might be added — show that Dr. 
 Wegeler was correct when he said that Bee- 
 thoven was always in love. Though fixed and 
 grounded in every other habit of life, in love 
 his nature was contradictory. In this long list 
 of attachments there were but two that made 
 a deep impression upon him. In the other 
 cases he flitted from flower to flower, making 
 butterfly pauses at each. His world was al- 
 ways an ideal one : ardent he may have been, 
 but his passion was none the less austere. 
 Surrounded with corruption, he led a life of 
 absolute purity. Love to him was a light 
 which illumines, not a flame that burns. He 
 found more pleasure in the society of women 
 than of men ; and if his energetic, impulsive 
 nature suggested exaggerated feelings, it is 
 very sure that they soon found their sentimen- 
 tal level in his cooler moments. His letters. 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 83 
 
 which at first glance seem imbued with pas- 
 sion, when viewed from this stand-point are 
 only expressions of aspiration rather than of 
 desire. If there were no other proof of this, 
 his purity and nobility of character forbid any 
 doubt. If one wishes to know how these at- 
 tachments affected him in his music, it is only 
 necessary to look at the long list of his dedi- 
 cations, and remember that almost ever)^ one 
 of them sprang from the relations of friend- 
 ship and love. The very soul of Beethoven's 
 music is love in its varying forms. His love 
 for humanity rings out in the vocal finale of 
 the Ninth Symphony : — 
 
 " Seid umschiungen Millionen 
 Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt." 
 
 His love of freedom bums in the ^' Eroica." 
 His love of God shines resplendent and ma- 
 jestic in the immortal measures of the Second 
 Mass. His love of art is shown by the re- 
 morseless manner in which he pressed the 
 thorns of life into his own heart, — this Titan 
 doing batde with Fate, and winning immor- 
 tality ; and all along the fields of this struggle 
 are scattered the roses of woman's love. 
 
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN. 
 
 Sir, if you and I were both melted down together, 
 we should not furnish materials for one Haydn. — 
 Mozart. 
 
 APA" HAYDN— not only the fa- 
 ther of the symphony and quartet, 
 but father to the musical world by 
 the grace of his unaffected, naive, fresh, and 
 smoothly flowing numbers, so full of cheerful- 
 ness and good-nature — has been endeared 
 to all musicians since his time by this familiar 
 and affectionate prefix ; but the homely family 
 word is a strange misnomer when one consid- 
 ers his domestic relations and their influence 
 upon his music. 
 
 Haydn commenced his musical career as a 
 chorister in Vienna, having a voice of great 
 power and beauty. In the midst of his suc- 
 cess, however, as a vocalist, one disappoint- 
 
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN. 85 
 
 ment after another overtook him ; and, to 
 crown all, he finally lost his voice, and was 
 discharged from his position besides, upon 
 some trivial pretence, to make room for an- 
 other with greater vocal ability, and that other 
 his own brother Michael. In his twentieth 
 year he was thrown out upon the world with- 
 out friends and without money, but, fortu- 
 nately for him, with a very happy and hopeful 
 temperament. He soon procured a few pu- 
 pils, borrowed some money, rented a garret 
 of an old stocking-weaver, — attracted by his 
 sign, " A poor person can find a sleeping-room 
 in the attic very cheap," — devoted himself 
 to composition, made the acquaintance of 
 musicians, and at last had the good luck to 
 be selected as musical director and chamber 
 composer to a Bohemian count. This yielded 
 him a good salary for those days, and he there- 
 upon began to think of marriage. He was 
 of an excitable, impulsive temperament, and 
 withal susceptible to female blandishments, 
 and consequently was in a condition to accept 
 whatever chance might throw in his way. The 
 stocking-weaver had an only daughter, Mary, 
 a young girl of lovely character and pious dis- 
 position, whose admiration of Haydn's musi- 
 cal talent soon developed into love for him. 
 
86 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 There is little doubt but that the affection was 
 reciprocated. Haydn was struggling at this 
 time, however, between two strong passions, — 
 love, on the one hand, and his mother's ardent 
 desire that he should become a monk, on the 
 other. The latter was the stronger ; and he 
 soon entered the Servite monastery as a novice, 
 where he devoted himself to the pursuit of his 
 art with the greatest industry. The stocking- 
 weaver's daughter made no complaint when 
 she found herself forgotten and saw that 
 her love was hopeless. She died not long 
 afterward ; and among her last words to her 
 parents were these : " Father and mother, 
 you must pray for Joseph as long as you live ; 
 for he is a rare gift of God to men, and he 
 will one day be a great man, but he will al- 
 ways remain humble. The world will applaud 
 him, but he will not become unfaithful to his 
 God on that account. He should not weep 
 for me, but sing a hymn at night when he sits 
 all alone at his instrument." Upon learning of 
 her death, Haydn visited the parents, sym- 
 pathized with them, and provided them with 
 the money to procure her a befitting grave. 
 
 Haydn did not remain long in the monastery. 
 He had not the monastic disposition, though 
 he was a man of very simple and childlike 
 
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN. 87 
 
 piety. He could not seclude himself from a 
 world in •which he felt that he was destined 
 to achieve a great name, nor abandon the 
 profession of music, whose claims upon him 
 were growing stronger and stronger. He 
 was hardly out in the world again before 
 another opportunity for marriage presented 
 itself. Without any unnecessary delay he ac- 
 cepted it, and regretted it all the rest of his 
 life. He was introduced into the family of 
 a hair-dresser and wig-maker, named Keller, 
 who was of a sufficiently musical turn to ap- 
 preciate his talent. He had two daughters 
 whose education was giving him much trouble, 
 and was delighted when Haydn consented 
 to give them musical instruction. The old 
 wig-maker, having gained this point, took an- 
 other step ahead, made the most desperate 
 arguments to convince him he ought to love 
 some one, and finally offered him the youngest 
 daughter in marriage, who would have made 
 him an excellent wife. Haydn, however, with 
 the usual perversity of lovers, wanted the 
 other, whereupon the disappointed younger 
 sister retired to a convent. Not a whit dis- 
 couraged, the wig-maker baited his hook with 
 the other daughter, and easily caught the sus- 
 ceptible Haydn. Never was there a more ill- 
 
88 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 assorted match. The bride soon displayed 
 herself as a scold and shrew of most ungov- 
 ernable temper. She had no sympathy with 
 his musical ambition, and no pride in his 
 compositions. He himself said of her that 
 she did not care whether he were an artist or 
 a shoemaker. Long before the honeymoon 
 was over, poor Haydn found himself tied to 
 a Xanthippe, who when she was not utterly 
 unsociable, which probably were his happiest 
 moments, amused herself with curtain lec- 
 tures of the most vigorous description. And 
 yet, oddly enough, the termagant influenced 
 his music in a very curious manner, and one 
 not peculiarly agreeable to him. Added to 
 all her other disagreeable qualities, she was 
 a religious bigot and prude, with a decided 
 penchant for entertaining priests and monks. 
 She kept the house full of them ; and they, 
 reahzing his genius, induced her to make 
 him write sacred music. To the religious 
 admonition and argument which she brought 
 to bear upon him, she also added her own 
 personal commands and objurgations ; and 
 Haydn, being already under good family dis- 
 cipline, could not do otherwise than submit ; 
 so, while the fat fathers were revelling below 
 stairs in carnal enjoyments, "Papa" Haydn 
 
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN. 89 
 
 above stairs was \\Titing anthems, motets, and 
 masses for their convents and churches, for 
 which he received no remuneration. One 
 can easily imagine the wTath and impreca- 
 tions he must have hurled at the prude and 
 her roystering companions, as the sounds of 
 their revelry smote upon his ears, and how 
 little of the ''Laus Deo" there was in his heart 
 as his fingers penned the scores that were to 
 be sung upon the following Sabbath. Gradu- 
 ally this kind of life became unendurable, 
 and he sought elsewhere the happiness which 
 he could not find at home. Fate, however, 
 was kind to him, and brought him speedy 
 release. The Capellmeister of the reigning 
 prince, Paul Esterhazy, as devoted to music, 
 even, as the present King of Bavaria, was 
 growing old ; and the Prince applied to 
 Haydn to fill the position of second Capell- 
 meister. Haydn joyfully accepted it, all the 
 more so as it was an unwritten law of the 
 musical Count that musicians' wives could 
 not accompany them. It was a happy day 
 for " Papa " Haydn. He not only secured a 
 lucrative and important position, but, what 
 was still better, a permanent release from 
 domestic torture. It was a lasting separation 
 firom his wife ; but he always acted honorably 
 
90 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 by granting her an annual stipend for her 
 support. Whenever they met the meeting 
 was sure to be a stormy one, and ahvays on 
 the subject of money. She was a spendthrift, 
 and not only wasted half his earnings, which 
 he always sent her, but contracted debts in 
 his name, knowing he would pay them rather 
 than have trouble. Year by year she grew 
 more extravagant; but at last death put an 
 end to her demands upon him. When the 
 old Capellmeister died, he was appointed to 
 his place, and had full control of the Prince's 
 musical household, which consisted not only 
 of an excellent orchestra, but also of a large 
 chorus and corps of solo singers ; so that he 
 was enabled to bring out large works, and 
 the symphonies and operas of his own com- 
 position. Besides these forces, he had trav- 
 elling companies and virtuosi^ and an elegant 
 theatre, at his disposal. Musically he had 
 everything that heart could wish ; and in 
 this musical atmosphere he composed nearly 
 all his operas and most of his songs, be- 
 sides some of his most important instrumen- 
 tal works. The place of his wife was very 
 happily, but not very honorably, filled by 
 Luigia Polzelli, a vocalist in the chapel, and 
 wife of Anton Polzelli, a violinist in his or- 
 
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN. 91 
 
 chestra. The lady was an Italian by birth, 
 and an ordinary singer, but possessed of per- 
 sonal charms that commended her to him, 
 and resulted in a liaison, at first very agree- 
 able, but ultimately subjecting him to almost 
 as much trouble as he had had with his wife, 
 since the Roman woman made constant use 
 of his violent passion for her to extort money 
 from him. She had two children, one of 
 whom was popularly supposed to be his son. 
 There is no record that the Polzelli was of 
 any benefit to him musically ; certainly she 
 was not morally. 
 
 There were those, however, who exercised a 
 great and lasting influence upon his musical 
 production ; and among them was Madame 
 Genzinger, the wife of a prominent physician in 
 Vienna, at whose house he spent much of his 
 time, and for whom he wrote several sympho- 
 nies and a large number of sonatas. His cor- 
 respondence with her was very voluminous ; 
 and it bears almost constant testimony to the 
 powerful influence she exerted upon him, 
 both during his service under Prince Esterhazy 
 and after he had quit that sendee. Her hus- 
 band was the physician in ordinary to that 
 Prince, and it was thus he became acquainted 
 with the family. He visited the house every 
 
92 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Sunday ; and as the lady was a fine singer 
 and an admirable musician, whose home was 
 the centre of attraction for all the musicians 
 in Vienna, he soon became an honored guest ; 
 and the acquaintance which was based upon 
 music soon ripened into a lasting and hon- 
 orable friendship, though the lady was by 
 many years his senior. It is a bright spot to 
 contemplate in the unhappy and not alto- 
 gether blameless life of Haydn. Turn to al- 
 most any letter in their long correspondence, 
 and it will be found to testify to her influence 
 over him. At one time he writes : — 
 
 " I cannot but admire the trouble and patience 
 you lavish on my poor talents ; and allow me to 
 assure you in return, that in my frequent evil 
 moods nothing cheers me so much as the flat- 
 tering conviction that I am kindly remembered 
 by you." 
 
 At another time he writes : — 
 
 " Well, here I sit in my wilderness ; forsaken 
 like some poor orphan, almost without human 
 society ; melancholy, dwelling on the memory 
 of past glorious days. Yes, past, alas ! And 
 who can tell when those happy hours may re- 
 turn, — those charming meetings where the whole 
 circle have but one heart and one soul, — all 
 those delightful musical evenings which can only 
 
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN. 93 
 
 be remembered and not described ? Where are 
 all those inspired moments?" 
 
 In the same letter he playfully laments the 
 loss of the good things at Madame Genzinger's 
 home, in the following humorously lugubrious 
 strain : — 
 
 *' I found everything at home in confusion. 
 For three days I did not know whether I was 
 capell master or cafiell servant ; nothing could 
 console me. My apartments were all in con- 
 fusion ; my pianoforte, that I formerly loved so 
 dearly, was perverse and disobedient, and rather 
 irritated than soothed me. I slept very little, 
 and even my dreams persecuted me ; for while 
 asleep, I was under the pleasant delusion that I 
 was listening to the opera of ' Le Nozze di Figaro,' 
 when the blustering north-wind woke me, and 
 almost blew my nightcap off my head. I lost 
 twenty pounds in weight in three days; for the 
 effects of my good fare in Vienna disappeared 
 on the journey. 'Alas! alas!' thought I to my- 
 self, when forced to eat, at the restaurateur's, in- 
 stead of capital beef a slice of a cow fifty years 
 old; instead of a ragout with little balls of forced 
 meat, an old sheep with yellow carrots; instead 
 of a Bohemian pheasant, a tough grill ; and 
 instead of good and juicy oranges, Hungarian 
 salad ; instead of pastry, dry apple-fritters, and 
 hazel-nuts, etc. 'Alas ! alas!' thought I again to 
 myself, ' would that I now had many a morsel 
 that I despised in Vienna ! ' Here in Estoras, 
 
94 
 
 womjin in music. 
 
 no one asks me, ' Would you like some chocolate, 
 with milk or without? Will you take some cof- 
 fee, with or without cream? What can I offer 
 you, my good Haydn ? Will you have vanilla 
 ice or pineapple ? ' If I had only a piece of good 
 Parmesan cheese, particularly in Lent, to enable 
 me to swallow more easily the black dumpjings 
 and puffs ! I gave our porter this very day a 
 commission to send me a couple of pounds." 
 
 After Haydn had left Vienna and gone to 
 London^ under the management of Salomon, 
 to give concerts, he continued his correspond- 
 ence, and constantly expresses his obligations 
 to her, besides sending her many of his com- 
 positions written expressly for her. During his 
 London visit, where his concerts were all the 
 rage, he made many female friends, — among 
 them, Madame Bartolozzi, the wife of the cel- 
 ebrated engraver, for whom he wrote three 
 piano trios and a sonata; the wife of John 
 Hunter, a celebrated surgeon of that time, 
 who wrote the words for many of his canzo- 
 nets; Mrs. Hodges, whom he describes as 
 " the loveliest woman I ever saw, and a fine 
 piano-player," for whom he wrote many pieces ; 
 and, lastly, a lady named Schrolter, widow of 
 the Queen's music-master, who conceived a 
 violent passion for him, which was reciprocated, 
 though he was then sixty years of age and she 
 
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN. 
 
 95 
 
 Still older. Referring to her afterward, in 
 connection with some of her letters to him, 
 he said : " These are from an English widow 
 who fell in love with me. She was a very 
 attractive woman, and still handsome though 
 over sixty; and had I been free, I should 
 certainly have married her." For her he 
 wrote three of his best trios. Of all his nu- 
 merous female acquaintances, however, not 
 one exercised such an influence upon him 
 musically as Madame Genzinger, for whom 
 his friendship was honorable. We owe much 
 of his music to his wife ; but the savage and 
 truculent manner in which she inspired him 
 was not conducive to the best work of his gen- 
 ius. To Madame Genzinger's exalted friend- 
 ship and noble influence we must assign his 
 best instrumental pieces ; and who shall say 
 that his two greatest works, the " Creation " 
 and the "Seasons," written in his old age, 
 when the passions had cooled and the dross 
 of life had been swept away, when, as he 
 himself says, " I knelt down every day, and 
 prayed God to strengthen me for my work," 
 may not also be attributable to the same 
 inspiring influence? 
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. 
 
 He was a man whose mission in the world seems 
 to have been entirely fulfilled; to whom it was given 
 to link together the godlike with humanity, the 
 mortal with the immortal, — a man whose footprints 
 not all the storms of time can ever efface, — a man 
 who, amid all his lofty aims, esteemed the loftiest of 
 all to be the elevation of humanity. — Nohl. 
 
 HERE were but two women who 
 strongly influenced Mozart in his 
 music, — his wife Constance and 
 her sister Aloysia. When in Munich seeking 
 the patronage of the Elector, and while yet a 
 lad, he attended the German opera, and was 
 much smitten with the voice and personal 
 charms of Mile. Keiserin, the prima donna, a 
 debutante, who was singing in a work called 
 " Das Fischer Madchen," adapted from Pic- 
 cini. It was only a boyish fancy, however, 
 and resulted in nothing more serious than 
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. 97 
 
 some gushing letters to his father about her ; 
 referring to which, several months later, he 
 says, I must confess that I was an ass to 
 wTite such a complete falsehood." His heart 
 was at one time lightly touched by his cousin 
 Marianne, whom he visited at Augsburg ; but 
 it ended in a sportive mood between them, 
 and, long after his departure, in many of his 
 most rollicking, frolicsome letters, full of jest 
 and banter, he alludes to it. 
 
 On the 30th of October, 1777, young 
 Mozart arrived at Mannheim. The day after 
 his arrival he visited at the house of M. Can- 
 nabich, the director of the Elector's orchestra. 
 He went there many times afterward, for the 
 director's daughter Rose became his pupil. 
 She was a sprightly, beautiful, amiable girl ; and 
 a strong attachment sprang up between them, 
 with music, however, rather than love, for its 
 basis. Painters and poets afterward raved over 
 her ; but Mozart never was seriously touched 
 except in admiration of her beauty, and by 
 the strong musical sympathy between them, 
 which led to his writing the B flat sonata for 
 her, the andafite movement of which he marked 
 amoroso. It was a favorite movement with 
 both. What story of passion it may have 
 told her can be imagined. He at least never 
 
98 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 cared much for the response. His fate was 
 yet to come, but it came very speedily. 
 
 About this time he made the acquaintance 
 of M. Weber, an uncle of the composer 
 of " Der Freischiitz," who was a prompter 
 and music-copyist. He was an honorable 
 and open-hearted but poor man, with a wife 
 and six children depending upon him for sup- 
 port. The second daughter, Aloysia, a girl of 
 fifteen, had a remarkably beautiful voice, and 
 Mozart offered to instruct her. The offer was 
 accepted, and master and pupil soon became 
 lover and mistress. His own letters tell the 
 story of this ill-fated love so completely that 
 we do not need to look elsewhere for it. On 
 the 17th of January, 1778, he first speaks of 
 her in a letter to his father, and says : — 
 
 " She sings admirably, and has a lovely, pure 
 voice. She is only fifteen. She fails in nothing 
 but in stage action ; were it not for that, she 
 might be \k\t prima donna of any theatre. . . . 
 My aria for ' De Amicis ' she sings to perfec- 
 tion, with all its tremendous passages." 
 
 Two weeks later he writes again, but only 
 to inform his father that she had been singing 
 with hhn at Kirchheim-Boland, the residence 
 of the Princess of Orange. Meanwhile the two 
 lovers are forming all kinds of impracticable 
 
WOLFGANG AM AD BUS MOZART. 99 
 
 plans, — among them, one to travel together. 
 With that strong sense of filial duty which 
 always characterized Mozart, he laid the plan 
 before his father. He had never expressed 
 even a suggestion of his love for Aloysia to 
 him ; but the father surmised it, and disap- 
 proved of the plan to travel. He now grows 
 bolder in his letters, and makes no secret of his 
 warm admiration of her, and strives also to in- 
 duce his father to take an interest in her musical 
 abihties. He wrote arias for her full of passion 
 and feeling ; and as she sang them to him 
 with all the beauty and richness of her voice, 
 there can be little doubt that the songs went 
 to their hearts, and that they fully believed in 
 the reality of their love for each other, never 
 dreaming how soon the illusion would vanish. 
 About the middle of March (1778) he went 
 with his mother to Paris. The parting with 
 Aloysia was a sad one : Weber wept, Aloysia 
 wept ; and Mozart writes his father : " Pray, 
 forgive me, but really tears come to my eyes 
 when I think of it ; " from which we may in- 
 fer that he himself also did a generous share of 
 the weeping as he bade adieu to the Webers. 
 In Paris, music occupied his attention ; and 
 concerts which he attended, and at which he 
 played, tempered the sorrows of separation, 
 
100 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 and, we may well believe, allayed the rankling 
 of the stings which his father's satirical allu- 
 sions to his love-affair had left. Work is the 
 universal panacea, but he by no means forgot 
 Aloysia. He had in his mind the idea of a 
 speedy marriage with her; and he writes to 
 his father, July 31, intimating that he would 
 like to leave Paris and return to Mannheim, 
 where Aloysia was struggling against the cabals 
 of jealous singers who were striving to prevent 
 her from getting an engagement in the Court 
 concerts at Munich. Little he dreamed of 
 the fate that was to await him when he should 
 see her again. Three months later Aloysia 
 secured the coveted situation in that city ; 
 and Mozart immediately decided to seek an 
 appointment there, that he might be near her. 
 In December we find him in Munich, where 
 he experienced the second painful shock of 
 his Hfe, the first being the death of his mother 
 during their Paris visit. Aloysia was faithless 
 to him. The blow came upon him like a 
 thunder-stroke. She hardly recognized him 
 when he met her ; whereupon he went to the 
 piano and sang a song of unconcern, with his 
 heart full of tears. She had met an actor 
 named Lange at the house of the Princess of 
 Orange, was captivated with his appearance. 
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. lOI 
 
 and subsequently married him. Time was 
 kind to the one, and cruel to the other. It 
 healed Mozart's wounds, and brought him 
 one who was the soul of honor and constancy. 
 After Aloysia's marriage he could calmly write 
 to his father : " I was a great fool about Madame 
 Lange. I own it ; but what is a man not when 
 he is in love?" The handsome actor whom 
 Aloysia had married was a drunken, dissipated 
 wretch, who went from bad to worse, until at 
 last she had to separate from him. She con- 
 tinued her profession in Vienna, and in 1 782 
 appeared in Mozart's " Die Entfiihrung." 
 Nohl says : — 
 
 " Neither happiness nor riches brightened 
 Aloysia's path in life, nor the peace of mind 
 arising from the consciousness of purity of heart. 
 Not till she was an aged woman, and Mozart 
 long dead, did she recognize what he really had 
 been. She liked to talk about him and his 
 friendship ; and in thus recalling the brightest 
 memories of her youth some of that lovable 
 charm seemed to revive that Mozart had im- 
 parted to her and to all with whom he had any 
 intercourse." 
 
