Love
A 1,259,171
NT
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
THE
WORLD OF MUSIC
BY
ANNA, COMTESSE DE BRÉMONT
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak;
I've read that things inanimate hagic mozied,
And as with living souls haric lecn informed
Bye magic numbers and persuasive sound.'
CONGREVE
New Pork
BRENTANO'S
LONDON, CHICAGO, PARIS, WASHINGTON
· 1892
CONTENTS
PAGE
I
ASCHER : 1831-1869,
OLE BULL : 1810-1880,
9
BUXTEHUDE: 1637-1707,
30
CLEMENTI: 1752-1832,
36
44
CHOPIN : 1810-1849,
DE BÉRIOT : 1802-1870,
52
ERNST: 1814-1865,
60
GOTTSCHALK: 1829-1869,
67
So
.
GUNG’L: 1810-1889,
HERZ: 1806-1888,
87
.
HUMMEL: 1778-1837, .
97
KALKBRENNER: 1788-1849, .
106
LISZT : 1811-1886,
115
.
.
MOSCHELES : 1794-1870,
160
.
PAGANINI: 1784-1840,
188
SPOHR: 1784-1859,
216
.
.
TAUSIG: 1841-1871,
.
234
THALBERG: 1812-1871,
241
VIEUXTEMPS : 1820-1881,
249
ASCHER
1831-1869
THE
HE glamour of one of the most brilliant
Courts of modern times hovers round
the memory of this marvellously gifted musi-
cian; a Court whose splendours vanished like
the fleeting glories of the rainbow before the
war-clouds culminating in the lurid storm of
Sedan.
Pianiste à Sa Majesté l’Impératrice des Fran-
çais ! was the proud title of this distinguished
virtuoso, which, like the golden wand of a
magician, conjures up a host of charming visions
of one who was the pride and glory of her
people when in the zenith of imperial mother-
hood, and whose brief span of regal power
arose, flashed, and set like a meteor in the
course of royal events. A pale and languid
face, on whose pain-contracted lips a world
once hung, starts into life beside the radiant
loveliness of Eugénie, while the smiling eyes
and spiritual beauty of the debonair young
VOL. II.
A
2
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
Prince completes the trio. Husband and son-
the dazzling glitter and prestige of the one
lost, swallowed up for ever in the mighty waves
of disastrous defeat; the joyous youth, the
fond hopes, the proud future of the other
drowned for ever in the life-blood welling up
beneath the thrust of a Zulu spear !
Death spared Ascher the pain of witnessing
the deplorable events which culminated in the
downfall of his beloved and gracious patroness,
as he fell a victim to a complication of diseases
which terminated his life before the fatal year
of '70.
Joseph Ascher was born in London, of Ger-
man parentage, in the year 1831, and when a
mere lad attracted the attention of Moscheles,
who soon found the brilliant gifts of his pupil
fully justified the interest he took in him ; but it
was not until the patronage of Eugénie estab-
lished his fame that the genius discovered by
Moscheles was stamped with the seal of public
recognition and appreciation accorded it by
that master of the pianoforte.
The year 1849 was an eventful one in the
life of the young virtuoso, for it was the year of
his advent in Paris. He was then in the very
golden prime of youth, in the romantic age of
man's life when everything in the world seems
ASCHER
3
accessible—the rich vigour and spiritual fresh-
ness of eighteen.
"Whom have we here?' exclaimed the critics
when the young virtuoso made his first bow to a
Parisian audience, and ravished their ears by the
beauty and elegance of his execution. 'Assuredly
another Thalberg has arisen amongst us!'
Unknown and unheralded, the youth at once
attained the coveted position for which he had
studied indefatigably under the skilful teaching
of Moscheles—that of the most popular pianist
to the music-loving world of Paris.
Ascher felt keenly the obscurity of his birth
when compared with the aristocratic parentage
of his great rival, and adroitly evaded the deli-
cate snobbery of polite society. It is related
that on one occasion, a musical evening at the
house of a famous dilettante, he was approached
by a grande daine, well known for her enthusi-
astic support of Thalberg, who exclaimed in
tones of irony and chagrin :
Happy am I to congratulate you, monsieur,
on your wonderful execution ; it almost equals
that of our dear Thalberg, son of Prince Die-
trichstein.'
'I am not the son of a Prince, Madame,
answered Ascher, drawing up his form proudly,
'but I am prince in my art!'
4
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
Technique, the marvellous manipulation of
every resource of the pianoforte, was Ascher's
crowning point. His powerful mastery of the
bass, whereby he intoned melodies and themes
of richness and depth, contrasting delightfully
with the silvery sweetness of the variations in
the treble, elicited from a celebrated musician
the admiring exclamation :
Mon Dieu ! He has no left hand, but two
right hands instead !
Moscheles, the most undoubted critic of his
day, and an indisputable authority, was unspar-
ing in his praise of Ascher as a virtuoso, while
at the same time condemning his methods as a
composer. When we consider the fact that
Moscheles was a worshipper at the noble shrine
of Beethoven, from whence the most skilful
master of modern music drew his inspiration,
we cannot entertain any feelings of surprise
that the brilliant and elegant style of Ascher,
bestowed only on the light music of the dance,
the valse and mazurka, should have found in
Moscheles a severe and unsympathetic critic.
This graceful, if meaningless, school of piano
variations was the vogue in Paris before the
days of Ascher. To quote Mendelssohn's words
when he wrote to a friend in Paris : 'Is Herz
prejudiced when he says that the Parisians
ASCHER
5
understand nothing but variations and fan-
tasias?' A query the great composer seemed
to put forth in doubt, but which has been
proved the truth in the instance of Ascher's
success. The celebrated picture by Winter-
halter of the Empress Eugénie surrounded by
the ladies of her Court affords a melancholy
glimpse into the bygone splendours of a Court
where fashion reigned supreme. Pleasure was
the prevailing sentiment of the hour, and a
spirit of shallow pretence the keynote of all
that glittering Parisian world. Music, the
faithful interpreter of a people's soul, caught
the intonation and reflected it back in the
myriads of musical ebullitions, aptly termed
gouttes d'or, la source, la capricieuse, and numerous
other titles as light and fantastic, which, like
the falling leaves of autumn, foreshadowed the
winter of discontent, soon destined to sweep
down upon the gay, frivolous Parisians and the
delusive splendours of their Court life.
Ascher's brilliant gifts as an instrumentalist
peculiarly fitted him as an exponent of this
particular school of pianoforte music. His
touch was clear, decisive, and flexible, while the
'two right hands'imparted a power and sono-
rousness orchestral in its effect, without which
his instrumentation would have been scarcely
6
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
above the plane of graceful mediocrity. No
doubt the secret of those two wonderful right
hands might be found in some peculiar method
of practice applied to the left hand whereby it
acquired that marvellous power-a secret never
divulged by Ascher. It was clearly the result
of great study and application—no trick, as
a humorous raconteur would make us believe
proved the case in a trial of sight-reading be-
tween Haydn and Mozart, in which the former
challenged the latter to write a piece which he
could not master at sight, provided he (Mozart)
could play it himself; whereupon Mozart accepted
the challenge, and wrote a short theme, which he
played on the piano, and smilingly bade Haydn
proceed, an invitation the master accepted
forthwith. Seating himself at the instrument,
he began playing, and expressed surprise at
the apparent simplicity of the composition,
which proved to be quite elementary in style ;
but when he had played a few bars, a passage
occurred wherein the bass and treble chords
were widely apart and a sustained note be-
tween, which represented the middle of the key-
board. Haydn ceased playing, exclaiming :
This is impossible! I cannot use my hands
at both ends of the piano and strike a note in
ASCHER
7
the middle at the same time. I have not three
but two hands!'
*Very well,' replied Mozart; 'I will show you
how it is played !'
Whereupon Mozart proceeded to execute the
piece. When he came to the disputed passage,
where both hands are stretched to the extreme
ends of the keyboard, he suddenly dropped his
head and struck the note with the end of his
long nose, exclaiming 'So!'
Needless to say that Haydn, whose nose was
rather a snub, laughingly admitted that Mozart
possessed resources for pianoforte playing which
Nature had denied to him.
Combined with his mastery of the pianoforte,
Ascher possessed a decided gift for 'posing ';
his elegant presence and beautiful hands assisted,
no doubt, to a considerable degree his popu-
larity in a Court where all was glittering osten-
tation, where the charm of person and manner
was of infinitely more importance than the
charms of intellect combined with simplicity,
where a musician or composer of greater genius
and brusqueness than Ascher would have
knocked long and vainly at the door of the
Tuileries.
Ascher amassed a fortune : he derived an
almost princely income from his compositions.
8
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
.
Prime favourite at Court, he was at once prac-
tical and idealistic, posing at Court as a dreamer,
a dandy, a virtuoso; but at the same time
watching his monetary advantages outside the
palace gates. Had he survived the terrible
reverses of his imperial patroness he might,
through stress of ill-fortune, have risen to truly
great heights as a virtuoso. As it was, the
gilded success in which he basked enervated both
moral and mental powers; and one June day in
1869 the Empress heard with genuine sorrow
of the sudden death of her favourite while on a
visit to London-a regret soon forgotten in the
sorrows which quickly gathered around her own
happy days, bowing that lovely head for ever
beneath the heaviest cross yet meted out to
royal wife and motherhood.
OLE BULL
1810-1880
I
N the Opera House of a great Western city
spread along the banks of the Ohio, or
yellow waters,' as the Indian lore picturesquely
termed that noble river, a child sat one night
entranced beneath the spell of a musician's bow.
Visions of the fjord and rushing waters, pine-
embowered valleys, and frost-gemmed glittering
peaks of snow in the far-away land of the
midnight sun, filled that childish fancy, till the
young heart beat with indefinable pleasure, and
the tiny hands kept unconscious time to the
rhythm of those sweet, powerful, absorbing
strains, little thinking to those small hands
would one day be relegated the happy mission
of recording the wonderful genius, the masterly
art of the majestic old man, silver-crowned and
bearing his sixty years with the youthful air of
one of his own Norse gods, as he stood erect
and alone in the middle of the great stage.
Melody, now passionate and tender, exultant,
g
IO
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
jubilant, then soft and low, sinking into mourn-
ful cadences, finally lost in sobbing chords of
the minor, welled up from the bosom of the
violin poised like the flight of a bird on the
broad shoulders of the master his tall form
swaying beneath the inspiration of his theme;
his head thrown back; the strong features
aglow as with an inward fire; the clear blue
eyes gazing straight ahead, as though penetrat-
ing space and distance, seeing again the dear
old Norseland, climbing the cliffs and fording
the cataract, revelling in the hardy sports of
the North, the home-coming after the chase for
the gallant boar, the sweet hour of eventide
amid the warmth and gentle cheer of the fire-
side, the song, the wassail, and the ruddy glow
illuminating, glorifying the loved face of sister,
wife, and mother: all these visions enhancing
the richness of his strains, the pathos of his
melody, as, pure and sweet as the flow of his
own beloved fjords, gushes forth the music of
his native land, the quaint and fascinating airs
of Norway. Perchance amid that vast audience
listening in breathless silence to those wonderful
strains no heart beat faster, no eyes gazed more
mistily across the glittering horseshoes of the
footlights, than those of that child whose young
soul drank for the first time of the magical
OLE BULL
II
draught of music presented by the hand of
genius, and whose innocent fancy first learned
to plume its wings and soar aloft into the sacred
realms of poetry and song led by the sound of
a bow, the harmony of a string, and the wondrous
art of Ole Bull.
The warın-blooded sons of the South may
intone melodies voluptuous in their beauty and
rhythm as the palms and wine-laden vines of
their sunny soil; but to the son of the North
the songs of the ice-bound fastnesses, the chant
of the cataract's rushing waters, the deep boom
of the glacier's slide, the rattling fusilade of hail
and thunderstorm, evoke a melody as passionate,
as sublime, nay, grander in its ferocity, its utter
abandonment to the forces of Nature, than all
the wine-inspired, the sun-created inspirations
of the South. The burn of ice equals that of
fire, and the traveller lost in the frozen drifts of
the snow sinks into the arms of Death with as
voluptuous a warmth as ever that bestowed on
the poppy-steeped dreamer of the South. Hence
we have received from the chilly shores of the
Norseman sons and daughters of Poetry and
Song, Music and the Drama, endowed with the
rare gift of spirituality whereby they conquer
the soul while subduing the senses.
Paganini, that glorious master of the most
IZ
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
divine of instruments, never evoked more pure
and more heavenly strains than the young
Norseman whom he hesitated not, with the
generosity of genius, to take by the hand and
hail as a worthy disciple of the godlike art of
the violin.
Ole Bull was born on the 5th of February
1810, in the quaint old seaport town of Bergen.
Nestled in the lap of seven mountains on one
side, and rolling away to the sea on the other,
the lovely valley formed by the slope of those
rugged mountains was not only peopled by
worthy citizens, but was the birthplace of many
a famous Norseman. Young Ole came of
worthy stock, a race combining varied gifts, as
we find that on the maternal side he was
descended from the poet Edmond Storm, and
on the paternal from a goodly array of clever
folk representing science, art, and commerce.
From the earliest years of his life he evinced a
remarkable predilection for music, a most
wonderful instinctive understanding of the laws
of harmony, of which we may read a quaint
illustration in the charming book of memoirs
written by his wife, Sara C. Bull.
Uncle Jens, she tells us, was a lover of the
violoncello, and also a collector of instruments.
The worthy uncle delighted to amuse himself
OLE BULL
13
with the boy's susceptibility to music, and when
the little Ole was but three years old would
often put him in the violoncello case, and bribe
him with sweets to remain there while he
played ; but the sweetmeats could not keep
him long insensible to the influence of the music,
and it was not long ere the childish eyes began
to kindle and the little feet to beat time until
the excitement became so great that no in-
ducements could keep him in the case. The
music was dancing all through him, and he must
give it utterance. Breaking away, he would run
home, and possessing himself of a yard-stick,
with a small stick for a bow, would set to work
to reproduce the music with his inward ear,
all the while explaining to the good father and
mother, in his anxiety that they should hear the
melody with which his infant soul was pervaded,
how the bass harmonised so beautifully here
and there. Finally the kindly uncle, touched
by the child's devotion to the soundless pre-
tence of a fiddle, bought him one, yellow as a
lemon. In later years, the great virtuoso used to
tell how he felt carried up to the third heaven
when his own little hand first brought out a tune
from that yellow violin. He loved it, and kissed
it-it seemed to him so beautiful, that little fiddle.
At a comparatively early age, young Ole was
14
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
placed at a Latin school by his father, a man
of considerable culture and discrimination, but
to whom the profession of music was not
viewed in the light of a lover or virtuoso.
Consequently the boy found no incitement to-
in fact, no foreshadowing of the art which was
to absorb the ripe years of manhood and
peaceful days of an old age grown honourable
in the triumphs of that art. Like many of the
good God's blessings, the gift ripened unawares,
fed by apparently trivial, accidental opportuni-
ties like the following :-One lovely summer's
day, when all the world of Nature tempted the
boy to cast aside his books and roam the
mountain-side, a strain of music floated into
the schoolroom. It was the melody evoked
from an old violin by the tremulous hands of
an aged street musician. The touch was un-
steady and the tempo faltering, but the tone
was rich and sweet, and so full of feeling that
young Ole forgot verbs, the master, and even
prospective punishment, in the delight of listen-
ing to those strains. Heedless of time and place,
he obeyed the voice calling him in the tones of
the old violin, and rushed into the street.
Grasping the old man by the arm, he led him
away to a favourite retreat in one of the most
solitary spots of the mountain-side, where he
OLE BULL
15
forced the old musician to play until over-
powered with fatigue, whereupon the generous
boy led him to his humble shelter and loaded
him with sad to relate substantial material
stolen from the family larder, extracting a
promise, meanwhile, from the old man of future
meetings whereby he might profit by his rude
art.
The spirit of poetry innate to the boy was
fostered by the old grandam, who never tired of
relating to him the wild legends of Norway,
the weird tales of ghost-lore (the hobgoblins and
trolls, the Hulder) and peasant folk-lore; and as
his years grew apace he drank deeply of the
old Norse mythology—the fascinating stories
of Odin and Thor, and all the multitude of
gods, norns, and giants peopling the Valhalla of
the Norseman. Undoubtedly these beautiful
myths enriched a fancy naturally fervid and
dreamy, thereby imparting to his art an in-
describable charm enhanced, not weakened, by
study. This same poetic tendency also aroused
the creative and the sympathetic faculties,
placing him in a mysterious sense in touch
with all Nature. With the one he understood
the voice of the rushing fjord, the whisper of
the wind, the rage of the storm, and the noise
of the leaves swaying in the summer breeze or
16
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
dripping beneath the rain. With the other he
caught and repeated that wonderful voice of
Nature in her various moods, in the meshes of
his beloved instrument, weaving torrents of
melody from those strings until no heart could
resist their joy and no eye their melting pathos.
Let us return once more to the pages of the
devoted wife's memoir for a last incident of
those boyish days, one which marks his first
triumph. It was young Ole's eighth birthday,
and the good Uncle Jens was about to devote
the evening to the weekly quartett practice.
Unfortunately, at the last moment the musician
Paulsen, who played the first violin, was com-
pletely overcome through a too generous supper.
Uncle Jens was at his wits' end with disappoint-
ment and chagrin. Suddenly he cried, Ole,
you shall play in Paulsen's stead; come, do
your best, and you shall have a stick of candy!
Thrusting the violin in the boy's hand, he
waited to see how Ole would treat the half-
serious, half-joking request; but the boy was
not intimidated, for, grasping the violin, he
proceeded to play with a boldness and correct-
ness of time which amused the good uncle and
his friends beyond measure. The quartett was
one of Pleyel's, and one he had often heard.
The secret practice with the old musician had
OLE BULL
17
/
rendered his memory exceeding true, no doubt;
but now all that was at an end-no need of
further stolen visits to the old man's cottage
and mad hours of rapture in the wilds of the
mountain-side, for the stern mandate of the
practical father was finally overcome by the
pleadings of the good uncle, and Paulsen, whose
love for the brimming cup had brought about
all this, found himself with a new pupil, whose
training he accepted with genuine pride and
affection. Many triumphs followed in all the
long after years, but none, we ween, more
sweet, more happy, than that won in the dear
home circle.
Ole Bull was a typical Norseman, erect of
bearing, with a commanding presence and
mobile, kindly face, from which the eyes shone
clear and fearless as the spirits of old Norway
hovering over his native mountains. He was
a man to evoke respect and love under all con-
ditions, and when he stepped before an audience
roused an instantaneous throb of sympathy,
of interest, before the sweep of his magical
bow enthralled their souls with its melodious
measures. · Mon sauvage' was the term of en-
dearment by which Jules Janin used to call
him, and indeed the expression was appropriate
in more senses than one. The cultured French
VOL. II.
B
18
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
audiences did not expect much from an un-
known and self-trained Norwegian violinist.
Already disposed to laugh and find fault, their
astonishment knew no bounds when they saw
a blonde giant actually run on to the stage in
lieu of the studied nonchalance and affected
mannerisms of Paganini and De Bériot, who
would not for the world have betrayed any
movement of impatience. Those who have
seen him—and their numbers are legion both
in Europe and America-will never forget his
striking personality: the vigour of his broad
chest set off by a slender waist, the simplicity
bordering on uncouthness which to the last he
could never overcome, and the nervous grip
with which he clasped his instrument, and drew
the bow as if to crush the frail instrument in his
massive grasp.
Impresarios, publishers, theatre directors,
even kings and princes, were ruthlessly brushed
aside by this child of Nature. To be done out
of the whole proceeds of a concert, to find his
works published without receiving any re-
muneration, were occurrences by no
Patriot to the core, and with the true
republicanism of art, he treated monarchs as
equals. Court rules existed not for him. That.
no violinist should have the ear of majesty
means
rare.
OLE BULL
19
unless approved of by the Court director of
music may suit others, but not him. Rather
than submit to that indignity he leaves the
capital without fulfilling his object. “My
name is known,' he says ; 'I do not rehearse to
anybody. His own sovereign is treated no
better. The Swedish rule was not popular in
Norway; this country, which had been for over
four hundred years an annexe of the crown of
Denmark, had been passed over to Sweden by
the Congress of Vienna. True, the union was
personal only, and theoretically the two king-
doms were independent; but in reality the
influence of Sweden was felt in all the walks
of life, and a spirit of rebellion was gaining
ground. Ole Bull was life and soul with the
malcontents. The King, who loved to forget his
republican antecedents as Citoyen Bernadotte,
made some allusion to the refractory spirit of
his Western subjects; but the interlocutor knew
no joke on that topic. Taking his violin under
his arm, he strode out of the palace, and no
entreaties could induce him to stay at Stock-
holm. A Swedish order was refused point-
blank, and only accepted a little later at the
pressing request of the King.
In our days we hear little of the political
independence of Norway; the greater Powers
20
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
with their aspirations and jealousies absorb the
attention of the public; but on the path of
literature and music Norway occupies a place
far in excess of its importance as a nation.
Björnson and Ibsen as writers, and Grieg as
musician, rank among the choicest spirits of
their day; but though Bull as a creative artist
has outlived his fame, he was the first to main-
tain that his country possessed the basis for a
national art, strong enough to rely for its effects
on the unaided vigour of its own inspirations.
For the whole of his life we see him constantly
holding that aim before his eyes. "The Norse
Norman from Norway, he used to call himself,
Of course, it is difficult to determine the degree
of influence that may be ascribed to him in
shaping the terse periods of Björnson, the vivid
personalities of Ibsen, and that breath of cool
summer breeze that wafts across Grieg's Nor-
wegian airs; but we have it on record that,
before Grieg was thought of, his predecessor
appealed for inspiration to the mountains of
his country, and that at the most remote corner
of the world his thoughts, often sad and regret-
ful, were ever among the blue fjords and wide
hallings of his native land.
In 1828, while studying at Christiania, he
played at a concert with such success that
OLE BULL
21
everybody pressed him to give up his studies
and devote himself exclusively to music. He
yielded to this advice, which concided with his
own inclinations; but the parents were inexor-
able. Abandoned by them, and possessed of
very little money, he undertook the voyage to
Cassel under the greatest difficulties. Here
fresh disappointment awaited him. Spohr, the
most methodical of men, could see nothing but
the many errors which with Bull were the
necessary effect of self-tuition. The German
master, who was at the head of his profession,
had no appreciation for wild genius; and his
unqualified advice to Bull to give up a musi-
cal career was undoubtedly sincere and well
meant.
But the young man would not hear of that.
In despair at the discouragement he had just
received, he returned to Norway and renewed
his studies with a savage energy. In 1831 he
made his first voyage to Paris. The cholera
was decimating the population, and musicians
could not obtain a hearing Soon Bull was in
the greatest pecuniary stress; ill and home-
less, he roamed about the deserted streets of
the city.
Unable to overcome his fatigue, he
entered a house in the Rue des Martyrs in
which there were rooms to let. An old lady
22
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
took compassion on the friendless musician;
she and her granddaughter not only nursed
him through his illness but furnished him with
money to travel to Italy. The granddaughter,
Félicie Villerninot, very beautiful, oval features
and Spanish eyes, became the wife of Bull, and
was for a number of years his devoted com-
panion in mutual love and affection.
In Italy success came very slowly; the
evident faults of style neutralised the splendid
gifts of the violinist, and called for the severe
censure of critics. At last the unanimity with
which his faults were condemned suggested to
him that after all there might be some truth in
the arguments of his opponents. He conquered
his own aversion to constraint of any kind, and
for six months he became an humble pupil
anxious only to overcome the obstacles in his
way, willing to bury all pretensions to perfec-
tion in order to accomplish that object. The
result justified this measure.
From that time
Bull ranked with the first of his colleagues, and
even Paganini was not able to lower his colours.
In 1833 he played in Paris to vociferous ap-
plause. Paganini himself lauded the perform-
ance, while Bull, after hearing the Italian, was
so vividly impressed that he launched off at
once into months of assiduous study, more than
1
OLE BULL
23
ever determined to bridge over the gulf which
in his opinion still separated him from his
celebrated adversary.
In Italy, which was his next destination, the
audiences were still cool, until a sudden indis-
position of De Bériot gave him an opportunity
to acquit himself so brilliantly that from that
moment the enthusiasm of the Italians knew no
bounds. The friendship of the celebrated singer
Malibran dated from that concert ; it was as
cordial as it was sincere, and lasted without
interruption until the untimely death of the
gifted lady
Since then the fame of Ole Bull has stood the
test of all the music-loving audiences of Europe
and America. Indefatigable in his travels and
exertions, he has probably covered a greater
mileage and played to a larger total of hearers
than any known virtuoso. His style was re-
markable for its brilliancy, and the tone he
could produce from his instrument has been on
all hands pronounced marvellous. His physical
strength seemed to communicate itself to his
bow, and his feat of playing on all four strings
at the same time has rarely been equalled by
any known violinist. For depth of feeling few
can be found to approach him ; it found its
greatest expression in adagios, and especially
24
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
But a
in the compositions of Mozart, for which master
he had a passionate admiration, and whom he
placed far above other composers. The render-
ing of his native melodies also calls for some
mention; his few compositions are based on
national tunes, whose quaint pathos he could
interpret better than anybody else.
certain want of finish, a predilection for bril-
liancy, and a certain trickiness in style have not
been denied even by his friends, and by critics
whose high position places them above petty
motives of jealousy. As music advanced in the
latter half of the century, the applause that
greeted Bull decreased markedly, and he was
perhaps wise in not facing European audiences
in his declining years; but in America his
popularity remained unimpaired, and through-
out the United States his advent was greeted
with enthusiasm and the money he demanded
conceded without a murmur.
His love for Norway and the Norwegians
was proof against the many disappointments
he experienced in his country. The establish-
ment of a National Academy, so ardently desired
by the patriotic musician, met with no success.
His plans for colonisation on a grand scale
fared no better; the peasants preferred their
simple homes, and the splendid prospects
OLE BULL
25
opened up to them in Pennsylvania had no
charms except for a select few. This scheme,
well conceived and elaborated, made severe
inroads into the fortune of Bull ; his income
had at all times during the last half of his life
been enormous, but he would not husband his
resources, and unscrupulous connections vied
with fantastical schemes to dry up the source
of his fortune and to place him at times in
serious straits. An attempt to construct a
piano that would be proof against the ravages
of time had to be abandoned after a loss of
twenty thousand dollars, though it must be
admitted that the scheme was not without
theoretical advantages.
Bull has written a treatise on violin-playing
based on the position of the arms; its merits
and demerits can only be accurately gauged by
a professional. We have already referred to
his own peculiar position, which was principally
due to the difficulty he had as a child to handle
a very large instrument
Like all eminent men, he had many enemies
envious of his fame and attainments. Vieux-
temps and the French-Americans disputed to
the last his supremacy; but other more impartial
judges, especially Joachim, recognise his great
ability and, with certain reservations, his striking
26
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
style. With Paganini, Liszt, Thalberg, he kept
up a firm friendship which is confirmed by
many letters still existing.
His first wife died in the sixties, deeply
mourned by her husband and children: the
Norwegian home which at the wish of her
husband she had made her own did not agree
with her taste nor her delicate health. His
second marriage to the young and lovely
American girl to whose clever pen the fame of
her great husband owes a lasting debt of grati-
tude was eminently happy.
Among the celebrated musicians of all nations
Ole Bull will always remain a striking figure.
He is typical in more senses than one.
musician none so celebrated has been so essen-
tially a 'self-made man,' none has grown up
with so little influence from outside, none with
a technique so essentially self-discovered. As a
son of his country none has retained so sturdy
a sense of patriotism ; none has, amid the more
brilliant surroundings of a life-time spent in the
gayest cities of the world, refused to be weaned
from the poor Northern half-dependent State
from which he issued a penniless lad. Wherever
Bull stands, there stands a piece of Norway :
we think of Odin and Thor and Freya and the
flaxen-bearded heroes of the Valhalla. The
As a
1
OLE BULL
27
nation owes him a debt of gratitude; its remark-
able intellectual development owes him perhaps
its existence. No more striking type of sym-
bolism can be imagined than the towering
figure of the white-haired septuagenarian, after
scaling one of the Egyptian pyramids, violin
in hand, rearing himself up and playing the
Norwegian Hymn surrounded by the monu-
ments of a mysterious antiquity.
Mrs. Bull in her memoir, dedicated in sweet
and tender simplicity' To our Olea,' describes a
most touching incident which occurred but a
few weeks before the great master's death. She
says:
The annual encampment of militia troops at
Ulven, a few miles from Lysö, broke up. The
regiments, embarked upon a fleet of steamers on
their way to Bergen, the point for disbanding,
necessarily passed a short distance outside of
Lysö. The fleet was conducted through the
inner tjord that opportunity might be given
to show the sympathy and affection of the
troops for the man whose music had so often
entranced them. The foremost vessel of the
fleet, with the military band, came slowly to
rest immediately under the windows of the
music-hall. Ole Bull, too feeble to present him-
self, directed his great American flag with the
28
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
Norwegian arms in escutcheon (the gift of the
New York Philharmonic Society) to be run
out from the window overlooking the fjord.
Immediately the band played with infinite
sweetness an original composition of the
master. This was followed by a superb
Norwegian air to which Björnson had written
the words; and this was succeeded by the
proud National Hymn. At the close, dipping
its flag, the head of the fleet silently moved
away. The successive vessels, slowly following,
dipped their flags in turn, and passed on around
the island to resume their course.'
Alas that this fleet should have been the
herald of the convoy of steamers that a few
weeks later gave such mournful and impres-
sive dignity to the sorrow of Norway, when the
mortal remains of Ole Bull were borne by sea
to their last resting-place in Bergen, where he
was born!
In his magnificent speech to the assembled
thousands after the interment, Björnstjerne
Björnson rightly said :-
Ole Bull was loved—this we see to-day; he
was honoured ; but it is more to be loved than
to be honoured.' And again: 'He always felt
himself our representative; and if he felt there
was need, let it be at home or abroad, that Ole
OLE BULL
29
Olsen Viol, Norse Norman from Norway (a
nickname he gave himself), should appear, he
never failed us.'
'Now long that instrument has ceased to sound,
Now long that gracious form in earth has lain,
Tended by Nature only, and unwound
Are all those mingled threads of love and pain ;
So let us weep and bend
Our heads, and wait the end,
Knowing that God creates not thus in vain.'
BUXTEHUDE
1637-1707
NE of the most fascinating pleasures of
the researcher and student of musical
annals is that of unravelling the threads of
history, finding here and there a clue whereby
the record of many a forgotten master may
be disentombed from the dusty shelves of the
disused library, or disinterred from its cherished
grave among the treasures of the bibliophile.
Who to-day, of the general musical world,
is filled with enthusiasm at the name of Buxte-
hude? How many of the myriads of organ-
lovers even know the name of the great master
of that noble instrument? And yet his name
is inseparably interwoven with that of his world-
famous pupil, Bach. Still following the magi-
cal thread of history, we come to Jan Pieter
Sweelinck, born at Amsterdam about October
1562, who was in his turn pupil of Jakob Buyck,
pastor of the old Dutch church in which his
father presided as organist, and whose place
30
BUXTEHUDE
31
he filled when the elder Sweelinck was laid to
rest in the quiet old God's-acre adjoining. It
is recorded that for a generation he formed the
pride and glory of Amsterdam, where he
founded a school of organists, which began with
Scheidemann, who was the master of Reinecke,
the famous organist of Lübeck, and at whose
feet the boy Bach first drank of the knowledge
perfected by Buxtehude. What more interest-
ing study of the glorious art of organ music
than to contemplate the progress of an art
wherein its exponents were bound by an un-
broken chain of descent, beginning with Swee-
linck and culminating in Bach? At once a
composer of high attainments and a virtuoso
of great skill—for he was a famous player of
the clavicymbal and lute-Sweelinck improved
the organ by many inventions, most important
of which was the pedal. So great was his fame,
that Van Dyck sought him in order to paint
a portrait of his distinguished contemporary.
The painting represents the old musician in
ruffle and skull-cap; the brow broad and high,
the eyes dreamy and introspective, the nose
aquiline; while the pointed beard and moustache
conceal the lower part of the face, but do not
detract from the picturesque aspect of the noble
head. Sweelinck was considered a most extra-
32
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
ordinary musician in his time, and at his death
one of the most distinguished poets of the day,
Vondel, wrote his epitaph in verse, in which he
apostrophised the dead virtuoso as the 'Phoenix
of Music. The last work of Sweelinck was a
requiem written for the obsequies of the Em-
peror Leopold.
When a youth of sixteen, Buxtehude sought
the old master--who even in his declining years
retained the fire of his art--and enrolled himself
as a pupil of the veteran organist. To this
fortunate step Buxtehude owed much of the
success of his career, for the secrets of the
master were ungrudgingly revealed to the pupil
-an example not lost on the young student,
who, unlike Reinecke, loved to bestow his know-
ledge and methods on those worthy of receiving
them. It is well known that Reinecke jealously
guarded his methods, and only studied in secret,
with closed doors and sometimes muffled pedals.
The instance of his harshness to young Bach,
when the boy trudged miles to listen to his
practising, no doubt restrained him in after
years from placing himself under the tutorship
of the crotchety musician, and induced him to
seek Buxtehude instead for the fame of both
was at that time equally well known.
Dietrich Buxtehude was born in Helsingör,
BUXTEHUDE
33
in the year 1637. Grand old Dane, he was a
typical son of the North, full of that indescrib-
able enthusiasm for music which has given to
the world so many great names mustered from
the shores of Scandinavia. Like all the famous
musicians of that period, he inherited the mantle
of his father, and became organist of the Olai-
Church on the decease of that worthy man.
The career of the great organist did not really
begin until he was about thirty years old, when
he abandoned the position so ably filled at
Helsingör and turned his steps towards Lübeck,
in order to compete for the appointment of
organist in the Marien-Kirche-an undertaking
in which he was, fortunately for the music-loving
townspeople, at once successful.
The old
adage, there is no rose without its thorn, proved
the case in this matter; and the thorn in the
young virtuoso's garland was the quaint old
custom practised from time immemorial among
the organ - masters of Lübeck.
They made
marriage compulsory with their successors, and
each old master bequeathed to the successful
applicant not only his seat, but a daughter in
marriage as well; consequently, young Buxte-
hude found himself compelled to accept a bride,
pleasing or otherwise. In this respect he seems
to have been as fortunate as in the matter of
VOL. II.
С
34
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
the appointment, for history records the mar-
riage with his predecessor's daughter, Anna
Margaretha Tunder, to have been a very happy
and prolific one. Not so fortunate was his
successor, Mattheson, whom Buxtehude, remem-
bering his own experience, sought to marry to
his daughter, Anna Margaretha; the match was
a failure, for the young musician did not take
kindly to the prospect of marrying a lady
twelve years his senior. Consequently, the
mantle and prestige of Buxtehude's renown
fell to his friend who had no scruples
in the matter of a slight disparity of age on
the wrong side.
Buxtehude's fame, no doubt, rests upon the
glorious fact that he was the friend and master
of Bach, and that he made Lübeck the centre
of the musical world of Gemany in those days,
by his institution of great musical performances
in connection with the church services. These
were called the Abendmusiken, or evening ser-
vices, on the five Sundays before Christmas,
consisting of sacred music for orchestra and
chorus. To these services musicians travelled
from all parts of the musical world; and the
fame of them induced Bach to make his
memorable journey on foot from Thuringia.
The ready help of the kindly old virtuoso, rich
BUXTEHUDE
35
in fame and the good things of life, to the
unknown pupil, the simple youth, clad in the
garb of a peasant, whose only credentials were
enthusiasm and a capacity for hard study, shall
reflect glory on the name of Buxtehude as long
as that of Bach shines in the annals of music.
CLEMENTI
1752-1832
CLE
LEMENTI has been described as a man
of the rarest talent, 'not of genius'--a
description that can only be understood by
those who are capable of estimating the subtle
distinction, as to the true relation of which
there will always be some diversity of opinion.
* Talent'is a useful word, and, as George Eliot
would say, must often be taken with consider-
able reservation and an extensive knowledge
of differences. Whether Clementi belongs to
genius or talent, his work remains a durable
monument of success and value. His life ex-
tended over the most brilliant and productive
period in the history of music. Handel was
living in his childhood; and when he was
buried in the pretty churchyard at Eversham,
Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber had sung their
last songs, and Mozart, Gluck, and Haydn
had lived and struggled and given the world
immortal works in the interim. During his
36
CLEMENTI
37
allotted span of years music had undergone
revolutions, and the world had witnessed poli-
tical and social upheavals of everlasting interest
to the human race. The terrible French Re-
volution had shaken Europe to its foundations ;
the giant sprung from the soil of Corsica had
for a time chained the riotous torrent, and
directed its course into one channel of selfish-
ness; and he in turn had been hurled from his
solitary throne, and chained by the vengeance
of outraged humanity. Amidst these stirring
changes the musician lived a life apart, wedded
to his art, resigned and placid, unmoved by
outward things.
Muzio Clementi was born in Rome in 1752.
His father, a silversmith, was pleased to find his
son possessed of musical talent, and placed him
under the care of Buroni, a relative of the
family, one of the first organists in Rome, and
maestro di capella in one of the churches there.
In his seventh or eighth year the child was
initiated into the mysteries of contra-bass by
Condicelli ; and in two years he had made
sufficient progress to compete successfully for a
position as organist. Up to the age of fourteen
he studied singing and counterpoint under the
direction of Sartarelli and Carpani.
Then came the turning point in the boy's
38
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
career.
One day he was playing on the clave-
cin, and an English gentleman named Beckford 1
was so delighted with his skill that he asked
the elder Clementi to allow Muzio to follow
him to England, where his studies could be
pursued without further expense to his friends.
At this early age young Clementi had com-
posed quite a number of contrapuntal works,
and a mass from his pen had created a sensa-
tion at Rome. The father consented to the
proposal, though the parting caused him the
deepest agony, and they never met again.
Until 1770 Clementi pursued his studies on
the estate of his patron in Dorsetshire. He
was assiduous and painstaking, and, having
acquired considerable knowledge of music and
unparalleled command of the pianoforte, he
made his debut in London in his eighteenth
year. He took the town by storm; nothing
had been heard like the young Clementi, whose
executive skill was extraordinary, and whose
ability as a composer raised him at one bound
into the front rank among musicians. He not
only surpassed all his contemporaries as
pianist, but he wrote his Opus 2, a piece of per-
fect form in pianoforte writing, which had con-
siderable influence upon Beethoven. Indeed,
1. An English gentleman, Mr. Bedford, or Beckford.'-Grove.
a
CLEMENTI
39
it must be noted that Clementi is the creator
of the modern school of pianoforte-playing.
His treatment of the instrument showed its
capacity for the higher forms of expression,
such as were impossible to the obsolete harpsi-
chord. His works have left an indelible mark
on the art of playing what may fairly be classed
as one of the noblest of modern instruments;
both in form and in spirit they are alike admir-
able; and not the least is their praise and merit
that they originated in the mind of Beethoven
the clearer and larger forms of the sonata which
have added so vast a wealth to the treasures of
music. Mr. Dannreuther, the writer of the
interesting article on Clementi in Grove's
Dictionary, points out that Clementi fore-
shadowed Beethoven. In his library the works
of Clementi held a conspicuous position. 'Beet-
hoven,' says this writer,'had a marked predilec-
tion for them, and placed them in the front
rank of works fit to engender an artistic treat-
ment of the pianoforte; he liked them for their
freshness of spirit and for their concise and
precise form, and chose them above all others,
and in spite of the opposition of so experienced
a driller of pianoforte players as Carl Czerny, for
the daily study of his nephew.'
For the next eleven years Clementi devoted
40
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
his services to the Italian opera in London ;
and, as soon as his English engagements per-
mitted, set forth on a long-contemplated tour of
the Continental cities. His reception at Paris,
Strassburg, Munich, Vienna, was all that an
artist could desire; his audiences were large
and enthusiastic, and he met with no lack of
cultured appreciation among the highest artistic
circles, At Vienna a musical combat with
Mozart was arranged by the desire of the Em-
peror.
The result was undecided. Mozart
thought meanly of his rival ; considered him a
mere mechanician at the pianoforte. Clementi
himself admitted that his playing sounded
harsh and mechanical beside the singing touch
and exquisite pathos of Mozart. Much has
been written to show that the asperity of
Mozart's judgment of Clementi's playing was
the outcome of prejudice and feelings embit-
tered by disappointment and hope deferred.
Such a conclusion is far from the truth. Mozart
was one of the noblest and least selfish of men,
and Clementi's own admission of inferiority in
expression and feeling places the question
beyond dispute. If Mozart's verdict was not
complimentary, no doubt it was essentially
just; for Clementi, with that calm, clear good
sense which distinguished him throughout his
CLEMENTI
41
career, at once set about improving his style,
which, at a later period, was not without
reminiscences of the singing tone and deep
feeling of Mozart.
On his return to London Clementi embarked
in business speculations, and even became a
partner in a thriving firm of musical instrument
sellers, in which he sank a large proportion of
his gains as a virtuoso. Nobody imagined that
the eminent pianist was engaged in an under-
taking of this nature, and considerable astonish-
ment was caused when, on the failure of the
firm, it was found that he was a sleeping
partner and involved in losses to the extent of
nearly £40,000. This was a terrible blow; yet
the ease with which it was parried by Clementi
will serve to give us some idea of the wealth
amassed in the concert-room at the close of the
last century.
Nothing daunted, Clementi
started a new business of a similar character,
which exists to this day under the name of
Collard.
Another Continental tour, which was under-
taken for the purpose of introducing his pupil
Field, was extended as far as St. Petersburg,
and was highly successful. Success, comfort,
affluence, appear to have been the tidal marks
of Clementi's life. While Mozart, a great
42
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
genius, was starving, struggling, and beating
with all his might at the iron door of fortune,
and only retreating from each assault with the
nauseous taste of the iron deeper and deeper in
his soul, Clementi, a musician of talent and a
virtuoso, was being lapped in the white wool of
luxury and good-fortune. It is a curious but
sad reflection that the world is most cruel to
those who bring it the greatest soul-gifts, and
seems to have a perverse delight in the admini-
stration of the dose of hemlock and the sentence
of banishment.
Clementi was widely reputed as a teacher
of the pianoforte, and among his most distin-
guished pupils were Field, J. B. Cramer, Zeuner,
Klengel, Berger, and Meyerbeer.
Returning to London in 1810, Clementi lived
there in comparative retirement until his death
in 1832, devoting his leisure to the composition
of symphonies which had a moderate success
only. Of his private life and habits very little
is known ; his life, indeed, proving one of the
least eventful, and probably the least infused
with the charm of external associations, among
the lives of the virtuosi. It was a calm and
successful life, and no doubt a
doubt a tolerably
happy one. He was married three times, and
left a number of children behind him.
CLEMENTI
43
The portrait of Clementi is expressive of a
serene, impassive character. The forehead is
high, broad, and massive; the nose well-chiselled
and somewhat broadly curved at the nostrils;
the mouth large, firm, and well set; the chin
grandly sculptured; while the eyes are large
and round, with introspective gaze. A distinctly
Wordsworthian type of face.
CHOPIN
1810-1849
REDERIC FRANÇOIS CHOPIN ex-
pressed in music the yearning after the
ideal, the artistic soul's passion for the beautiful,
its tender longing and regret, its feeling for the
littleness of life, and its consciousness of the
exhausting sensibilities of man's deeper nature,
with its tendency to woe and despair, and its
impotence to command or secure joy and
happiness on earth. There is the wail of the
pessimist in such music; indeed, this wail or
undertone is to be found, alas ! in all the highest
expressions of the human intellect, from Job
to David and Solomon, and from these to
Goethe and Byron; but there is also ideal
beauty and grace, and exquisite ethereal fancy,
in Chopin's music. These qualities are so
mixed and blended as to constitute the out-
ward sign and symbol of a rare genius which,
something like that of Shelley in poetry, finds
44
CHOPIN
45
1
its power in delicacy of perception and intensity
of feeling:
Just as his power as a composer is alone and
individual, Chopin's place as a virtuoso is unique
and exceptional. As the interpreter of his own
music he is admitted by his contemporaries to
have been unrivalled. His style as a player
was marked by fineness and intuitive delicacy,
which is the natural complement of his genius
as a creator and composer.
But he shrank
instinctively from the concert audience; it was
in small societies of the select and chosen few
that he could only do justice to his power of
compelling the spirit of the pianoforte to render
up its virtue. He was the poet-player, whose
dæmon lives again in the rhythm, surge, and
cadence of his own music as it re-echoes from
his own lips. In this sense he was not the
orator or the actor at the piano, but the creator-
singer with the strings of his lyre quivering
with the throes of remembered inspiration and
dream and passion. And for this subtle mood
an audience was required at once discreet and
receptive. M. Chouquet, referring to the quiet
salon concerts in Paris, speaks of the fiery
playing of Liszt and the ineffable poetry of
Chopin's life and his place as a composer are dealt with by
the author in the preceding volume of this series.
1
46
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
11
Chopin's style.' Again, he points to Liszt as
the true prototype of the virtuoso, aiming at
effect and posing as the Paganini of the piano,
and remarks that Chopin never thought of his
audience, but listened 'only to the inner voices';
but, he adds, 'when the inspiration took hold
of him he made the keyboard sing in an in-
effable manner.' He was far too sensitive
for the concert platform, and his refined and
spirituel playing, he felt, was liable to be
misunderstood. As Spenser is the poets' poet,
so Chopin was the pianist of the musicians.
He said to Liszt: 'I am not at all fit for giving
concerts; the crowd intimidates me; I feel
paralysed by its curious look, and the unknown
faces make me dumb. But you are destined
for it: for where you do not win your public,
you have the power to overwhelm it.'2 Oppo-
sition, coldness, indifference, affected him as
touch does the sensitive plant.