 There is every reason to believe that on the 
 day Mozart lost Aloysia he gained her sister 
 Constance ; Because there is no question that 
 the calm, quiet, domestic sister not only more 
 
I02 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 thoroughly appreciated and understood him, 
 but had long nourished a strong though un- 
 uttered love for him. She was the one whom 
 he needed, the one whom fate had marked 
 out for him. She was quiet and restful in 
 temperament, domestic in nature, and patient, 
 docile, and sweet in disposition. She was 
 very fond of music ; and though not pos- 
 sessed of the brilliant powers of her sister, she 
 was still a singer of good taste and excellent 
 voice, and had a deeper insight into music 
 than Aloysia. Joined to a rare tact in man- 
 aging household affairs, she had the influence 
 necessary to assist and inspire him in compo- 
 sition. She first appears in his letters May 25, 
 1 781, only a few months after the separation 
 from Aloysia, who was now Madame Lange. 
 She finishes a letter to his father, which business 
 engagements had prevented him from closing, 
 and only writes a few formal words regarding 
 Mozart's concerts. On the 25th of July of 
 the same year we find his first serious allu- 
 sions to Constance, and these are not very 
 encouraging. He \vrites to his father that he 
 is going to leave the Webers because people 
 are beginning to gossip. He says : — 
 
 "We went together twice to tfie Prater ; but 
 her mother was with us, and as I chanced to be 
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. 103 
 
 in the house I could not well refuse to accom- 
 pany them ; besides, at that time I had heard 
 none of these foolish rumors. I must also tell 
 you that I was only allowed to pay my own 
 share ; and the mother, having since then heard 
 these reports from others as well as from myself, 
 does not wish us to go anywhere together, and 
 herself advised me to remove to another house in 
 order to avoid any further unpleasantness. . . . 
 I will not say that, living in the same house with 
 the young lady to whom people have married 
 me, I am ill-bred, and do not speak to her ; but 
 I am not in love with her. I banter and jest 
 with her when time permits, but nothing more. 
 If I were obliged to marry all those with whom 
 I have jested, I should have at least two hundred 
 wives." 
 
 Jesting saved him from one hundred and 
 ninety-nine misfortunes, perhaps; but there 
 was one whose strong, steady, deep love 
 turned the edge of all his sportive jests, 
 changed his frolicsome humor into serious 
 feeling, and at last gave him home and hap- 
 piness. How soon jest was turned into 
 reahty Mozart himself tells us ; for in less 
 than six months he writes to his father, an- 
 nouncing his love for her, and asking his 
 consent to his marriage. The letter is an 
 interesting one, as he draws a picture of his 
 affianced : — 
 
104 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 " But now who is the object of my love ? 
 Do not be startled, I entreat. Not one of the 
 Webers, surely ? Yes, one of the Webers, — 
 not Josepha, not Sophie, but the third daughter, 
 Constance. I never met with such diversity of 
 disposition in any family. The eldest is idle, 
 coarse, and deceitful, — crafty and cunning as a 
 fox. Madame Lange (Aloysia) is false and un- 
 principled, and a coquette. The youngest is still 
 too childish to have her character defined ; she is 
 merely a good-humored, frivolous girl, — may 
 God guard her from temptation ! The third, how- 
 ever, namely, my good and beloved Constance, 
 is the martyr of the family, and probably on this 
 very account the kindest-hearted, the cleverest, 
 and, in short, the best of them all. She takes 
 charge of the whole house, and yet does nothing 
 right in their eyes, . . . Before releasing you 
 from this subject I must make you better ac- 
 quainted with the character of my Constance. 
 She is not plain, but at the same time far from 
 handsome. Her whole beauty consists in a pair 
 of bright black eyes and a pretty figure. She is 
 not witty, but has enough sound good sense to 
 enable her to fulfil her duties as a wife and 
 mother. It is utterly false that she is inclined 
 to be extravagant ; on the contrary, she is in- 
 variably very plainly dressed, — for the little her 
 mother can spend on her children she gives to 
 the two others, but to Constance nothing. It is 
 true that her dress is always neat and nice, 
 however simple ; and she can herself make most 
 of the things requisite for a young lady. She 
 
WOLFGANG AM AD BUS MOZART. 105 
 
 dresses her own hair, understands housekeeping, 
 and has the best heart in the world. I love her 
 with my whole soul, as she does me. Tell me if 
 I could wish a better wife." 
 
 Surely here was a Cinderella in real life ; 
 but Cinderella and the Prince were to fight a 
 hard battle yet, before they came to their 
 own. The composer Peter Winter, while in 
 Salzburg, filled the ears of Mozart's father 
 with bad reports about his son and scanda- 
 lous stories about Constance, and thus satis- 
 fied a grudge which he and his teacher, the 
 Abb^ Vogler, had against Mozart. The father 
 replied to his son's letter in a furious manner ; 
 and the son w-as for a time hardly less indig- 
 nant at the father for listening to such baseless 
 accusations against him and his affianced, 
 than he w^as at the slanderers. Constance's 
 guardian (the father being dead) was also 
 very uneasy at the insinuations against the 
 young composer, and at last prevailed upon 
 the mother to insist that Mozart should make 
 a wTitten contract of marriage. The contract 
 was drawn up in this form : — 
 
 " I bind myself to marry ]\Ille. Constance 
 Weber in the course of three years ; and if it 
 should so happen, which I consider impossible, 
 that I change my mind, she shall be entitled 
 
io6 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 to draw on me every year for three hundred 
 florins," 
 
 Mozart, in a letter to his father, naively 
 comments upon this contract : — 
 
 " Nothing in the world could be easier than 
 to write this: for I knew that the payment of 
 the three hundred florins never would be ex- 
 acted, because I never could forsake her ; and 
 if, unhappily, I altered my views, I would only 
 be too glad to get rid of her by paying the three 
 hundred florins ; and Constance, as I know her, 
 would be too proud to let herself be sold in this 
 way." 
 
 Constance had a more summary way of 
 deahng with this contract. After the guar- 
 dian had gone, she demanded it of her 
 mother, and resolutely tore it to pieces, say- 
 ing to her lover, " Dear Mozart, I require 
 no written contract from you ; I rely on your 
 promises." 
 
 In January (1782) he again asks his father's 
 consent, and is busy devising ways and means 
 to procure money, first, for the performance 
 of the marriage ceremony, and second, for 
 support after marriage. He writes that he 
 has in view three sources of income : first, tlie 
 composition of music for a new military band 
 about to be organized by Prince Lichtenstein ; 
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. 107 
 
 second, the Emperor and the Archduke Maxi- 
 miUan ; and, third, his pupils. More troubles 
 begin to crowd in upon the luckless lovers. 
 Malicious gossips are not only spreading stories 
 about them, and Mozart's father giving ear to 
 them, but Constance's mother, who all along 
 has favored the alliance, now begins to grow 
 indifferent to it, and demands that if they are 
 united they shall stay with her ; to which 
 Constance is opposed, and Mozart, with a 
 wholesome fear of mothers-in-law, decidedly 
 objects. Indifference soon becomes irrita- 
 tion, and there is wrangling in the household, 
 and the mother accosts the young lovers with 
 sneering remarks. At last there is a quarrel 
 even between Mozart and Constance over a 
 petty matter ; but it is only an April shower. 
 The cloud passes quickly over, and the sun 
 shines again ; but the future mother-in-law 
 remains cloudy with frequent storms, and at 
 last the house becomes so hot that Constance 
 quits it for the domicile of the Baroness Wald- 
 stadten, — a somewhat flighty, eccentric, and 
 not altogether reputable person, but a good 
 friend to them. This step precipitated the 
 marriage. Madame Weber threatened to send 
 the police to remove her daughter from the 
 Baroness's house. Mozart and Constance 
 
lo8 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 decide to marry at once. He writes his father 
 of his intentions ; and the latter gives his con- 
 sent, coupled with the condition, however, 
 that he must expect nothing in future from 
 him. His opera, " Die Entfuhrung," had 
 been performed, July 12, with great success, 
 and secured him the means for the ceremony. 
 They were married, August 4, in very simple 
 style, at the house of the Baroness, four or 
 five persons being present. Three days later 
 Mozart writes his father : — 
 
 " Our sole wedding festivities consisted of a 
 supper which Baroness Waldstadten gave us ; 
 and, indeed, it was more princely than baronial. 
 My darling is now a hundred times more joyful 
 at the idea of going to Salzburg ; and I am will- 
 ing to stake — ay, my very life, that you will 
 rejoice still more in my happiness when you 
 really know her, if indeed, in your estimation as 
 in mine, a high-principled, honest, virtuous, and 
 'pleasing wife ought to make a man happy." 
 
 Eighteen years after Mozart's death, his 
 widow married the Danish councillor, M. 
 Nissen, and lived with him in Copenhagen ; 
 and her declining years were spent, in con- 
 junction with her husband, in the prepara- 
 tion of the memoirs of the distinguished 
 composer. 
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. 109 
 
 Notwithstanding many pinches of poverty 
 and burdens of debt, their life together was 
 a happy one. Their mutual love never de- 
 creased, but burned strong and clear to the 
 end. She was his constant guide and moni- 
 tor. She brightened all his days with her 
 loving words and letters, and his love for her 
 was always tender and delicate. She was a 
 prudent manager of his domestic affans, a 
 safe counsellor in business matters, always 
 a cheerful companion, and tended him in his 
 last days with unfaltering devotion until the 
 final bitter moment, when she flung herself 
 upon his bed and prayed to die with him. 
 The influence of Aloysia upon his music 
 showed itself by the production of numerous 
 brilliant arias which he wrote for her ; but all 
 his great works, Die Entfuhrung," " Ido- 
 meneo," " Don Giovanni," " Die Zauberflote," 
 " Nozze di Figaro," " Cosi fan Tutti," "Titus," 
 the " Ave Verum," and the " Requiem," were 
 written after his marriage ; and every one of 
 them bears, in greater or less degree, the 
 imprint of Constance's influence. She took 
 special care of his health, which was always 
 delicate, so that his work might not be inter- 
 rupted. She not only spurred him on to the 
 fulfilment of his engagements ; but when it 
 
no WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 happened that he was over-burdened with 
 work, at which times he was apt to pursue 
 his fancies late into the night to his physical 
 detriment, she devised various means to re- 
 lieve him. Her devotion to him in this regard 
 was untiring. He immortalized her in the 
 " Entfiihrung," written when they were lovers. 
 The main idea of the opera is based upon 
 their relations to each other; and in it he 
 pictures himself in the character of Belmonte^ 
 and her in that of Constanza. The Mass in 
 C minor was written by him as a votive offer- 
 ing for her recovery in her first confinement, 
 and she sung the solos at the first public per- 
 formance. She was passionately fond of the 
 Bach and Handel fugues, and never ceased 
 her entreaties until he commenced writing in 
 this form. The " Don Giovanni," " Zauber- 
 flote," and "Requiem" are largely due to 
 her. In his dedications her name does not 
 appear as frequently as Aloysia's, for we only 
 find six solfeggi, a fugue, two sonatas, and an 
 aria written for her ; but there was no need 
 of specifying her name where almost every- 
 thing was due to her love, her care, and 
 her encouragement. In delicate health and 
 straitened circumstances, the victim often of 
 bitter musical jealousies, harassed by business 
 
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART, in 
 
 complications, with which he was unfitted to 
 contend, it is due to her, not only that he 
 produced so much, but that his music pre- 
 served all its original joyousness, sweetness, 
 and freshness, and that it has done so much 
 to bless and gladden humanity. 
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT. 
 
 Truly, Schubert is animated by a spark of the 
 divine fire. — Beethoven {on his death-bed). 
 
 RANZ SCHUBERT, if not the cre- 
 ator, certainly the ablest and clearest 
 exponent, of the German Lied, wrote 
 from his inner life ; and his music, so full of 
 beauty and melodiousness, only recently ap- 
 preciated and known, will place him, in the 
 near future, upon still loftier heights than he 
 now occupies. The life out of which he wrote 
 was in the main a sad one. There were days 
 of cheer and gladness ; but the most of them 
 were set to a minor key, so full of sadness and 
 of suffering that they appeal to personal sym- 
 patliy, though their experiences richly colored 
 all he wrote. Exquisite as his songs are, they 
 did not find a publisher until near his death, 
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT. 113 
 
 and his best works were not known to the 
 world until long after the grave closed over 
 him ; while even now there remain treasures 
 of his melody no voice has yet sung. Dwell- 
 ing by the side of Beethoven, as he now sleeps 
 by his side, the latter never knew the worth of 
 his music until it was shown him on his death- 
 bed ; and then he recognized " the divine 
 spark " of Schubert's genius. In all beauty 
 there is sadness. It is the test of beauty in 
 Nature, in humanity, and in music. It deter- 
 mines the motive of Beethoven's grandest 
 works. It colors with exquisite tints the 
 measures of Chopin, most poetic of all mu- 
 sicians. It is constantly present in Schubert's 
 works, though not one of them is morbid. 
 We may say that Schubert himself was morbid. 
 Certainly, sadness was almost the constant 
 habit of his life, dispelled now and then by 
 an excess of hilarity, which when it was ended 
 only left him sadder than before ; but his 
 music does not reflect this organic morbid- 
 ness and despondency so much as it does the 
 effort to get out of the shadow into the sun- 
 shine. In this struggle he poured out the 
 rich treasures of his genius with marvellous 
 energy and industry. They reflect the beauty 
 of the sunlight, but the sun is always shining 
 8 
 
114 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 through the cloud. Thus, in great degree the 
 exponent of the common lot, his songs go to 
 the heart, because they are full of the sorrows 
 and the sympathies of the heart, tempering its 
 joys. So long as there are voices to sing, 
 the ^^ErlKing," the "Wanderer," the "Ave 
 Maria," the " Serenade," and the gems of 
 the " Winterreise " will be sung, because they 
 reflect the awful sadness of the supernatural, 
 the pathos of the homeless, the piteous appeal 
 of the soul to Heaven, and the sad and tender 
 beauty of ideal love. It is a great genius 
 singing by divine right out from the depths 
 of his own sadness what is most sacred to 
 every other heart. Search all through the 
 long catalogue of his works, from song to 
 symphony, and while you may find outbursts 
 of joy, you \vill rarely find the triviality of 
 humor ; while you may discover the con- 
 stant expression of sorrow and tenderness and 
 pathos, there is no complaint. 
 
 The sadness of Schubert's life is more than 
 once expressed in his letters and diary. In 
 the latter (1816) he writes : — 
 
 " Man bears misfortune uncomplainingly, and 
 for that reason feels it all the more acutely. 
 For what purpose did God create in us these 
 keen sympathies ? " 
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT. 
 
 To his friend Kupelwieser, professor at 
 the Kiinstakademie in Vienna, he writes 
 (1824):- 
 
 " Picture to yourself a man whose health can 
 never be re-established, who from sheer despair 
 makes matters worse instead of better, — picture 
 to yourself, I say, a man whose most brilliant 
 hopes have come to nothing, to whom the happi- 
 ness of proffered love and friendship is but an- 
 guish, whose enthusiasm for the beautiful (an 
 inspired feehng at least) threatens to vanish 
 altogether, — and then ask yourself if such a 
 condition does not represent a miserable and 
 unhappy man." 
 
 And to this burst of grief he adds the 
 hopeless words of Gretchen : — 
 
 ** Meine Ruh' ist bin, mein Ilerz ist schwer : 
 Ich finde sie nimmer und nimmermehr." 
 
 How this sadness affected his music he more 
 than once tells us. His diary says : — 
 
 *' Grief sharpens the understanding, and 
 strengthens the soul ; whereas joy seldom 
 troubles itself about the former, and makes the 
 latter either effeminate or frivolous." 
 
 In his " Dream " he says : — 
 
 " For many, many long years I sang my Lieder. 
 If I would fain sing of love, it turned to pain ; if 
 
Il6 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 I would sing of pain, it turned to love. Thus I 
 was divided between love and sorrow." 
 
 Still more decidedly does he express himself 
 in his diary (1824) : — 
 
 " My productions in music are the product of 
 the understanding, and spring from my sorrow ; 
 those only which are the product of pain seem to 
 please the great world most." 
 
 Schubert had many sentimental friendships 
 inspired of his music, but he was not an easy 
 victim to love ; consequently his attachments 
 were not at all serious, except in one instance 
 to be alluded to hereafter, and that of so ab- 
 surd a sort as to be almost incomprehensible, 
 not the less so that it involved an abrupt tran- 
 sition from a femme de chambre to her mistress, 
 a princess. He was susceptible to female 
 charms, and had several alleged "affairs of 
 the heart ; " but he said little about them and 
 wrote still less. He was accustomed to 
 make himself merry over the dolors of his 
 friends who were in love, and is constantly 
 bantering them in his letters and in his daily 
 intercourse with them. It is questionable 
 whether he ever seriously thought of marry- 
 ing, though in his diary he once writes quite 
 sentimentally : — 
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT. 
 
 117 
 
 " Happy is he who finds a true friend ; happier 
 still is he who finds in his wife a true friend. 
 To the free man at this time marriage is a 
 frightful thought : he confounds it either with 
 melancholy or low sensuality." 
 
 From this we may infer that if he had 
 married it would have been in a Platonic 
 sense. He was by no means proof against 
 the tender passion, but it attacked him so 
 lightly that he never compromised himself. 
 He was not a stranger to deep and true af- 
 fection, but physically he was not cast in a 
 mould to be attractive to women. Had he 
 been more fortunate in the latter regard, it is 
 entirely probable that he might have married, 
 and that, under happy domestic influences, 
 much of the sorrow of his life might have 
 been avoided. Nevertheless this man with 
 a tender, loving soul, and a nature full of 
 beautiful traits, set in an unattractive frame, 
 had relations and friendships with the gentler 
 sex which deeply influenced his music, though 
 in the case to which I have referred they were 
 as bizarre and inconsistent as could well be 
 imagined. 
 
 One of the earhest of his compositions to 
 attract public attention was his Mass in F, 
 written for a festival of the parish church at 
 
Il8 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Lichtenthal, which he himself conducted. The 
 soprano part was sung by Theresa Grob, a 
 vocalist of considerable repute. Attracted by 
 her voice and by the musical abilities of her 
 brother, he had become at this time a frequent 
 visitor at her home. Many of his masses and 
 other compositions were rehearsed there, and 
 several of his earlier songs were first sung by 
 her in these musical gatherings. His interest 
 in her, at first musical, soon became personal ; 
 but it never advanced beyond the limits of a 
 romantic attachment, which was ended not 
 long after by her very unromantic marriage 
 to a baker. During his comparatively brief 
 relations with the family he wrote a " Tantum 
 Ergo " and " Salve Regina " for Theresa, and 
 an adagio and rondo for her brother, who 
 played with great skill, both upon the piano 
 and 'cello. That he must have written many 
 songs for her is also shown by the fact that the 
 descendants of the Grob family still possess a 
 large number of his compositions which have 
 never been made public. 
 
 The great artist, Anna Milder, for whom 
 Cherubini wrote the part of Fafiiska, and 
 Beethoven that of Leonora in his " Fidelio," 
 also played, an important part in Schubert's 
 musical productivity. She corresponded with 
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT. 
 