From a nature so finely constituted the public
virtuoso cannot be evolved. Yet Chopin re-
ceived a generous meed of applause from the
public, and succeeded in leaving behind him
impressions of a lasting character. His first
appearance in Vienna occurred on August II,
1 Chopin as a Man and a Musician, by Frederick Niecks,
vol. i. p. 283.
2 Ibid.
CHOPIN
47
1829. He played his variations on Là ci
darem la mano--the piece being arranged for
piano and orchestra—an improvisation, and a
short ballet. Although, as he tells us, he
played in a desperate mood,' his success was
immediate and pronounced, the performer being
called back several times, and the 'Bravos !
drowning the tuttis of the orchestra. A second
concert was still more successful, and the critics
of the Vienna journals paid tribute to his merit
as a composer and a performer of high distinc-
tion, originality, and striking individual power.
On his return to Warsaw he earns more fame
as a performer; but he is evidently not quite
understood by his compatriots, who regard the
softness and delicacy of expression which he
strives to elicit from the piano as due to want
of force in the player or sounding tone in the
instrument. At his last concert in Warsaw in
1830, the first Allegro from the Concerto in E
minor was received with rapturous bursts of
applause, and between the parts of the Adagio
and Rondo the stage was thronged with con-
gratulating friends. He played the Fantasia
on Polish airs, which had hitherto failed to
elicit the response he expected. This time it
went home. This time,' he says, 'I under-
stood myself, the orchestra understood me, and
1
48
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
the audience understood us.' The result was
a triumph. To Wola, the first village beyond
Warsaw, he was accompanied by Elsner and a
number of friends, and the pupils of the Con-
servatoire sang a cantata composed by Elsner
in his honour.' At the banquet which followed
he was presented with a silver goblet filled with
Polish earth. He never returned to his beloved
Poland.
He visited Breslau, Dresden, and Vienna.
In the latter city he met Thalberg, Döhler,
Charles Czerny, played his concerto with great
success, and after a stay of some months pro-
ceeded to Munich and Stuttgart, arriving in
Paris in 1831. The rest of his life was mainly
passed in the French capital, which did ample
justice to his genius, and recognised the inde-
scribable beauty and poetry of his pianoforte
recitals. Chopin's life in Paris, his many loves,
the final attachment to George Sand, his bril-
liant success as an artist—not in a pecuniary
sense—the recognition of his greatness amid
so many sounding contradictions, make up the
chapters of a veritable romance, full of varying
lights and shadows, transient joys, and abiding
sadness and pathos.
When he visited England in April 1848, he
was in an advanced stage of the disease which
CHOPIN
49
carried him off in the following year. His
health was so feeble, the weather so trying,
that he secluded himself at his lodgings in
London, more disinclined than ever to meet
the dreaded public. Billet, Osborne, Kalk-
brenner, Halle, and Thalberg in the same year
gave such a variety of musical interests to the
public, that the chances of winning attention
by a new aspirant seemed doubtful. Berlioz
was also in London. There was opposition,
too, to encounter and overcome. The Musical
World described him as 'a dealer in the most
absurd and hyperbolical extravagances,' 'a
crude and limited writer,' who had obtained
by claque a reputation often refused to com-
posers of ten times his genius. His harmonies,
in the view of this inhospitable critic, were
clumsy,' his melodies 'sickly,' he betrayed 'an
utter ignorance of design,' his Études were
' ranting hyperbole and excruciating cacophony.
He is placed on a level with Strauss, or any
other waltz compounder.'
Chopin, nevertheless, achieved a high reputa-
tion in England, aad was accepted among the
highest and most distinguished circles as a
persona grata. He gave many private concerts
at the houses of society leaders with the most
gratifying success. Among his friends in Eng-
VOL. II.
D
50
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
land were Jenny Lind (who seemed convinced
that Chopin was not to blame in the Sand
affair), Lady Blessington, and he met the leaders
of society and the most distinguished men and
women of the day. He had won the lifelong
friendship of Miss Jane Stirling, whose rare
beauty fascinated the imagination and haunted
the canvases of the celebrated Ary Scheffer.
To this lady is dedicated the Deux Nocturnes ;
and he stayed with her and her sister at their
home in Scotland. He also passed much of
his time at Calder House, twelve miles from
Edinburgh, where, while the guest of Lord
Torphichen, his surroundings—'the beautiful
country of Walter Scott'-impressed his imagi-
nation with historic associations; he thought of
Mary Stuart, the two Charleses. The chamber
above the apartment in which he slept was the
one in which John Knox for the first time dis-
pensed the Sacrament. “Everything here,' he
writes, 'furnishes matter for the imagination.'
Chopin died in Paris on October 17, 1849.
His place among the virtuosi must be asso-
ciated with all that is most gracious, most re-
fined, and most pure in art; and every record
of his playing which has come down from
authentic sources testifies to its completeness,
its perfect realisation of poetry, its spiritual
CHOPIN
51
abandon. It is of the class, therefore, which
belongs to its originator alone; it cannot be
imparted, and it must not be confounded with
schools and technicalities; it was a part of the
genius which, first having conceived the glorious
sea of music, set out in its golden pinnace and
spread its purple sails over its waves.
DE BÉRIOT
1802-1870
E BÉRIOT'S name and fame have an
DF
association which carries back the mind
of readers, with the pleasant power of romance,
to the vision of the beautiful and gifted Mali-
bran. The great singer and the masterly
violinist were united at the flower-period of
their lives, and the death of Malibran—one year
after their marriage-was a blow from which
the brother-artist and lover-husband never really
recovered. Both have their page in history;
but that bond of love and sympathy which
bound them together, in the prime of their
beauty and the high-tide of their artistic
triumphs, must ever constitute the page com-
manding and enchaining the best interest of
the student. The beautiful Malibran died in
the very flower of her loveliness, at the age of
twenty-eight, when her glorious powers were in
their glowing summertide, and an entire con-
tinent bowed in enthusiastic homage ; breathing
52
DE BÉRIOT
53
her last sigh into the ears of the husband for
whose love she had refused all that convention-
ality offers as a bribe to weaker spirits; and
De Bériot carried with him to the grave-
through thirty-six years of chequered life-the
undying memory of that tender, passionate
affection which roused into flame the fiery
energies of his genius, and cast a halo of poesy
and romance over his short season of wedded
happiness.
The true era of the virtuosi dawned at the
beginning of this century. The earlier soloists
played to exclusive audiences, who exacted the
work of the composer in whom, for the time-
being, the player was merged. Music had not
become the possession of the million; it was a
luxury reserved for the wealthy and the cultured,
and appealed to the understanding as well as
The pit and gallery had not yet been
invented. With the spread of musical know-
ledge to the masses came the growth of the in-
dividual power and consequence of the violinist
or pianist; and while the stream of tendency
overflowed the banks of aristocratic privilege
and exclusiveness, it ran into the shallows and
outlying reaches, where the people, unaware of
the significance and beauty of its deep-sea tones,
were disposed to listen to its ripple and splash
the ear.
54
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
among the pebbles. The one-stringed dexterity
of Paganini excited universal applause; his
execution, his arpeggios, his harmonics, were
the theme of general wonder; and the people
who had been awestricken by his almost
demoniac power, and who were melted to tears
by his magic pathos, left his concerts to talk
only of his marvellous dexterity. Thus the
school of variations and fantasias was founded;
solos were selected and composed with a view
to display the technical skill of the performer.
Florid and eccentric passages, modelled upon
Italian taste, complicated by brilliant arpeggios
and dexterous manipulation of the finger-board,
were substituted for the grand simplicity of the
old masters.
De Bériot was a brilliant performer, a master
of technique, and did not escape the influences
of the school of which he was the product; but
he was also a musical thinker and interpreter
of a high order, and there is no reason to doubt
that, in a later period, he would have acquitted
himself in a manner worthy of his genius, and
in a style of music which is now universally
recognised as the best adapted for exhibiting
the capacity of the violin. Unmoved by the
spirit of reform, he was content to expound,
and even to accentuate, the taste of his times
DE BÉRIOT
55
by following its spirit with his great and com-
manding talent. The deluge of fantasias on
operatic themes, the limpid but soulless runs
filling the pages with black spider-like figures,
difficult to perform, and leaving no durable
impression on the mind, are largely traceable
to his influence. The school which formed
around him, of which Vieuxtemps is perhaps
the best-known disciple, propagated his style,
and was mainly instrumental in retarding the
growth of original music until far into the
fifties.
Early precocity in music has ceased to be a
theme for wonder. While the far-flashing gleams
of genius are rare in the infancy of the poet or
the scientist, the history of music furnishes
abundant evidence of remarkable power of
expression even in the nursery period of its
great lights. De Bériot at the age of nine had
outstripped his first teacher, Tibi, who confessed
his inability to advance the child further. At
this age he made his début at a concert. He
came of a poor but noble stock, and his parents
at first demurred to his choice of music as a
following; but the boy's talents, so conspicuous
and so rare in character and quality, soon put
prejudice to rout, and he was permitted to
pursue, even encouraged in, his studies. From
56
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
his native town, Louvain, young De Bériot went
to Paris, where his diffidence about undertaking
the position of soloist, before undergoing a
course of study at the Paris Conservatoire, was
dispelled by the friendly encouragement of
Viotti. “Hear all the good players,' he said ;
' learn from all of them, and imitate none.'
Probably the old cynic meant a reservation in
favour of himself to be understood ; certainly
he found, much to his astonishment, that De
Bériot had taken his advice to heart in its most
literal sense. At nineteen years of age De
Bériot had secured himself a firm position in
the artistic world, and he refused very tempting
offers from Viotti, who was anxious to reap the
credit and reward of launching so promising a
pupil. Shortly afterwards De Bériot's concerts
in Paris and London created quite a furore.
His success exceeded all expectations. At
At one
bound he leapt into fame; and a few perform-
ances sufficed to gain him universal recognition
as one of the first composers of the day. His
perception of his public was intuitive, and his
light, airy style, suitable to the class of com-
position then in favour-exhibiting startling
contrasts from harsh stridence to soft, insinuat-
ing melancholy-struck the very chord in the
breasts of his audience which only waited the
DE BÉRIOT
57
magic wand of an enchanter to shape it to his
advantage. Yes! his music was enchantment;
and it was averred the enchantment of Paganini
had revived in a softer and more pleasing form.
The public raved about De Bériot ; and the art
of maintaining popularity was well understood
by the young musician. It was novelty that
won the public; a pleasing and exciting novelty
that. did not easily wear off its brilliance.
Popular conclusions with regard to questions
of art are mostly the outward expression of
popular fallacies. Paganini was a much greater
man than De Bériot-greater both as regards
technique and true musical genius, and a wizard
with his bow_but he had never indulged in
those studied changes from impassioned fierce-
ness to soft undulating murmur which made up
the wild musical pyrotechny of De Bériot. We
know better now than to place the mighty
genius of the Italian below the superb talent
of the accomplished and graceful poseur upon
whom his mantle was said to have fallen.
Immediately after his first brilliant triumphs,
De Bériot received the appointment of solo-
violinist to William I., King of the Netherlands;
but the Revolution of 1830 put an untimely end
to an agreeable connection as well as a very
ample salary. For the next five years De
58
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
Bériot travelled over Europe, giving concerts
and gaining applause wherever he appeared.
In this memorable tour he was accompanied by
the world-famous Malibran, who afterwards
became his wife. The death of the great
singer, after a year of marriage and a devotion
which had outlasted six years, was a terrible
blow to De Bériot, who retired into absolute
seclusion for five years. Alone with his infant
son, and the memory of the incomparable
devotion of the noble and gifted woman who
had joined her fate with his, the violinist, though
still a young man and the idol of the artistic
world, defied the clamour of a sympathising
and caressing public and the gilded temptations
of the impresario.
In 1840 he emerged from his retirement to
find that the public had not forgotten its old
favourite. His reappearance was hailed with
acclamation. But his former zest in the concert-
room seemed to have deserted him, and he
hastened to accept an appointment to the post
of Professor of the Violin at Brussels, where he
lived in comparative retirement, his name, from
this time, gradually fading from the public
mind-other men and other modes supplying
and developing a new artistic taste. The
successful efforts of Mendelssohn and Schumann
DE BÉRIOT
59
were directly levelled at the school of which he
was the most distinguished ornament.
As a teacher De Bériot was active and suc-
cessful, and a considerable number of living
soloists owe their knowledge and skill to his
tuition. Many of his compositions, true speci-
mens of his style, abounding in graceful, light,
and piquant passages and brilliant modulation,
are still stock pieces with soloists, and hold no
inconsiderable place in modern programmes.
In 1852 blindness prevented the active pursuit
of his duties, and the stricken musician lingered
on for eighteen years, his great solitude, the
sequel of his irreparable loss, being increased in
intensity by total eclipse. He died on the 20th
April 1870, the announcement coming upon an
astonished world, which had long grown to
regard its former idol as something belonging
to the past.
.
ERNST
1814-1865
TH
HE face of Ernst is remarkable for its ex-
pression of intense earnestness and purity.
The serene integrity of the broad, high forehead,
bowed slightly in the centre, is emphasised by
the long, straight nose, with finely-curved
nostrils, indicating extreme delicacy of taste
and excessive sensibility. This latter quality
is further marked by the round swell of the
under-lip, the clearly-moulded chin, and the
subdued but passionate tenderness of the eyes.
Ideality and poetic reverie are stamped in the
countenance of the composer of the beautiful
Élégie, the fame of which is as wide as the
world.
The life of Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was one
long pain-rack, and he pursued his beloved art
under difficulties which, happily, fall to the lot of
few artists. Trouble, disappointment, lack of
appreciation, the misunderstandings of life-
these are the obstacles to be encountered and
60
ERNST
61
overcome by the strong spirit. But who can
defy persistent pain and weakness and exhaus-
tion, the fruit of physical infirmity and disease ?
These were the dark shadows of Ernst's life;
they made all his attempts to conquer fame a
torture; they dogged the very footsteps of his
Muse, and wrenched his beloved violin from
his hands with a spasm of supreme agony.
He was born at Brünn in Moravia, and early
manifested such musical talent as excited the
interest of family friends, and induced his
parents to foster and develop the germs of
power. His musical education was entrusted
to Böhm, who in technique had few rivals in
Europe, and Seyfried, whose contrapuntal know-
ledge had wide repute and esteem. He also
received instruction from Mayseder.
The serious manner in which young Ernst
applied himself to his studies made a very
favourable impression on his teachers, who made
no secret of their opinion that he was destined
to take rank among musicians.
Böhm was
especially struck by the intelligence and remark-
able talent of his pupil, and manifested the
keenest interest in his progress; but the un-
wearied pursuit of study, the unflagging energy,
the ceaseless industry of the student, alarmed
him, and he warned him against the conse-
62
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
quences of overwork. Such admonitions, how-
ever, had little weight with Ernst, who felt
already that the longest life was too short for
the pursuit of art, which can only be understood
and mastered by unremitting industry and
patience, and ennobled and dignified by the
acquisition of knowledge. His zeal and applica-
cation bore fruit readily. At sixteen years of
age he had triumphed over the greatest diffi-
culties of his art, and he undertook a concert
tour. Brilliant acknowledgments rewarded him
at Munich, Frankfort, Stuttgart; and even Paris,
at that time (1830) the seat of the principal
virtuosi, was warmly eloquent in his praise.
During his passage through Germany he saw
and heard Paganini—not, of course, without
wonder, admiration, and self-depreciation. It
was with feelings almost of despair that the
boy-artist listened to the veritable dæmon-
master of the violin, whose marvellous and
unapproachable power was expressed with such
ease and decision. Like a bird fascinated by a
jewel-eyed snake, he followed the charmer from
town to town, trying to gather inspiration from
his magic, and vainly endeavouring to capture
a few fragments of treasure from his colossal
hoard.
But the style and technique of Paganiniwere
ERNST
63
not for Ernst, nor indeed for any other aspirant;
they were alone, Titanic, and intended only to
express the ‘large utterance of the early gods.
A true artistic desire animated Ernst, and a
feeling for thoroughness dominated all his
studies. Even the applause of Paris did not
carry conviction to his spirit as to his artistic
achievement; so, instead of pluming himself
with vainglory, he set about trying to perfect
himself in his art. For the next four years he
studied hard under the tuition of De Bériot,
who in everything but technique was his inferior.
For twenty years, dating from 1834, he was one
of the most welcome figures at the principal
concert-rooms of Europe. His success was un-
doubted. His style, matured in tone and colour-
ing, was elegant and noble without being
exhaustively brilliant. Its quiet freedom from
assumption of superiority disarmed rivalry, and
enlisted on his side the sympathies of the best
class of composers, to whom the loud brilliancy
of many of his contemporaries was a source of
pain and disgust. It is the merit of Ernst that he
did not follow the example set by some leading
violinists, who made music subject to virtuosity.
In the age of 'salon' music, he is perhaps the
only performer who, while leaning to the classic
style of the last century, considered his instru-
64
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
ment rather as an exponent of the composer's
music than a mere agent for expressing the
technical skill and agility of the performer.
When we consider that Ernst maintained this
reverent attitude without forfeiting the respect
and appreciation of the public, his great service
to music will be at once apparent.
After 1844 Ernst lived chiefly in England,
where he was much appreciated; and here he
was first informed of the perilous state of his
health, an advanced stage of spinal disease
necessitating the discontinuance of his perform-
ances, and demanding his retirement to a more
genial climate. In 1857 the first signs of the
disease were noticed ; and thenceforward its
insidious progress was watched with daily
increasing anguish by a number of devoted
friends. For some time the doomed man re-
belled against his fate; and it was only at
the peremptory command of the physician that
he did not appear in public.
Poor Ernst was called upon to make even
a greater sacrifice. He was forbidden to touch
his beloved instrument; and words would be
inadequate to convey that scene of agony in
which he was told that he must be debarred
from future association with his violin. For
some time the physician hesitated to inflict the
.
ERNST
65
cruellest of blows, but the disease was spreading
fast, and its mandate would not be disobeyed.
'You must give up your violin,' was the reluctant
order. The sufferer pleaded hard, arguing with
the force of conviction that, parted from the
friend of his life, the world would be a scene of
desolation. But such a plea was vain. The
charming and conscientious artist knew it to
be vain. The decline of physical strength was
so rapid that the player's arm had often sunk
to his side powerless to wield the bow which
had held entranced the audiences of half the
civilised world.
Ernst was never more to wield his beloved
bow and sway the hushed audience to joy or
His last days were spent at Nice,
where the calm air and the peaceful beauty of
the sea-girt landscape—which makes it a terres-
trial paradise to sufferers brought from harsher
climes—swayed as in gentle dreams the im-
pressionable soul of the musician. For a brief
moment hope returned ; it was unreasoning
and deceptive. Pain riveted him to his bed;
and when all was over, on the 14th October 1865,
those who loved him best heaved a deep sigh
of relief.
The Élégie will ever form the best monument
of Ernst. It is known in every part of the
VOL. II.
sorrow.
E
66
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
world ; it is played by the finished artist and
the stumbling tiro, and, like the music of
Mozart, even the clumsiest rendering fails to
rob it altogether of its beauties. Vast audiences
sit breathless while it takes form under the
master-bow of an artist. In our time the im-
mense concert-room of St. James's Hall has
been frequently filled to overflowing with an
audience that changed from breathless stillness
to deafening excitement as the last accords
died on the violin of Joachim. Ernst has
written other compositions, mostly fantasias on
operatic airs, which are not without merit; but
long before the Élégie will cease to rank as a
stock piece in the répertoire of the performer,
his other works will be buried in oblivion.
GOTTSCHALK
1829-1869
F
RAGRANT as the magnolia-blooms of his
native land is the memory of Louis Moreau
Gottschalk to all who knew him as a man, while
his name as virtuoso and composer is one of the
brightest in the coronal of gifted sons adorning
the young brow of America. Reared in one of
the most beautiful States of the South, the sunny
land of Louisiana, his soul drank early of the
cup of beauty so lavishly bestowed by Nature
in her happiest mood; the long golden days of
sapphire skies, luxuriant bloom, and reveille of
the song-bird, the night with its silver radiance,
its breezy symphonies, and nocturnes of the
nightingale, fed the springs of sensuous emotion
in the childish heart; while all that was tender,
sweet, and pure in human love walked beside
him, guiding those infant steps, cherishing the
young mind, with that one priceless care, the
care of a good and devoted mother, at once play-
mate, friend, and monitor. Truly an ideal child-
67
68
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
hood! To such happy influences Gottschalk
owed the subsequent perfection of his art. In
such surroundings every faculty of his genius
bloomed to its fullest extent; the soul of the
poet kept pace with the soul of the artiste, the
generous impulses of the heart with the noble
development of the mind. To all these the great
; virtuoso undoubtedly owed the wonderful
power_of.sympathy which made him the most
magnetic performer of the piano of his day:
people felt his music, they knew instinctively
the heart that throbbed within it and the soul
that sang through it, just as one feels the love
in a mother's touch or the tenderness in a
lover's hand.
Where a sister and a friend have written so
eloquently, the few words now written across
the record of his fame might appear cold and
inadequate were it not that every leaf, however
small, may add to the greenness of his memory.
One of the most striking characteristics of
Gottschalk's performance was its wonderful
originality, due no doubt to a fervid and
poetical imagination combined with great
dramatic expression-faculties almost abnor-
mally developed by his early training, of
which he tells us in his own peculiar and
fascinating style in Notes of a Pianist, a diary
GOTTSCHALK
69
relating the daily experiences, observations, and
thoughts of an exceptionally brilliant and busy
career. To the loving labour of his sister Clara
Gottschalk the musical world owes this little
volume, collected from a mass of dilapidated
papers some years after her brother's death-
a book not only of interest to the musical
dilettante, but likewise to the reader of poli-
tical events, from the many incidents of the
late American Civil War recorded therein. In
this work an old negress,' Sally,' figures as the
beloved nurse, friend, and protégée of his child-
hood. In fact, the faithful slave owed all the
happiness of her existence to her young
master. When the boy was barely five years old
he was one day paying a visit with his parents
to a lady of distinguished position living on a
great plantation some distance from his home;
there he saw for the first time the 'carcan '
inflicted on
a slave.
a barbarous
implement of torture, consisting of a round
wooden instrument fastened by a padlock and
placed round the neck of the negroes as a
punishment, whereby the poor creatures were
prevented from lying down, and sometimes
worn for months. The sight of this cruel punish-
ment filled the child's young heart with such
pity that he ran straightway to her mistress and
!
This was
70
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
on
the young
A
with tears demanded the release of the negress;
and besought his father to buy the woman.
Greatly embarrassed, Mr. Gottschalk sought
to quiet the boy, but all to no avail. Finally
the lady proposed to sell the slave, who, she
averred, was only good to look after the chickens;
the bargain was completed, and the indulgent
father bestowed the slave
humanitarian, and 'Sally? became his devoted
and cherished servant. To her he owed an in-
timate acquaintance with the wild and beautiful
folk-Iore of the negro race, and the tales told
with all the quaint dramatic power and charm
of expression of the old negress around the fire
when the hour of bed-time was near and the
children gathered at her knee. 'We listened to
Sally so well,' he writes, 'that we knew the whole
of her stories off by heart, with an interest that
continues till to-day, and still makes me find
an inexpressible charm in all these naïve
legends of our negroes. I should like to relate
in_their_picturesque and exquisite originality
some of those old Creole ballads whose simple
and touching metody goes right to the heart and
makes you dream of unknown worlds. The
inspiration imbibed at these feasts of negro
folk-song bloomed into noble fruit in after years.
Like Chopin, who reaped undying fame through
GOTTSCHALK
71
I
the setting of his.nationatairs to the music of
dance and nocturne, Gottschalk wove the old
Creole airs of his native State into compositions
of exceeding beauty—so original, so typical of
the negro race in their plaintive tenderness,
their joyous revets, and their passionate despair
hinder the iron yoke of slavery, that he has
Created for himself the enviable position of the
only truly American pianist and composetĦe
is the Chopin of his country; other gifted
and clever pianists have arisen since, but they
belong to either the school of Thalberg, Liszt,
Chopin, or Rubinstein. Gottschalk was of no
school or master; he was supremely Gottschalk,
and to this day no other American pianist has
arisen to take his place To the once oppressed
land falas!) still despised negro race, whose simple
chants and weird melodies are the only purely
American musical tradition of to-day, the
world owes the perfection of that genius who
caught and enshrined in immortal beauty those
gems of American folk-song. Listen to the
strains of the Bamboula. It is-composed on
only four bars of a negro melody well known
in Louisiana; but what a wealth of melody,
sparkling cadences of variations, and glittering
chains of modulation it contains! Does it not
conjure up visions of those mad, merry moonlight
i
72
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
dances under the banana trees wherein the
negroes forgot their bondage, cast aside their
sorrows, and abandoned themselves to the wild
delight of the dance ? It is related that the
great virtuoso composed this marvellous chef-
d'auvre while on the eve of convalescence,
though still in the throes of delirium, from fever;
no doubt the fantasies of that strangely disordered
condition were reflected in the brilliant changes
and plaintive reiterations of the simple melody
borne in upon his dreaming senses from the
lips of his old nurse. Bamboula established
his fame in Paris ; it brought the critics to his
feet; they were never weary of lauding the
young Creole composer to the skies. One critic
exclaims : The piano is no longer the dry
and monotonous instrument with which we
have been acquainted. It is not the hand of
a man that touches the keys; it is the wing
of a sylph that caresses them, causing them to
resound with the purest harmony.'
Young man, I predict for you a future such
few
have yet seen!' exclaimed
Thalberg when he grasped the young composer
by the hand on hearing him play the Bamboula
for the first time.
Still another typical work is The Banjo,
wonderfully characteristic of that fascinating
as
men
GOTTSCHALK
73
negro instrument, beloved by the masses of the
American people, but, until Gottschalk immor-
talised it, despised in artistic circles. How
marvellously he has incorporated the musical
trum-trum and mellow clang of the strings on
the 'possum skin, and the sonorous echoes of/
the mulberry-wood body of the instrument?
In The Last Hope, a tone-poem of exquisite
purity of style and...conception; Gottschalk
displayed his wonderful mastery of the tremolo,
a technique so perfect that every „chord sobbed
forth its sweet minor until the notes blended
into a vox humana heartrending in its mourn-
fulness. For tenderness and simplicity combined
with an indescribable natural rhythm, La
Berceuse, or the Cradle-song, has never been
surpassed ; its melody stirs the heart of every
mother ; with its plaintive refrain, half-sad, half-
joyous, it seems to breathe a blessing on the
past and a prayer for the future.
'The Cradle-song-is it not a mother's heart
set to music?' wrote one who had heard the
composer play it at a concert. And we read in
that wonderful diary wherein he poured out all
his sorrows, triumphs, thoughts, and experi-
ences this touching record : 'No praise in my
life has so much touched me as that of this
mother recognising in my poor little composi-
74
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
tion, humble as it is, a reflection of her affection
for her infant, when, hanging over its cradle,
she recalled to herself La Berceuse! I was led
to compose the Berceuse by memories of a
younger sister of mine, dearly loved and brought
up by me, whom I cradled in my arms during
her infancy through a painful illness which
threatened to take her away from us. I
imagined her lying in her cradle as of old; and
at the thought of losing her all my youthful
emotions, all my affections, ripened by age and
strengthened by absence, sprang up afresh to be
condensed into this little inorceau, which, despite
its trifling artistic value, I dearly love, because it
recalls to me a great sorrow once spared my
heart.' How eloquently the lofty, sympathetic
nature of the man speaks in those simple words,
proclaiming him to have been not only a genius,
but a man of heart-in a word, a good man! It
was such noble qualities as these which filled
his life with deeds of charity to the poor and
oppressed, which moved him to perform acts of
quixotic kindness akin to that when, on one
occasion during his tour in Spain, he gave
orders to have his piano conveyed to the home
of a young girl dying of consumption, who had
expressed a desire to hear the great virtuoso
ere she passed away, for his fame had penetrated
GOTTSCHALK
75
even the darkened shadows of the death-chamber.
Unfortunately, the parents of the dying girl
were too poor to accede to her wish. For days
she pleaded, until the unhappy parents were in
despair, since they knew not where to look for
the money to pay so distinguished an artist for
the privilege of gratifying their child's request.
At length the matter came to the ears of
Gottschalk, and the last moments of the poor
girl were gladdened by such melody as had
never before awoke beneath the touch of those
inspired fingers. When the music ceased, the
gentle spirit had flown, borne into the very
gates of eternity on the wings of those sweet
strains.
Undoubtedly the most interesting and valu-
able record of the career of the great pianist is
that covering his tour of the United States
during the late Civil War. His visits to France,
Switzerland, and Spain are full of remarkable
incidents of romantic triumph: from the episode
of his first public concert at the Salle Pleyel in
Paris, when Chopin, who was present, sought
the artist's room, and, placing his hand on the
boy's head, exclaimed, 'Give me your hand, my
child ; I predict that you will become the king
of pianists !' to that of the toreador of Madrid,
who presented him in a burst of admiring
76
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
enthusiasm with the magnificent sword with
which he, the greatest bull-fighter of Spain, had
upheld the glory of the Spanish Toréo won by
Montes, his famous predecessor, from whom
the sword had descended. The Notes of a
Pianist read like a condensed history of the
American War. Travelling constantly from
place to place, sometimes in the company of
artists since greatly distinguished — notably
Adelina Patti and her family—again with no
companions but the great Chickering Grands,
made expressly for him, and which on many
occasions caused the firm great concern through
fear of injury to their precious bodies from
bombardment or other risks of warfare. In his
own words, he writes: 'I acknowledge my
heart beat at the idea of leaving these two
brave companions of my life exposed to the
chances of a bombardment or of assault!
Poor pianos! you will probably serve to feed
the fine bivouac fire of some obscure Confede-
rate soldier, who will see with indifferent eyes
your harmonious bowels consumed, without
regard for the three hundred concerts which you
have survived, and the fidelity with which you
have followed me in my Western campaigns.'
This was written in the cars en route to Harris-
burg, which he found in a state of siege, with
GOTTSCHALK
77
the enemy expected every moment. Stirring
descriptions of marching soldiers, flying bat-
teries of artillery, besieged towns, snow-bound
trains, burned bridges, mistaken identity arrests,
comical complications, concerts for the officers,
concerts for the President, and concerts for the
soldiers, interspersed with profound reflections
on life, art, and human economy, fill the pages
written in the whirl of railway travel or to
beguile the tedium of the long coach- and
carriage-drives, with a fascination truly irresis-
tible—to the cost of the researcher's time, be
it confessed,—for who could hope to skim so
charming a work! Of the great and lamented
Abraham Lincoln he writes: 'Lincoln is re-
markably ugly, but has an intelligent air, and
his eyes have a remarkable expression of
mildness and goodness—sat in the first row,
wears no gloves. This was on the occasion of
a concert at Washington. Again, he writes of
his countrywomen: 'The desire for cultivating
the mind and purifying the taste is an impera-
tive necessity among American women, which
I have never found in so high a degree in any
other race. Then he naïvely records his plea-
sure in the innocent admiration of some young
boarding-school ladies, who had heard him play
at a concert in the pretty little town of Nashua,
78
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
in the following: 'Met in the street three
little boarding-school girls in a buggy, who
threw me kisses. Again this amusing item:
'I have to write my autograph hundreds of
times. Of the numerous war-songs written in
that exciting period he gives the palm to the
Battle-Cry of Freedor. 'It ought to become
our national air,' he writes; 'it has animation,
its harmonies are distinguished, it has tune,
rhythm; and I discover in it a kind of epic
colouring, something sadly heroic, which a
battle-song should have.'
With a family history highly romantic on his
mother's side—(the maternal grandfather was
the Comte de Bruslé, the Governor of St.
Domingo, forced to fly for his life when the
revolution broke out in that island: Louisiana
was then a dependency of the French crown,
,
and the Anglicism of New Orleans had not yet
been invented for the staunch French colony of
la Nouvelle Orléans)--we can readily under-
stand the romantic and chivalrous nature of
. Gottschalk. His portraits all portray the ex-
ceeding refinement, almost spiritual character,
of his mind in the delicate lineaments, the
high and noble brow, and introspective, dreamy
glance of the beautiful eyes. Fate was excep-
tionally cruel in cutting short so glorious a
GOTTSCHALK
79
career; the good he might have done for
American music when age had mellowed his
judgment, and time had set the seal of Master
on his fame, is incontestable. And it is indeed
to be deplored that no star has risen since his
set beneath the glowing skies of Brazil, to shed
the same glorious light on American art. .
Flowers were ever his delight and consolation.
'They soothe me into better thoughts, and
make me more worthy to be your friend,
he wrote to his friend and biographer Octavia
Hensel; and in the words of that devoted
chronicler of his genius and virtues : 'Flowers
themselves shall be placed upon his grave. In
the spirit of their symbolism I offer to his
memory these words and thoughts, caught from
the sunlight of his genius, nourished by the
remembrance of his kindly words and kindlier
deeds.'
GUN G'L
1810-1889
Mantiquity
ILITARY music dates far back into
antiquity. The walls of
of Jericho
crumbled into dust before the blast of the
trumpet, and in much more modern periods
the Roman legions were accompanied by staffs
of trumpeters and cymbalists.
Until quite
recently, however, it has been reserved for the
issuing of signals and the beating of time.
During the Thirty Years' War are to be found
the first traces of an endeavour to use it as
an incentive to martial enthusiasm. Once
elevated to that prominence, it soon became
the indispensable adjunct of every army.
Frederick the Great attached great importance
to the efficiency of his bands. But it was not
until 1828 that military music began to assume
real importance, and to develop the rank it has
since gained. Inventions of improvements to
the trumpet opened up possibilities of effect
which had hitherto been deemed impracticable.
80
GUNGʻL
81
Not only was the widest scope afforded for
military purposes, but it was seen that for
open-air concerts, for dancing and similar pur-
poses, where volume rather than subtlety of
tone was required, wind instruments would be
more appropriate than strings.
Among the bandmasters who availed them-
selves of the new opportunities, Gung'l, Lanner,
and Strauss stand out pre-eminent. Gung'l is the
pioneer; Lanner and Strauss belong to a later
period, and simply elaborated the tendency he
had established.
The lightness and steady rhythm of dance
music could not fail to establish its close re-
lationship with military marches, and presently
the waltz assumed unrivalled dimensions in the
répertoire of popular band-music. Vienna, the
acknowledged seat of classical music, became
the centre of this new movement in popular
music. The Wiener Walzer achieved a celebrity
of its own. The light-hearted character of
the dwellers on the 'blaue Donau' is proverbial.
They seem to have made enjoyment a prin-
cipal object in life; and the sojourning stranger
notices the fact with admiration, and is readily
drawn into the vortex of animated gaiety.
Le congrès s'amuse, was said of an august
assembly which certainly had serious work to
VOL. II.
F
82
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
do, but was probably subject to the contagion
of surroundings. War, occupation, defeat,
political and social reverses, have each in turn
failed to cloud or hamper the spirit of the
gayest of cities. What more appropriate than
that Vienna should stand as godfather to the
waltz ? It is the music best fitted to the tastes
and habits of the city, and is evidently much
better suited to its gout than the noble and calm
beauty of the classics. Indeed, the pertinacious
adherence of the great masters to a city which
treated them with almost brutal indifference,
and exhibited an entire lack of capacity for
their appreciation, presents a curious problem.
Gung'l had the gift of the waltz. About
three hundred have been set down as his com-
position; and for a time he was reputed first in
his profession. He was born at Szambek in
Hungary, and was intended for the calling of a
teacher ; but, drifting away from his surround-
ings, he entered the band of an artillery regi-
ment, where his talents speedily gained for him
the post of bandmaster. He wielded the bâton
for eight years, and wrote, for his regiment, the
Hungarian March, the first of his long list of
compositions. This spirited piece differed
entirely in character from the current music,
and gave such satisfaction to the officers that,
1
GUNG'L
83
while admitting a sacrifice on their part, they
strongly advised Gung'l to seek a wider field.
Acting upon this counsel he formed a band,
and traversed Germany from south to north.
His success was considerable; and he became
quite a feature in the towns where he tempo-
rarily resided. One of the sights and pleasures
of the day was the short leader, with his
martial air and sharp gesticulation, directing
his band of spare, dark-skinned Hungarians,
who lisped a broken German, and moved like
automata in obedience to the bâton of the
director. Probably no military band had
travelled before. The kind-hearted Germans,
ever ready to fraternise so weit die deutsche
Zunge reicht, applauded right royally, and plied
their visitors with beer until Bandmaster
Gung’l, having regard to a proper spirit of
discipline, would interfere. Everywhere there
was a hearty welcome. The South German is
less stiff than his Northern brother, and the
Austrian, especially, has a universal reputation
for being fidel und gemithlich. This migration
of military bands, which continued on a larger
scale once the ice had been broken, was made
the subject of national demonstration. In those
days German patriots loved to talk of brother-
hood and the union of all the scattered sons of
84
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
the Fatherland, and before 1848 there was
comparative freedom of the tongue. In the
north, Austrians met with a cordial reception.
Prussia, the State which was eventually to
realise the dreams of national greatness by
submerging the southern brother, seemed at
that time too weak and vacillating to excite
expectation, and many fervent patriots looked
to the monarchy of the Hapsburgs as the only
State powerful enough to reconquer the ancient
glory of Kaiser und Reich. Thus it came about
that the Austrian military bands were every-
where acclaimed as a kind of political saviours,
and were accordingly treated like spoiled
children.
This lasted till 1866. Through May and
June of that fatal year the bands of the regi-
ments quartered in Altona had delighted the
honest citizens with waltzes and marches in-
numerable. Many a heartfelt prayer of good
wishes followed them, many a tear fell from the
eyes of fair maidens whose hearts had not been
proof against the white tunic and light-blue
inexpressibles, now speeding southward to join
their brethren in Bohemia; many a heart over-
flowed with deep agony when a few weeks
afterwards came the news that the Austrian
army had been cut to pieces at Königgrätz,
GUNGʻL
85
and that among those whose blood had dyed
the waters of the Bistritz were some who had
erstwhile trumpeted their best in the Biergarten
of the Neuer Kaple.
Gung'l fulfilled his regimental duties till 1843,
when he quitted the army and took up his resi-
dence in Berlin, where he attained great success
with a powerful band which he had formed,
trained, and brought to a rare pitch of excel-
lence. The troubles of 1848 put an effectual stop
to all public amusements, and Gung'l availed
himself of the opportunity to visit the United
States, from whence he returned in 1849, warmly
welcomed home by the public and the King,
who appointed him Director of Music.
For six years Gung'l continued to direct his
famous band in Berlin during the winter
months, spending the summer season in Russia,
where his efforts were enthusiastically appre-
ciated and lavishly rewarded by the public. In
1858 he returned to Austria, and took up the
position of bandmaster to the 23rd Regiment
of Infantry, which post he vacated in 1864.
From that year he resided at Munich, paying
frequent visits to Berlin, Copenhagen, Stock-
holm, Amsterdam, and Switzerland. A visit to
London in 1873 proved highly successful.
His fertility as a writer was remarkable, and
86
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
he continued to wield his pen continuously up
to 1874-until, in fact, the taste for his work
had passed away and new lights had arisen in
the land. The last years of the grey-headed
soldier were passed in comparative obscurity.
Strauss had risen and eclipsed Gung’l, whose
waltzes grew rarer and rarer in the saloons.
His quiet and melodious style was discarded
from popular favour for a new style loaded with
exuberant brilliancy and marshalled with an
electrifying vivacity that set the ballrooms
all agog with pleasure—the style of Strauss.
Gung'l's day was over; and when his death was
announced in 1889, many readers of the daily
chronicles passed it over with a query, never
suspecting that the name in the obituary notice
was 'once upon a time' a theme of praise in all
mouths.
HERZ
1806-1888
EINRICH HERZ holds an anomalous
position in music. As a pianist he was
popular and successful ; but, though a very
brilliant performer, he is not distinguished
among those great artists to whom the spread
of the higher forms of music was a mission as
well as an artistic calling. He was born in
Germany, but passed his life, from the age of
ten, principally in Paris, which he regarded as
his home. Before his arrival in the French
capital he had shown great talent, and had
undergone such drilling that his surprising
execution on the pianoforte secured for him the
gold medal of the Paris Conservatoire while yet
a mere child. Thenceforth his life, tastes, and
habits became entirely French ; and, after
earning considerable distinction during his pro-
bation as a student, he achieved a great repu-
tation at Paris as a teacher, composer, and
soloist. His power as a teacher was widely
87
88
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
recognised, and his pupils easily obtained
access to musical circles. To have been a
pupil of Herz was in itself a passport.
An
amusing anecdote, which illustrates the wide
extent of his fame as a teacher, is related by
himself in his Voyages en Amérique. At one of
the inland cities a lady called upon him in a
state of extreme agitation. She made several
ineffectual attempts to explain the cause of her
visit. When at length she became calm under
the soothing courtesy of the virtuoso, he elicited
the humiliating confession that his visitor en-
joyed the reputation of being the first pianist in
the town, a position which she had gained by re-
presenting herself as one of his Paris pupils at a
time when she thought there could be no possible
risk of discovery. Calm yourself, madame,' said
Herz, realising the distressing situation of the
unfortunate creature; “I shall keep your secret.'
Like Clementi, Herz sought to combine art
with business. He entered into partnership
with a pianoforte manufacturer, but the venture
resulted in a serious loss of capital involving
the greater part of his fortune. In order to
redeem his financial position in Paris, Herz
repaired to the United States in 1845, and for
the next six years he gave concerts throughout
the American continent.
HERZ
89
His experiences of life in the New World are
embodied in the amusing book already quoted.
Indeed, they were varied and interesting enough.
America had not at that time been visited by
many European artists, and the visit of Herz
was regarded as a sort of compliment. He was
made much of, and the musical taste to which
he ministered was not of the most advanced
character. He relates many amusing incidents
of his tour; and from the moment he boards
the steamer, with a handbag and grand piano,
to the time of his return, laden with spoil and
honours, he finds the varied and novel changes
he experienced a never-failing source of interest
and enjoyment. Regarding himself as a true
Frenchman, of course he has his joke about the
difficulties and incongruities of English pro-
nunciation. He speaks of English as the
language of Lord Byron,' and his mild satire is
always tinged with good-nature. Some of his
descriptions read like a weak decoction of
Dickens. He tells us of the typical Yankee
who is anxious for an'opinion of America and
American ideas and institutions before the
unwary traveller has alighted on Columbian
shores ; of the rows of boots projecting out of
the windows, without which no European de-
scription of America, at that period, was com-
90
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
plete; of the humours of the people in the
street, the hotel, and the concert-room. Visitor
and visited appear to have been on good terms
with each other; the former conciliated by
hearty enjoyment and appreciation of the
bustling life, animated under new conditions,
by which he was surrounded ; and the latter
repaid him with abundant praise and dollars.
He liked the ways of the people, and the solid
satisfactions of their cities; found New York
wonderful, and Boston exhilarating ; but he
deprecated the stringent law which forbade
smoking in the streets of the latter city.
An accident to his hand nearly wrecked his
first concert in New York. The disaster was
happily obviated by the patentee of a marvellous
'pain extractor,' who gave the artist instant
relief, and gained thereby a splendid advertise-
ment. The concert was an 'enormous success,
and Herz became the lion of the day. He
met the 'great' Barnum; the celebrated show-
man seized the opportunity to turn the dis-
tinguished artist to
to account. His latest
‘phenomenon,' an old negress who attracted
the sight-seeing public in the character of
Washington's nurse, was growing a little stale
with his patrons. Barnum, therefore, conceived
the ingenious notion of engaging the famous
HERZ
91
Jenny Lind, and representing her as an angel
descended from heaven; and he invited Herz
to assist in the enterprise with his grand piano-
forte. Herz refused the offer, though Ullman,
his business manager, strongly urged him to
accept it. This Ullman, who afterwards became
one of America's most celebrated impresarios,
was then a very young man with no capital
except brains and a profound knowledge of
American life, and soon obtained complete
ascendancy over Herz, who left his affairs
entirely in his hands, often resigning himself to
the most absurd arrangements in utter power-
lessness to resist the persistent obstinacy of a
manager whose sound business acumen and
clear knowledge of meum and tuum were always
satisfactorily reflected in the cash receipts. The
artistic aspiration was by no means developed
in Herz to the exclusion of dollars; and his
acute manager's dreams were bounded by
dollars, with which he succeeded in filling the
treasury. He had the genius of his craft, and
thoroughly understood the use and advantage
of advertisement; indeed, the art of advertise-
ment, and the proper employment of the char-
acteristics of the people who were to be the
audience, must have been strongly pronounced
in Ullman's phrenological development if there
92
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
are special locations for these qualities. The
dialogues in which Ullman combated the artist's
old-world notions as to art and business are
highly instructive. The following will serve as
a specimen
'Art, art—and always art !
What is your
definition of the art of music, I should like to
know?' is the brusque but pertinent query of
Ullman.
'Music?' says Herz. 'I should call it the
art to create emotion by a combination of
sounds.'
And is that all ?'
Certainly !'
'Not at all. Music is the art to attract to a
certain place, and with the aid of accessories
which are often of greater service than their
principal, the greatest number of people in such
a way as to make the receipts exceed the ex-
penditure.
Sometimes, but only on rare occasions, Herz
resisted the too-flagrant measures of his manager
and asserted his independence. A favourite
scheme, frequently resorted to, was 'a grand
patriotic concert, commencing with the
American National Hymn arranged for forty
pianos, and terminating with the encircling of
George Washington's brow (in bronze, of
HERZ
93
course) with a wreath of laurels. Herz drew
the line at the forty pianos. Subsequently he
consented to arrange a piece for sixteen pianos,
and the result justified the most sanguine hopes
of the happy manager, and no doubt gratified
Herz—although one of the performers, who was
a dummy, and carefully instructed to pass her
fingers over the keys as if playing, but on no
account to touch a note, continued the most
frantic motions during a grand and solemn
pause. This extra dumb display, however,
passed without notice, and there was no jarring
discord amid the general applause.