 119 
 
 him for several years ; and her letters are re- 
 plete with valuable suggestions of themes for 
 music, for which duty her long and varied 
 experiences peculiarly adapted her, while she 
 also made some of her most emphatic suc- 
 cesses in singing his songs. Among other 
 compositions written for her, was ''Zuleika's 
 Second Song," of wfiich she says in a letter to 
 him, ' Zuleika's Second Song ' is divine, and 
 each time I sing it my eyes fill with tears ; " 
 and the " Hirt auf dem Felsen," in which he 
 departed from his usual Lied style by making 
 the song of a bravura character to suit her 
 dramatic method. She suggested to him 
 .many of Goethe's poems for music, gave him 
 some very valuable advice about his opera 
 "Alfonso and Estrella," and was the first 
 singer to call special attention to his " Erl 
 King," though she did not make such an im- 
 mense success with it as Schroder-Devrient, 
 who drew from Goethe the remark : ^' Exe- 
 cuted as you execute it, the whole becomes a 
 complete picture." 
 
 Marie Pachler, whose influence upon Beet- 
 hoven we have already seen, also occupied a 
 prominent place in Schubert's musical hfe. 
 At the time he made the acquaintance of the 
 Pachler family, it consisted of the husband, 
 
120 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Carl Pachler, Marie, and their son Faust. We 
 have already seen, in the Beethoven chapter, 
 that she was a lady of rare musical accom- 
 plishments and intellectual ability, and her 
 home was the favorite rendezvous of com- 
 posers and artists. In 1827 the family lived 
 in Gratz, and in that year Beethoven had 
 intended visiting them. He died about that 
 time, however, and Schubert filled his place, 
 going there with his friend Jenger, who was 
 to have accompanied Beethoven. Many of 
 his happiest days were spent in the charming 
 society of this family. Many singers came 
 and went. Excursions were made into the 
 surrounding country. Little musical parties 
 were given. Schubert sang his old Lieder, 
 and wrote many new ones. Though at that 
 time in the very valley of the shadow of death, 
 they were the happiest days of his life. His 
 visit is immortalized by numerous composi- 
 tions. Belonging to those days are the songs, 
 "DasWeinen," Vor meinerWiege," " Heim- 
 Hches Lieben," and " Silvia," which are dedi- 
 cated to Madame Pachler ; the " Scotch Ballad," 
 of Herder, written at her suggestion ; the 
 " Schluchtgesang," for double chorus ; the 
 " Standchen," the Nachtgesang im Wald " 
 chorus, an Italian cantata, and many pieces 
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT. 
 
 121 
 
 of dance-music, among them the Valses 
 Nobles " and Originaltanze." His music 
 during this visit was of a very cheerful char- 
 acter ; but immediately after his return home 
 he composed the exquisitely beautiful but 
 sorrowful cyclus of songs known as the Winter- 
 reise, in some of which it almost seems as if 
 he recognized the shadows of the sad fate so 
 swiftly approaching him. 
 
 Dr. Wegeler, in speaking of Beethoven's 
 numerous attachments, says, in every man's 
 life there is one complete love episode. Schu- 
 bert is an exception to this rule. There was 
 an episode in his life which he unquestionably 
 thought was complete from an amatory point 
 of view ; though, to the practical, unromantic 
 reader, it must have a serio-comic if not even 
 a grotesque aspect. In 1818, then a young 
 man of twenty-one, Schubert was recom- 
 mended as a music-teacher to Count John 
 Esterhazy. The latter, who was a princely 
 patron of music, recognizing at once his abili- 
 ties, proposed that he should enter his family, 
 spending the winters with him in Vienna, and 
 the summers at his country estates. It was 
 an offer which Schubert gladly accepted. The 
 Count had two daughters, — Caroline, then 
 eleven years of age ; and Marie, two years 
 
122 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 older. Both had excellent voices, the one 
 soprano, and the other alto, and became his 
 pupils. He soon was a favorite in the family, 
 and was treated as an intimate. The atmos- 
 phere was a very musical one ; but it speedily 
 grew romantic also on Schubert's part, though 
 no one else shared in his affairs of the heart. 
 He first devoted himself to a flirtation with 
 one of the servants, a femme de chambre to 
 the Princess Caroline ; to which at least we are 
 indebted for the exquisite " Divertissement a 
 la Hongroise," the themes of which are the 
 Hungarian melodies he heard her humming 
 as she' went about her work. Finding that 
 there was no response from the maid, he at 
 once transferred his affections to the child 
 Caroline ; and notwithstanding the ridiculous 
 disparity of age, the hopeless disparity in rank, 
 and the general absurdity of the relation, his 
 admiration of her developed into an earnest, 
 fervent passion, which continued even to his 
 death. The child was not too young to ap- 
 preciate his genius, to admire his music, or to 
 be sincerely attached to him as a friend ; but 
 she was too young, not only to reciprocate his 
 passion, but even to conceive of it or under- 
 stand it. She went on with her music enthu- 
 siastically, and was quite as enthusiastic in her 
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT. 
 
 123 
 
 admiration of the genius of poor Schubert ; 
 thu5 continually adding to the flame she had 
 kindled in his heart without being aware of it. 
 She always remained a good friend to him, 
 and one of the most devoted admirers of his 
 songs, as well as her sister Marie, who did all 
 she could to assuage his pangs of heart when 
 he found his passion was hopeless. She was 
 not married until many years after his death. 
 Some biographers declare the age of Caroline 
 at this time to have been but seven years, 
 which would make his attachment still more 
 inexplicable. Leaving the affair of the heart, 
 however, there is no question that the young 
 Princess, as well as the whole family, exercised 
 a powerful influence upon his musical work. 
 He himself has left a record of Caroline's influ- 
 ence upon him ; for upon one occasion, being 
 reproached by her for not dedicating more of 
 his music to her, he replied in the most abrupt 
 and passionate manner, " ^^'hat is the use of 
 that, when ever}thing I A^Tite belong to you ? " 
 It was under her influence and that of her 
 sister that he ^Tote the songs, " AbendHed," 
 "Blondel zu Marien," " Ungeduld," " Des 
 Miillers Blumen," ^- Erlafsee," "Sehnsucht," 
 Am Strom," and " Der Jungling auf dem 
 Hugel," the trio in E flat. t«-o overtures for 
 
124 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 four hands, several waltzes, the " French Ro- 
 mance " in E minor, the Fantasie in F minor, 
 the Variations (op. 35), and a piano duet 
 (op. 140). All these works, besides many 
 manuscripts not yet known to the public, are 
 clearly attributable to the Esterhazy family. 
 
 Though Schubert never knew the happiness 
 of love, he has sung of it with the purest 
 ideal feeling. Though his life was clouded 
 with sadness, he has given to the world im- 
 mortal pictures in tones of the tenderest, 
 loveliest, and truest aspirations of the heart. 
 Though he died wretchedly poor in this 
 world's goods, he bequeathed to the world a 
 rich legacy, — the outpouring of a beautiful 
 soul's musical wealth. The wastes of sorrow 
 which stretch across his life were made beau- 
 tiful with exquisite flowers of song, whose 
 perfume will never be lost and whose beauty 
 will never fade. 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN. 
 
 Beneath these flowers I dream, a silent chord. 
 I cannot wake my own strings to music ; but under 
 the hands of those who comprehend me, I become 
 an eloquent friend. Wanderer, ere thou goest, try 
 me. The more trouble thou takest with me, the 
 more lovely will be the tones with which I shall 
 reward thee. — Eusebius. 
 
 HERE was but one woman to whom 
 Schumann was indebted for inspira- 
 tion ; and that was the woman who 
 was the nearest and dearest to him of all 
 women, his wife. Affianced to him by love 
 and a kindred spirit in musical genius, she 
 roused hnn to musical effort, she shared in 
 his triumphs while he was living, and, from 
 the day of his sad and untimely death until 
 now, she has revealed the beauty of his 
 music to the world. If he were a creator by 
 the divine right of genius, by the same divine 
 
126 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 right she has been the interpreter. The bond 
 of love and the affinity of music drew them 
 together in an attachment nothing but death 
 was strong enough to break. His name, his 
 fame, his memory, she has preserved, and 
 made still more beautiful by her own genius, 
 and by the force, and influence of her noble 
 womanhoo 1. Clara Schumann has kept her 
 husband's laurels green, has placed wreaths 
 of immortelles upon his grave, and has em- 
 balmed his name in an immortal love which 
 had its birth in music, and which still knows 
 no more beautiful or tender expression than 
 in the revelation of that music to the world, 
 though twenty-five years have gone since the 
 poor crazed brain ceased its work. 
 
 Clara Wieck, daughter of Friedrich Wieck, 
 the well-known teacher, who numbered such 
 musicians as Schumann, Von Biilow, Krause, 
 Spindler, and Merkel among his pupils, was 
 born in Leipsic in 1819, and is still an hon- 
 ored and favorite artist in the concert-room. 
 She commenced studying the piano with her 
 father in her fifth year, and at nine years of 
 age played in a public concert. Under her 
 father's careful tuition, — and it is a thousand 
 pities there are not more piano teachers like 
 him, — she made slow but very sure progress. 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN. 127 
 
 It was no part of his method to hurry a pupil. 
 How many teachers to-day can say with him : 
 " I have ahvays preferred a gradual, even a 
 slow development, step by step, which often 
 made no apparent progress, but which still 
 proceeded with a certain constancy and with 
 deliberation, and which was combined with 
 dreamy sensibility and a musical instinct, 
 requiring slow awakening, and even with a 
 certain flightiness, one for which the patient 
 labor and perseverance of six years or more 
 was required, and where childishness allowed 
 no encouragement to sordid speculations for 
 the future " ? In her eleventh year she also 
 commenced the study of composition with 
 Heinrich Dorn. Shortly after this she made 
 a concert-tour to Berlin, Vienna, and other 
 cities, which met with such success that it 
 decided her to adopt the concert-stage, and 
 enter upon the career of a professional artist. 
 With this purpose in view she returned to 
 Leipsic, and resumed her studies, which were 
 very comprehensive in character, including 
 technique, theory, harmony, counterpoint, 
 instrumentation, score-reading, the voice, and 
 the violin. The foundations of her future great- 
 ness as a virtuoso were laid deep and strong. 
 For five years, from 1835 to 1840, she made 
 
128 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 concert-tours, which extended her reputation 
 all over Germany and France ; and during 
 this period she did more than any other in 
 making the German people acquainted with 
 Chopin's music. All her associations and 
 surroundings were calculated to aid her in 
 her artistic career, and to prepare the way for 
 just such a success as this remarkable woman 
 has achieved in her long and honorable public 
 life as an artist. She was not only trained 
 with conscientious fidelity to the highest and 
 noblest ideals of her art, but she was brought 
 up in a musical atmosphere. At a very early 
 age the great violinist Paganini was astonished 
 at her precocity of talent, and when in Leipsic 
 played with her almost continually. In Paris 
 she heard Chopin, Liszt, Kalkbrenner, and 
 other prominent artists ; and many of their 
 works she played for the first time in Germany. 
 She had already commenced the work of 
 composition ; and in this connection a review 
 of one of her pieces, the "Soiree fiir das 
 Pianoforte," Op. 6, by Schumann himself, will 
 be interesting. He says : — 
 
 "On one side this composition betrays such 
 a tender and yet superabundant life that the 
 most silent whisper could touch it, and again 
 such riches of unusual weahh and fulness of 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN. 
 
 129 
 
 intricacies and solutions as only the most 
 experienced musicians could create. Where 
 Sebastian Bach digged his golden treasures in 
 the deepest shafts of his grand musical mines ; 
 where Beethoven, like a huge giant, flashes up 
 toward the brightest regions of the skies ; where 
 the present masters bring forth their new com- 
 binations, endeavoring to reconcile the old and 
 new, — all these unexplored regions are perfectly 
 familiar to her, and yet she chats about them 
 with the modesty of a maiden, and at the same 
 time leads one to expect so much from her that 
 one hardly knows where it all shall end. When 
 you listen to the young artist's notes on the 
 piano, interpreting her own innermost emotion, 
 one cannot imagine how it is done. It seems al- 
 most impossible that such notes, such depths of 
 feelings, can be written on paper with visible signs. 
 In reality, one cannot express with words what 
 she is. It is even impossible to describe the im- 
 pressions her playing makes, not to speak of 
 what she does to create such sensations." 
 
 There is something more than the mere criti- 
 cal spirit revealed in this eulogium. Read be- 
 tween the lines, it is not difficult to discover 
 the human passion which inspired it. 
 
 When Schumann first met Clara Wieck, she 
 was already recognized as a genius, though 
 but a child. He was a musical student of a 
 very romantic nature, exquisitely sensitive, 
 moody even to the verge of melancholy, and 
 9 
 
130 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 completely permeated with the spirit of Jean 
 Paul, whose works he had closely studied, and 
 whose influence was already visible in his let- 
 ters and other writings. It was during his 
 visit to Leipsic in 1828 that he became ac- 
 quainted with Friedrich Wieck. He formed 
 a strong attachment for him ; and the remark- 
 able musical accomplishments of his daughter 
 Clara led him to seek the same tuition that 
 had developed such skill in her case. He re- 
 quested Wieck to teach him ; and the latter 
 complied, though at this time he gave him 
 but few lessons, and these were not satisfac- 
 tory to his teacher, as Schumann kept himself 
 within the narrow range of mere facility in 
 playing, and, with the same persistence that 
 characterized him for years afterward, de- 
 clined to perfect himself in harmony. He 
 never recognized its necessity until he com- 
 menced serious work for the orchestra, and 
 then it was too late for him to reach his com- 
 plete development. During all this time he 
 had been studying law in deference to the 
 wishes of his mother, who was bent upon 
 making him a lawyer, while he was equally bent 
 upon following music as a profession. At last, 
 in 1830, he writes to her, desiring her to con- 
 sult with Wieck, saying that he will abide by 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN. 131 
 
 his decision whether he shall continue to study 
 law, or return to Leipsic and resume his musi- 
 cal studies. His mother complies with his 
 wish, and writes to Wieck : — 
 
 "All rests on your decision, — the peace of a 
 loving mother, the whole happiness for life of 
 a young and inexperienced man, who lives but 
 in a higher sphere and will have nothing to do 
 with practical life. I know that you love music. 
 Do not let your feehngs plead for Robert, but 
 consider his years, his fortune, his powers, and 
 his future." 
 
 Wieck had already considered his powers 
 and his future during the short time he had 
 taught him, and he replied at once in favor 
 of Schumann's musical plans. The mother 
 thereupon withdrew all opposition; and the 
 son enthusiastically writes to his old teacher, 
 "Trust me, I will deserve the name of your 
 scholar ; " and to his guardian, " I was born 
 for music, and will remain true to it," — a 
 promise never broken. 
 
 At Michaelmas, 1830, Schumann arrived at 
 Leipsic, and resumed his studies. At the 
 commencement of this chapter I have quoted 
 from Wieck to show that he beheved in the 
 old maxim of hastening slowly. Schumann 
 was impatient, and by over-practice in the 
 
132 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 prosecution of a system of his own devising, 
 lost the use of his right hand. This ended 
 his studies with Wieck, and his professional 
 career as a pianist. He now entered upon 
 the higher career of a composer ; upon which 
 Clara Wieck was to exercise a powerful in- 
 fluence, and also shone out speedily with re- 
 markable brilliancy as a critic in the " Neue 
 Zeitschrift fiir Musik," in the columns of which 
 Florestan, Eusebius, Raro, and Serpentinus 
 soon became as familiar as household names. 
 Schumann entered upon his work with all the 
 romance, zeal, fire, and freshness of youth. 
 He heralded Chopin as the rising star in music, 
 and first made him known by his criticisms, 
 as Clara did afterward by her interpretations 
 of his music. Jealousy was a thing unknown 
 to him. He did more than any other to es- 
 tablish the fame, not only of Chopin, but of 
 Franz, Heller, Gade, and Henselt, and was 
 one of the first to recognize the genius of 
 Berlioz, besides fighting a life-long battle for 
 Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Hiller. 
 
 Up to this time Schumann's interest in Clara 
 Wieck was purely of an artistic character ; 
 but even now she was influencing him, for in 
 1833 we find his "Impromptus" for piano 
 upon a romanza which had been published 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN. 
 
 by her. The theme was a favorite one with 
 her, and he wrote eleven variations upon it ; 
 and the next year she appears in that pictu- 
 resque and fanciful masquerade in notes, the 
 " Carnival," under the pseudonyme of " Chi- 
 arina." In 1835 ^ sonata appeared "dedi- 
 cated by Florestan and Eusebius to Clara." 
 In 1836 his interest in Clara Wieck became 
 not only artistic but personal. He fell deeply 
 in love with her, and from that moment a 
 struggle for her possession commenced. Of 
 that struggle he writes, in 1839, to Heinrich 
 Dorn : — 
 
 "There is much in my music, no doubt, that 
 might seem like a narrative of the struggle for 
 the possession of my Clara. You have probably 
 been able to understand it. These very troubles 
 have solely given the impulse to the ' Concerto,' 
 the ' Sonata,' the ' Davidsbiindlertanze,' the 
 • Kreisleriana,' and the ' Noveletten.' " 
 
 Up to 1840 Schumann had not written a 
 single song ; but after he found that she was 
 really his own, no less than one hundred and 
 thirty-eight of the most beautiful songs ever 
 written attested his happiness. The father 
 opposed their union, and it is doubtful 
 whether his passion was at first returned. 
 They were separated for some time by a 
 
134 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 concert-tour made by Clara and her father ; 
 but through a third party Schumann managed 
 to hear from her, and to this party he writes, 
 March i, 1836 : — 
 
 " Clara Wieck loves, and is loved. You might 
 easily discover it by her gentle, almost heavenly 
 look and mien. Pardon me if I omit for the 
 present her lover's name. The happy pair met, 
 saw, spoke, and became engaged, without her 
 father's knowledge. He has discovered it, would 
 cut it down, forbids all intercourse on pain of 
 death ; but they have braved him a thousand 
 times. . . . Now comes my most heartfelt prayer 
 that you will let me know all you can learn, 
 directly or indirectly, concerning Clara, her 
 feelings, and her life." 
 
 In 1837 he wrote to Wieck, asking for 
 the hand of his daughter; and his answer 
 may be inferred from the following extract 
 from a letter written to his sister-in-law, 
 Theresa : — 
 
 " The old man won't let Clara leave him yet ; 
 he 's too fond of her. And he is really in the 
 right ; for he thinks we ought to earn more 
 money first, so that we may live comfortably." 
 
 To attain that object he went to Vienna, 
 but failed in his purpose ; and he returned to 
 Leipsic, and once more sought to mollify the 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN. 135 
 
 obdurate heart of Wieck, who again refused 
 his consent. He then appealed to the law ; 
 and in 1840 the Royal Court of Appeals re- 
 quested the father to yield, which paved the 
 way to their union. In September of that 
 year he met her at Weimar at the house of a 
 friend, and their nuptials were celebrated on 
 the 1 2th of that month. In an extract already 
 made from one of his letters, it is shown that 
 the " Noveletten," the " Kinderscenen," and 
 the " Kreisleriana " were inspired by Clara 
 Wieck. It might be added that all his piano 
 compositions from 1831 to 1840 — and they 
 are very numerous — were born of his artistic 
 and personal relations to her. Not only this, 
 but she inspired all his lyrical work during the 
 year 1840, which includes the songs already 
 spoken of, revealing his inner life during this 
 period. After their marriage the real work of 
 his life began. He emancipated himself from 
 the narrow Hmits of the piano, and commenced 
 writing for the orchestra, both symphonies 
 and chamber-music. It was the real work of 
 his life ; and the symphonies he has left, par- 
 ticularly the B flat major and the E flat major 
 (the Rhenish), are eloquent suggestions of 
 what he might have accomplished, following, 
 as he did, closely in the footsteps of Beethoven, 
 
136 
 
 IVOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 had not the derangement of his mental faculties 
 brought his life to a tragic close. 
 
 Schumann had other attachments during his 
 life, — among them, those for an amateur 
 vocahst named Agnes Carus, whom he met in 
 Zwickau, and whose singing had a rare fascina- 
 tion over him ; for Clara von Kumer, daughter 
 of Dr. von Kurner, a chemist of Augsburg, of 
 whom he writes to his friend Rosen, "The 
 lovely Clara's image floats before me, both 
 sleeping and waking ; " and with Ernestine von 
 Fricken, who lived at Wieck's house in 1834, 
 and studied the piano, whose blooming per- 
 sonal charms aroused his passion. To Hen- 
 rietta Voigt, the wife of a Leipsic merchant, 
 who was a very warm and influential friend of 
 Schumann's in 1834, he writes in his Jean 
 Paulish way : — 
 
 " I was completely exhausted yesterday, and 
 your letter came. It soothed me like an angel's 
 hand; that is, for a day and night, and this 
 morning every nerve is a tear. ... Is it a weak- 
 ness to confess it? 'Tis my Ernestine whom 
 I love beyond all measure ; 't is you, Henri- 
 etta, my beloved friend. You glorious creature, 
 what can I offer in return for your supreme fa- 
 vor ? 'T is said that those who love each other 
 shall meet again in some other star, where they 
 shall live and rule alone. Let us hold this lovely 
 saying to be true." 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN. 137 
 
 Schumann sought the fair Ernestine's hand 
 in marriage, but his suit was unsuccessful. 
 Not one of these attachments, however, spe- 
 cially influenced him in musical production. 
 Clara Schumann was the genius of his life, 
 the companion, friend, and counsellor of liis 
 work, the guide and inspirer that led him to 
 his highest and most enduring efforts. Her 
 ideal of art was always the purest and loftiest. 
 As an artist she has commanded the homage 
 and admiration of the world. As a woman 
 she stands peerless in the nobiUty, dignity, 
 and beauty of her womanhood. Since her 
 husband's death she has been his faithful 
 interpreter, besides editing his works. The 
 love which crowned their lives ^^'ith so much 
 happiness, notwithstanding the cruelty of fate, 
 still remains, and keeps the memory of the 
 composer fresh by her executive tribute to 
 his genius, and her loving and skilful interpre- 
 tation of his works, which she did so much to 
 inspire and help produce. 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY. 
 
 Mendelssohn is betrothed, so is very much occu- 
 pied, but great and good as ever. No day passes in 
 which he does not utter at least two thoughts worthy 
 to be graven in gold. — Schumann. 
 
 EARLY all the great and enduring 
 music of the world has been con- 
 ceived of sorrow or born in the 
 struggle with destiny. The exercise of the 
 heroic qualities in the battle of life has called 
 out heroic music. Disappointments in life, 
 the pressure of poverty, the pangs of suffering, 
 the struggle against circumstances, and some- 
 times the spur of malicious competition, have 
 aroused qualities of character in composers 
 which have reflected themselves in their mu- 
 sic. These elements have given us majesty, 
 grandeur, and strength in music. More tran- 
 quil lives, kindly smiled upon by fate and 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, 139 
 
 lifted above all necessities, undisturbed by care 
 and untouched by sorrow, have given us 
 beautiful, graceful, elegant music, strains of 
 enticing melody, and measures of smooth, 
 flowing harmony, but rarely rising above the 
 world. They may touch the heart, but they 
 do not appeal to the soul. They may reveal 
 the beauties of the earth and sky, but they do 
 not go beyond finite boundaries, and give us 
 glimpses of the infinite. 
 
 Felix Mendelssohn's music belongs to this 
 class, and his life-currents ran in channels that 
 were never vexed by a storm. Of all com 
 posers, it might almost be said of all men, his 
 career and his experiences were the most 
 fortunate. He belonged to a family remark- 
 able for its talent in literature, philosophy, 
 music, and the plastic arts. It was, moreover, 
 a wealthy family ; so that he not only had 
 every advantage which wealth could procure 
 in his studies, but during his entire life was 
 enabled to surround himself wath luxuries, and 
 at no time was obliged to compose owing to 
 financial straits. He was brought up in an 
 atmosphere of art. The great poets, painters, 
 composers, singers, and players of Europe 
 were among the frequent and welcome visitors 
 at his home fireside. He was endowed with 
 
140 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 rare personal beauty, and was richly gifted 
 in scholarship and accomplishments of various 
 kinds, as well as in those qualities of head and 
 heart which attract a wide circle of friends and 
 admirers. There was no sorrow in his life 
 until his sister died, and then he succumbed 
 to grief and soon passed away. The smooth 
 and even tenor of his life had enervated him, 
 as it were ; and when the first blow came, it 
 crushed him. 
 
 To estimate the influences of woman upon 
 Mendelssohn's music, it is not necessary to 
 go beyond the limits of his home circle ; and 
 these influences tended to color it with the 
 same peculiarities of which we have spoken. 
 His mother, his sister, and his wife — women of 
 noble character, genial disposition, and loving 
 nature — helped to impart to his music its 
 peculiar grace and beauty. His mother first 
 discovered his talent, and gave him his first 
 lessons, and in his boyhood guided his stud- 
 ies, placed him under competent teachers, 
 and accustomed him to hear the best music 
 performed by the best musicians, with whom 
 the Mendelssohn home was always a favorite 
 resort. His sister Fanny, who afterward mar- 
 ried the painter Hensel, was a pianist and 
 composer of more than ordinary ability. In 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BAR THOLDY. 141 
 
 youth they were inseparable musical compan- 
 ions. They studied together ; they composed 
 together. Like her brother, she called about 
 herself the best musical talent in BerHn. In 
 the earlier collection of his songs, many of 
 hers appear so closely similar in feeling and 
 color that they would be indistinguishable were 
 no signature attached. Devrient says : — 
 
 " His elder sister Fanny stood musically most 
 related to him ; through her excellent nature, 
 clear sense, and rich fund of sensibility (not 
 perceptible to every one), many things were 
 made clear to him." 
 
 At the Sunday performances in the Men- 
 delssohn home, she and her brother played in 
 trios with a small orchestra which was accus- 
 tomed to assemble there. His letters con- 
 stantly bear testimony how eagerly he waited 
 for her criticisms upon his work. Their 
 musical sympathy was extraordinary, and is 
 indicated by their correspondence upon more 
 than one occasion in musical notation. Each 
 was possessed of rare sensibility, and their 
 musical affinities drew them together in a 
 companionship of heart and soul which was 
 never disturbed except by her sudden death. 
 Devrient thus tells the sad story : — 
 
142 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 " In perfect health and cheerfulness she had 
 been presiding at a vocal rehearsal for the next 
 of her Sunday performances on the afternoon of 
 May the 14th (1847). All at once she felt her 
 hands powerless at the keys, and was compelled 
 to ask a friend to take her place at the instru- 
 ment. The rehearsal proceeded. It was of the 
 choruses of the * Walpurgis Night.' She was 
 listening to them from an inner room through 
 the open doors, whilst she was fomenting her 
 hands in hot vinegar, ' How beautifully it 
 sounds ! ' she said joyfully. She thought her- 
 self restored, and was on the point of returning 
 to the music-room when a second and total 
 paralysis struck her ; she lost consciousness, 
 and had breathed her last by eleven o'clock that 
 night. . . . Upon Felix her loss fell heavier 
 than upon any one, bound up with her as he 
 was in all his musical associations from earhest 
 childhood." 
 
 Lampadius, in his " Life of Mendelssohn," 
 says of her : — 
 
 "This cherished sister, Fanny, had been the 
 companion of the great musician's pursuits dur- 
 ing the years of childhood, in the days when 
 they used to take five-minute lessons together, 
 and in later days also, when (as I have heard 
 him tell) they vied with each other which could 
 best execute a certain difficult left-hand passage 
 in Kalkbrenner's * Effusio Musica.' Had Ma- 
 dame Hensel been a poor man's daughter, she 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BAR THOLD V. 143 
 
 must have become known to the world by the 
 side of Madame Schumann and Madame Pleyel, 
 as a female pianist of the very highest class. 
 Like her brother, she had in her composition a 
 touch of that Southern vivacity which is so rare 
 among the Germans. More feminine than his, 
 her playing bore a strong family resemblance to 
 her brother's in its fire, neatness, and solidity. 
 Like himself, too, she was as generally accom- 
 plished as she was specially gifted." 
 
 He never entirely recovered from the shock 
 of her death. He secluded himself almost 
 entirely within the family circle, and always 
 seemed to be living in the presentiment of his 
 own speedy departure. The last time that he 
 had parted from her, she reproached him for 
 not spending her birthday (November 8) with 
 her. He rephed, Depend upon it, the next 
 I shall spend with you." Fanny died May 14, 
 1847. He died November 4, the same year, 
 and was with her upon her birthday. The 
 influence of such a woman, bound to him 
 by such strong ties of affection and such 
 rare musical sympathy, cannot even be es- 
 timated. When she died, his hold upon 
 music was gone. A few brief months, and 
 they listened together to the music of a 
 higher world, companions no more to be 
 separated. 
 
144 IVOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Mendelssohn's own home was full of the 
 sunshine which had always illuminated his 
 charmed life. Though a great favorite with 
 women, and sought after by many, he had 
 never contemplated marriage until the death of 
 his father. The latter had always been anxious 
 that his son should marry happily, and thus 
 have the influences of a pleasant home sur- 
 rounding him, and affecting his music. Only a 
 few days after the funeral, knowing his father's 
 wishes, he told his sister Fanny that he was 
 resolved to marry. The event came speedily. 
 In the summer of 1836 he was in Frankfort, 
 conducting the Cecilia Society, and giving his 
 " St. Paul " and some of the works of Handel. 
 During his stay he had been introduced to the 
 family of Madame Jeanrenaud, the widow of a 
 minister of the French Reformed Church in 
 that city. She was living with her children 
 in her parents' home. The oldest daughter, 
 Cecilia, at once attracted him. Devrient de- 
 scribes her as follows : — 
 
 " Cecilia was one of those sweet, womanly 
 natures, whose gentle simplicity, whose mere 
 presence, soothed and pleased. She was slight, 
 with features of striking beauty and delicacy. 
 Her hail* was between brown and gold ; but the 
 transcendent lustre of her great blue eyes and 
 the brilliant roses of her cheeks were sad har- 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BAR THOLD Y, 145 
 
 bingers of early death. She spoke little, and 
 never with animation, in a low, soft voice. The 
 friends of Felix had every reason to hope that 
 his choice would secure repose to his restless 
 spirit, and happy leisure for thought and work 
 in his home." 
 
 And this was so, for never was there a hap- 
 pier home. The enthusiastic Ehse Polko says 
 of her : — 
 
 "Cecilia Jeanrenaud, whose mother belonged 
 to a distinguished emigrant family, was at that 
 period considered one of the most beautiful girls 
 in Frankfort, always so rich in female charms, 
 where indeed to this day, as in Saxony, 'fair 
 maidens grow on every tree ; ' and when I now 
 recall her image as I first saw her, though some 
 time after her marriage, I feel that to this present 
 hour she has always remained my beau ideal of 
 womanly fascination and loveliness. Her figure 
 was slight, of middle height, and rather droop- 
 ing, like a flower heavy with dew ; her luxuriant 
 golden-brown hair fell in rich curls on her shoul- 
 ders ; her complexion was of transparent delicacy, 
 her smile charming; and she had the most be- 
 witching deep-blue eyes I ever beheld, with dark 
 eyelashes and eyebrows." 
 
 Such was the fair vision that presented itself 
 to Mendelssohn during his visits, which became 
 more and more frequent and quickly resulted 
 in betrothal and marriage. Of their court- 
 10 
 
146 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 ship, Hiller, in his delightful "Reminiscences," 
 says : — 
 
 " His visits became more and more frequent, 
 but he always behaved with such reserve towards 
 his chosen one, that, as she once laughingly told 
 me, in her husband's presence, for several weeks 
 she did not imagine herself to be the cause of 
 Mendelssohn's visits, but thought he came for the 
 sake of her mother, who, indeed, with her youthful 
 vivacity, cleverness and refinement, chattering 
 away in the purest Frankfort dialect, was ex- 
 tremely attractive. But though during this early 
 time Felix spoke but little to Cecilia, when away 
 from her he talked of her all the more. Lying 
 on the sofa in my room after dinner, or taking 
 long walks in the mild summer nights with Dr. 
 S. and myself, he would rave about her charm, 
 her grace, and her beauty. There was nothing 
 overstrained in him, either in his life or in his 
 art. He would pour out his heart about her in 
 the most charmingly frank and artless way, often 
 full of fun and gayety ; then again with deep feel- 
 ing, but never with any exaggerated sentimen- 
 tahty or uncontrolled passion. It was easy to 
 see what a serious thing it was ; for one could 
 hardly get him to talk of anything which did not 
 touch upon her more or less." 
 
 Their intercourse was one of the purest 
 love. Their home was always a happy one, 
 and the centre of attraction for all the great 
 artists of his time. She was a good singer, 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN BAR THOLD V. 147 
 
 was possessed of more than ordinary musical 
 intelligence, sympathized with and encouraged 
 him in his work, and rejoiced in his triumphs. 
 She understood him, and she prized him at 
 his real value. Slight as she was in physique, 
 and calm and gentle as she was in her bearing, 
 her spirit was more heroic than his. In all 
 other regards she was his complement. She 
 cared for him until his last moment, and strong 
 in her very tenderness accepted his death 
 with resignation and heroism. Of the funeral 
 Devrient says, — 
 
 "When the church was almost deserted, a 
 female form in deep mourning was led to the 
 bier. She sank down beside it, and remained 
 long in prayer. It was Cecilia, taking her last 
 farewell of the earthly remains of Felix. She 
 knew that she would not long survive him." 
 
 She lived but five years longer, and those 
 years were lovingly and faithfully devoted to 
 the care and education of his children. Then 
 she passed quietly away, and, like her illustri- 
 ous husband, was buried with imposing musi- 
 cal ceremonies. 
 
 The influences of mother, sister, and wife, 
 all led Mendelssohn in the same direction of 
 beauty and grace of style, rather than of great 
 strength. His life never knew but one pang. 
 
148 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 and that was the last one. It was never 
 clouded by any sorrows except such as are 
 the common lot ; and for these he had not 
 the common endurance. It was a life without 
 regrets and without reproach, and therefore a 
 life without great moments or great struggles 
 that call out the deepest and best that is in 
 human effort. He imparted to his music his 
 own elegance and grace ; and it reflects also 
 the gentleness, the sweetness, the loveliness, 
 and the beauty of mother, sister, and wife. 
 
FREDERICK CHOPIN. 
 
 Chopin died slowly, consuming himself in the 
 flames of his own genius. ... He was a poet of a 
 mournful soul, full of reserve and complicated mys- 
 tery, and familiar with the stern face of sorrow. He 
 constantly reminded us of a convolvulus balancing 
 its heaven-colored cup on an incredibly slight stem, 
 the tissue of which is so like vapor that the slightest 
 contact wounds and tears the misty corolla. — Liszt. 
 
 HE very name of Chopin suggests 
 the name of woman, and of one 
 woman more than any other, — 
 George Sand. Liszt says his music is cannons 
 buried in flowers. He himself was buried 
 beneath an exterior of elegant hauteur and 
 graceful courtesy, and no one ever penetrated 
 to his inner self but the woman who was at 
 once his good and evil genius. Under this 
 goodly exterior was an imagination of exquisite 
 
150 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 fineness and power ; feelings, though pent up, 
 that raged at times like a volcano ; a physical 
 constitution enervated and undermined by 
 disease ; a pride so sensitive and so secretive 
 that it allowed but one to intrude upon him 
 or to peer into his inner life ; a dread of 
 human contact, not from hatred of men, but 
 from the very fineness of his organization, 
 that made him a stranger even among his 
 friends. Such conflicting qualities of mind 
 and body marked him out for suffering ; but 
 his suffering was concealed, as well as the 
 real character of his life. 
 
 There is scarcely an event of Chopin's life, 
 scarcely a phase of his passion or his tempera- 
 ment, hardly a phrase of his music, that is not 
 related to woman. It was in his Paris salon, 
 surrounded by lovely women, that he impro- 
 vised so enchantingly. Almost every piece 
 he has written was inspired of woman, and is 
 dedicated to her. The finest interpreters of 
 his music have been women. It was Clara 
 Schumann who first really made Germany 
 acquainted with it, as it was Robert Schumann 
 who first proclaimed his genius in a critical 
 manner. His passion itself was peculiarly 
 feminine, as appears very clearly from his 
 relations to George Sand. A woman's voice 
 
FREDERICK CHOPIN. 151 
 
 was the last sound he heard, as she sang in 
 his dying chamber. 
 
 There are but two sources to which we can 
 go for information that is authoritative as to 
 the events of Chopin's life, and that bears 
 directly upon the subject of woman's influ- 
 ence, — Liszt's so-called biography, which is 
 in the nature of a rhapsody ; and the biog- 
 raphy recently written by M. Karasowsky, 
 which may be considered reliable, though in 
 some parts highly colored. 
 
 Liszt has drawn a fascinating picture of his 
 earlier attachments, especially his love for a 
 young lady who never ceased to feel a rev- 
 erential homage for him," but was lost to him 
 by the more intense and fatal passion which 
 George Sand kindled. Liszt says : — 
 
 " This young Polish lady, unfortunately sep- 
 arated from Chopin, remained faithful to his 
 memory, to all that was left of him. She devoted 
 herself to his parents. The father of Chopin 
 would never suffer the portrait which she had 
 drawn of him in the days of hope to be replaced 
 by another, done by the hands of afar more skilful 
 artist. We saw the pale cheeks of this melan- 
 choly woman glow like alabaster when a light 
 shines through its snow, many years afterward, 
 when, in gazing upon this picture, she met the 
 eyes of his father." 
 
152 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 At the house of the Princess Czetwertynska 
 in Warsaw, a lady who was a passionate 
 admirer of music, and who appreciated his 
 playing and his talent of composition, he met 
 with a group of young and noble ladies, — 
 among them the Princess of Lowicz, the 
 Countess Zamoyska, the Princess Radizwill, 
 the Princess Jablonowska, and others, — who 
 exercised a powerful influence upon him. 
 Liszt bears testimony to this influence in the 
 following glowing words : — 
 
 "As these visions of his youth deepened in 
 the long perspective of memories, they gained 
 in grace, in charm, in delight in his eyes, fasci- 
 nating him to such an extent that no reality 
 could destroy their secret power over his imagi- 
 nation, rendering his repugnance more and more 
 unconquerable to that license of allurement, that 
 brutal tyranny of caprice, that eagerness to drink 
 the cup of fantasy to the very dregs, that stormy 
 pursuit of all the changes and incongruities of 
 life, which rule in the strange mode of life known 
 as La BohhneP 
 
 In 1830, at Nice, he met three beautiful and 
 accompHshed Polish ladies, Marie, Nathalie, 
 and Delphine, daughters of Count Comar. 
 They subsequently married wealthy noblemen ; 
 and in their elegant Paris salons Chopin was a 
 frequent visitor, and the centre of admiration 
 
FREDERICK CHOPIN. 153 
 
 and attraction. Their friendship for him was 
 enthusiastic and lasting, and helped to in- 
 spire him to loftier effort than ever before ; 
 and one of them, Delphine, then the Countess 
 Potocka, was with him in his dying moments, 
 sustaining and glorifying them with her lovely 
 voice. 
 
 His connection with George Sand cannot 
 be called an episode. From the moment that 
 he felt the weird fascination of this enchantress, 
 he was completely in her power. She ruled 
 his Hfe. She changed its currents, directed 
 its purposes, controlled its destiny, absorbed 
 his very existence, until, in a fatal moment, he 
 asked what it was impossible for her to grant ; 
 and then she left him, as one writer coolly 
 says, "to his cough and his piano." 
 
 It were a difficult task to analyze the strange 
 relations between George Sand and Chopin, 
 because the two natures had little in common. 
 The one was prosaic, virile, coarse, and un- 
 conventional ; the other was poetical, feminine, 
 delicate, and sensitive. They were alHed in 
 the possession of genius and in the recogni- 
 tion of what was beautiful ; beyond this they 
 touched at no point. The narratives of Liszt 
 and Karasowski, so far as they cover this 
 period of his life, though differing in view, for 
 
154 IVOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Liszt himself had felt the influence of George 
 Sand, are extremely interesting. Liszt draws 
 an attractive picture of the coterie of poets 
 and artists who were wont to assemble in 
 Chopin's salon, among w^hom not one more 
 clearly recognized his genius than George 
 Sand. " After having named Madame Sand, 
 whose energetic personality and electric genius 
 inspired the frail and dehcate organization of 
 Chopin with an intensity of admiration which 
 consumed him, as a wine too spirituous shat- 
 ters the fragile vase, we cannot now call up 
 other names from the dim limbus of the 
 past," says Liszt. She was naturally anxious 
 to establish a friendship with Chopin, for she 
 shared with him his intense admiration of the 
 beautiful ; but he at first shrank from her, for 
 his melancholy, sensitiveness, exclusiveness, 
 tenderness, ideality, and sincere religious feel- 
 ing were all repulsed by her boldness, energy, 
 unconventionality, and masculine nature : but 
 the acquaintance which she forced upon him 
 at last dissipated all his fears ; and, as might 
 be expected of such a nature, once devoted 
 to an object, he concentrated himself with all 
 the strength of that nature upon it, and was 
 utterly absorbed by his ideal. Henceforth 
 George Sand was to him a fatal necessity. 
 
FREDERICK CHOPIN. 
 
 In 1836 his health began to decline. A 
 year later he was seized with a dangerous ill- 
 ness, and was advised to go South, where he 
 would have the benefit of a balmier climate. 
 He selected the island of Majorca, and Ma- 
 dame Sand accompanied him. Under her 
 care and the influences of the climate he im- 
 proved. " He breathed there that air," says 
 Liszt, "for which natures unsuited for the 
 world, and never feeling themselves happy in 
 it, long with such a painful homesickness." 
 She herself says : — 
 
 The funereal oppression which secretly un- 
 dermined the spirit of Chopin, destroying and 
 corroding all contentment, gradually vanished. 
 He permitted the amiable character, the cheer- 
 ful serenity of his friend, to chase sad thoughts 
 and mournful presentiments away, and to breathe 
 new force into his intellectual being." 
 