At times even the equanimity of Herz was
severely tested by the ingenious tricks of the
manager. One day, walking through the streets
of Philadelphia, he noticed a number of Brob-
dingnagian posters headed with the legend,
A
'A THOUSAND CANDLES!'
in letters of giant proportions. To his horror
he found that they preceded the announce-
ment of his own concert for the next evening.
He repaired to Ullman for an explanation ; the
manager's sole reply was a mysterious but
triumphant smile. The mystery was solved in
the concert-room, which he found illuminated
by a vast profusion of candles instead of the
94
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
ordinary lamps. He never played to a more
crowded house; certainly never to one more
disorderly and inattentive. In competition with
music the candles won the palm, the audience
being entirely absorbed in ecstatic delight
caused by the illumination. More than one of
the spectators, who had counted the lights, com-
plained in tones of disappointment that there
were eight short of the advertised number!
Another concert consisted of improvisations,
the theme being set by the vote of the audience.
The competition was lively, and, as the majority
were ignorant of the use of music-paper, the
melodies were sung or whistled, and then sub-
mitted to the audience, whose verdict took the
shape of vociferous acclamation or disapproval.
The scenes that ensued baffle description, and
Herz himself relates the affair in a somewhat
shamefaced manner.
Schumann, most' amiable and just of critics,
who often mentions Herz in his writings as a
sort of musical charlatan, could not have been
aware of these pitiful American exhibitions,
where the climax of absurdity and musical
degradation was attained ; the news had not
penetrated to Leipzig. More pleasing among
the American reminiscences are the sympathetic
allusions to the condition of the slaves, and his
HERZ
95
views in this respect are highly corroborative
of those set forth by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe
in her eloquent, picturesque, and pathetic plea
on behalf of the unfortunate negro caste.
Herz returned to France, and displayed great
activity in the establishment of a new piano-
forte factory, which still exists. In 1855 he ob-
tained the first prize, and for a time his pianos
were equalled but not excelled by those of
Erard, Pleyel, and other celebrated makers.
His work as a teacher, composer, and pianist
was during the last thirty years of his life
subordinated to the management of his fac-
tories, though he kept his place at the Con-
servatoire up to 1874. Herz died on June 5,
1888.
His picture gives the impression of a well-
to-do business man rather than the idea of an
artist, though his face is marked by pronounced
intellectual qualities, and the musical capacity
is evident. The impression is heightened by
the correct frock-coat, white waistcoat, and tall
hat; by the mutton-chop whiskers and shaven
upper lip.
The long and plentiful hair is
brushed straight across the head, disclosing a
high forehead and shrewdly twinkling eye. He
carefully eschewed the vagaries of that school
of artistic poseurs who hope to create an
96
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
æsthetic or artistic effect by a parade of flowing
locks and distinctive wardrobe eccentricities.
As a composer Herz does not rank high.
The number of his compositions was large; but
except his Études and Pianoforte Method, which
are not without merit, nothing of importance
survives with his fame and merit as a virtuoso.
Notwithstanding the light thrown upon his
practices in the record of his American ex-
periences, he was one of the first pianists of his
day; and his splendid execution has been ac-
knowledged even by those who, following higher
ideals of musical development, were necessarily
antagonistic to his methods and standard.
HUMMEL
1778-1837
Jor
OHANN NEPOMUK HUMMEL, the
friend and pupil of Mozart, a gifted and
brilliant pianist and composer, affords another
illustration of the precocity of musical genius,
so signally evidenced in the history of the
most spiritual, loveliest, and withal most difficult
of the arts. Happily, the divinity that shapes
the ends of genius makes its possession an
abiding and calm joy that raises the fortu-
nate artist above the possibility of becoming
the slave and subject of the encounter with mere
difficulties; these latter, indeed, are speedily
cast under the spiritual feet of the soul-dreamer,
and constitute the rungs of the Jacob-ladder
upon which his celestial visitants, the tissues of
their immortal vesture touched with the fainter
glory of the sun and stars, reascend to heaven.
Happily so; for the temperament of genius
is not necessarily suited for aggression and
conquest. To express great ideas, sublime
VOL. II.
G
98
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
emotions, towering aspirations, to conceive
visions of beauty and truth and confer them
upon humanity, are tasks that must be recom-
pensed by consolations unknown to the mul-
titude. Otherwise it would be difficult to
conceive how the most exquisite and susceptible
natures, the finest and most highly strung
mental and moral organisations, have endured
with serene fortitude of courage such neglect and
outrage, such sickness and hope deferred, and
such egregious misunderstanding, as would have
subdued and broken so-called stronger spirits.
The story of Mozart is almost tragic in its in-
tensity and pathos. But his privations, the sordid
cares of his life, the pangs of neglect, the
spurns offered by the unworthy to patient
merit, his nameless grave, are, after all, only
the superficial part of his story; for who can
doubt that the composer of the Twelfth Mass
and the Requiem had compensations above
these things?
Hummel, like his great master, had a child-
hood of severe drudgery distinguished by
prodigious talent, though in after-life he was
more fortunate than Mozart. He was born at
Presburg in Hungary, where his father was
military bandmaster. A gifted child, he showed
great aptitude for music, and began to practise
HUMMEL
99
the violin at four years of age. The harshness
of the discipline imposed at this tender age
discouraged him and alarmed the father, who
hoped by rigid labour and chastisement to
turn the budding powers of a mere infant to
good account. He put aside the violin, and
permitted a course of instruction in singing and
the pianoforte. At six years of age he attained
remarkable proficiency as a performer on the
latter instrument, and at this period the family
migrated to Vienna, where the elder Hummel
was appointed director of the Schikaneder
Theatre. At Vienna the child attracted the
sympathy and interest of Mozart, who took him
into his house as a pupil. He advanced so
rapidly that at nine years of age his mercenary
father resolved to exhibit him as a prodigy in
the principal cities of Germany. His marvel-
lous execution created quite a sensation at
Dresden and Cassel, and in his twelfth year he
appeared in London, where he excited the
utmost interest and enthusiasm. He remained
in England two years, visiting all the provincial
cities, meeting with undimmed success, and he
became a great favourite in Edinburgh. In
London he played his first composition, con-
sisting of variations upon a selected theme,
which was dedicated to the Queen, and com-
IOO
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
manded considerable popularity at the time,
though it has long since been forgotten.
The tour was extended through Holland and
Germany, and he arrived in Vienna, after an
absence of six years, to be received, at the age
of fifteen, with honour, distinction, and profit
the latter delighting the heart of his father
especially—such as never fell to the share of
his great master, who had given to the world
the priceless treasures of his unique and splen-
did genius, and added imperishable lustre to
the musical fame of Germany, in return for an
unknown grave in the paupers' quarter of St.
Marx churchyard ! Mozart had died during
his absence, and a post-mortem fit of venera-
tion for his memory had set in. Out of the
general sentiment expressed for the master,
young Hummel, the best of his pupils, derived
a sort of reflected veneration as well as much
substantial benefit.
The study of harmony and counterpoint was
now added to his other studies by his father, in
spite of remonstrance and the expressed opinion
of Albrechtsberger and Salieri, two of the youth's
instructors, that over-zeal in this respect might
prove fatal to his real development. All work
and no play appears to have been the principle
laid down and adhered to by the elder Hummel,
HUMMEL
IOI
and his son was docile and obedient, submitting
to drudgery of irksome discipline that left him
no moment of leisure.
In his twenty-sixth year he was invited to
join the Imperial Opera, but he declined the
proposal, giving preference to service in the
house of Prince Esterhazy (the patron of
Haydn), who still maintained the celebrated
orchestra under the famous direction of the
composer of the Creation. His first work for
the Prince was a mass which won the favourable
notice of the veteran composer; and ballads
and operas from his pen were received with
great favour in Vienna. His name as a com-
poser was celebrated all over Europe. His
style was framed on the examples of Mozart
and Haydn, and his music had freshness,
energy, and spontaneity. Many critics (of pur-
blind vision) did not hesitate to rank him with
the gigantic genius who composed the Ninth
Symphony. Cherubini, who visited Vienna,
sought, absurdly enough, to minimise the
powers of the deaf Titan in the estimation of
the vulgar by exalting Hummel. At Paris,
however, where Hummel was unknown, all
Cherubini's art could not prevent the Fantasia,
Opus 18, from falling somewhat flat.
After eight years of service, the connection
102
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
with Esterhazy ceased, and for the next five
years Hummel lived at Vienna, devoting him-
self to teaching. To this period belongs his
first acquaintance with Beethoven. Their inter-
course was not always smooth and fortunate.
Beethoven was not remarkable for sweet temper,
and it was no doubt a feeling of resentment
against Hummel for the public's false estimate
of his powers which induced his bitterness. It
was certainly galling to hear the compositions
of Hummel compared to his own; and these
latter were sometimes placed in subordination
to the former by the class of critics at whose
judgments it is ridiculous to cavil. Their
pronunciamientos are gravely absurd, and ought
to have deceived none but the ignorant and
the hopelessly stupid. Their solemn pretensions
are comic in their very seriousness. As Pope
says ;
Pains, reading, study are their just pretence,
And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.'
To place the merits of Beethoven in com-
petition with the merits of Hummel is as absurd
as to attempt a comparison between Milton
and Goldsmith. That the tension between the
two composers was drawn out to the extreme
limit by personal differences is also evident.
In one letter the great man addresses the lesser
HUMMEL
103
as 'a false dog,' and forbids him to enter his
house ; in another he uses caressingly affec-
tionate language, calls him herzen's natzerl'
(natzerl of my heart), and concludes with
'many kisses from your Beethoven. It is more
satisfactory to note that they were reconciled
in the end. In 1827 Hummel travelled from
Weimar to Vienna (at that time a journey of
several days), to be present at the last moments of
Beethoven and to solicit a reconciliation. When
he found, at the bedside of the dying man,
whose greatness as a composer overshadowed
not only his contemporaries but the centuries
before and after, that he was only just in time
for the last solemn leave-taking, he burst into
tears. Beethoven, already speechless, grasped
the hand of Hummel, and the two men
embraced.
This scene occurred long after Hummel had
ceased to reside in Vienna. From 1816 to 1820
he was Kapellmeister to the King of Würtem-
berg, and from that year until his death in
1837 he held a similar post at the Court of the
Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Occasionally
he emerged from his comparative seclusion at
Weimar and delighted the world as a virtuoso.
He followed the Grand Duchess
Duchess Maria
Paulowna to Russia, and his reception at
104
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
Moscow and St. Petersburg was of the dazzling
order. In 1823 he travelled and played through
Holland, Belgium, and France with unvarying
success. A second visit to Paris in 1829 was
not so pronounced a success. There was a
falling-off in his playing which the critics were
not slow to notice. His elegant style was as
unmistakable as ever; its originality and char-
acteristic qualities were still in evidence. But
it was remarked that the force and empressement
of his style were wanting, and that his playing
was marked by a timidity and indecision which
showed that his hand was losing its cunning.
This verdict was ratified by the London public,
who rewarded their former idol with indifference.
He gave one more series of concerts in Poland,
and then passed his few remaining years in
retirement at Weimar, where he died at the
age of fifty-nine, on October 17th, 1837.
Of the circumstances of Hummel's married
life little is known; but it may easily be inferred
that a man of his placable and gentle temper
took his domestic burdens easily and happily.
His son is still alive, and has proved himself a
creditable musician in the capacity of leader at
a number of Bavarian and Austrian theatres.
Hummel's position as a composer has long
been decided. Many of his compositions have
1
HUMMEL
105
great merit ; they are marked by a quiet and
continuous flow of melody, charming by its
sweetness rather than its passion. He leaned
towards the school which attained perfection in
Mozart, but he interlaced and overweighted his
scores with a profusion of flowery ornamentation
that belongs to the Italian style, and is by no
means akin to the simple grandeur of Mozart's
music. As a soloist Hummel marks the vanish-
ing point of the purely classical style of the
old German masters, which never recurred
in all its strength and native purity. In
attempting to revive it, even Mendelssohn and
Schumann drew largely upon Beethoven and
the romantic school, whose music, though fuller,
grander, and more passionate, lacks the touching
placidity of the quiet genius of Haydn and
Mozart. Hummel leads up from the old
classical style to the virtuoso of the first decades
of the present century, none of whom, how-
ever, have equalled his depth of feeling or
real artistic taste. As an improviser he has had
few equals.
KALKBRENNER
1788-1849
L
IFE was a pleasant journey on a placid
sea, and the Fortunate Isles gave up their
abundant fruits to Kalkbrenner, and roses
were showered upon him. He was clever and
brilliant - qualities before which the world
invariably bows down, and which the super-
ficial mistake for evidence of the highest
gifts.
Frederick William Michael Kalkbrenner was
born in a post-chaise near Berlin during one of
his father's professional journeys. His father,
Christian Kalkbrenner, was a musician of re-
putation, who had engaged in the musical con-
troversies of the time, adding his mite to the
attack made by Gottfried Weber on the genuine-
ness of Mozart's Requiemn, and who had further
illustrated his high opinion of his own powers
by rearranging Don Giovanni for the Parisian
theatre. He obtained an appointment at the
Prussian Court, and subsequently at the Castle
106
KALKBRENNER
107
of Rheinsberg, the residence of Prince Henry,
brother of the great Frederick. Here, where
the infancy and early boyhood of Frederick
were passed, the elder Kalkbrenner greatly im-
proved his prospects in the world by successful
experiments in agriculture.
The boy gave signs of the most brilliant
talent, musical and otherwise. At five years of
age he played a concerto of Haydn before the
Queen, and at eight he spoke four languages
well. About this time the family—the elder
Kalkbrenner having sold their lands — left
Rheinsberg, and travelled through Italy. Beet-
hoven, who met them at Dresden, joined the
party, and travelled in their company for several
months. The great master expressed a high
opinion of the boy's ability and intelligence,
which indicated a brilliant future in musicman
opinion that was afterwards confirmed by
Haydn, who promised to assist in his musical
development when the boy had arrived at a
more advanced age. For two years the Kalk-
brenners travelled through Italy, and young
Frederick, perched on the top of the carriage
under an improvised tent, drank in the beauties
of the lovely Italian landscape—its picturesque
vineyards and pastoral lands, gleaming and
flashing under the serene skies; its glorious
108
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
mountains, white with snow, or purple and
yellow and brown with vegetation, and illumi-
nated with a thousand streams, glittering like
burnished silver under the glowing sunlight.
In the cities the rich treasures of art in which
Italy abounds were inspected; and thus was
laid the strong taste for pictures which Kalk-
brenner ever retained.
The Kalkbrenners arrived in Paris in the
tenth year of the Republic, when the terrors
and rigours of Robespierre and Marat had
given place to the pleasures, gaieties, and
luxuries which marked the period of the First
Consul, who, having dazzled the world by the
splendid achievements of his mighty genius,
and subdued France into absolute worship and
adoration of his greatness, was already dreaming
of an imperial crown. The boy was entered at
the Conservatoire, where he remained for three
years, making such progress that in his thirteenth
year the prize for pianoforte playing and com-
position was unanimously awarded to him, the
wreath being presented to him in the presence
of the great Napoleon.
Success dazzled the young musician, and
even confounded him for a time. He forsook
his studies, became a dandy, mixed with fine
company, and sought dissipation, under the
KALKBRENNER
109
guidance of Bourrienne-the confidant of the
First Consul-among the gayest and most
reckless set of Napoleon's followers. He would
ride up to the house of Bourrienne, where he
directed the studies of the daughters of his pro-
tector, on a horse from the consular stables.
His own family received very little of his
attention ; his time being wholly employed in
fashionable amusements, riding, dancing, and
other pursuits that necessitated late hours. He
rose from his bed late in the afternoon. The
elder Kalkbrenner, alarmed at the imminent
destruction of his son's talents, took a firm and
decisive step. Returning home from a brilliant
party about four o'clock one morning, Frederick
was surprised to find the whole household astir.
His father met him with studied kindness of
manner.
'Pardon me, my dear Fritz,' he said ; 'I know
you must be very tired, but my happiness and
yours is at peril, and I hope you will grant me
the time of a dance. You remember my pro-
mise to send you to Haydn? No further time
can be lost.
Here are your passport, letters
and money ; your boxes are packed, the ticket
is taken, and the mail leaves to-morrow at ten.
I have nothing further to say, except to remind
you of your mother.'
IIO
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
The final appeal was a fitting close to the
parental speech. His mother had been dead
some time, and both father and son reverenced her
memory. At Vienna, where music was a serious
occupation, and where the great musicians of
the world congregated, he soon discovered that
academic success was only the beginning and
not the end of the road. Haydn confided his
young protégé to the care of Albrechtsberger,
who directed his studies in counterpoint. He
applied himself to these with great diligence,
and practised the piano for ten hours a day.
He passed his leisure time in the company of
Haydn, Beethoven, Hummel, and Clementi.
The style of the latter musician made a deep
impression upon him, and he remained to the
end of his life a firm adherent of the Clementi
methods.
After two years and a half of conscientious
study at Vienna, he was recalled to Paris by
his father, who had been misinformed about his
son's conduct in the Austrian capital. Frede-
rick indignantly denied the aspersions which
had been put upon him. 'Listen, then !' he
said, as he took his seat at the piano. The
father's misgivings were thus practically and
eloquently dispelled. He embraced his son
warmly, and craved pardon for his unjust sus-
KALKBRENNER
III
picions. The death of this excellent father,
which occurred shortly after this incident, was
a severe blow to Frederick.
His grief took
entire possession of him, undermined his health,
and nearly drove him into consumption. His
convalescence was tardy, and his usual occupa-
tions were forbidden by his physician ; his
piano was strictly prohibited. He bought an
estate at Praslin, and turned his attention to
agriculture, with beneficial results both to his
health and fortune. The estate speedily doubled
in value. Unluckily, at this time his banker
became a bankrupt, and, except some valuable
pictures, very little of the ample fortune left by
his father was saved.
But Kalkbrenner speedily retrieved his losses
in England, where in less than ten years he
made a large fortune. He crossed the Channel
in 1814. His letters of introduction opened for
him the very highest circles of fashion, and he
immediately received recognition and encour-
agement in artistic circles. He arrived too late
for the London season, and opened his musical
campaign at Bath, where his success, and sub-
sequently in London, was marvellous. He
settled in London. Pupils flocked to him.
His fee was one guinea for forty minutes.
This would not now be considered a very large
II2
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
sum, but at that time it was the highest figure
charged by a teacher of the pianoforte. While
in London he worked from ten in the morning
till ten at night, giving up society for business;
but he spent six months of the year at Praslin.
Moscheles, who was a guest at this delightful
residence, speaks in terms of praise of Kalk-
brenner's hospitality. He concluded his ten
years' residence in England with a successful
tour through Ireland, Scotland, and Germany,
and then retired to France, the possessor of an
ample fortune.
He arrived in Paris, in 1824. Society show-
ered its favours upon him, and he lived among
the most exclusive coteries of the fashionable
world. But he found he could not be idle, so
he became a leading partner in the pianoforte
factory of Messrs. Pleyel & Co. Luxury and
society, however, did not afford all that was
necessary for his spirit of restless energy; and
after ten years of social delights, varied with
business at the factory, he made further concert
tours through Germany, Holland, and Belgium,
gaining applause, honours, and decorations
wherever he went.
He was happily married to a wealthy heiress
of high birth, a grandniece of Admiral d'Estaing,
a lady of musical tastes. After his marriage he
KALKBRENNER
113
lived in grand style, doing great hospitalities,
and receiving in his luxurious house the homage
of the foremost people in the world of art.
With many good qualities of heart and mind,
and zealous to further the interests of those less
fortunate than himself, he had enthusiastic
friends who readily overlooked his tendency to
ostentatious display. It is gratifying to learn
that the needy musician or the obscure man of
merit seeking an opportunity to rise did not
knock at his door in vain.
In 1831, when Kalkbrenner's reputation was
at its highest, Chopin called upon him in Paris.
This great artist was then in his twenty-second
year, but he had already written his principal
works, and his fame as a pianist of the highest
character was established. Chopin sat down at
the piano, and played his Concerto in E minor.
At the close Kalkbrenner, with imperturbable
gravity, made the astonishing proposal that
Chopin should bind himself to be his pupil for
three years, and that he, Kalkbrenner, would
make a good artist of him !
Some idea of Kalkbrenner's vanity, as well
as of his very limited powers of discrimination,
may be gathered from this incident, which needs
no elucidatory comments for the enlightened
reader, who will not require even Mendelssohn's
VOL. II.
H
114
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
assurance that Chopin had nothing to learn
from Kalkbrenner.
Kalkbrenner died from an attack of cholera
at Enghien, near Paris, on June 10th, 1849.
As a teacher he deserved all his wonderful
success; but neither as performer nor com-
poser can he be ranked high among musicians.
LISZT
1811-1886
OF
F real, turbulent enthusiasm London is
hardly the ideal home. Whether the
fleeting life of the great city, self-devouring in
its incessant metamorphoses, blunts the organs
of demonstrativeness, whether the magnetic
current which irresistibly attracts all that is
worthy of attraction renders the arrival of
celebrities on the banks of the Thames a thing
of everyday occurrence not to be wondered at,
and striking rather by its eventual breach than
by its observance, is a matter of speculation.
But the fact is none the less true. Emperors
and princes, statesmen and savants, command
a stolid stare while they roll by in their car-
riages; and if voices are raised in their welcome,
their volume is as a rule feeble, and something
like hearty unanimity would be far more easily
attainable in the case of disapprobation than in
that of approval, which takes the shape of calm
indifference.
115
}
116
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
How it came about that Liszt made a signal
exception from that rule when, in 1886, a few
months before his death, he revisited a country
which had not known his presence for more
than forty years, is a matter that cannot easily
be explained. That the world of music should
have lost its balance is not to be wondered at.
We can understand the staid and decorous
audience familiar to St. James's Hall forgetting
their respectability ; we were not astonished to
see gentlemen far beyond the age of giddy
youth disport themselves in a disorderly way,
climbing on chairs and benches and wildly
waving handkerchiefs and umbrellas when the
tall, aristocratic figure hove in sight; we can
readily forgive the ladies—if they can forgive
themselves—for hopelessly spoiling their gloves
in attempting to swell the noise of applause;
and though other artists, second only to the old
maestro himself, may have smiled rather pain-
fully at a reception which, in that effusiveness,
they could not themselves hope for, we like to
believe that they have not grudged their vener-
able confrère a triumph which was only too well
deserved. That the mere presence of Franz
Liszt should have electrified an audience of
musicians, however sluggish the generous fluid
might roll through their veins, was only to be
LISZT
117
expected. In fact, there was, beyond the un-
disputed eminence of the man, additional reason
why his welcome should take the extraordinary
shape it assumed.
London was penitent.