 For a time Chopin was happy, and Madame 
 Sand was his inspiration. In her " Lucrezia 
 Floriani," where he figures as Prince Karol, 
 she says : — 
 
 "He was no longer upon 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 him- 
 self; and if, upon the radiant prism in whose 
 
15^ WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 contemplation he forgot all else, the magic lan- 
 tern of the outer world would ever cast its 
 disturbing shadow, he felt deeply pained." 
 
 The dream, however, was suddenly dissi- 
 pated. Liszt does not tell the cause, but it is 
 well known. He desired her to marry him. 
 His nature was all love. Love was his life. 
 Madame Sand says : — 
 
 " He loved for the sake of loving. No amount 
 of suffering was sufficient to discourage him. He 
 could enter upon a new phase, that of woe ; but 
 the phase of coldness he could never arrive at." 
 
 To transform a passionate friendship into a 
 pure love was an impossible thing for her. 
 They separated, and that separation strained 
 and rent every cord that bound him to hfe. 
 As Liszt says, — 
 
 " His last pleasure seemed to be the memory 
 of the blasting of his last hope ; he treasured 
 the bitter knowledge that under this fatal spell 
 his life was ebbing fast away. He seemed to 
 inhale the poison rapidly and eagerly, that he 
 might thus shorten the time in which he would 
 be forced to breathe it. Only a short time be- 
 fore he died, he wrote to a Polish friend : ' It is 
 the end. I am only vegetating, and awaiting the 
 last of it. I have never cursed any one, but now 
 I am so worn and weary of life that I am now 
 
FREDERICK CHOPIN. 157 
 
 ready to curse that Lucrezia. But she suffers as 
 well : ill-fortune devours her daily.' " 
 
 M. Karasowski's version differs somewhat 
 from that of Liszt. According to the later 
 biographer, chance brought him to Paris, and 
 face to face with the woman who from that 
 moment cast a dark and fatal shadow upon 
 his life. One rainy day, in a fit of despon- 
 dency, he travelled about the streets of Paris ; 
 and suddenly, remembering it was reception- 
 day at a house where he was always a welcome 
 guest, he turned his steps thither. As he 
 mounted the stairs he fancied he was fol- 
 lowed by a shadow from which there came a 
 strong perfume of violets (his favorite flowers). 
 He was about to retrace his steps, as if it were 
 an ill-omen ; but, smiling at his fears, entered 
 the salon. He took his seat in a corner aside 
 from the company, preferring to listen and be 
 a spectator ; but upon being pressed to play, 
 he went to the piano and improvised. As 
 he finished he became aware that a plainly 
 dressed woman, leaning upon the other end 
 of the piano, was gazing at him with a bold- 
 ness and intensity that made him redden. A 
 few minutes later she was introduced to him 
 by Liszt as George Sand. His first feeling 
 was aversion. In writing home about her, he 
 
158 WOMAN IN MUSIC 
 
 says her features are coarse, and her voice 
 harsh and masculine. She glowingly praised 
 his playing, and each time she met him cun- 
 ningly flattered him, until at last he was madly 
 in love with her. Karasowski's narrative of 
 their Hfe in Majorca does not agree with 
 Liszt's. According to the former, he was 
 thoroughly uncomfortable and unhappy dur- 
 ing the stay, and returned to Paris worse off 
 in health than when he left. As his health 
 declined, Madame Sand's passion for him 
 cooled; and at last she found an occasion 
 to quarrel with him, and he left her, vowing 
 never to return. Some time after he met her 
 at a friend's house. She held out her hand, 
 and softly said " Frederick," as if she would 
 be reconciled, but he turned away from her 
 without recognition. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve has perhaps given the most 
 reasonable explanation of the rupture between 
 them. She felt a man's passion towards him, 
 he felt a woman's love towards her ; she was 
 a woman of masculine nature, he was a man 
 of feminine nature. When he proposed mar- 
 riage her passion cooled, and she was ready 
 to leave him as she had left others. His 
 nature, being feminine, imposed upon him the 
 female torture of endurance. Her attach- 
 
FREDERICK CHOPIN. 
 
 ment was in one sense a coarse one, to be 
 ended at any moment by caprice or whim ; 
 his was an absorption profound and unalter- 
 able : he was not necessary to her ; she was 
 necessary to him. It was a union of two na- 
 tures with nothing in common, — most fatal 
 of all mistakes. The cruelty of this relation 
 was the first fascination ; a grotesque and un- 
 necessary episode of it was the manner in 
 which she has drawn his picture in the least 
 attractive of all her works, " Lucrezia Flori- 
 ani ; " the hopelessness of it was her refusal 
 to marry, — a shock which his sensitive, affec- 
 tionate nature could not sustain; then fol- 
 lowed the natural results to such a nature, — 
 decline, despair, death. 
 
 His last hours were consoled and comforted 
 by a tender, lo\'ing woman, who had been his 
 friend and admirer before he came under the 
 fatal influence of George Sand. Liszt touch- 
 ingly and beautifully describes the scene : — 
 
 "On Sunday, the 15th of October (1849), his 
 attacks were more violent and frequent, lasting 
 for several hours in succession. He endured 
 them with patience and great strength of mind. 
 The Countess Delphine Potocka, who was pres- 
 ent, was much distressed ; her tears were flow- 
 ing fast, when he observed her standing at the 
 foot of his bed, tall, slight, draped in white. 
 
l6o WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 resembling the beautiful angels created by the 
 imagination of the most devout among the 
 painters. Without doubt he supposed her to be 
 a celestial apparition ; and when the crisis left 
 him a moment in repose, he requested her to 
 sing. They deemed him at first seized with 
 delirium, but he eagerly repeated his request. 
 Who could have ventured to oppose his wish ? 
 The piano was rolled from his parlor to the door 
 of his chamber, while, with sobs in her voice 
 and tears streaming down her cheeks, his gifted 
 countrywoman sang. Certainly this delightful 
 voice had never before attained an expression 
 so full of profound pathos. He seemed to suffer 
 less as he listened. She sang that famous can- 
 ticle to the Virgin which, it is said, once saved 
 the life of Stradella. ' How beautiful it is !' he 
 exclaimed. ' My God, how very beautiful ! 
 Again — again!' Though overwhelmed with 
 emotion, the Countess had the noble courage to 
 comply with the last wish of her friend, a com- 
 patriot ; she again took a seat at the piano, 
 and sang a hymn from Marcello. . . . The 
 sacred silence was only broken by the voice of 
 the Countess floating like a melody from heaven, 
 above the sighs and sobs which formed its 
 heavy and mournful earth-accompaniment." 
 
 Two days later he died; and his last act 
 was in accordance with the love and courtesy 
 which had always characterized him. He 
 bent his head, and kissed the hand of his 
 friend Gutman, and quietly fell into the 
 
FREDERICK CHOPIN. 
 
 i6i 
 
 dreamless sleep, leaving behind him a legacy of 
 music, which, though small as compared with 
 the works of other composers whom we have 
 considered, is of imperishable beauty, and 
 bears trace on every page of woman's love 
 and influence, — trace, too, of woman's fatal 
 spell, darkening and destroying. 
 
 i I 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. 
 
 May God still grant me the blessing which he has 
 hitherto so graciously accorded me, that I may have 
 the power to make the dear one happy, and, as a 
 brave artist, bring honor and advantage to my father- 
 land ! Amen ! — Weber's Diary. 
 
 RIDOLIN VON WEBER, steward 
 to the noble family of Schonau- 
 Zella, grandfather of the composer 
 of Der Freischiitz," had two sons. The 
 elder became the father of Constance, the 
 wife of Mozart ; the younger, Franz Anton, 
 the father of Carl Maria ; so that the two 
 eminent composers were cousins by mar- 
 riage. Franz Anton's first wife was Maria 
 Anna von Fumetti, daughter of the Court 
 Financial Counsellor at Cologne, who died in 
 1783, worn out with the vagaries, eccentri- 
 cities, and dissipations of her husband, who 
 was a member of a strolling company of 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. 163 
 
 comedians. Two years afterward, being then 
 in his fiftieth year, he married Genofeva von 
 Brenner, a pretty girl of sixteen, who was 
 destined to become the mother of Carl Maria. 
 For years the child was carried by his patient, 
 suffering mother in the company of the stroll- 
 ing comedians, surrounded by the worst of 
 influences, and cared for, trained, and edu- 
 cated by her alone, until at last her health 
 was shattered, and she fell into a decline. 
 She died in 1798, and Franz Anton's sister 
 Adelheid took the boy under her protection. 
 She was a maiden lady of excellent judgment 
 and kindly heart, and filled the mother's part 
 in shielding him from the contaminations all 
 about him, besides superintending his edu- 
 cation. The influence of these two women 
 upon the future of the child placed under 
 such unfavorable circumstances was powerful 
 for good, and unquestionably laid the founda- 
 tions of his future fame. 
 
 In his eighteenth year Carl Maria, then 
 earning a precarious living by teaching, made 
 the acquaintance of Fraulein von Belonde, 
 maid of honor to the Duchess Louise of 
 Wiirtemberg, wife of Prince Eugene Fried- 
 rich, resident at Carlsruhe. She is described 
 as an admirable piano-forte player. Impressed 
 
1 64 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 with the beauty of Weber's improvising, and 
 sympathizing with his unfortunate circum- 
 stances, she became much interested in him 
 and determined to aid him, and succeeded so 
 well that she secured for him the position of 
 musical director to the Prince, who not only 
 took Weber himself, but liis old worthless 
 father and his good aunt Adelheid into his 
 own house and kindly cared for them. Their 
 stay, however, was not of long duration. The 
 tide of war broke up their asylum. Weber 
 drifted about for some time, almost hopelessly 
 in debt and drowning his troubles in excesses 
 of dissipation, until in 1807 he found himself 
 in the service of Prince Ludwig and his wife, 
 a princess of Nassau- Weilburg. He was in- 
 trusted with the musical education of their 
 children ; and, says his son in his excellent 
 biography, "to this new position of the 
 young composer are probably owing not only 
 the ' six pieces a quatre mains ' dedicated to 
 the Princess Ludwig, but many others of his 
 brilliant instrumental works belonging to this 
 period." It was about this time that he wrote 
 his opera " Sylvana " for King Friedrich's the- 
 atre, — an event which played an important 
 part in his hfe, as it brought him in contact 
 with Gretchen Lang, one of the singers, — 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. 165 
 
 " the charming, winning, coquettish Httle ser- 
 pent," with whom he became speedily fasci- 
 nated. His biographer says : — 
 
 " She became the central point of all his life 
 and aspirations. There is no evidence to show 
 to what degree of intimacy this union of the two 
 young fiery artist-natures was carried. It is 
 certain, however, that from the time Carl Maria 
 made Gretchen Lang's acquaintance, he seldom 
 quitted her side." 
 
 It was an unfortunate attachment in every 
 way. It brought down upon him the dis- 
 pleasure of his patron, secured for him the 
 enmity of the King, and plunged him deeply 
 into debt. Creditors pursued him, and at last 
 he was sent to the debtors' prison. To crown 
 his misfortunes came an order from the King 
 that he should be transported beyond the 
 boundaries of Wiirtemberg. In Frankfort he 
 subsequently met Gretchen again, but her 
 passion for him had cooled. He sought in 
 vain to renew the old relations. They spent 
 their last evening together at a concert, and 
 in this moment of adieu to her he had loved 
 so passionately he saw for the first time the one 
 who was destined to be his wife. This was 
 Caroline Brandt, who was the solo singer on 
 the occasion. A few days later his opera 
 
1 66 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 " Sylvana " was put in rehearsal. Gretchen 
 was engaged at the theatre, but she refused 
 to sing. The title role was given to Caroline 
 Brandt, and it was due mainly to her efforts 
 that the opera was successful. The composer 
 was loudly called for at the close, and Caroline 
 led him forward to receive the applause of the 
 people. As his son says : — 
 
 " Little did the youth then know that the hand 
 which clasped his was one day to be his own for 
 life ; that from that hand he was destined to 
 receive his life's greatest happiness." 
 
 Many tribulations, however, were in store for 
 Weber before he reached that important event 
 in his life. 
 
 His prospects meanwhile were brightening. 
 We next find him in Munich, with his new opera 
 " Abu Hassan." Its rehearsals brought him in 
 contact with the female artists and with a crowd 
 of admirers who lavished their blandishments 
 upon him. He passed a gay life among them ; 
 but the general result could not have been 
 very favorable, for in his diary at this time he 
 constantly writes : All women are worthless," 
 " All are bad alike." From a musical point of 
 view, however, female influence added to his 
 productivity and inspired his work. About 
 this time he paid a visit to the Bavarian min- 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. 167 
 
 ister at Jegisdorf, and while there wrote his 
 brilliant scena and aria from Athahe," for the 
 singer Frau Peyermann, an inmate of the 
 house, to whose charms Weber was peculiarly 
 susceptible. Had his visit been a prolonged 
 one, the destiny of Caroline Brandt might 
 have been disturbed ; for his next work for the 
 singer was the " Kunsder's Liebesforderung " 
 (" The Artist's Declaration of Love "), one of 
 the most beautiful of all his songs. Weber 
 next appears in Prague as opera-director, busy 
 with the rehearsals of Spontini's " Cortez." 
 In the troupe was a dancer named Brunetti, 
 who had been married for many years to a 
 woman who had risen from the ballet to light 
 operatic roles. Weber's son says of her : — 
 
 " She was the mother of several children, but 
 still possessed a considerable charm in her fine, 
 plump figure, and her beautiful blue eyes. She 
 was as full of the absurdest tricks and caprices 
 as she was lively and impetuous in tempera- 
 ment ; and that her reputation of being a mis- 
 tress of all the finest arts of coquetry did not 
 belie her, Weber had soon to learn to his 
 cost. Thdr^se Brunetti was fond of attending 
 the operatic rehearsals, even when not her- 
 self employed. On these occasions Weber was 
 frequently thrown in her way ; and he soon 
 conceived for the handsome, seductive woman 
 
i68 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 a passion which seemed to have deprived his 
 otherwise clear mind of all common sense and 
 reason, and which neither the flood of adminis- 
 trative affairs nor the cold breath of duty could 
 extinguish. Vain were all his efforts to conceal 
 it. In a very short time it became the topic 
 of general remark ; excited the ridicule or grave 
 anxieties of his friends ;* involved him in a 
 thousand disagreeable positions ; robbed him of 
 the most precious treasures of a heart rich in 
 love; lowered his moral character, without the 
 slightest compensating advantage to his artistic 
 career ; and wellnigh dragged him down into 
 an abyss beyond hope of rescue." 
 
 There is no doubt that Weber was thor- 
 oughly infatuated wath this woman, and there 
 is equally no doubt that she led him a life of 
 torment. His diary is full of his troubles 
 growing out of this relation, and lamentations 
 over her unworthiness and his own folly ; but 
 still she kept him in slavery to her charms. 
 His deliverance, however, was near at hand. 
 Caroline Brandt arrived in Prague, and on 
 the ist of January, 1814, appeared on the 
 stage under Weber's direction. I take the 
 story of her debut and what followed from his 
 son's biography : — 
 
 " Caroline Brandt was small and plump in 
 figure, with beautiful, expressive gray eyes and 
 fair wavy hair, and a peculiar liveliness in all 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. 169 
 
 her movements. Her first appearance on the 
 stage at Prague at once decided her position in 
 that capital. 
 
 *'The honor of a recall before the curtain — 
 an honor in those days seldom bestowed — was 
 awarded to her ; and from the first, many of 
 her competitors, among whom was naturally 
 Therese Brunetti, began to look on her askance. 
 This feeling of jealousy was soon increased. 
 When introduced by Weber into the houses of 
 Count Colowrat, Prince Lobkowitz, and others 
 of the first families of Prague, she was welcomed 
 there with the distinction due not only to her 
 great artistic merits and her innate charms, 
 but to the purity and worth of her moral charac- 
 ter. Weber was thus thrown greatly in her com- 
 pany. He could not but feel the magic power 
 of so fascinating a woman ; he could not but 
 draw comparisons, little by little., between the 
 worthless object of his passion, — to whom, by 
 a strange coincidence, Caroline Brandt bore a 
 vague resemblance in fresher, younger form, — 
 and this pure, bright, ardess creature. Still, 
 during the commencement of the year 18 14 no 
 traces are to be found of any diminution of his 
 passion for the coquettish, artful Therese Bru- 
 netti. He suffered bitterly, it is true, from her 
 deceptions, her sordidness, her infidelities ; but 
 his heart yearned for love, and clung with des- 
 peration to the rotten plank on which he had 
 stored all his hopes of requited affection. In 
 the months of Januan,- and February there still 
 appear in his note-book such remarks as, ' I was 
 ver)- sad : but she was good to me, and I was 
 
170 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC, 
 
 content.' * I found Calina with Thdrese, and I 
 could scarce conceal the fearful rage that burned 
 in me.' 'No joy without her, and yet with her 
 only sorrow ! ' 
 
 " But the unworthy bond was at last to be 
 broken; and the release was effected by two 
 comparatively trifling circumstances. The ten- 
 der lover, on the birthday of the object of his 
 passion, had prepared for her a present, con- 
 sisting of a gold watch, to which were appended 
 a variety of trinkets, all chosen with symbolical 
 reference to his deep affection. At the same 
 time he had ordered her a dish of oysters, then 
 a rare and costly delicacy in Prague. To the 
 valuable watch the fair Therese paid little heed, 
 still less to the profound meaning of the sym- 
 bolical trinkets. She flung herself upon the 
 oysters with a gluttony which disgusted the senti- 
 mental lover. On a sudden the scales fell from 
 his eyes. The other circumstance was not per- 
 haps so trifling. Weber had long remarked, with 
 all the pangs of the most fearful jealousy, the 
 marked attentions paid by Therese to a certain 
 Calina, often alluded to in his notes, — a man 
 of substance. Although this affair had become 
 a matter of town talk and scandal, the infatuated 
 adorer had still followed in the train of the de- 
 lusive woman, until she herself announced to 
 him, with the utmost coolness, that she had 
 been offered, with her husband, an apartment 
 in Calina's house, and had accepted it. This 
 utter want of delicacy of feeling toward him re- 
 volted Weber. For once disdain overmastered 
 passion. Still more irritated was he when he 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. I 71 
 
 learned the foul advice given by The'rese to 
 Caroline Brandt, for whom the banker Klein- 
 wachter showed a preference. ' Hold him fast,' 
 had said the worldly-minded woman ; 'he is 
 worth the trouble, for he is rich.' All this 
 might have failed in opening the eyes of a man 
 so utterly blinded by mad passion, had he not 
 had a little physician by his side, who had the 
 best means of curing his disorder by the sweet- 
 est homoeopathic medicaments, which doubtless 
 had already begun to work their spell." 
 
 It was not long before his passion for 
 Theresa Bninetti was extinguished. Caroline 
 charmed him more and more as he became 
 acquainted with her ; and at last he was allowed 
 to pay his court to her, not, however, without 
 rousing the demon of jealousy in Therese. 
 She used every wile and fascination to gain 
 him back. It was a long, hard struggle ; but 
 she failed. But now a fresh trouble arose ; for 
 Caroline was of a jealous disposition also, and 
 the knowledge of his past relation to Therese, 
 as well as the sight of her efforts to beguile 
 him, very nearly ended the new love as well 
 as the composer. Between the two charmers 
 he was prostrated \dth trouble and bodily ail- 
 ments, which had this good effect, however, 
 that they removed him from the neighborhood 
 of Therese's fascinations. By the advice of 
 
172 
 
 IVOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 his friends he went to the baths of Friedland, 
 and was thus released from the one tyrant and 
 was able to devote himself more assiduously 
 to the other. His ardent letters to Caroline 
 soon smoothed over all difficulties, and re- 
 moved her doubts of him for several weeks. 
 They arose once more, however, before he 
 returned to Prague, when she heard that he 
 was again the centre of an admiring group. 
 She tormented him with a letter on the subject, 
 to which he answered : — 
 
 " Be pacified. The attention ladies show me 
 is but the amusement or the affectation of the 
 hour. There is no thought of love in it, my 
 child. You must not suppose all other women 
 have the same bad taste as you. The embra- 
 ces of dear old Mamma Beer can surely be 
 no reproach to me. My lips, eyes, and ears 
 might all be subjected to the most inquisitorial 
 examination." 
 
 Thus the two lovers were harassed by storm 
 after storm. At last came a period of rest. 
 Then scandal began to assail Caroline. She 
 was charged with maintaining improper con- 
 nections with Weber. To rescue her from 
 this cowardly assault, he implored her to 
 marry him at once. Acting upon the advice 
 of her mother, she replied that she must have 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. i 73 
 
 time to reflect whether she was ready to give 
 up her art. Her answer led to a bitter quarrel 
 between them, which was still further intensi- 
 fied by a fresh fit of jealousy on her part, 
 owing to the a-lleged attentions which he had 
 bestowed upon an actress named Christine 
 Bohler, though there were no grounds for her 
 suspicions. Overwhelmed with his troubles, 
 he precipitately left Prague and went to Mu- 
 nich. During his stay in that city he received 
 a letter from Caroline saying that it was 
 best the engagement between them should 
 be severed. He hurried back to Prague, and 
 at their very first meeting the tie was renewed, 
 never to be broken again ; and with her con- 
 sent public announcement was made of their 
 formal engagement. From this moment his 
 creative power reasserted itself, and song after 
 song came from his pen, inspired by her love, 
 while new positions of honor and distinction 
 were offered him. 
 
 From this time also her influence is clearly 
 apparent upon his musical work, particularly 
 in his masterpiece, that flower of German 
 operas, "Der Freischiitz." He consulted her 
 constantly, both in the preparation of the 
 libretto and of the score ; and her suggestions 
 heightened its beauty and wonderful dramatic 
 
174 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 power. He called her his " public with two 
 eyes," and when it was finished he said to her 
 in a note : — 
 
 The whole has now a far better effect, and 
 I must thank you for that, my poppet. Your 
 ideas were bold, but they have succeeded." 
 
 On the 4th of November, 1818, the fete- 
 day of the affianced pair, they were married 
 at Prague, and on that day he writes in his 
 diary : — 
 
 " May God bless our union, and grant me 
 power and strength to make my beloved Lina 
 as happy and contented as my inmost heart 
 would desire! May his mercy lead me in all 
 my doings ! " 
 
 Though she was still occasionally harassed 
 by jealous doubts of him when he was absent 
 from her, their life was a very happy one. 
 
 In 1826, shattered in health, he left for 
 London, whence he was destined never to 
 return. As his wife heard the carriage door 
 close, on the cold winter morning that he left 
 home, she rushed to her room, sank upon her 
 knees, and cried out in the bitterness of her 
 soul, " It is his coffin I heard closed upon 
 him." The only tie between them now was 
 that of correspondence. His son says : — 
 
CARL MARIA VON WEBER. 175 
 
 "Nothing can be more touching than these 
 letters, amounting in all to fifty-three, in wliich 
 the sufferer was always striving to conceal, as 
 far as he could, his sufferings ; the anxious wo- 
 man, left behind, always repressing her own 
 bitter anguish lest it should increase the other's 
 sorrow." 
 
 In another place his son says : — 
 
 " On the morning after the first representa- 
 tion of ' Oberon,' Weber lay exhausted in his 
 easy-chair, when Fiirstenau entered his room 
 with a new potion. ' Go, go ! ' murmured the 
 sufferer. 'No doctor's tinkering can help me 
 now ; the machine is shattered. But, ah ! would 
 but God in his mercy grant that it might hold 
 together till I could embrace my Lina and my 
 boys once more ! ' " 
 
 On the evening of the 2d of June he wrote 
 his last letter to his wife : — 
 
 " What a joy, my own dear darling, your let- 
 ter gave me ! What a happiness to me to know 
 that you are well ! As this letter requires no an- 
 swer, it will be a short one. What a comfort it 
 is not to have to answer. . . . God bless you 
 all, and keep you well. Oh ! were I but amongst 
 you all again ! I kiss you with all my heart and 
 soul, my dearest one. Preserve all your love for 
 me, and think with pleasure on him who loves 
 thee above all, thy Carl." 
 
 Two days later he called his friends about 
 him, and with solemn earnestness turned to 
 
176 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 them and murmured, "God reward you all 
 for your kind love to me." One by one they 
 sorrowfully left the room. Fiirstenau helped 
 him to retire. He gave him his thanks, and 
 then with a kindly smile illuminating his face 
 said, " Now let me sleep." They were his 
 last words. The next morning he was found 
 dead. On the 14th of December, 1844, the 
 body of the master reached Dresden, and was 
 borne to the cemetery chapel amid thousands 
 of people, who lined the streets and stood 
 with uncovered heads paying silent homage 
 to his memory. His son says : — 
 
 " In the richly decorated chapel of the ceme- 
 tery, all the ladies of the theatre, with Schroder- 
 Devrient at their head, awaited the body and 
 covered the coffin with laurels. The ceremony 
 was at an end. The torches were extinguished ; 
 the crowd dispersed. But by the light of two 
 candles still burning on the altar might be seen 
 the form of a small, now middle-aged woman, 
 who had flung herself upon the bier, whilst a 
 pale young man knelt praying by her side." 
 
 The next day the body was placed in the 
 family vault ; and Richard Wagner, the rising 
 genius of German music, spoke a solenm and 
 eloquent tribute of praise over the remains of 
 the composer of " Euryanthe," " Freischiitz," 
 and " Oberon." 
 
RICHARD WAGNER. 
 
 I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven, and in 
 their disciples and apostles. I believe in the Holy 
 Ghost and the truth of Art, — one and indivisi- 
 ble. I believe that this art proceeds from God, 
 and dwells in the hearts of all enlightened men. I 
 believe that all may become blessed through this 
 art. — Wagner. 
 
 HE career of Richard Wagner, the 
 musician of the future, the stanch 
 protester against all that is artificial 
 and conventional in music, poet, litterateur, 
 and dramatist, the great high -priest who 
 wedded music and poetry in a union now 
 known the world over as the music-drama, 
 was strongly influenced by the power of 
 woman. His father, who was superintendent 
 of pohce at Leipsic, died shortly after the 
 composer's birth; and his mother, who, Dr. 
 Nohl says, was a woman of a very refined 
 and spiritual nature," then married an actor, 
 
 12 
 
178 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Ludwig Geyer, who had been an intimate 
 friend of the family. The step-fatlier died 
 before the boy had reached his seventh year, 
 but he had already recognized his artistic 
 talent and had intended he should be a por- 
 trait-painter. In his last sickness, however, 
 he heard him playing melodies from ''Der 
 Freischiitz " in an adjoining room, and ex- 
 claimed, " Can it be that he has a talent for 
 music? " He commended him to his mother, 
 and she did all in her power to realize almost 
 the last words of her husband : " I would have 
 made something out of him." 
 
 But little has been made known of Wagner's 
 first wife, Minna Planer, an actress whom he 
 married Nov. 24, 1836 ; but from that little it 
 is certain that she was not a helpmate to him 
 in any sense. She was an ordinary woman, 
 having little knowledge of music and still less 
 taste for it. She could not appreciate his am- 
 bitions, or understand the great purpose of his 
 Ufe. She died in 1866 ; but during her last 
 years she had lived separately from him at 
 Munich, supported by an allowance which he 
 settled upon her. At this time Wagner was 
 Hving in retirement at Triebscheu, near Lu- 
 cerne, where Frau von Biilow, wife of the 
 eminent pianist, Hans von Biilow, who keenly 
 
RICHARD WAGNER. 
 
 179 
 
 sympathized with his artistic aspirations, min- 
 istered to his domestic comforts. " This man, 
 so completely controlled by his demon, should 
 always have had at his side a high-minded, 
 appreciative woman, a wife that would have 
 understood the war that was constantly waged 
 within him," is the judgment passed on his 
 first wife by one of her own friends. This 
 woman he found in Cosima von Biilow ; and 
 it certainly is an extraordinary tribute to Von 
 Billow's generosity, unselfishness, and self- 
 sacrifice that he himself acknowledged the 
 fitness of their union. 
 
 In 1834 Liszt, the pianist and composer, 
 was the centre of a brilliant musical and lit- 
 erary coterie in Paris, which comprised such 
 members as Chopin, George Sand, Lamartine, 
 Victor Hugo, and others almost equally noted. 
 Among them was the Countess d'Agoult, 
 better known by her nom de plume, " Daniel 
 Stern." His acquaintance with her ripened 
 into an attachment of familiarity, which was 
 at first attractive to Liszt and subsequently 
 repugnant. He was considerably her junior, 
 and she was already married ; but she threw 
 herself upon his protection, deserted her 
 family, and became his travelling companion. 
 She accompanied him in his years of travel 
 
l8o IVOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 through Italy and Germany, but in 1840 the 
 attachment began to weaken. A short time 
 before, he had written to a friend : — 
 
 " When the ideal form of a woman floats before 
 your entranced soul, — a woman whose heaven- 
 born charms bear no allurements for the senses, 
 but only wing the soul to devotion, — if you see 
 at her side a youth sincere and faithful in heart, 
 weave these forms into a moving story of love, 
 and give it the title, ' On the Shores of the Lake 
 of Como.' " 
 
 The romance was a brief one. The Count- 
 ess was speedily off to Paris again with her 
 children, for during their attachment a son and 
 two daughters had been born to them. The 
 son, and one of the daughters, who married 
 M. Emile Ollivier, the French statesman, are 
 dead. The second daughter was Cosima, so 
 named in memory of Como, who subsequently 
 married Von Billow. She was afterward di- 
 vorced from him, and, as has already been 
 said, met Wagner at Triebscheu. She was in 
 complete sympathy with him, understood him, 
 inspired him, and proved a blessing to him. 
 They were married in 1870 ; and the first fruit 
 of this union was the boy Siegfried, to whom 
 the next year he dedicated the incomparably 
 beautiful Siegfried Idyl," which pictures the 
 
RICHARD WAGNER. 
 
 l8l 
 
 charming environments of his childhood at 
 Lucerne. For the first time in his hfe," 
 says Dr. Nohl, "he secured that complete 
 human happiness which sustains and animates 
 our powers." Judith Gautier, in her charming 
 volume, "Richard Wagner and his Poetical 
 Work from Rienzi to Parsifal," gives the fol- 
 lowing pleasant picture of the family home : — 
 
 "At sunset I reached Triebscheu, that con- 
 secrated bit of land where since that time I 
 have passed so many pleasant hours. It was a 
 sort of promontory, extremely picturesque, jut- 
 ting into the lake. There was neither grating 
 nor door; the garden had no defined limits, 
 and extended indefinitely toward the neighboring 
 mountains. The exterior of the house was per- 
 fectly plain, — gray, with dark tiles ; but in the 
 interior arrangements, full of grace and elegance, 
 one felt the presence of a woman. Madame 
 Wagner appeared in the midst of her children, 
 fair, tall, and gracious, with a charming smile, 
 and tender, dreamy-blue eyes. The sympathy 
 with which she inspired me from the first mo- 
 ment has never been broken ; and our friendship, 
 already of long standing, has never known a 
 cloud. It was a delightful evening; the master 
 displayed incomparable animation and gayety 
 of spirits." 
 
 Never was there a more perfect compan- 
 ionship, perhaps, than that of Wagner and his 
 
l82 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 wife. Whatever may be thought of the man- 
 ner in which the separation from Von Biilow 
 was accomplished, it was unquestionably in 
 accordance with German law ; and the fact that 
 he made no objection to the separation, or to 
 the subsequent union with Wagner, but on 
 the other hand acknowledged its peculiar fit- 
 ness, and that he was and still is one of the 
 composer's stanchest and most zealous ad- 
 herents, perhaps ought to satisfy the most 
 scrupulous moralist. From the time that 
 Wagner first met Cosima in Switzerland to 
 the hour of his sudden death in Venice, his 
 life was crowned with perfect happiness. She 
 is a woman of rare personal accomplishments 
 and extraordinary magnetic power, and she 
 drew about her in their Villa Wahnfried a 
 circle of friends and artists who made the 
 atmosphere congenial and inspiring to Wagner. 
 She herself, however, was the magician who 
 exerted the most powerful influence upon 
 him. She advised, consoled, encouraged, 
 and inspired him. He lived always by her 
 side, and he died in her arms, she not knowing 
 that the beloved one had passed away, but 
 fancying that he was asleep. After a life of 
 strife such as few men have to encounter ; of 
 hatred more intense and love more devoted 
 
RICHARD WAGNER. 1 83 
 
 than usually falls to the lot of humanity ; of 
 restless energy, indomitable courage, passion- 
 ate devotion to the loftiest standards of art, 
 and unquestioning allegiance to the " God 
 that dwelt within his breast," he rests quietly 
 under the trees of Villa Wahnfried. Inspired 
 by man's steadfast courage and a noble 
 woman's love, he has lifted the musical art 
 out of its grossness, artificiality, and vulgarity, 
 invested it with a new body, and animated it 
 with a new and pure spirit. 
 
PART III. 
 
 WOMAN AS THE INTERPRETER 
 OF MUSIC. 
 
WOMAN AS THE INTERPRETER 
 OF MUSIC. 
 
 ||Wff'|T only remains, in tracing the influence 
 - I of woman upon music, to consider 
 her as its interpreter, mainly through 
 the medium of the voice, though there are 
 not wanting many female artists who have 
 excelled in instrumental music. This branch 
 of the subject needs but brief consideration, 
 since its facts are conceded, and it is almost 
 an axiom that without interpreters there would 
 be no composers. All the elements which 
 woman has in her nature — love, pathos, 
 passion, poetry, and religion — combine to 
 perfect her song, and give fitting expression 
 to the ideas of the masters. Woman's song 
 is the first sound the child hears. May we 
 not fancy that when the child has grown to 
 old age, it is still the song of woman which, 
 
i88 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 though inaudible to those standing around, 
 kindles a smile upon the dying face, and 
 brings a look of recognition to the eyes, as if 
 they beheld once more the old familiar face 
 of the mother, and heard the familiar voice 
 which sung to the old man when all his world 
 was contained in the hollow of a cradle? 
 And between these extremes of birth and 
 death in every age, what an endless proces- 
 sion of singers memory will summon ! How 
 they approach, pass before us, and disappear, 
 crowned with their laurels of victory ! The 
 last two centuries have been prolific in great 
 artists, though the present time is poorer than 
 any other. To name only a few of them will 
 suffice for the purposes of this essay ; and they 
 may readily and conveniently be divided into 
 eras, as follows : From 1700 to 1750, the four 
 great artists were Faustina Bordoni, Caterina 
 Mingotti, Caterina GabrieUi, and Francesca 
 Cuzzoni. Bordoni was from Venice, and Cuz- 
 zoni from Parma ; and their names will always 
 be associated in consequence of their bitter 
 rivalry. Handel brought Bordoni to London 
 to sing in his operas, in which Cuzzoni had 
 already performed with success. Their simul- 
 taneous appearance was a signal for the most 
 extraordinary popular demonstrations. The 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 1 89 
 
 city was divided against itself ; and the parti- 
 sanship at last extended even to families, as 
 we find Sir Robert Walpole declaring for Bor- 
 doni, while Lady Walpole was an enthusiastic 
 advocate of Cuzzoni. The press was filled 
 with stinging epigrams and atrocious libels. 
 Duels were fought. The wrangling of audi- 
 ences at times was riotous. One night, when 
 the two queens of song appeared on the same 
 stage, they came to blows. At last Bordoni 
 drove her rival from the field, and the latter 
 ended her days in a charity hospital. Bordoni 
 continued her victorious career with great 
 brilliancy for thirty years, winning in her last 
 years the plaudits even of the captious critic, 
 Frederick the Great. Her successor was 
 Mingotti, a Neapolitan, who was educated by 
 Porpora, and patronized by Metastasio. She 
 eclipsed the fame of Bordoni, though her 
 stage life was briefer. The last of the four, 
 Gabrielli, who was educated by a cardinal of 
 the same name, with the additional help of 
 Metastasio, excelled all the others in natural 
 talent, and aroused a frenzy of enthusiasm 
 whenever she sang, with the brilliant execu- 
 tion and exquisite quality of her voice. 
 
 From 1750 to 1800 there were six repre- 
 sentative singers : Gertrude Elizabeth Mara, 
 
190 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Sophie Arnould, Nancy Storace, Elizabeth 
 Billington, and Angelica Catalani. Mara's 
 name is inseparably connected with Handel's 
 music. Insignificant in appearance and in- 
 different as an actress, her sweet and powerful 
 voice and her unrivalled skill in bravura music 
 more than atoned for her other deficiencies. 
 When Frederick the Great first heard her 
 sing, he testily declared he would rather hear 
 his horse neigh ; but she soon conquered the 
 royal grumbler, and he speedily became her 
 enthusiastic champion. In Paris she made a 
 warm friend of Marie Antoinette. She brought 
 all London to her feet by the manner in which 
 she sang at the great Handel Commemoration 
 in Westminster Abbey, in May, 1 784. Burney, 
 the musical historian and critic, who was pres- 
 ent on that occasion, has left his impression 
 of her singing, in the elegant volume he pub- 
 lished, describing the various days' perform- 
 ances of that festival, which excelled all others 
 held up to that time. Of her singing in the 
 solo from Handel's anthem, "Oh, sing unto 
 the Lord a new song," he says : — 
 
 " Madame Mara's voice and manner of sing- 
 ing in this plain and solemn air, so admirably 
 accompanied on the hautbois by Fisher, had a 
 sudden effect on myself, which I never before 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 19 1 
 
 experienced, even from her performance of more 
 pathetic music. I have long admired her voice 
 and abihties in various styles of singing ; but 
 never imagined tenderness the peculiar char- 
 acteristic of her performance ; however, here, 
 though she had but a few simple notes to deliver, 
 they made me shiver, and I found it extremely 
 difficult to avoid bursting into tears on hearing 
 them. Indeed, she had not only the power of 
 conveying to the remotest corner of this immense 
 building the softest and most artificial inflections 
 of her sweet and brilliant voice, but articulated 
 every syllable of the words with such neatness, 
 precision, and purity that it was rendered as audi- 
 ble and intelligible as it could possibly have been, 
 in a small theatre, by mere declamation." 
 
 As an interpreter of sacred music this great 
 artist stood almost peerless. Her triumphant 
 career was continued to the extreme age of 
 seventy-three ; and on her eighty-second birth- 
 day Goethe dedicated a poetical tribute to 
 her. Sophie Arnould was brought to Paris 
 by Gluck, and sang in his operas under the 
 patronage of Marie Antoinette with the most 
 brilliant success. Nancy Storace was among 
 the first who made successes in EngUsh opera. 
 She had previously made a brilliant reputation 
 in Italy, and carried Vienna by storm, in- 
 cluding the Emperor Joseph, with whom she 
 was a great pet. Elizabeth Billington, as 
 
192 
 
 WOMAiV IN MUSIC. 
 
 beautiful in person as she was brilliant in 
 song, captivated Haydn, during his London 
 visit, with her beautiful voice. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds painted her as St. Cecilia, as a 
 companion to his portrait of Siddons as the 
 Tragic Muse. Haydn, contemplating the 
 picture, exclaimed to the artist, "You have 
 made a great mistake." " How ! what ! " 
 said the startled painter. "Why," replied 
 Haydn, "you have represented Mrs. Billington 
 listening to the angels ; you should have 
 made the angels listening to her." Salomon, 
 Haydn's manager, used to say, "She sings 
 with her fingers," for she was, a marvellous 
 pianist as well as singer. Catalan! had a 
 career of almost unexampled success and 
 good fortune, though a cold singer, carrying 
 her audiences by storm with the tremendous 
 volume and wonderful richness of her tone, as 
 well as with the marvellous facility and rapid- 
 ity of her execution. She had so powerful 
 a voice that Queen Charlotte, after hearing 
 her and being asked her opinion, declared : 
 " I was wishing for a little cotton in my ears 
 all the time." A wag, being asked if he would 
 go to York to hear her, replied : " I shall hear 
 her better where I am." A critic, describing 
 her singing of Luther's Hymn, says : — 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 193 
 
 "The majesty of her sustained tones, — so 
 rich, so ample as not only to fill but overflow the 
 cathedral where I heard her, — the solemnity of 
 her manner, and the St. Cecilia-like expression 
 of her raised eyes and rapt countenance, pro- 
 duced a thrilling eflect through the united me- 
 dium of sight and hearing. Whoever has heard 
 Catalan! sing this, accompanied by Schmidt 
 on the trumpet, has heard the utmost that 
 music can do. Then in the succeeding chorus, 
 when the same awful words, * the trumpet 
 sounds, the graves restore the dead which they 
 contained before,' are repeated by the whole 
 choral strength, her voice, piercing through the 
 clang of instruments and the burst of other 
 voices, is heard as distinctly as if it were alone ! 
 During the encore I found my way to the top of 
 a tower on the outside of the cathedral, and 
 could still distinguish her wonderful voice." 
 