While, at the zenith of his fame, the audiences
from Madrid to St. Petersburg could not find
expressions sufficiently extravagant to sound
his praise, London, in one of its unaccountable
'humours, had treated with comparative coldness
the man whose name had become an article of
faith with all other musical communities. The
reason for this has never been explained ; the
fact itself deserves to be ranked with the all
but condemnation of Schubert when first his
music became known to the world. Freaks of
that kind will happen ; they are as inexplicable
as the law of epidemics. The injustice ren-
dered to two great masters has long been
atoned for. Schubert's music takes the rank it
deserves, and the position taken up towards
Liszt has been a long and silent prayer for
forgiveness.
That Liszt must have felt deeply the early ill-
treatment he experienced is more than likely.
He whose life was passed in roaming from town
to town, from country to country, could not be
prevailed upon to cross the Channel until nearly
half-a-century lay between his semi-failure and
I18
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
what was to be his greatest success. When, at
last, the prayers of his personal friends and the
wishes of the public prevailed, his stay in Lon-
don was a triumphal progress from one concert-
hall to another, wherein the principal figure was
followed by a crowd of devoted admirers and
besieged by the solicitations of lifelong friends
eager to appropriate every minute of the small
space of time at his command.
But how this name and reputation ever came
to be known to the people at large must remain
matter for speculation. Strange to say, his
appearance in the street gave rise to consider-
able applause among classes who, however well
disposed towards the individual, could not rea-
sonably be expected to appreciate the some-
what difficult style of his music. Whether the
often-quoted cab-driver who called for 'Three
cheers for Habby Liszt!' is a real flesh-and-
blood person, or whether he belongs to the
shadowy type of Mrs. Harris,' will ever remain
a mystery ; but anyhow the story is quite pos-
sible, and, if not true, is certainly ben trovato.
How well that last voyage to London is re-
membered by thousands of contemporaries !
How genuine the hurrahs burst forth ! The
master himself, accustomed to the most frantic
demonstrations, satiated with praise and adula-
LISZT
119
tion until they glided unnoticed from his hear-
ing, was touched. “You will come back, you
must come back to us!' was the unanimous re-
quest of the few who were admitted to his inti-
macy. 'I shall,' he replied; 'my word on it!'
Nobody thought that this promise, sacredly
given, was so soon bound to lose its value.
Liszt, though well-stricken in years, left Lon-
don a healthy, vigorous man. His frame was
unbent, and there was nothing in his con-
stitution and appearance to mark him out
as an early candidate for the grave. People
were soon destined to be undeceived in this
respect. The news that the great Abbé had
been laid to rest in the same soil that received
his great friend Wagner came upon the world
as a shock. Perhaps no community felt the
blow more severely than London, which had
been the last stage of his long career.
It is given to few only to command universal
success from the outset. To the worthiest it
comes late and when the struggle has blanched
the hair ; and even many of those whose child-
hood has been passed among the intoxicating
surroundings of early fame have come in for
their meed of adversity when the early glamour
has worn off. There is no need to point to
Mozart as the most noted example of the incon-
I 20
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
was
stancy of the fickle goddess. Liszt was one of the
few whose life from cradle to coffin shows rare
and ephemeral traces of hardships. Like specks
of dust, some isolated days of disaster have
dimmed his early career ; but at no time has
his constant sun of good-fortune been broken
by unsuccess sufficiently serious to overcast his
mind.
Born in Hungarya fact which, through all
his long wanderings and self-imposed years of
exile, the master never forgot—he was from
his earliest age surrounded by music. Haydn
had only died two years before he
born, and the father, Adam Liszt, an imperial
official, had enjoyed the friendship of the old
composer. Adam himself was an amateur of
some ability. Raiding, the small townlet which
he inhabited, was within easy reach of the
estates of the Esterhazys, with their traditions
of Haydn, Hummel, and other celebrated
musicians. Quartetts and concert perform-
ances were the order of the day in the house-
hold, and the musical disposition of young
Franz could not remain obscure for a long
time. It is related that at the age of six he
could sing entire passages from pieces he had
once heard; and Duverger, one of his personal
friends, reports that during the semi-conscious
LISZT
121
stages of a long and painful indisposition he
used to repeat melodies by Mozart and Beet-
hoven when his mind was a blank as regards
most other associations.
Once recovered, the boy demanded to have
lessons, and the father, only too pleased, under-
took his tuition. The progress was such that
Adam conceived the most unbounded faith in
his boy's capacities, and resolved to devote his
whole life to their development. This appeared
a risky undertaking ; the family being far from
rich and the cost of living in Vienna or other
great cities very considerable. But help came
to him from an unexpected quarter. The per-
formance of one of Ries' concertos at Oeden-
burg by the boy, whose age was just over nine
at that time, so delighted the audience that
six Hungarian magnates clubbed together and
guaranteed an allowance for a number of years,
which, though modest, was sufficient to defray
the expenses of study. This decided the Liszt
family ; the father gave up his appointment
and took his wife and son to Vienna. Czerny,
a pupil of Beethoven, and the foremost teacher
of the day, instructed him in piano, and Salieri
in composition. The orthodox method of the
day, admirably represented by the Études of
Clementi, was soon absorbed by the pupil, whose
I 22
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
love was only gained by Czerny when he ini-
tiated him in the music of Beethoven, for which
he maintained through all his life a fondness
amounting to devotion.
In 1822, eleven years old, Franz made his
bow to the Viennese public. Beethoven, old
and infirm, was one of the audience. Aware of
the presence of his idol, Franz surpassed all his
previous endeavours. His reward was in the
applause of the audience; but an appreciation
dearer than that was in store for him. Beet-
hoven, soured by misfortune and already partly
afflicted by that scourge which soon enshrouded
him in perfect isolation, was yet delighted with
what he heard. To embrace and kiss the boy
was the impulse of a moment. That kiss, the
memory of which may have lightened the last
moments of Liszt, may well have outweighed
in his mind the applause showered on him by
the whole of Europe.
Though the fame of the master may be dated
from that concert, the father, uncompromising
admirer but at the same time severe critic of
his son, was well aware that his education was
not yet completed. The Paris Conservatoire
was at that time considered the best school for
music; Cherubini, one of the first authorities,
and principal director, was looked up to by the
LISZT
123
whole of Europe. The Liszts broke up their
household at Vienna and undertook the long
voyage through South Germany and France.
Concerts at Munich and Stuttgart were pro-
ductive of fresh glory and income; but on
arrival in Paris a disappointment awaited them
in the shape of a decided refusal on the part
of Cherubini to admit the son to the Conserva-
toire. A rule obtained according to which no
foreigners were admitted ; Cherubini himself
was a standing example of the laxity with which
this law was administered; but whether he was
to blame or not, the fact remains that in the
case of Liszt the law was strictly enforced.
There is no doubt that this apparent misfor-
tune was really a benefit for Liszt; it saved him
years of hard study, and launched him in a com-
paratively short time as an independent master
on the world. But at the time the feeling in
the Liszt family was one of poignant regret.
Twelve years later, when ripened into an admir-
able penman, he described the despair into
which the entire household was plunged as
equal to the sensation of a death sentence. That
they would ever overcome this blow seemed
beyond possibility—so exaggerated an opinion
prevailed at that time with regard to the in-
fallibility of the Paris institution.
124
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
That they did recover, and that very soon, is
a matter of history. In more than thirty con-
certs Liszt gave proofs of his power and took
the public by storm. Tall and striking in
appearance, his frank countenance, encircled by
a profusion of long fair hair, enchanted the
ladies, in whose good graces he occupied a pro-
minent place throughout his life; while the
men were half-alarmed by a considerable gift
of repartee that he exercised without regard to
rank and social position. But the power and
grace of his delivery, the soul which he knew
how to infuse into the music, overcame all
enmities, and placed him even at this early age
above most of his contemporaries.
It was not originally Liszt's idea to qualify as
a virtuoso; merely executive functions were not
compatible with the ambitious turn of his mind.
To play at concerts is good enough in its way,
but the true musician will always aim at creative
power as long as he sees a prospect to excel as
a composer. To employ the science instilled in
his mind by Salieri and Paër became his principal
desire. An opera entitled Don Sanche must
have had some merit, inasmuch as it was placed
on the boards about five times, though it did not
penetrate beyond Paris. An unusual sensation
was created when, at the fall of the curtain, the
LISZT
125
author of the libretto (Nouritt) replied to the
repeated calls by appearing on the stage hold-
ing Liszt as a child in his arms A number of
compositions for pianoforte followed during this
first period of Liszt's career as a composer.
Though for the greater part adaptations, they
are not without merit, as showing a great know-
ledge of the instrument and its capabilities.
A journey to London and phenomenal success
at Drury Lane Theatre are the principal events
during the next time to come. So far the
father had held his protecting hand over the
boy, encouraging him in his career and shield-
ing him from the dangers and pitfalls of early
A great change was now at hand;
the kindly though severe hand was no more to
guide him. Returning from England, Adam
Liszt died at Boulogne after a short illness.
A period of comparative poverty was now to
break in; the mother was penniless, and the
youth, barely sixteen, was called upon to pro-
vide for the household. He set to work with
a will, composing and giving lessons till late
into the night. At first he found it hard to
make both ends meet; even the piano had to
be sold to provide food. But soon the clouds
lifted; the great gift-which never failed to
make friends for Liszt-stood by him in the
success.
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THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
days of need, and the productiveness of his
pen soon placed the family beyond actual
necessity.
One of his principal characteristics through-
out life was the deep religious feeling which
ultimately led him to take a degree among the
Roman Catholic priesthood. This trait, which
as a child had generated the idea in him to
enter the Church, and in old age induced him
to throw his whole mind into the composition
of sacred music, must have been the more
intense from the fact of its carrying him tri-
umphantly through a period of sincere doubt.
The Marquis de Saint-Simon created consider-
able stir at the beginning of this century with
a new religion called after him, and differing
in its essentials from the Roman Catholic
Church. Liszt fell in with the apostles of this
creed at an age which is most receptive for
new ideas. Several of the theories advanced
struck him as plausible, and for a long time
he contemplated joining the Saint-Simonians.
That he did not do so, but suffered himself
to be convinced of the virtue of his own
confession, is due partly to the efforts of
the celebrated Abbé Lamennais, partly to the
thoroughness of his own investigations. From
that time to the end of his days he remained
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127
a staunch Roman Catholic, whose piety was
not of the conventional kind, but founded on
real conviction. The age was rife with revolu-
tionary social tendencies; men so well known
as Périer, Chevalier, and Fourier seem to have
considered so youthful a debater as Liszt worthy
of their steel. Soon, indeed, he broke with the
extremists, whose preachings against marriage
and kindred topics he rejected after according
them every consideration. Salons widely dif-
ferent were opened to him, and in the society
of Lamartine, Hugo, Heine, George Sand, he
learned to think of social revolutions as capable
of academic discussion, but incompatible with
real life. Two eminent musicians were among
his most intimate friends; Meyerbeer, his senior
by many years, became attached to him by
bands of friendship which never relaxed until
the grave closed over him, and which were
even proof at a much later period against the
envenomed attacks of Wagner, and Chopin, the
object of his enthusiastic admiration. Though
vastly different in style, especially from the
former of these composers, they have un-
doubtedly exercised some influence over his
works.
It must have been at this period that Liszt
made up for the very scanty education he had
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THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
received as a child. He could not, however
talented in respect of music, have maintained
his connection with the most intellectual circles
in Paris unless he had been possessed of deep
learning. The era had departed when a know-
ledge of music and counterpoint was considered
sufficient to launch a musician upon the world.
In reading the works of Liszt, Mendelssohn,
Schumann, and Wagner we are astonished at
the depth of knowledge they display on all
imaginable topics. But a certain simplicity of
manner never deserted Liszt, and was remark-
able even much later, when he had freely mixed
with emperors and princes. It was this sim-
plicity, the outcome of good-nature and the
softest of hearts, which more than once brought
him into awkward positions. The story that
he, desirous of giving a copper to a crossing-
sweeper, but having nothing but silver, sent the
boy for change while he stood in the middle
of the street holding the broom, is characteristic
of the man who, having spent all his colossal
fortune on works of unselfishness, died com-
paratively poor.
One of his acquaintances,
chancing to come up while he was mounting
guard for the rightful owner of the broom, saw
the blush rise to his face. He was young then
and sensitive to ridicule, though he laughed
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129
heartily when reminded of the episode in later
years.
Although not mentioned by most of his
biographers, there is no doubt that a love affair
must have occupied his mind in the beginning
of the thirties. Particulars of the lady have
not transpired, but a well-informed authority
hints at the matter, and attributes to its un-
fortunate issue a malady which at this time
attacked the artist, and kept him for some time
in seclusion. The illness must certainly have
been serious to have occasioned rumours of
his death, and a very flattering necrologue
which appeared in the Étoile newspaper, which
touchingly though erroneously deplored the
death of one so young and so gifted. Whether
the lady rejected his advances, or whether-as
Duverger hints-motives of delicacy were at
work which induced him to suffer in silence,
cannot now be determined. There must have
been something very painful connected with
the affair, to which Liszt-very frank and com-
municative as regards his previous life-was
never known to refer.
The intense discouragement which usually
follows in the wake of first deceptions was not
spared him. In a fit of intolerable anguish he
wished to renounce his profession. The succes-
VOL. II.
I
130
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
sion of misfortunes commencing with his father's
death, and culminating in this unhappy love
affair, had afflicted him deeply; a confirmed
melancholy took possession of his mind ; mid-
night walks, planless meanderings through
cemeteries, veiled his spirit and ripened an
idea which, though not new to his mind, had
never possessed him with that degree of
strength. The venerable pile of Saint Vincent
de Paul seemed to attract him mysteriously;
the subdued light, the heavy atmosphere, and
the ghostlike reverberation of voices, bated
though might be the breath of the speakers,
seemed to envelop him in the mystic folds of
the Church. Remorse grew on him apace;
having doubted appeared in the light of a
heinous sin, only partially expiated by the
resolving of doubt into certainty, to be atoned
for only by a lifelong service in the ranks of
priesthood. All his thoughts, all his surround-
ings, seemed to beckon him to join the fold.
Music and painting were arts indeed; but were
they arts divine unless employed in adoration
of the Divinity? The mother, wise woman of
the world, was frightened at the sudden vio-
lence of this feeling. That Franz should join
the Church, if his feelings impelled him in that
direction, was an event regrettable, perhaps, but
LISZT
131
not to be avoided ; but she rightly dreaded
the precipitate taking of a step which, once
accomplished, became irrevocable. That sooner
or later the worship of music would gain the
upper hand, and try in vain to burst the self-
imposed prison, still seemed to her healthy
common sense, instinct with sound worldly
knowledge and bold reasoning, a contingency
highly probable if not absolutely certain. All
she could do was to preach delay and try to
curb that fiery inclination which revolted against
restraint.
The world-and, not less than the world, the
master himself—soon found reason to rejoice
that this crisis found him possessed of a counsel-
lor with the intellectual equipment of Madame
Liszt. And yet her advice would scarcely
have held out much longer against an appar-
ently immutable resolution, had not at the last
moment a more potent auxiliary appeared on
the scene.
The name of Paganini was at that time in
the mouth of every one.
Under his manipula-
tion the violin became an instrument hitherto
unknown. People flocked to his concerts ;
violinists sat agape, trying in vain to take in
the method by which the most astonishing
effects were produced with equally marvellous
I 32
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
ease. Liszt went to hear Paganini, and from
that moment his desire to enter the Church
vanished as smoke. After all, then, there was
an aim in life worth contending for ; his own
musical knowledge, vaunted by all the world,
appeared to him as nothing compared to the
powers of Paganini. To emulate his perform-
ances, to become as a pianist what Paganini
was as a violinist, was henceforth the only aim
worth living for. An article is still extant
written by Liszt at the death of Paganini; it
brims over with the most sincere appreciation
of the man as an artist; as a violinist no one,
according to that effusive document, had yet
arisen fit even to imitate him, no one whose
name could be mentioned in the same breath.
True, these terms were exaggerated, but the
generous criticism gains by the fact that per-
sonally the Italian was highly antagonistic to
him.
Perhaps at no time was society in Paris more
gay and brilliant than during the reign of
the Citizen-King. The comparative dulness of
the Court, with its bourgeois respectability, so
strangely out of keeping with the scintillating
esprit of the French, was set off by the salons,
which veritably sparkled with wit and intellect.
The aristocracy of those days associated on
LISZT
133
}
terms of equality with real talent; the brilliant
genius of Heine, the melodic eloquence of
Chopin and Liszt, were better passports to the
homes of the select than a patent of nobility.
The pre-Revolutionary times seemed to have
returned, the fraternisation of birth and genius
which in France precedes the uprooting of
thrones. Louis-Philippe, himself an able man,
did not remark this fatal sign; but while he
deemed himself secure in the affection of the
people, the ground on which his throne was
built was being hollowed out under him.
Among the spirituel ladies of that brilliant
society the Comtesse d'Agoult held a place of
distinction. As the Comte is never mentioned
in the records of his time, it may be supposed
that his Excellency was of an unobtrusive
nature, and that the ménage, in common with
so many of its contemporaries, agreed to dis-
agree. Among others, the theory of free love
was a favourite topic of discussion; marriage
as an institution was not favourably regarded
by the philosophers of the day. That the piety
of Liszt, of which he had only so recently given
unmistakable manifestations, ought to have
prevailed against these ideas is perhaps an
unanswerable argument in the hands of his
detractors. But the fact has to be admitted
134
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
that his liaison with the Comtesse was of the
closest nature, and lasted for over five years.
Three children were born of this union; a boy
who died young, and two daughters, one of
whom, Blanche, married the Minister Ollivier,
whose chief claim to celebrity is having entered
' with a light heart'into the war with Germany;
and Cosima, who became successively the wife
of Hans von Bülow and Richard Wagner, and
in whose arms Liszt breathed his last. The
mother of these children died in 1876, highly
esteemed in literary circles. Her works, prin-
cipally historical, give evidence of great ability
and lucid reasoning, although her pseudonym
of Daniel Stern is hardly known by the later
generation.
The reasons which led to her permanent
estrangement from Liszt have so far not pene-
trated their veil of secrecy. Again the im-
pressionable man became a prey to melan-
choly. Though we find nowhere any traces
of a longing to enter the bosom of the Church,
there is the same desire to renounce his pro-
fession, and hide himself away from the face
of the world, that assumed prominence in
several periods of his career.
He flees Paris ;
the mountains of Switzerland in their solitary
grandeur act as an opiate on his lacerated feel-
LISZT
135
ings; to find a spot where far from the garrulous
world he can meditate over his grief is now his
sole object. Geneva, with its matchless lake,
dividing the grander Alps from the modest
beauties of the Jura, tempts him as a future
home. Some choice spirits—Sismondi, Can-
dolle, Pictet-keep him in connection with
that world which he pretends to loathe, but
which never effectually loses its hold on him.
The establishment of a conservatoire com-
mands his valued advice; the forlorn condition
of the poor bespeaks the help of his fingers
at a concert, very humorously described in a
letter to George Sand. Altogether, the hermit
seems to us hardly quite in earnest this time
with his protestations that the world shall
know him no more.
Again his ambition was destined to be the
lever that restored him to public life. A pos-
sible rival had arisen in the person of Thalberg,
Glowing reports reached Geneva of the sensa-
tion he had caused at Paris. For a time the
world was in doubt who was the greater of the
two. The question was freely discussed ; the
frankness of Liszt and his want of convention-
ality had made him more than one enemy, who
thought the present moment fit to take revenge
for previous slights.
Invidious comparisons,
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THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
insinuations calculated to wound his most
tender susceptibilities, reached Liszt. His
spirit was roused; to pack his trunks and
return to Paris, which he thought he had quitted
for ever, was the impulse of a moment. The
public was still faithful to him ; Thalberg could
not take his measure in popularity, and sound
musicians had never doubted the superiority of
Liszt.
But the decision to re-enter the world went
beyond a mere. musical duel with a possible
rival. All his musical proclivities were up in
arms against retirement. At last his mind was
made up to resume the position of virtuoso,
which he had up to that time considered beneath
him. A series of concerts in the Salle Erard,
devoted principally to works by Beethoven,
were as a challenge to the Conservatoire, whose
concerts were limited to orchestral music, and
to those virtuosi who sneered at the classics,
and regarded music as a means to show off
their dexterity.
The éclat of these concerts was still fresh
when he quitted Paris for a long tour through
Italy. The beauties, artistic and natural, of
this lovely country, which are only too apt to
foster the senses into voluptuous idleness, had
a bracing effect on him. To see, to study, and
LISZT
137
to emulate was now the principal bent of his
inind. The successful Liszt, spoilt child of the
salons, unused to hard work, had disappeared ;
one did not know which to admire most-the
restless energy of the student or the rare
modesty with which he cast aside his rank as
a finished master, and was content to learn
as the most ignorant of beginners.
The eleven years from 1839 to 1849 were
passed by Liszt as a homeless wanderer, travers-
ing Europe from north to south, from east to
west, and received everywhere with the greatest
honours. His position in the musical world
seemed quite unchallengeable. With perfect
right he was named the King of Pianists; and
so high was his reputation, that even those who
approached him nearest in skill and reputation
were content, with few exceptions, to recognise
his superiority. When we quote Tausig, von
Bülow, Rubinstein, we speak, of course, of much
later times; but each of these great masters,
whose names stand out from their contempo-
raries, and who were justly aware of their value,
has repeated over and over again that beside
Liszt their skill was as nothing. It is, of
course, difficult to describe the special charac-
teristics of the individual schools of great
masters; in actual technique and general ex-
138
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
cellence there can naturally be little to choose
between them, and good music will often bear
different styles of interpretation and concep-
tion ; but a point in which Liszt was said to
excel was the individuality which he infused
into his play, and which, while scrupulously re-
specting the meaning of the composer, seemed
to constitute the piece a new creation by the
player. We know, on no less an authority than
Richard Wagner, that his own music appeared
to him in a different, higher sense when ren-
dered by Liszt.
Among the many experiences of those rest-
less years his voyage to Pesth must have been
among the most pleasing. Hungarian by birth,
he had left the country as a boy of six; since
then the greater part of his life had been passed
in France; the French language had become
his own; it was never, until at a later time, his
intention to quit permanently that land of his
adoption. But for all that he clung with great
love to the land of his birth; incapable of
speaking its tongue, he yet loved to dilate on
its customs and habits, and its music has found
a lasting home in the sheets of his compositions.
His countrymen were aware of this attachment.
Again and again they had prayed of him to
grant them a visit. Liszt, only too willing, had
LISZT
139
always been prevented by some reason or other.
At last all obstacles were removed; the visit
took place, and the enthusiasm of the fiery
Magyars was something to be remembered in
after years. A description of the scenes enacted
during his short stay appeared in a French
musical paper ; but we can fully believe the
chronicler when he confesses his inability to
adequately describe the wild frenzy that seemed
to have taken hold of the entire population.
Some few disagreeable reminiscences naturally
mingle with a preponderance of gratifying
events. That London did not cordially join
in the general applause has already been noticed.
The crestfallen impresario may have borne a
reflection of his pocket in his face when he
summed up his expenses. He brightened up
again when Liszt good-naturedly refunded him
the whole amount he had advanced. But a
worse experience is connected with Milan. .
Liszt, who wrote frequently for the Revue
Musicale, had made some remarks about the
management of La Scala which the Milanese
chose to consider a personal attack on them-
selves. No explanations were accepted, and
the master, who had the courage to brave the
audience, though warned of what was in store
for him, had to play to empty benches.
140
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
The inauguration of an entirely new departure
is dated from his visit to Rome. Here, in the
rooms of the Princess Galitzni, Liszt gave several
complete recitals, unvaried by vocal or orches-
tral performances. This was considered at the
time a dangerous innovation, and it might not
have succeeded if attempted by a man of inferior
reputation. How much these recitals contri-
buted to the reintroduction of classical music
it is impossible to estimate. Beethoven, whose
latest compositions had been coolly shelved as
enormities of tastelessness, furnished the lion's
share of his programmes; the adoration of
Liszt for this master was proof against all
solicitations for lighter music.
Weber as
composer for piano had been nearly unknown
until Liszt gave his compositions to wondering
audiences all over the world. The wonderful
songs of Schubert, ably transcribed for the
instrument which only sang under the fingers
of one man, at last emerged from the boundaries
of Vienna, within which they had been known
to a small circle. That these and many others
of the old composers should have been indebted
to the man who was at the same time the
staunch pillar of new and unknown talent is
the best evidence of his versatility.
But not the least wonderful of his character-
a
LISZT
141
istics was the unheard-of liberality to which no
deserving object applied in vain. Had Liszt
been possessed of the practical mind of many
of his contemporaries, his fortune might have
counted by millions. But the voice of distress
or an appeal to his artistic sympathies never
failed of acknowledgment. National calamities,
such as the floods in Hungary and the great
fire in Hamburg, fetched the last sous out of
his pocket; and the selfish narrowness which
suffered the erection of a monument to Beet-
hoven in his native city of Bonn to hang fire
roused his whole soul. Twenty thousand francs
was at that time his whole available fortune;
it was remitted forthwith, and other considerable
sums followed, until the greater part of the cost
of the monument could be traced to his con-
tributions. The amount subscribed by him for
the completion of the Cologne Cathedral, noblest
monument of Gothic architecture, will probably
never be known,
The year 1849 marks a new departure in his
brilliant career. In spite of his universal success,
he had probably never been quite satisfied with
his position as a virtuoso. The uncertain life,
flying from one city to another, the excitement
and worry incidental on the ever-changing scene
of action, and the friendly importunity of his
142
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
admirers, robbed him of that repose which was
more compatible with his nature. Of fame he had
now had his surfeit, nor could he hope to eclipse
his own performances as an executant. A long-
ing for a quiet life grew upon him, and assumed
such proportions that the most ardent prayers
of his friends to continue his career, or anyhow
not to desert his old circle in the French capital,
met with a refusal. Paris, that restless rendez-
vous of feverish brains, was no place of rest;
the other great capitals, each of which would
probably have accepted Liszt on his own terms,
were little better. To clothe his thoughts in
music, to mature those ideas which a long
experience had engendered, an ideal place of
repose could alone be qualified. In the centre
of Germany, in one of the smallest of its duchies,
the little town of Weimar yet looms big with
classical associations. No place of commerce, un-
used to the martial tread of soldiery, aside from
the great thoroughfares that traverse Germany
like so many arteries, none but those initiated
would expect that Weimar is not only called
but deserves the name of the German Athens.
The great Goethe flourished here for more than
half a century, surrounded by Schiller, Herder,
Wieland; the cultured lady who graced the
throne of the venerable German Emperor, and
LISZT
143
survived him by one year only, had here listened
to the wisdom of the great Olympian. While
the clang of arms resounded throughout the
civilised world, the noble Duke, unable to rescue
his fatherland from temporary oppression
became the faithful guardian of what was best
of German intellect.
The very streets and
walks in the quiet little town teem with re-
collections of the greatest of literary heroes.
The spirit of Goethe seems still to hover in-
visibly in the air. This ideal place, sacred
with inspiring memories, Liszt chose as his
future residence. For twelve years his presence
consecrated a new era of classical life, scarcely
less brilliant than its predecessor. No unworthy
successor to the union of Schiller and Goethe
was to arise in the unselfish friendship of Liszt
and Wagner.
A great blessing to musicians of all stages
was to dawn. The new and untried, erring
from one theatre to another, everywhere re-
pulsed as sensational and valueless, found a
staunch protector and kindly critic in the
classical town. To recognise merit and vindi-
cate its claims fearlessly in the face of a world,
seemed to be the new function that had de-
scended on Liszt's shoulders. Nothing conven-
tional, no blatant cry of petty jealousy could
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THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
deter him from what he considered the right
path. Richard Wagner, exiled as a revolutionist,
belaughed and rejected as a composer, and near
starvation for want of money, found a staunch
friend in the man whom he had years ago
regarded with feelings of aversion. Had Liszt
done nothing besides preserving Wagner, the
thanks of the world would be due to him. To
produce Tannhäuser at a time when Wagner's
name was a byword for all that was most
ridiculous was an act of no mean courage.
The correspondence between the two is the
monument of two great intellects. Wagner,
not usually touching, becomes pathetic when
he refers to the dearest of friends whose gain
lighted up the deepest depths of his adversity.
A fugitive, he passed through Weimar. Liszt
conducted his Tannhäuser. 'It was as if my
own soul were conducting,' Wagner writes, and
continues : 'Then I thought of Lohengrin, and
a sadness came over me that the music should
never quit its pale-faced paper.' To mention
this to Liszt meant to insure its representation.
The rehearsals were commenced at once. When
the opera was produced Wagner was far away
in Switzerland, banished from the country of his
birth; but the wave of applause that swept over
Germany must have consoled him for much
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145
that had happened. It is more than doubtful
that Wagner would have been recognised even
later on but for the authority of Liszt. Alone
among the musicians of his time, the great
Hungarian stood forth the solitary nucleus of
the Wagnerian school, the possibility of which
would have been derided even by Wagner him-
self had anybody prophesied it.
That Liszt did not avail himself of his posi-
tion to push his own compositions is not the
least remarkable feature of his life. Settled at
Weimar, his original object being to compose,
he displayed that rare modesty to stop at the
threshold and make room for those whom he
considered more worthy than himself. So
natural did he consider this self-effacement,
that in later years, when asked why he had
not written opera, and particularly why he had
left the libretto, Wieland der Schinidt, given to
him by Wagner, uncomposed, all the answer
was: 'Can you not imagine why?' Liszt's
nature was eminently ambitious-of that noble
ambition which cannot suffer to be second, but
yet recognises where it has found its master,
and bows down in homage before him.
For a long time, even when Wagner's fame
was widely recognised, many people thought
Liszt's high opinion of him exaggerated. The
VOL. II.
K
146
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
reproach which stigmatized Liszt as an intro-
ducer of new-fangled music out of keeping with
the sound classics was taken up even by many
of his more intimate associates. They seemed
to forget that the whole of his life had been
spent in the rehabilitation of the classics in the
concert-rooms of Europe; that to the day of his
death Beethoven was to him the first of men.
But as regards his desire to encourage new
composers possessed of talent, he was content
to plead guilty to that impeachment. "Why
shall we refuse to acknowledge that which is
good among us?' he asked. “Is it not our duty
even to run a risk when the benefits may be
reaped in the future ?' But it must be added
that, though he may have incurred some risk,
his judgment was never at fault. Great spirits
are of necessity in advance of their age; their
verdict may be set aside temporarily, but time
fights on their side, and vindication, though
perhaps tardy, is inevitable.
The town of Weimar was well aware of the
treasure it possessed in its most celebrated
inhabitant Torchlight processions were the
tribute of the studying youth, and the freedom
of the city was only the collective expression
of what was individually felt by every citizen.
Unlike his stiff Excellency, Minister von Goethe,
LISZT
147
who was a source of pride to the Weimarians,
but whose majestic figure was too unapproach-
able to engender love, Liszt unbent to the
lowliest of his fellow-citizens, and had more
than mere words of pity for those afflicted by
misfortune.
For twelve years, though more than once
fiercely attacked by the voice of jealous enmity,
the will of Liszt presided at the theatre. The
whole of Germany kept its eyes fixed on the
scenes enacted in this little country town.
Alone, Liszt dared to dictate to the taste of
his audience. Operas which more powerful
theatres had rejected were by him put upon
the stage with a degree of success that was out
of proportion to the slender means and cramped
position of an insignificant country stage. At
last, however, a storm burst out which even his
great authority could not allay. A new opera,
The Barber of Bagdad, written by his pupil and
friend Cornelius, failed to gain the applause of
the audience. This opera has since becorne
one of the favourite stock pieces throughout
theatrical Germany, and the wonder is that it
has not already been represented in other
countries; but at first the music fell flat. The
voices of Liszt's enemies were raised exultingly;
at last a lever had been found by which to
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THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
attack his popularity. Feeling ran high, and
in the course of the wrangle an insinuation was
dropped that he favoured his friends to the ex-
clusion of other tried composers, and that he
offended the ear of the public by producing
music that could give no satisfaction. It must
not be forgotten that in Germany the taste of
the upper and middle classes reigns supreme in
theatrical matters, and that the aversion towards
revolutionary political tendencies severely handi-
capped the works of democrats such as Wagner,
Berlioz, and Cornelius.
Liszt, ever proud and sensitive, would not
give in; he saw with regret that his position
in Weimar had become greatly compromised.
The performance of the Ring der Nibelungen,
which at that early stage he had contemplated
giving to the world, could not, after this alter-
cation, be attempted with prospect of success.
Weary and dejected, unable to prevail against
mediocrity, and resenting the ingratitude of
many whom he had faithfully served, he resigned
his post.
Although twenty-six years were yet to pass
before the termination of his life, the public
career of Liszt was terminated when he quitted
the little German town. Indeed, his days as a
paid virtuoso had come to a conclusion long
LISZT
149
before. At Pesth, in 1847, was the last time
that he faced the public for his own benefit;
after that he certainly was heard often, but no
money passed into his pocket. As frequently
stated, he was always ready to advance objects
of charity, or to help forward deserving musi-
cians. In both cases his services were strictly
gratuitous.
But though he never again resumed his
official capacity at Weimar, and probably
intended to give the ungrateful city a wide
berth, he found soon that the many years passed
there and connections formed could not be
severed. After a sojourn of several years at
Rome he was again attracted to the quiet town
on the Ilm which had seen his happiest days-
where, among other sympathetic ties, he had
left that most cherished of all treasures, the
devoted friendship of a woman; and since then
he carried on what he called his trifurqué
existence, dividing his presence between Weimar,
Rome, and Buda-Pesth. The latter town ap-
pealed to his patriotism, and Liszt, ever a bad
refuser, rather submitted to a deal of personal in-
convenience than disappoint hopes that he could
fulfil. But, while he was carrying on his life as
a private individual, his position as arbiter of
the musical world stood higher than ever. To
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THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
pass minutes in the presence of the gifted man,
to listen to the pearls which oozed from his
rare intellectual equipment, to undergo the
influence of his refined presence, became a boon
coveted alike by high and low. Life had, on
the whole, acted kindly by him; with one
passing exception there had always been friends
and money in plenty to satisfy his somewhat
luxurious tastes. He was one of Nature's
favourites, and not the least boon she had
vouchsafed him was the art to inspire friend-
ship in the heart of noble-minded women.
Little is known of the Princess Wittgenstein,
who ministered to his comforts in his old days;
but from fragments of letters that have tran-
spired she must have been endowed with rare
qualities both of heart and brain. To possess
a friend of that kind is only given to few.
While admiring the genius of Liszt, we cannot
help contrasting his lot with that of so many
great musicians, whose fortunes have been cast
in darker lines, and to whom death must have
come as a release.
The period which led to the conferring of
ecclesiastical l'ank on the henceforth Abbé has
been termed by himself his years of recueille-
ment. Throughout his life we have followed
the earnest bent of his religious convictions,
LISZT
151
which were never obscured by worldly surround-
ings. And, strange to say, the old ideas which
had once led him to condemn music other than
sacred came back to him in a purified form. At
a later stage we will offer some remarks on this
last musical period of his life, which, without
condemning worldly music, yet gave it-in his
own efforts at composition-an inferior place.
Though his efforts as papal director of music
were not successful, they afforded him the-
no doubt-great satisfaction to join in part the
sacerdotal order, which had always had strong
attractions for him. And, as if all his life had
combined to deck him out with the most signal
personal advantages, it was remarked on all
hands that the priestly soutane spiritualised his
matured features, and invested them with a rare
and dignified distinction. This may have had
more to do than is imagined with the vociferous
applause of the London crowd, and the in-
voluntary enthusiasm of the--probably Protes-
tant-cabman, with his well-meant but misplaced
aspirates.
The story of Liszt's death is yet fresh. A
slight cold, neglected at first, encroached on
his system. Still, he would not disappoint
friends whom he had promised to visit. Cross-
ing from London to Paris, the enthusiastic
152
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
reception accorded him by the home of his
youth may have aggravated a slight indisposi-
tion. His last appearance upon a concert plat-
form was at Luxembourg ; in company with
his friends the Munkacsys he had attended a
concert of the Musical Society, and elicited the
unstinted gratitude of the audience by giving
them a solo of his own composition. He
travelled thence to Bayreuth to attend the
wedding of his granddaughter, Daniela von
Bülow. On the 23rd he forgets his pain listen-
ing to a splendid performance of Parsifal. The
doctors are getting more anxious now, and for-
bid him to leave the house ; but the passionate
lover of music cannot remain in his room in
Bayreuth while his dead friend's works are
being performed. A memorable performance
of Tristan, in which Sucher and Vogl surpassed
themselves, brought tears to the eyes of the old
master, whose last appearance had thus been
fitly connected with the music he had done so
much to perpetuate. Faint and ill, he had to
be carried to and from Madame Wagner's box.
He was not to leave his bed again alive. His
weakness, rather than a severe cold and inflam-
mation of the lungs, rendered his return to
health improbable. On the 31st July 1886,
seventy-five years of age, Franz Liszt expired
LISZT
153
in the arms of his daughter, Madame Wagner.
Both Weimar and Pesth claimed his remains;
but the executors, Cardinal Hainault and Prin-
cess Wittgenstein, granted the prayer of his
daughter that his grave should be near her.
Liszt's own opinions were known to coincide
with that wish; he had more than once ex-
pressed his disapprobation of the removal of
the bodies of Schubert and Beethoven. Nor
can it be denied that his long and close intimacy
with Wagner, apart from the claims of relation-
ship, renders Bayreuth a very appropriate burial-
ground.
The foundation of a Liszt scholarship at
Weimar testifies to the veneration of the Grand
Duke, who, like his father, Carl August, has
proved a true protector of art.
As a musician, Liszt must be regarded from
several points of view.
Among virtuosi his place may be said to be
unique, if the unanimous opinion of one and all
who have heard him, and compared his style
with that of the best of his contemporaries, goes
for anything. As one of his characteristics we
have already mentioned a great individuality,
which communicated itself in such a degree to
the hearer that he was often under the illusion
that he was hearing a new piece instead of a
154
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
well-known composition. His fingers were
exceptionally long and agile; their strength
could equally represent the clang of angry
thunder and the scarcely audible moan of the
wind. We have read somewhere that a recital
by Liszt was rarely accomplished without the
snapping of several chords, and that when he
arose from the piano he had the air of a
vanquisher looking down on his defeated in-
strument. Some weak-minded critics, whose
musical proclivities stop short at the inane
ballads of the day, will argue that hammering
cannot be reconciled with true music. To
those we would reply that none knew better
than Liszt to play pianissimo at its time, nor
could he be equalled when the roll of thunder
had to be communicated to the ears of his
audience. To say that Beethoven represented
for him the acme of all music, and that no more
faithful servant of the titanic thoughts of the
great master has yet existed, means that Liszt's
style must have aspired to the loftiest flights of
statuesque grandeur, and that nothing small
and mean can have entered into his conception.
As a teacher, we are not exaggerating when
we say that Liszt forms the basis on which all
modern virtuosity is founded. His own pupils,
von Bülow and Tausig—whose career was cut
LISZT
155
short at the early age of thirty--not to mention
scores of other less celebrated names, are the
best proof of his excellence. Second only to
himself, the two first-mentioned celebrities have
admitted frankly that their debt to Liszt was
unpayable. But to pianists whose claim to
notice would not for a moment be compared
to the giants just mentioned he devoted kindly
solicitude. He would listen patiently to per-
formances of a very secondary order, and a
quiet hint adroitly dropped where it could not
hurt susceptibilities often proved of the greatest
value to the blundering tiro. But while he
was indulgent with maulers of his own works,
his face became serious as soon as the pupil
unfolded a sonata by Beethoven ; and here,
indeed, he became the severe master, whom to
please was nearly impossible. It must be
borne in mind that his tuition was entirely free
of charge, and simply due to kindness of heart
and the interest he felt in conscientious
strugglers. When in good-humour he would
brush aside the performer and repeat the piece;
but as a rule he was chary to sit down at the
piano. Musicians from all parts of the world
tried to gain admittance into the magic circle
at Weimar; it was an article of faith that no
public performer was sanctioned until he had
156
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
passed the ordeal at the hands of the first of
pianists. The hardiest felt some trepidation
when they were seated at his piano; but the
genial smile and a light friendly sarcasm which
savoured his conversation went a long way to
put them at ease. An amusing account of
study with Liszt is furnished by an American
lady who passed six weeks at Weimar in 1873.
Miss Amy Fay, who has published her ex-
periences in an interesting volume entitled
Music Study in Germany, gives Liszt his due
as a teacher and as a man, not forgetting
proper mention of his personal attractions,
which were so generally recognised by her sex.
Her adventures are most instructive. Once
this young Republican found herself confronted
by no less a person than the Grand Duke, who
was gaily chatting with Liszt in his room.
On
another occasion a picnic was arranged, in
which the whole of the Weimar upper ten
participated; but attention is paid only to what
Liszt says and does—the other excursionists,
including some of the bluest blood in Germany,
become mere lay figures. We are left to infer
that Liszt considered Tausig his best pupil,
though closely run by von Bülow-'mein Hans,
as the master fondly calls him. And, as regards
Tausig, it is indeed difficult to say what might
LISZT
157
have become of a man whose enormous reputa-
tion dated from his first concert, had he been
suffered to attain the prime of life.
We have already referred to the enormous
services rendered by Liszt in furtherance of the
music of others; but some remarks have to be
made regarding his own compositions. His
activity as composer has been divided into
three periods. The first requires little notice;
it contains comparatively little of an original
character. The demand of the age for fantasias
and show-pieces could not be altogether over-
looked; and yet the tendency displayed in this
earliest period is already far more serious than
that of his contemporaries. Though it may
be objected that Schubert's songs must lose by
transcription unless performed by a veritable
artist, it was certainly better that Liszt himself
should open up their priceless beauties to a
widespread circle of listeners than that they
should remain comparatively unknown, as they
had been up to that date. But another and
more original movement had already gained
hold of his mind : the melodious ditties of the
Gypsies led to a long and careful study of their
music; and, besides paving the way to the
Hungarian Rhapsodies, which have become
justly popular, they gave the first stimulus
158
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
towards the nationalisation of music, in which so
many composers have followed his lead. The
second period, commencing with the Weimar
era, is less productive; we have already seen
that a tendency at self-effacement gained the
upper hand in Liszt, which induced him to use
the whole of his influence and power in the
interest of others. The third period is devoted
exclusively to sacred music.
The place of Liszt as a composer is still
indistinct. The great technical difficulty which
is remarkable in most of his compositions
militates against their distribution among wide
circles. But though there are undoubtedly fine
passages in many of his works, it is not, we
think, as a composer that he will be principally
known to coming generations. From casual
remarks made from time to time, and confirmed
by a reluctance he had to play his own com-
positions, it may be inferred that Liszt himself
was of a similiar opinion. Perhaps a later
generation will appreciate the intricate passages
and jerky figures in which his scores abound;
but, though far from deserving neglect, we
cannot believe that his works will rank with
the standard creations of Bach, Mozart, Beet-
hoven, or (to quote one of his contemporaries)
Wagner.
LISZT
159
It has already been stated in more than one
portion of this article that Liszt was a man of
commanding intellect, deeply read in the
literatures of the principal countries, and a con-
versationalist of rare merit. This accounts for
the deference with which the highest personages
rendered him homage in a degree which the
artist pure and simple would not have obtained .
That the polished and well-bred Abbé would
have acquitted himself favourably in many of
the walks of life may be inferred from the
ability displayed in many of his writings, among
which the biography of his friend Chopin
deserves special mention, though his correspond-
ence with Wagner must not be forgotten. An
anecdote relates that, asked what he would be
if he were not a musician, he replied with a
smile: 'The first diplomatist in Europe !' Per-
haps he hardly meant the word 'first' to be
taken in its radical sense, but we are far from
doubting that he would have distinguished
himself in a career for which he had all the per-
sonal requisites.
The world moves quickly when we consider
that hardly a few ycars have elapsed since the
man was with us whom as a boy Beethoven
had pressed to his heart.
MOSCHE LES
1794-1870
W
HEN in 1870, a few months before the
great French war, Ignaz Moscheles was
carried to his final resting place in the picturesque
Leipzig cemetery, one the last of the purely
classical school had ceased to breathe. The old
masters, Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, had
been long gathered to their glory. Beethoven,
the daring reformer, regarded with suspicion
by the uncompromising school who judged of
music as a mathematical science, held a position
apart. He owes more to the modern school
than people imagine. Liszt, Wagner and their
disciples, while far outstripping the ancient
master in musical heresy, did their utmost to
raise his fame and vindicate his music in the
eyes of those who wished to shear it of its
rights to reproduce the storm as well as the
sunshine, and who disputed the title of the
composer to include in his repertory the whole
province of life with the resonant and often
160
MOSCHELES
161
dissonant clang of misery, crime, and despair
mingled with the exultant voices of joy and
triumph. We can readily credit the aversion of
the old school to anything savouring of the
Sturm und Drang. Those quiet unwrinkled
faces, appropriately framed by smooth wig and
undulating ruffled shirt-front, look down upon
us from their unpretentious frames as a message
of peace and goodwill. Their very essence was
order and quiet in joy and grief. Only to few
was it given in the age of our great-grand-
fathers to think of life as a torrent; even the
unfortunate ones took their troubles with quiet
despair ; and it seemed reserved to our more
impassive age to kindle feelings until they
flame out in irresistible blaze.
With all the calm grandeur of the old
classics, with all the delight and consolation they
seem to breathe into the soul of their hearers, we
scan their scores in vain for that fiery impetu-
osity, that overflowing of passion no longer to
be contained, that enchants us in Beethoven.
There alone we meet with the wild passion
that impelled manhood politically to burst its
shackles by the French Revolution, and to follow
in the walks of art and science by a daring as
new as it was delightful. How far Beethoven
may have been inspired by the great upheaval
VOL. II.
L
162
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
а.
which took place during the best period of his
life is of course matter of conjecture.