 The half-century from 1800 to 1850 was 
 rich in great artists ; and to this period belong 
 Pisaroni, Pasta, Schroder - Devrient, Anna 
 Milder, Sontag, Malibran, Grisi, Falcon, Clara 
 Novello, Pauline Viardot, Dorus-Gras, Persiani, 
 Catharine Hayes, Alboni, and Jenny Lind, — a 
 galaxy of singers unexcelled in all the annals 
 of song. Meyerbeer and Rossini kept their 
 pens busy for Pisaroni. Pasta, with her won- 
 derful dramatic power, founded a new school 
 of lyric art, and astonished the world with her 
 13 
 
194 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 personation of Norma, which Bellini wrote for 
 her. Beethoven's Leonora in " Fidelio " will 
 ever be associated with Milder, the creator of 
 the part, — a singer of whom the aged Haydn 
 said, when he heard her sing to her teacher, 
 " The best way to form an idea of her voice is 
 to hear a full, well-tuned organ register ; " and 
 of whom Napoleon more briefly said, " Voila 
 une voix ! " Schroder-Devrient, the daughter 
 of Sophie Schroder, described as " the Siddons 
 of Germany," was also associated with this 
 magnificent role, in which her success was ex- 
 traordinary. Where have the great artists gone, 
 that there are no longer any Leonoras or Nor- 
 mas of the heroic stamp ? Of Malibran and 
 Sontag, Th^ophile Gautier writes : — 
 
 " In 1827 Mile. Sontag was attracted to Paris, 
 the art-centre whither all celebrities tend. She 
 made her debut in the role of Desdemona. Her 
 success was incredible; and it was no slight 
 matter to occupy the pri7na donjia^s golden 
 throne with Malibran, who was the most won- 
 derful incarnation of music. Malibran, as great 
 a tragedienne as a vocalist, — grace, self-pos- 
 session, originality, poetry, and genius com- 
 bined in one impassioned organization, — was 
 reproduced by one of those rare miracles of which 
 Nature is unfortunately too sparing. Their loyal 
 rivalry was profitable to art; passion reigned 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 195 
 
 on the Stage and among the audience ; thunders 
 of applause were evoked by both performers, for 
 the two camps ended in uniting in a reciprocal 
 enthusiasm ; Sontag's partisans applauded Mal- 
 ibran, and Malibran's partisans applauded Son- 
 tag. To gain access to the Italians, even by 
 paying three times the usual price for a seat, 
 was a rare favor ; and the queue often included 
 Meyerbeer, Haldvy, Auber, Rossini. O happy 
 days, when art engrossed all minds, and ab- 
 sorbed all political passions ! " 
 
 Grisi was a peerless diva in personal beauty ; 
 a great actress, especially in the roles of Norma 
 and Lucrezia Borgia ; and a singer who could 
 act, as well as an actress who could sing, — 
 a rare combination now-a-days. Chorley says 
 of her : — 
 
 "A quarter of a century is a fair length of 
 reign for any queen, — a brilliant one for an 
 opera queen of these modern times, when wear 
 and tear are so infinitely greater than they used 
 to be. The supremacy of Madame Grisi has 
 been prolonged by a combination of qualities 
 rare at any period. In our day there has been 
 no woman so beautiful, so liberally endowed 
 with voice and with dramatic impulse as herself, 
 Catalani excepted." 
 
 Mile. Falcon, of the Grand Opera, achieved 
 wonderful success as Rachel in Hal^vy's 
 "Jewess." Says one who heard her: — 
 
196 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 "Who does not know the power, the soul, 
 which she threw into this glorious personation ? 
 Who does not retain the strong recollection of 
 her brilliant tragic and lyric qualities ? She was 
 the genuine type of Hebrew beauty, — the real 
 daughter of the Mounts of Sinai and of Bethle- 
 hem. The eagle eye sparkles with liquid flame ; 
 the form of steel is pliant in its strength ; the 
 complexion is brown and warm ; the long hair 
 of raven black floats in the breeze, free from 
 that pale and sickly shade which the climates 
 of the north give to the skins and locks of their 
 daughters. It is ebony bathed in sunlight. 
 When M. Scribe saw Mile. Falcon, he perceived 
 at once, with his usual penetration, that he had 
 Judith before him, and that he had a glorious 
 representative of a well-devised drama. That 
 drama he wrote, and created for his heroine a 
 world of tragic pomp, thrilling situations, and 
 deep emotions." 
 
 Clara Novello, one of the noblest of women, 
 commenced her career as an operatic singer, 
 and closed it, with wonderful success, as the 
 grandest oratorio singer England has yet pro- 
 duced, and the principal vocalist at the great 
 English festivals. When Rossini first pro- 
 duced his " Stabat Mater," with Donizetti for 
 conductor, she had the rare honor of being 
 selected as the principal soloist. Persiani was 
 one of the finest singers in the school of light 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 
 
 197 
 
 operas, like " Lucia " and " Somnambula," 
 and her Rosina in the " Barber of Seville " 
 was always a triumph of enthusiasm. Pauline 
 Viardot, second daughter of the famous singer 
 and musician, Garcia, is still remembered for 
 her wonderful personation of Valentine in 
 " The Huguenots," and as one of those great 
 dramatic singers of the grand school whose 
 mantles are still waiting for successors. Schu- 
 mann sang her praises ; and M. Escudier, the 
 great French critic, says of her : — 
 
 Her singing is expressive, descriptive, thrill- 
 ing, full, equal and just, brilliant and vibrating, 
 especially in the medium and in the lower 
 chords. Capable of every style of art, it is 
 adapted to all the feelings of nature, but par- 
 ticularly to outbursts of grief, joy, or despair. 
 The dramatic coloring which her voice imparts 
 to the slightest shades of feeling and passion is 
 a real phenomenon of vocalization which cannot 
 be analyzed." 
 
 Madame Dorus-Gras, another great singer 
 of this time, m.ade almost as deep an impres- 
 sion in her personation of Marguerite de Valois 
 in ''The Huguenots," as Viardot in that of 
 the principal role. Catharine Hayes, the 
 lovely Irish singer ; Bosio ; D'Angri ; Alboni, 
 the greatest alto of the present century, whose 
 
198 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 sonorous and yet mellow liquid voice em- 
 braced fully two octaves, every note pure and 
 beautiful ; and Jenny Lind, whose fame is 
 world-wide, — may almost be said to belong to 
 the present day, so near are their victories to 
 us. But who are their successors ? The cat- 
 alogue of singers in our own day is a long 
 one ; but, as compared with the list from 
 1800 to 1850, it does not contain equally 
 great names. Two of the greatest singers of 
 the present period, Tietjens and Parepa, are 
 forever silent. Of all these artists, Tietjens 
 was incomparably the greatest. One of the 
 best of critics a few years ago wrote : — 
 
 " We presume it is useless to say a single 
 word upon the extraordinary gifts and accom- 
 plishments of this truly extraordinary singer. 
 A voice so rich in quahty, so extensive and so 
 flexible, combined with a temperament so pas- 
 sionate, and a dramatic perception so exact, 
 carries us back to the highest standards of lyric 
 excellence in our memory. The great line that 
 commenced with Pasta, and was sustained in 
 all its honors by Schroder, Malibran, and 
 Grisi, finds no feeble vindication in the genius 
 of Tietjens." 
 
 And with her the line stops. Madame 
 Parepa- Rosa, "the stainless lady of the match- 
 less voice," was a great vocalist, not a great 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 199 
 
 prima donna; for she lacked the intense 
 dramatic quality to make her personations 
 complete and rounded. As a singer of ex- 
 ceptional power and beaut)' of voice, and as a 
 versatile vocalist, she has rarely been excelled ; 
 for she shone with equal briUiancy in the 
 opera, the oratorio, and in the ballad school, 
 while in the beauty, sweetness, grace, and 
 dignity of her noble womanhood, she com- 
 mended herself to the public so intimately 
 that her death was almost universally regarded 
 as a personal loss. Zucchi, Lagrange, Gaz- 
 zaniga, and Parodi were ty^^es of the old 
 school, when great singers were great actors, 
 and great actors were great singers ; but they 
 have retired, and we have left a list of beauti- 
 ful, brilHant singers, nearly all of whom, how- 
 ever, have made their successes in the light 
 works of the lyric stage, — Adehna Patti, 
 Pauline Lucca, Marie Roze, !Madame Torri- 
 ani, Zelda Seguin, Emma Nevada, Emma 
 Abbot, Alwina Valleria, Anna de Belocca, 
 Minnie Hauck, Emma Albani, Christine Nils- 
 son, Clara Louise Kellogg, Anne Louise Cary 
 (lately retired from the stage), Etelka Gerster, 
 Marie Marimon, and others ; and on the con- 
 cert stage Carlotta Patti, fast losing her bril- 
 liant powers, Miss Emma Thursby, Antoinette 
 
200 
 
 V/OMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Sterling, Mrs. Osgood, who has taken a lead- 
 ing position as an oratorio and ballad singer, 
 Anna Drasdil, the veteran Anna Bishop, 
 come down from a former generation, and a 
 long list of others whom it is not necessary to 
 mention. Will the Wagner school develop a 
 second line of the heroic artists? It is not 
 improbable ; for already one has appeared, 
 Frau Materna, the majestic Brunnhilde of 
 the Nibelungen cyclus. 
 
 It is almost superfluous to emphasize the 
 fact that the interpretation of vocal music is 
 specially the province of woman, or that she 
 is destined to achieve triumphs in the future 
 as brilliant as those in the past. It is a realm 
 where her sway will always be undisputed ; 
 and so long as there are artists to sing, they 
 will inspire composers to write. It does not 
 follow, however, that every singer will be a 
 prima donna, though she may achieve a great 
 name as an artist, and figure upon the bills 
 and programmes by that appellation. Singers 
 are plenty : prime donne are few. The late 
 Richard Grant White, in one of his brilliant 
 essays, The Musical Monster," referring to 
 Gabrielli, says : — 
 
 " No woman can be a great prima donna who 
 has not to a certain degree her three principal 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 201 
 
 qualifications, — a grand voice, the grand style 
 which comes of fine and highly cultivated musi- 
 cal intelligence, and beauty, or, if not beauty, 
 at least an attractive person and a pleasing 
 manner." 
 
 Some exception might be taken to the last 
 qualification, at least so far as he claims it to 
 be an essential condition. Unquestionably 
 personal beauty goes a great ways in making 
 an artist a favorite with the public ; but many 
 artists with beautiful persons have been favor- 
 ites with the public, who were not great prime 
 donne, while many artists have been great prime 
 donne to whom Nature had been unkind in 
 the way of physical charm. Another quali- 
 fication, and almost an indispensable one, 
 should be added to his category ; and that is 
 repose, which is one of the foundation prin- 
 ciples of true art. Still, while a given age 
 may produce but few great prime donne, this 
 should not be a discouragement, for it may 
 produce many great singers who may give 
 real pleasure to audiences. All composers 
 cannot be Beethovens, any more than all 
 pamters Raphaels : but there are degrees of 
 culture and service worth striving for by 
 woman, that will command great success and 
 ample reward ; and no time was ever more 
 
202 
 
 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 advantageous for these results than the pres- 
 ent. The conditions, however, are exacting. 
 Any one can recall singers with exceptionally 
 fine voices, who have failed, not because they 
 had fine voices, but because they never had 
 the patience, perseverance, and intelligence to 
 learn how to use them. Duprez used to say, 
 " Nothing injures a singer so much as a fine 
 voice." Perhaps his aphorism would have been 
 less exaggerated had he said, Nothing is so 
 fatal to a singer as to rely upon a naturally fine 
 voice for success." The greatest singers have 
 reached their positions by persevering study, 
 resolute courage, patient endurance, and the 
 constant habit of doing even the most un- 
 important thing well. A really great artist 
 employs the resources of her art as conscien- 
 tiously in a ballad as she would in a grand 
 dramatic aria. With the proper study and a 
 rightly directed culture, there is no reason 
 why American women should not take leading 
 places in the musical world, as they have 
 exceptionally fine voices. Surely there is 
 every impulse and incentive for study in the 
 experiences of Adelina Patti, Emma Albani, 
 Minnie Hauck, Marie Litta, Antoinette Ster- 
 ling, Emma Osgood, Anne Louise Gary, Clara 
 Louise Kellogg, and other American women 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 203 
 
 who have made themselves famous all over 
 Europe. 
 
 In instrumental music woman has not taken 
 as high a position as in vocal music, mainly 
 because her advantages have not been im- 
 proved wisely. It has become the fashion to 
 educate all girls, indiscriminately, to play the 
 piano, without reference to their ability or 
 musical taste. The result is that Clara Schu- 
 manns, Ess^poffs, Mehligs, Goddards, and 
 Krebbses do not abound, and that out of 
 fifty young ladies who go through the con- 
 ventional piano course, one may become a 
 good amateur player. The gradus of the 
 piano in our time seldom leads to Parnassus. 
 There are other instruments which might be 
 studied with great advantage by woman, espe- 
 cially the violin and harp. Camilla Urso, the 
 sisters Milanollo, and Madame Neruda have 
 shown what woman can accomplish with the 
 violin. The instrument is admirably adapted 
 to her delicacy of taste and sensibihty, and 
 nothing but a silly prejudice keeps her from 
 its study. There is no reason why she should 
 not learn to play, except it may be the 
 awkwardness of the admixture of women in 
 orchestras. This may militate against its 
 
204 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 Study for such a purpose ; but there is no 
 reason why she should not strive to be a solo- 
 piayer. The harp has gone out of fashion ; 
 but it should be speedily reinstated, not only 
 as a beautiful medium of accompaniment and 
 an elegant ornament for the drawing-room, 
 but as the instrument above all others best 
 calculated to display woman's taste and sweet- 
 ness,^ and most happily adapted to her native 
 grace of person and elegance of movement. 
 The organ also should be more generally stud- 
 ied by woman, as a guide to a higher musical 
 knowledge and the gateway to the truest and 
 noblest forms of musical literature. Two wo- 
 men of this country — Miss Carrie T. King- 
 man of Chicago, and Mrs. Frohock of Boston 
 — have shown that its most extreme difficulties 
 can be mastered. The latter now devotes her- 
 self to the piano, but at one time took a high 
 position as an organist ; while the former, by 
 constant practice and study, has mastered even 
 the colossal difficulties of Thiele, and played 
 the works of Bach, and the sonatas of Merkel, 
 Haupt, and other modem German organ-writ- 
 ers, in a manner few male players can equal. 
 
 The instances which have been given in 
 these pages are only a few out of the many. 
 
THE INTERPRETER OF MUSIC. 205 
 
 showing the influence of woman upon musical 
 composers and in the field of vocal and in- 
 strumental music, which belongs of right to 
 her, but which has not yet been cultivated 
 with the earnestness and intelligence it de- 
 serves. Although not the creator, she has 
 inspired the creations, and then interpreted 
 them to the world. Man may be the intellect 
 of music : she is its heart and soul. What 
 she has not done with music matters little 
 compared with the great glory and beauty she 
 has given to music. By the side of the great 
 composers, in equal glory and fame, should be 
 placed such women as Constance Weber, 
 Fanny Mendelssohn, Bettina von Arnim, 
 Madame Voigt, the friend of Schumann, 
 Cosima Wagner, Delphi ne Potocka, Clara 
 Schumann, Pasta, Mahbran, Grisi, and those 
 others who have elevated music to greater 
 heights by inspiring its creation, and giving it to 
 the world through the medium of the voice. 
 
 No grander work can occupy woman's at- 
 tention. Music was the first sound heard in 
 the creation, when the morning stars sang to- 
 gether. It was the first sound heard at the 
 birth of Christ, when the angels sang together 
 above the plains of Bethlehem. It is the uni- 
 versal language, which appeals to the universal 
 
2o6 WOMAN IN MUSIC. 
 
 heart of mankind. It greets our entrance 
 into this world, and solemnizes our departure. 
 Its thrill pervades all Nature, — in the hum of 
 the tiniest insect, in the tops of the wind- 
 smitten pines, in the solemn diapason of the 
 ocean. And there must come a time when it 
 will be the only suggestion left of our human 
 nature and the creation, since it alone, of all 
 things on earth, is known in heaven. The 
 human soul and music are alone eternal. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 To make this essay complete, the writer ap- 
 pends, first, a list of the prominent female com- 
 posers during the past three centuries: and, 
 second, a list of the dedications made to women 
 by the composers mentioned in the body of the 
 work, so far as it has been possible to obtain 
 them. 
 
 FEMALE COMPOSERS, 
 ^eijentecntl) Ccnturp, 
 
 Caccini, Francesca. Italy. Songs. 
 Calegari, Cornelia. Italy. Songs. 
 Guerre, Elizabeth Claude. France. Operas. 
 SrRozzi, Barbara. Italy. Songs. 
 
 Cig:I)teentl) Centurp. 
 
 Lebrun, Francesca. Germany. Sonata for piano. 
 DussEK, Sophia. Scotland. Piano and harp music. 
 CiANCHETTiNi, Veronica. Bohemia. Concertos 
 and sonatas. 
 
 H 
 
2IO 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Agnesi, Maria Teresa. Italy. Operas. 
 Anna Amalia, Duchess of Saxe Weimar. Dramatic 
 music. 
 
 Anna Amalia, Princess of Prussia. Cantatas. 
 Paradies, Maria Theresa. Austria. Operettas. 
 PouiLLAU, Mile. France. Three sonatas. 
 Reichardt, Julia. Germany. Songs. 
 SCHROETER, CoRONA ELIZABETH. Poland. Songs. 
 Sernien, Maddalena. Italy. Violin music. 
 Wensley, Frances Foster. Englajtd. Songs. 
 Abrams, Miss. England. Songs. 
 Bayer, Mile. Austria. Songs. 
 Blangini, Mile. Italy. Violin music. 
 Brandenstein, Charlotte de. Germany. Sonatas. 
 Brandes, Charlotte Wilhelmina. Germany. 
 
 Songs and piano music. 
 Bresson, Mile. France. Songs. 
 Gretry, Lucile. France, Dramatic music. 
 GuENiN, Mile. France. Operas. 
 Lannoy, La Comtesse. Italy. Romances and 
 
 sonatas. 
 
 LiLiEN, Antoinette de. Austria. Piano music. 
 Louis, Mme. France. Sonatas. 
 Martinez, Mariane. Austria. Masses. 
 Montgerault, Mme. France. Sonatas. 
 Travanet, Mme. de. France. Romances. 
 Blahetka, Leopoldine. Austria. Songs. 
 
 il^imeteent!) Centurp. 
 
 Mounsey, Ann Shepard. England. Oratorio of 
 
 " The Nativity " 
 Mounsey, Elizabeth. England. Pieces for organ 
 
 and piano. 
 
 Loder, Kate Fanny. England. One opera, one 
 overture, and three sonatas. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 211 
 
 Lang, Josephine. Germany. Songs. 
 Hensel, Fanny Cecile. Germany. Songs and 
 piano music. 
 
 Gabriel, Mary Ann Virginia. E^tgland. Ope- 
 rettas and songs. 
 
 Blahetka, Leopoldine. Austria. Concert pieces 
 for piano. 
 
 Bonne, d'Alpy, France. Songs. 
 
 Caradori, Allan. Italy. Songs. 
 
 Gail, Sophie. France. Dramatic music. 
 
 Miles, Mrs. England. Concertos. 
 
 Beardsmore, Mrs. England. Sonatas and songs. 
 
 Schumann, Clara. Germany. Songs and piano 
 music. 
 
 Dufferin, Countess of. England. Songs. 
 PoLKO, Elise. Germany. Songs. 
 Puget, Louise. France. Songs. 
 Sainton-Dolby, Mme. England. Songs. 
 
 DEDICATIONS. 
 
 MOZART. 
 
 Two sonatas for piano and violin, to Princess Vic- 
 
 toire of France. 
 Two sonatas for piano and violin, to Countess de 
 
 Tesse. 
 
 Six sonatas for piano and violin, to Queen Charlotte 
 of England. 
 
 Six sonatas for piano and violin, to Princess Caroline 
 of Nassau. 
 
 Aria, " Fra cento affanni," to Countess Firmian of 
 Milan. 
 
212 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Two-act serenade, " Ascanio in Alba," to Maria 
 Theresa. 
 
 Concerto for three pianos, to Countess Lodron and 
 her daughters Aloysia and Giuseppa. 
 
 Concerto, to Countess Liitzow. 
 
 Serenade, to Elizabeth Haffner. 
 
 Aria, "Ah! t'invola agli," to Josephine Duschek. 
 
 Aria, " Non so donde vienes," to Aloysia Weber. 
 
 Sonata for piano and violin, to Therese Pierron. 
 
 Six sonatas for piano and violin, to Princess Marie 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Song, " Oiseaux si tous," to Mile. Wendling. 
 
 Aria, lo non chiedo," to Aloysia Weber. 
 
 Aria, " Ah, non so io," to Countess Baumgarten. 
 
 Aria, "Nehmt meinen Dank," to Aloysia Weber. 
 
 Solfeggien, to Constance Mozart. 
 
 Sonata for piano to Constance and Sophie. 
 
 Sonata for piano, to Constance Mozart. 
 
 Aria, " Ah ! non sai, qual pena," to Aloysia Weber. 
 
 Aria, " Vorrei spiegar-vi," to Aloysia Weber. 
 
 Aria, " No, no, che non sei capace," to Aloysia Weber. 
 
 Mass (comp. 1783), to Constance Mozart. 
 
 Concerto, to Barbara Ployer. 
 
 Sonata for piano and violin, to Regina Strinassacchi. 
 Trio, to Francisca von Jacquin. 
 Rondo, to Nancy Storace. 
 Aria, " Resta, O caras," to Josephine Duschek. 
 Aria, "Ah se in Ciel," to Aloysia Weber. 
 Aria, " Schon lacht der holde Friihling," to Mme. 
 Hofer. 
 
 Aria, " Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia," to Mile. Villeneuve. 
 Aria, '* Vado ma Dove } " to Mile. Villeneuve. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 213 
 
 BEETHOVEN. 
 
 Sonata, op. 7, to Countess von Keglevics. 
 Three sonatas, op. 10, to Countess von Browne. 
 Trio in B major, op. ii, to Countess von Thun. 
 Two sonatas, op. 14, to Baroness de Braun. 
 First concerto, op. 15, to Princess Odescalchi. 
 Sonata in F major, op. 17, to Baroness de Braun. 
 Septet in E major, op. 20, to Empress Maria Theresa. 
 Sonata, op. 27, No. i, to Princess Lichtenstein. 
 Sonata, op. 27, No. 2, to Countess Guicciardi. 
 Variations in F major, op. 34, to Princess Odescalchi. 
 Marches, op. 45, to Princess Esterhazy. 
 Rondo in G major, op. 51, No. 2, to Princess von 
 Lichnowsky. 
 
 Aria, " Ah ! perfido," op. 65, to Countess von Clary. 
 Trios in D and E major, op. 70, to Countess von 
 Erdody. 
 
 Six songs, op. 75, to Princess Kinsky. 
 Sonata, op. 78, to Countess Therese von Brunswick. 
 Three songs, op. 83, to Princess Kinsky. 
 Polonaise, op. 89, to Empress Elizabeth of Russia. 
 Song, " An die Hoffnung," to Princess Kinsky. 
 Sonata, op. loi, to Dorothea Ertmann. 
 Sonatas, op. 102, Nos. i and 2, to Countess von 
 Erdody. 
 
 Sonata, op. 109, to Fraulein Brentano. 
 Thirty-three variations, op. 120, to Frau Brentano 
 Twelve variations in F major, to Eleanore von 
 Breuning. 
 
 Trio in B major (one movement), to Fraulein 
 Brentano. 
 
 Twelve variations in G major, to Princess von 
 Lichnowsky. 
 
 Six variations in D major, to Princesses Deym and 
 Brunswick. 
 
214 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Lichte sonata in C major, to Eleanore von Breuning. 
 Nine variations in C minor, to Countess von Wolf- 
 Metternich. 
 
 Twenty-four variations in D major, to Countess von 
 Hatzfeld. 
 
 Twelve variations in A major, to Countess von 
 Browne. 
 
 Ten variations in B major, to Countess Keglevich. 
 Eight variations in F major, to Countess von Browne. 
 Song, " An die Geliebte," to Regina Lang. 
 March in F major, to Empress of Austria. 
 
 SCHUBERT. 
 
 Three songs, op. 20, to Justina von Bruchmann. 
 Zuleika's Second Song, op. 31, to Anna Milder. 
 *' Der ziirnenden Diana," to Katharina von Lacsny. 
 " Nachtstiick," to Katharina von Lacsny. 
 Seven songs from Scott's " Lady of the Lake," op. 52, 
 
 to Countess of Wessenwolf. 
 " Divertissement a la Hongroise," to Katharina von 
 
 Lacsny. 
 
 Overture to "Alphonso and Estrella," to Anne Honig. 
 Three songs, op. 92, to Josephine von Frank. 
 Four songs, op. 96, to Princess von Kinsky. 
 Fantasie, op. 103, to Countess Caroline Esterhazy. 
 Four songs, op. 106, to Marie Pachler. 
 " Der Hirt auf dem Felsen," op. 129, to Anna Milder. 
 Sonata in C major, op. 140, to Clara Wieck. 
 
 SCHUMANN. 
 
 Variations on name "Abegg," op. i, to Countess 
 d'Abegg. 
 
 " Papillons," op. 2, to Therese, Rosalie, and Emelie. 
 Impromptus, op. 5, to Clara Wieck. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Allegro, op. 8, to Baroness de Fricken. 
 Sonata No, i, op. 11, to Clara Wieck. 
 "Fantasie Stiicke," op. 12, to Anna R. Laidlav. 
 "Arabeske," op. 18, to Majorin Serre. 
 " Blumenstiick," op. 19, to Majorin Serre. 
 
 Humoreske," op. 20, to Julie von Webenau. 
 Sonata No. i, op. 22, to Henrietta Voigt. 
 " Liederkreis," op. 24, to Pauline Garcia. 
 " Myrthen," op. 28, to Clara Wieck. 
 Three songs, op. 30, to Josephine B. Cavalcabo. 
 Three songs, op. 31, to Countess von Zedtwitz. 
 Scherzo, gigue, romance and fugue, op. 32, to Amalie 
 Rieffel. 
 
 Six songs, op. 36, to Livia Frege. 
 Quintet, op. 44, to Clara Schumann. 
 Andante and variations, op. 46, to Harriet Parish. 
 " Dichterliebe," op. 48, to Wilhelmine Schroder- 
 Devrient. 
 
 " Bilder aus Osten," op. 66, to Lida Bendemann. 
 *' Waldscenen," op. 82, to Annette Preusser. 
 " Fantasie Stiicke," op. 88, to Sophie Peterson. 
 Six songs, op. 89, to Jenny Lind. 
 Three songs, op. 95, to Constanze Jacobi. 
 '* Bunte Blatter," op. 99, to Mary Poltz. 
 Six songs, op. 104, to Elizabeth Rutmann. 
 Six songs, op. 107, to Sophie Schloss. 
 " Jugend Album," op. 109, to Henrietta Reichmann. 
 Three " Fantasie Stiicke," op. 11 1, to Princess Reuss- 
 Kostritz. 
 
 Three sonatas, op. 118, to Julie, ^llise, and Marie. 
 
 Three songs, op. 119, to Mathilde Hartmann. 
 
 " Albumblatter," op. 124, to Alma von Wasielewski. 
 
 Seven piano pieces, op. 126, to Rosalie Leser. 
 
 Five piano pieces, op. 133, to Bettina. 
 
 Overture to " Hermann and Dorothea," op. 136, to 
 
 " Seiner lieben Clara." 
 Four songs, op. 142, to Livia Frege, 
 
2l6 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 Six vocal quartets, op. 59, to Henriette Bennecke. 
 Songs, op. 57, to Livia Frege. 
 
 Motets, op. 39, to the nuns of Trinita da Monti Rome. 
 
 Songs without words, op. 53, to Sophie Horsley. 
 
 Songs, op. 34, to Julie Jeanrenaud. 
 
 Songs without words, op. 67, to Sophie Rosen. 
 
 Concerto, op. 25, to Delphine von Schaurotte. 
 
 Songs, op. 47, to Constanze Schleinitz. 
 
 Songs without words, op. 62, to Clara Schumann. 
 
 Symphony (Third), to Queen Victoria. 
 
 Songs without words, op. 30, to Elisa von Worringen. 
 
 Songs without words, op. 38, to Rosa von Worringen. 
 
 CHOPIN. 
 
 Etudes, op. 25, to Countess d' Agoult. 
 Nocturnes, op. 27, to Countess d' Appony. 
 Polonaise, op. 44, to Princess de Beauvan. 
 Nocturnes, op. 32, to Baroness de Billing. 
 Valse, op. 64, No. 3, to Baroness Bronicka. 
 Rondo, op. 14, to Princess Czartoryska. 
 Scherzo, op. 54, to Mile. Caraman. 
 Prelude, op. 45, to Princess Czernicheff. 
 Mazurkas, op. 63, to Countess Czosnowska. 
 Nocturnes, op. 48, to Mile. Duperre. 
 Grande Polonaise, op. 22, to Baroness Est. 
 Allegro, op. 51, to Countess Esterhazy. 
 Bolero, op. 19, to Countess de Flahault. 
 Mazurkas, op. 17, to Mme. Freppa. 
 Scherzo, op. 31, to Countess Fiirstenstein. 
 Berceuse, op. 57, to Mile. Gavard. 
 Rondo, op. 16, to Mile. Hartmann. 
 Valse, op. 18, to Mile. Horsford. 
 Variations, op. 12, to Mile. Horsford. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 217 
 
 Nocturnes, op. 62, to Mile. Kouneritz. 
 Rondo, op. I, to Mme. de Linde. 
 Impromptu, op. 29, to Countess Loban. 
 Mazurkas, op. 56, to Mile. Maberly. 
 Rondo, op. 5, to Countess Moriolles. 
 Mazurkas, op. 33, to Countess Mostowska. 
 Allegro de Concert, op. 46, to Mile. Miiller. 
 Ballade, op. 47, to Mile. Noailles. 
 Sonata, op. 58, to Countess Perthius. 
 Nocturnes, op. 9, to Mme. Camille Pleyel. 
 Mazurkas, op. 6, to Countess Plater. 
 Concerto, op. 21, to Countess Potocka. 
 Valse, op. 64, No. i, to Countess Potocka. 
 Valse, op. 64, No. 2, to Baroness Rothschild. 
 Ballad, op. 52, to Baroness Rothschild. 
 Fantasie, op. 49, to Princess Souzzo. 
 Nocturnes, op. 55, to Mile. Stirling. 
 Barcarole, op. 60, to Baroness Stockhausen. 
 Polonaise Fantasie, op. 61, to Mme. Veyret. 
 Mazurkas, op. 30, to Princess of Wurtemberg. 
 
 WEBER. 
 
 Two allemandes for piano, op. 4, to Mile. Lisette 
 d'Arnhard. 
 
 Variations for piano, op. 5, to the Empress Maria 
 Theresa. 
 
 Variations for piano, op. 7, to the Queen of West- 
 phalia. 
 
 Polonaise for piano, op. 21, to Margaret Lang. 
 
 Six pieces for piano, op. 10, to the Princesses Marie 
 
 and Amelie of Wurtemberg. 
 Recitative and rondo, op. 16, to Luise Frank. 
 Vocal duett, op. 31, to Queen Caroline of Bavaria. 
 Canzonet, op. 29, to Queen Caroline of Bavaria. 
 Six-voice song, to Madame Schrock. 
 
2l8 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Grand sonata for piano, op. 24, to the Grand Duchess 
 
 Marie Paulowna. 
 Seven variations for piano, op. 28, to Fanny von 
 
 Wiebeking. 
 Six vi^altzes, to the Empress Marie Louise. 
 Scene and aria, op. 52, to Therese Griinbaum. 
 Air Russe, op. 40, to the Grand Duchess Marie 
 
 Paulowna. 
 
 Scene and aria, op. 51, to Helene Harlas. 
 Cavatina for soprano, to Madame Weixelbaum. 
 Cantata " L'Accoglienza," to Maria Anna Carlina of 
 Saxony. 
 
 Scene and aria, op. 56, to Mme. Milder-Hauptmann. 
 Mass in G, op. 76, to Queen Maria Amalia Augusta of 
 Saxony. 
 
 ''Invitation to the Dance," op. 65, to "his Caroline." 
 Concert-Stiick, op. 79, to the Princess Marie August 
 of Saxony. 
 
 Cantata, to the Duchess Marie Amalia of Saxony. 
 Cantata, to the Princess Therese of Saxony. 
 Song, " Nourmahal," to Miss Stevens. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbott, Emma, igg, 202. 
 Adelaide, 17, 61. 
 Albani, Emma, 199, 202. 
 Albom, Mme., 193, 197, 19S. 
 Arnim, Bettina von, 72, 205. 
 Amould, Sophie, 190, 191. 
 Auber, 29, 195. 
 
 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 20, 
 129, 204 ; his ancestry, 35 ; 
 youth and manhood, 37 ; his 
 first wife, 38 ; her marriage 
 and death, 39 ; his second 
 wife, 41 ; their domestic life, 
 42 ; her musical influence, 43 ; 
 Bach's death, 44. 
 
 Bach, Maria Barbara, 38. 
 
 Bartolozzi, Mme., 94. 
 
 Beethoven, 17, 20, 26, 28, 45, 60, 
 113, 118, 119-12 1, 135, 194, 
 201 ; domestic conditions, 62 ; 
 the Breunings, 64-67 ; a flirta- 
 tion, 67; Barbara Koch, 68; 
 Mile, de Gerardi, 69; Bar- 
 oness von Drossdich, 69 ; 
 Amelia de Sebald, 71 ; Bet- 
 tina von Arnim, 72-7S ; Dor- 
 othea van Ertmann, 72 ; 
 Magdalena Willmann, 73 ; 
 Marie Koschak, 73-75; Coun- 
 tess Guicciardi, 7S-S1. 
 
 Belocca, Anna de, 199. 
 
 Berlioz, 20. 
 
 Billington, Elizabeth, 190-192. 
 Bishop, Anna, 200. 
 Bonheur, Rosa, 19. 
 Bordoni, Faustina, 188-189. 
 Brandt, Caroline, 165, 166, 168- 
 176. 
 
 Breuning family, 64-68. 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 19. 
 Browning, Mrs., 19. 
 Brunetti, Therese, 167-171. 
 Cannabich, Rose, 97. 
 Caroline, Queen, 54. 
 Cary, Anne Louise, 199, 202. 
 Catalani, Angelica, 190, 192, 
 
 193- _ 
 Cherubini, 28. 
 
 Chopin, 17, 113, 128, 132, 179; 
 a Polish attachment, 151 ; in 
 Warsaw, 152 ; at Nice, 152 ; 
 relations with George Sand, 
 i53~i59 ; his death, 159, 160. 
 
 Choral Symphony, 63, 83. 
 
 Cimarosa, 28. 
 
 Cuzzoni, Francesca, 188, 189. 
 Devrient, Edouard, 141. 
 Dorus-Gras, Mme., 193, 197. 
 Drasdil, Anna, 200. 
 Drossdich, Baroness von, 69. 
 Eliot, George, 19. 
 Erdody, Countess, 81. 
 
220 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Eroica Symphony, 83. 
 
 Ertmann, Dorothea van, 72. 
 
 Ess^pofT, Mme., 203. 
 
 Esterhazy, 89, 91, 121-124. 
 
 Falcon, Mile., 193, 195, 196, 
 
 Fidel io, 60, 118, 194. 
 
 Frohock, Mrs., 204. 
 
 Gabrielli, Caterina, 188,189,200. 
 
 Gazzaniga, Mme., 199. 
 
 Genzinger, Mme., 91-93, 95. 
 
 Gerster, Etelka, 199. 
 
 Gluck, 28, 191. 
 
 Goddard, Arabella, 203. 
 
 Goethe, 72, 75, 76, 77, 119, 191. 
 
 Grisi, Giulietta, 193, 195, 205. 
 
 Grob, Theresa, 118. 
 
 Guiccardi, Countess, 78-81. 
 
 Handel, 20, 26, 28, 48, 110, 144, 
 188, 190; childhood, 49; his 
 mother, 50; her death, 51; 
 royal patronage, 52 ; queer 
 matrimonial conditions, 53 ; 
 Handel at court, 54 ; temper 
 with singers,5s ; social habits, 
 56 ; relations with Vittoria, 
 57 ; anecdotes, 58. 
 
 Hauck, Minnie, 199, 202. 
 
 Haydn, Joseph, 17, 20, 28, 47, 
 84, 192, 194 ; his first love, 85, 
 86; courtship and marriage, 
 87 ; service with Prince Es- 
 terhazy, 89; an Italian liaison, 
 91 ; friendship with Mme. 
 Genzinger, 92, 93 ; visit to 
 London, 94 ; the English 
 widow, 95. 
 
 Haydn, Michael, 85. 
 
 Hayes, Catharine, 193, 197. 
 
 Hensel, Fanny, 21, 140-143,205. 
 
 Herschel, Caroline, 19. 
 
 Honrath, Jeannette de, 67. 
 
 Hosmer, Harriet, 19. 
 
 Hummel, 28. 
 
 Jeanrenaud, Cecilia, 144-147. 
 
 Keiserin, Mile., 96. 
 
 Kellogg, Clara Louise, 199, 202. 
 
 Kingman, Carrie T., 204. 
 Koch, Barbara, 68. 
 Koschak, Marie, 73. 
 Krebbs, Marie, 203. 
 Lagrange, Mme., 199. 
 Lang, Gretchen, 164, 165. 
 Lind, Jenny, 193, 198. 
 Liszt, Franz, 20, 128, 149, 151, 
 
 153, 155. 159. 179- 
 Litta, Marie, 202. 
 Lucca, Pauline, 199. 
 Lulli, 28. 
 
 Malibran, Mme., 193-195, 205. 
 Mara, Gertrude Elizabeth, 189- 
 191. 
 
 Marimon, Marie, 199. 
 Materna, Frau, 200. 
 Mehlig, Anna, 203. 
 Mehul, 28. 
 
 Mendelssohn, 20, 29, 132 ; his 
 sister, 140-143 ; descriptions 
 of his wife, 144-147 ; his 
 death, 147. 
 
 Meyerbeer, 29, 193, 195. 
 
 Milder, Anna, 118, 193, 194. 
 
 Mingotti, Caterina, 188, 189. 
 
 Moonlight Sonata, 17, 81. 
 
 Mozart, 17, 20, 26, 28, 65, 96, 
 162 ; his early fancies, 97 ; 
 Aloysia Weber, 98 ; her sister 
 Constance, loi ; letter to his 
 father, 104 ; a marriage con- 
 tract, 105 ; love quarrels, 107 ; 
 the marriage, 108. 
 
 Miiller, Max, 24. 
 
 Neruda, Mme., 203. 
 
 Nevada, Emma, 199. 
 
 Nilsson, Christine, 199. 
 
 Novello, Clara, 193, 196. 
 
 Osgood, Emma A., 200, 202. 
 
 Pachler, Marie, 73-7S, 119- 
 
 Parepa, Euphrosyne, 198, 199. 
 
 Parodi, Mme., 199. 
 
 Pasta, Mme., 193, 194, 205. 
 
 Patti, Adelina, 199, 202. 
 
 Patti, Carlotta, 199. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 221 
 
 Persian!, Mme., 193. 
 Pisaroni, Mme., 193. 
 Potocka, Delphine, 152, 159, 
 
 160, 205. 
 Requiem, Mozart's, 17,109, 110. 
 Rossini, 28, 193, 195, 196. 
 Roze, Marie, 199. 
 Sand, George, 17, 19, 149, 151, 
 
 153-159, 179- 
 Schubert, 20, 26,28, 75,112, 132 ; 
 
 extracts from diary and letters, 
 
 114, 115 ; Theresa Grob, 118 ; 
 
 songs for Anna Milder, 119; 
 
 visit to the Pachlers, 120 ; 
 
 the Esterhazy family, 121 ; 
 
 relations to the daughters, 
 
 121-124. 
 Schumann, 20, 26,28, 150, 195, 
 
 203 ; Clara Wieck, 126-137 ; 
 
 other attachments, 136; mar- 
 riage, 135. 
 Schumann. Clara, 21, 126-137, 
 
 143, 150, 203, 205. 
 Schroder-Devrient, Mme., 119, 
 
 176, 193, 194. 
 Schrolter, Mme., 94, 95. 
 Sebald, Amelia de, 71. 
 Seguin, Zelda, 199. 
 Somerville, Mary, 19. 
 Sontag, Henrietta, 193-195. 
 Sophie Charlotte, Electress,52. 
 Stael, Mme. de, 19. 
 Sterling, Antoinette, 200, 202. 
 Storace, Nancy, 190, 191. 
 
 Thursby, Emma, 199. 
 Tietjens, Theresa, 198. 
 Torriani, Mme., 199. 
 Trouveresses, 21. 
 Urso, Camilla, 203. 
 Valleria, Alwina, 199. 
 Verdi, 28. 
 
 Viardot, Pauline, 193, 197. 
 Vittoria, 57. 
 Vogler, 105. 
 
 Voigt, Henrietta, 136, 205. 
 
 Von Bulow, 178, 182. 
 
 Wagner, 20, 26, 28, 176, 200; 
 his youth, 177 ; his first wife, 
 178; meeting with Cosima von 
 Biilow, 178 ; the second mar- 
 riage, 180; his death, 182. 
 
 Wagner, Cosima, 178, 180-183, 
 205. 
 
 Weber, 17, 28; his ancestry, 
 162 ; meeting with Gretchen 
 Lang, 164 ; Caroline Bi-andt, 
 165; troubles with Brunetti, 
 167 ; engagement to Caroline 
 Brandt, 173 ; marriage, 174; 
 his death, 176. 
 
 Weber, Aloysia, 96, 98-102, 109. 
 
 Weber, Constance, loi-iio, 
 162, 205. 
 
 Wegeler, 63, 64, 68, 78, 82, 121. 
 
 Willmann, Magdalena, 73. 
 
 Wiilkens, Anna Magdalena, 
 41. 
 
 Zucchi, Mme., 199. 
 
THE STANDARD OPERAS. Their 
 Plots, their Music, and their Composers. By 
 George P. Upton, author of " Woman in Music," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 i2mo, flexible cloth, yellow edges $1.50 
 
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 " Mr, Upton has performed a service that can hardly be too 
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