Whether Mozart, had his life been prolonged,
would have abandoned his pastoral style
when the world around him had become one
vast battle-field, or whether Beethoven would
have continued to compose in his juvenile style
had the sixteenth Louis been permitted to rule
on the lines of his bien aimé grandfather, are
matters of speculation. That one of the
grandest works of the latter master, the Eroica
Symphony, should have been inspired by
admiration of Napoleon as liberator, and
indignantly shorn of its dedication when
his assumption of the imperial crown proved
that after all the conquering ruler was swayed
by the most human of motives, is a proof that
the composer-and with him his pen--was
influenced by the events that held the world
around him spell-bound. And indeed nobody,
however apathetic, however disposed like
Archimedes to live as a hermit of science, ,
could have helped being drawn into the mighty
whirlpool which after a century has not yet en-
tirely subsided. Music, a purely emotional art,
can no more than literature remain indifferent to
the revolutions in the minds of those who create
and those who enjoy it. The greater individual
MOSCHELES
163
activity, the largely increased scope for the most
divergent aims and tastes, which are the char-
acteristic of our fast-waning century, claim a
music more in consonance- more restless, more
representative, less idyllic and possibly less pure,
but more daring and novel, than was required by
our easy-going ancestors. It has been reserved
to our age to demonstrate that there may be
beauty in dissonance; that our ear, perverted
perhaps, perhaps influenced by the grand
tendency towards truth, will welcome as a
sauce piquante the introduction of a sound
condemned by the science of counterpoint, and
yet perhaps more in keeping with present life
than the quiet idyls of Haydn, which, like
the graceful shepherds and shepherdesses of
Watteau, flatter our senses but appeal in vain
to our belief.
Moscheles has halted midway between the
old school and the iconoclastic radicals, who,
starting from Beethoven, have proceeded with
alarming haste, viâ Chopin, Mendelssohn,
Schumann, Liszt, to Wagner, where for the
time-being we are taking breath. Of all the
later composers Moscheles expresses unqualified
admiration only for Mendelssohn, who indeed
is the least revolutionary. For Schumann he
feels a qualified sympathy; whenever he men-
164
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
tions him we can see that he cannot help
admiring, though he would rather condemn,
were he able to reconcile it with his conscience.
As to Chopin and Liszt, he admires them
warmly as virtuosi ; but their music, as well as
Wagner's, has few redeeming features in his
eyes.
Moscheles is a fervent apostle of Beethoven,
whom indeed he places above every other com-
poser; and in this respect he constitutes already
a distinct advance on his teacher, Dionys Weber,
who was one of the most consistent enemies of
the great master's later work. When as a boy
young Moscheles, presented to him, played a
sonata by Beethoven with all the faults of a
self-taught though talented child, Weber damned
his performance with the faintest of praise. It
may be assumed that his prejudices would have
got the better of him even had the performance
of anything by that hated master been less
faulty ; but he could not fail to notice that
young Moscheles had the making of a good
pianist, and he undertook to teach him on the
strict understanding that none but his selections
of music were to be practised. It was pretty
certain that Beethoven would be rigorously ex-
cluded from that catalogue.
To become a pupil of Weber (who must,
.
MOSCHELES
165
however, not be confounded with the operatic
composer) was regarded a high privilege, and
worth a sacrifice. Moscheles' father, a well-
to-do Jewish draper, who had set his mind on
one of his children becoming a sound musician,
used his influence to overcome his son's ob-
jections, and at last, though reluctantly, the
hard condition of Weber was agreed to.
Mozart, Clementi, and Bach were for the next
few years the only composers he was allowed to
play, but the boy made such progress that at
the age of fourteen he was allowed to give a
concert, besides writing some small pieces for
piano, which secured him a small income.
Already the parents had resolved to send him
to Vienna, Prague being only a limited field for
music, and the Jewish confession being there a
distinct disadvantage. But before the journey
could be undertaken the father died in moderate
circunstances, leaving a large family of young
children. That the mother pinched herself to
the utmost to defray the expensive journey and
cost of living at Vienna was never forgotten by
Moscheles, who throughout his life had warm
family attachments.
At Vienna the foundation was laid for his
future celebrity. Albrechtsberger, one of the
first authorities, gave him after a few months a
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THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
highly flattering testimonial. “Now,' to quote
Moscheles, 'I thought myself a perfect musician,
until, calling on Salieri, I found a slip of
paper lying on his table on which was written,
“The pupil Beethoven has called.” That made
me think. A man like Beethoven still a pupil?
Then, indeed, I cannot be a master. (Tagebuch.)
Without a moment's hesitation he entered
into a course of lessons with Şalieri, and re-
mained three years with him. Vienna was as
gay and frivolous as ever. Life passed as a
round of pleasure; the rich Jewish families,
Arnsteins, Eskeles, and others, took the young
man under their protection, and made him
acquainted with the best people. Meyerbeer,
one of the lions of the day, admitted him into
his intimacy, and thus cominenced a friendship
which was only to be interrupted by death. It
seemed not unlikely that the future composer
of the Huguenots would become a virtuoso,
his powers being considerable. Moscheles,
ever modest and painstaking, made the most
of his time, and was laudably content to learn
from others before embarking on a style of his
OW11.
But of greater importance than the ac-
quaintance with Meyerbeer was that with
Beethoven. Commissioned to write the piano
MOSCHELES
167
score of Fidelio, Moscheles had many oppor-
tunities of seeing his idol, and his diary bears
evidence of the deep veneration with which the
slightest remark or action of Beethoven inspired
him. One characteristic anecdote cannot here
be omitted. Moscheles had written under one
of his numbers, 'The end, by the help of God.'
When he received the music back the old
master had scribbled underneath : 'Oh man,
help yourself!' (Tagebuch, i. 18.)
In spite of the great shyness and diffidence
which at that early period characterised
Moscheles, the worth and originality of his
talent did not remain long concealed. Asked
to play at a charity concert, he composed the
celebrated Variations on the Alexander March,
which created quite a sensation at the time, and
lifted him at once into the ranks of the first
composers and pianists. For years afterwards,
when Moscheles had written pieces of greater
merit, his name was mentioned in connection
with these variations, which beyond a certain
sprightliness do not seem to contain any very
extraordinary features. Audiences used to
demand that it should be placed on the pro-
gramme, much to the annoyance of Moscheles,
who never thought much of the piece.
But, whether right or wrong, the public hailed
168
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
him at once as one of the principal virtuosi of
his time, equalled but not excelled by Hummel,
whose pianissimo was said to be softer, while in
the matter of bravura Moscheles was pro-
nounced his superior. For a wonder, the two
objects of this rivalry neither lost their head
nor their friendship. Whatever Moscheles may
have thought of Hummel as a pianist, he re-
mained his enthusiastic admirer and imitator
as a composer, and Hummel was unprejudiced
enough to turn over his favourite pupils to
Moscheles when for a time he had to leave
Vienna.
After the Alexander March triumph it was
evident that the days of Moscheles in Vienna
were numbered. The law which makes the
virtuoso a bird of passage beneath whose flight
no grass can grow was as inexorable then as
it is now. But before taking leave of the
Kaiserstadt for good he wrote there what is
generally considered his best work, the Grand
Sonata in E flat, dedicated to the Cardinal
Archduke Rudolf, the well-known patron of
Beethoven, and himself a sound musician.
Then, barely twenty-two years of age, Mo-
scheles left Vienna, well equipped with warm
and valuable letters of introduction to many of
the principal Courts and musicians of Europe.
MOSCHELES
169
It was fated that he should not revisit the city
which he loved, and which he intended to make
his lasting home, until he was on the highroad
to old age.
Leipzig was his first stage; thence he pro-
ceeded to Dresden, and through the north of
Germany and Holland to France and England.
In 1824 he arrived in Berlin. Mendelssohn,
at that time fifteen years of age, was to friends
and parents a source of admiration, not quite
unmingled with doubt as to the real value of
his precocity. Although Moscheles pronounced
him a master, the mother insisted that Felix
should have lessons from the celebrated pianist.
For a long time Moscheles refused, feeling that
he had no more to teach to that finished genius;
and after repeated prayers and the most im-
portunate urging by the elder Mendelssohns,
whose thoroughness, though exaggerated, was
laudable, he consented under a modest protest
to undertake to give him 'some hints,' as he
qualifies his tuition, which this gifted boy with
lightning rapidity absorbs and reproduces with
his own genius.
Mendelssohn, though considerably his junior,
became a friend whom Moscheles looked up to
with the most unselfish devotion, and before
whom he prostrated his own considerable merits
170
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
with a self-denial rarely witnessed in artistic
circles. The days which they passed together
in London and the short time allotted to them
in Leipzig are among the happiest times in
Moscheles' life. The somewhat dry tone of his
diary becomes livelier when the honoured name
of Mendelssohn forms the subject-matter. An
undercurrent of poetry intensifies the sentiment
which is never quite absent from the pages; and
we can feel for the devoted friend when the
last sad days pin him to the sick-room of the
talented musician whose early death the world
will never cease to mourn.
The years 1824 and 1825 were pregnant of
incident in the quiet life of Moscheles. His
father had once expressed the wish that he
might become a rich merchant and marry some
fine lady from Hamburg. That was in the
pre-musical days, and the mercantile career
had of course long vanished into sinoke; but
the second part of the wish was to become
fulfilled in an unexpected manner. At one of
his concerts in the rich seaport, Moscheles
hardly suspected that a young girl rapt in
admiration was destined to become his wife
before many days were over. Absorbed by
his music, he never set eyes on that inspired
face. In a few days, however, the introduction
MOSCHELES
171
was effected. Charlotte Embden, the daughter
of a well-known merchant, became his wife after
a month, and survived him after a married life
of over forty-five years, amply blessed with
children and grandchildren and never obscured
by the slightest disagreement, unless indeed we
are to disbelieve a diary which seems to contain
the inmost thoughts of the writer, and which
was ably edited by the helpmeet of his life.
The following twenty years of Moscheles' life
were passed largely in travel ; but though none
of the principal towns in Europe were passed
by in his peregrinations, he made London more
or less his residence. Here he soon became
the leading authority in all matters pertaining
to music. Not a virtuoso or singer came to
England but tried to gain the approval of the
acknowledged arbiter. The pages of the diary
contain the names of all the greatest talent
that has visited London during the long span
of years that he passed there. The ancient
Braham, whose sonorous organ had been heard
by George III., and who as a septuagenarian still
sang before the present ruler of England, was
well acquainted with the subject of this sketch.
We find his judgment on Chopin, Thalberg,
Liszt, Malibran, Jenny Lind, and hundreds of
names, many of which have long left the boards
172
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
of the world; while nearly all our contempora-
neous artists have produced themselves before
Moscheles during his sojourn in London, or
subsequently when for over twenty years
Leipzig was arbiter in the musical world.
That a life such as his was full of incident
goes without saying. One would expect much
jealousy and evidences of bad feeling among so
many rival performers ; but though Moscheles
was by no means enamoured of the anti-classical
style of playing that obtained during the earlier
part of his life, his nature was so modest and
self-effacing and his judgment so mild that we
fail to detect anywhere signs of enmity or any-
thing approaching to it.
The value of Chopin he could never bring
himself to acknowledge; the music was too
novel, too bizarre, and the harmonies too
thoroughly out of keeping with the rules of
his own methodical training, to appeal to his
understanding. And yet he was unwilling to
condemn; again and again he took up Chopin's
works, trying, pruning, selecting, unwilling to
pass a verdict until he had satisfied himself
that his objections were based on sound study.
And even when his own judgment was irrevoc-
ably formed he made an exception, and ad-
mitted that, played by Chopin, the music was
MOSCHELES
173
really fine.
That Wagner was
never his
favourite can well be imagined. He belonged
to the party who could never forgive Liszt his
partiality for that composer ; and it is amusing
to read his version of the anecdote that Litolff
and Berlioz, invited by Liszt to hear Tann-
häuser, but preferring to go to a beer-tavern, had
provoked Liszt into saying that the pair of
them were not worth one Wagner. That Liszt
could have really meant that, Moscheles does
not for a moment believe; it must have been
an exaggeration caused by Liszt's anger !
Would he still be of that honest opinion ?
The last piece by Wagner heard by Moscheles
was the Meistersinger: he thinks it rather
better than the other operas; but still he is far
from enthusiastic; the instrumentation is too
full. Of Liszt as a composer his opinion is of
course little better; as a pianist his admiration,
at first qualified, becomes absolute. Perhaps
he takes exception at a little too much noise
and too many octaves. A curious compliment
is paid to Liszt's individuality: he played a
piece by Moscheles quite differently from the
composer's conception ; 'and yet I liked it,' is
the ingenuous confession.
As a rule Moscheles objected to runs of
octaves; Herz, Dreyschock, and Thalberg,
174
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
ignominiously styled 'octave heroes,' although
the latter as his own pupil might have been
supposed entitled to more merciful handling,
come in for severe criticism at his hands. He
is equally hard on those who used the pedal
without discrimination. His own play was
always characterised by great neatness and a
complete subordination to the will of the
composer. His programmes drew largely on
Mozart and Hummel, besides Mendelssohn, all
of whom were pronounced 'colourless' by the
school of the day, presumably because their
music did not lend itself to the exhibition of
virtuosity and its own selfish aims. . Even
Liszt, sound classic though he was, must have
now and then touched a discord in his heart of
hearts. When Moscheles first came to London,
Cramer was considered the head of the London
music world. For a long time the rival claims
of Moscheles and 'glorious John,' as Cramer
was termed by his admirers, were hotly debated ;
and it was only at the eventual final retirement
of the latter that his rival became securely seated
in the favour of the English public.
Patiently and bravely Moscheles struggled,
with partial success, to reform the taste of his
public, and to place the classics in the position
belonging to them. At times he was quite
MOSCHELES
175
despondent, but never gave up his endeavours
until he finally left England. The Philharmonic
Society was ruled by a board of directors whose
views were not always of the broadest; the
question cropped up from time to time whether
classical music was not becoming super-
annuated—whether the new style, accepted by
popular verdict, was not also worthy of the
support of connoisseurs.
We need not say
that Moscheles took sides in these debates, and
that the whole of his energy was thrown into the
right side of the scale may be imagined. But
he could not always prevail, and such defeats as
three unsuccessful representations of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony left a deep impression on his
mind. Things became a little better when he
was associated with Mendelssohn and the
immense popularity of the latter overcame all
opposition. But the presence of Mendelssohn
was always temporary, and even he could not
invariably command approval. That works
such as the C Symphony by Schubert should
fall flat was difficult to understand. Other
episodes, laughable in themselves, contributed
to the belief which gained strength with
Moscheles, that the English public was not
capable of appreciating classical music. Quack
performances of all sorts were the order of the
176
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
day. A man produced a melody by pummelling
his jaw with his fist; another brought forth two
notes at the same time, probably by a species
of ventriloquism; a Russian band traversed
England playing one note to each trumpet.
Meretricious affairs of this nature drew the
public in shoals, while classical concerts were
performed to empty benches. Weber, whose
life was fast ebbing away, and who with re-
grettable conscientiousness insisted on keeping
his engagements, played to an audience of a
few dozen people, having unfortunately chosen
Derby Day for one of his concerts. An attempt
to popularise classical music by combining it
with popular numbers was even more unfor-
tunate; while all the light music was encored,
the classical numbers were received with the
greatest uproar.
The death of Weber under the most tragical
circumstances cast a gloom over Moscheles, who
was in one of his most dejected moods; and the
melancholy end of Beethoven was even more
calculated to sadden him. But these profes-
sional worries vanished when he was at home in
the bosom of his family. Whatever might be
the verdict of hostile critics, wife and children
appreciated him; and his great name and
ungrudging hospitality drew to his fireside
MOSCHELES
177
the most celebrated stars of the musical world.
Indeed, in reading through his diary. we find
a pretty complete list of all that were worth
knowing not only in the musical but also in the
literary world, all of whom have stretched their
legs under his table. The charming Malibran,
so soon to end, a victim to her career; her
husband, the somewhat formal De Bériot ; Liszt,
Dreyschock, Herz, Hummel, Thalberg, Sullivan,
Jenny Lind, Paganini, Ernst, Clementi, Chopin,
Lafont, Neukomm, and above all Mendelssohn,
were dear and honoured guests ; and the piano
was not suffered to remain idle when they were
there. Even those whose play jarred on his
senses, especially Herz and Dreyschock, were
held sacred by the laws of hospitality; and
Moscheles rather imposed a martyrdom on his
ears than lay himself open to a charge of impo-
liteness. His wife ably seconded his attempts to
amuse the guests. Well educated and possessed
of a fair amount of sound common sense, her life
was well employed in rendering her household
a comfort to her husband and an agreeable
pilgrimage for his friends. It is pleasant to wit-
ness how lonely he feels on his many voyages,
and how gladly he welcomes the day that
restores him to his family.
And yet this man is seldom idle. Even when
VOL. II.
M
178
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
the hard work of the day is over we find him
composing and arranging, turning out work for
publishers—fantasias and potpourris: uncon-
genial, it is true, but well paid, as Moscheles
adds now and then, half-apologetically. His
own opinion of the value of these compositions
is modest enough. "Twenty guineas !' we find
quoted in the Tagebuch on one occasion ; 'and
that is the only merit it has.' His original
compositions were creditable, yet very few of
them have survived ; and Moscheles himself
saw at an early stage that, while he could
not hope to compete with the ancient classics,
the new school far outstripped him both in
popularity and genius. The public, never too
delicate in its manifestations, became more
chary of its support when Moscheles' name
as a composer had been too well known.
Especially the young generation grew impatient
of music which could not aspire to the excel-
lence of the old classics, while it admittedly
failed in the exigencies of the new school.
Mendelssohn himself, best of friends and most
appreciative of listeners, was out of touch with
Moscheles in the latter's condemnation of
Chopin and half-hearted praise of Schumann;
and the elder man could not help feeling him-
self superannuated as a composer, when his views
MOSCHELES
179
clashed so radically with those of his own idol.
Therein, we think, must be sought the explana-
tion why in his later years Moscheles refused
determinedly to enter the arena of contem-
poraneous composers, and estimated at its
proper value the voice of encouragement over-
spread with a thin veil of half-sincere flattery.
While still taking a certain pride in the staunch
profession of his principles, antagonistic to any
but the purely classical school, the confession of
his own disability comes doubly touching from
a man who feels the waves closing over his
head. For the last twenty years of his life
the name of Ignaz Moscheles was only to be
read on the back of editions of the classics
compiled with the greatest care and conscien-
tiousness. Some trifles of his own creation
exist in the hands of relatives or friends, and
bear testimony to the strong sense of family
connection which was one of his most striking
characteristics ; but it is doubtful whether they
will ever be given to the public.
The everlasting disagreements with his co-
directors of the Philharmonic Society must have
often led to the wish to quit London. A suitable
situation was offered him in 1837 at Weimar,
where Hummel had just died; but at that
time he did not yet despair of working satis-
+
180
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
factorily in London, and the free and pleasant
life in England may also in some measure have
been responsible for his decision to refuse the
otherwise tempting offer. But when Mendels-
sohn tendered him the post of Professor of
Music at the Leipzig Conversatory, he could not
resist the double temptation to accept a more
congenial position and to live together with the
friend he loved and admired more than any
other. For several years his connection with
the London Philharmonic had been severed ;
many overtures had been made to retain him on
the board, but his determination had been
invincible. Lovers of music in England now
saw too late that the obstinacy of some few
men was about to drive away from London the
most capable man at their disposal. Now, when
the acceptance of the Leipzig professorship had
become an accomplished fact, the most tempting
offers were held out. That Moscheles, whose long
residence among them had stamped him half an
Englishman, should leave the country was a con-
tingency they appeared to have considered too
improbable to merit a moment's consideration.
But repentance came too late. The shortcom-
ings of London, combined with the splen-
dour of Leipzig, then in its greatest glory, had
decided the question in favour of the latter
MOSCHELES
181
place. That it cost Moscheles a pang to leave
so many dear and valued associations is certain.
The packing-up was a painful ordeal for the
family ; the charming house in Chester Place,
Regent's Park, which had witnessed so many
joyful scenes, was not given up without a
struggle; and though Moscheles had always
contemplated ending his days in Germany, the
actual decision cost him many heartburnings.
However, one joy was in store for him. In
tardy recognition of his merit, the Philharmonic
insisted that he should wield the bâton at their
last three c ncerts; and it was a consolation to
him to part in amity from a society whom his
whole past had been bound up with.
The arrival at Leipzig inaugurates the last
period in the master's life. His activity during
the space of over twenty years spent in the
service of the Conservatory is still gratefully
remembered. That his influence, backed up
by a long practical and theoretical experience,
has been largely instrumental in preserving the
high position of the Conservatory is an undis-
puted fact. The flattering reception in Leipzig;
the mute acknowledgment of many of his Lon-
don pupils, who followed their teacher to his
new residence; and, last but not least, the joy to
be near Mendelssohn, were sources of unmixed
182
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
pleasure. Unfortunately, the reunion of these
friends was to be of a shorter duration than
either of them could imagine. On the 14th of
November a merry company met together in
Mendelssohn's house to celebrate the birthday
of the master. He was as boisterous as a child,
for whose fancy nothing could seem too extra-
vagant. None of the company could predict
that this was to be his last birthday, and that
in less than one year not only he but his
talented sister Fanny would sleep together that
sleep surpassing all forgetfulness beneath the
sods of Holy Trinity, Berlin.
The shock caused by this profoundest of
blows was felt by Moscheles with the keenest
anguish; that it had been given to him to stand
at the bedside of the dying man, thus represent-
ing those relatives who could not be summoned
in time, was a sad consolation ; that in the
arrangement of the burial ceremony his advice
was eagerly sought, could only open the flood-
gates of his grief. People wondered how
Moscheles would be affected by his friend's
death. Many thought that the associations of
Leipzig would be too painful to endure, and
that he would again turn his back on the city,
perhaps even on Germany. . But Moscheles
took a loftier view of his duty. Mendelssohn
MOSCHELES
183
had placed him in his present situation, and he
considered it a sacred duty to continue to
devote his services to the splendid creation of
his friend-a legacy that had devolved on him,
and that he could not, had he felt so inclined,
shake off. Leipzig continued for years to
testify to the debt of gratitude it owed the dead
originator of its Conservatory; the day of
Mendelssohn's death was for many years to
come an occasion for solemn mourning, ex-
pressed appropriately by the choicest music
bequeathed to the world.
The long connection of Moscheles with the
Conservatory—a connection only interrupted
by his death-was nearly entirely devoted to
the office of teaching. As a composer he had
already ceased to exist; with equal determina-
tion he now expunged himself from the list of
virtuosi. None of his appearances in public
date from after 1847. 'I know very well,' he
said, 'that my method no longer satisfies con-
cert-goers. My style is directly opposed to the
noise and indistinctness required in the present
day. That the most celebrated of his London
pupils, Thalberg, should forget his teachings
and adopt a style diametrically opposed to his
own was a source of great grief. Anxiously he
seemed to watch the progress of this pupil
184
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
The great
from capital to capital, and it was with pain
that he used to repudiate the share of his
success which seemed to belong to him legiti-
mately as his teacher. 'Heaven be praised !
'
we find in the diary; 'Thalberg has played a
concerto by Mozart!' However, this some-
what isolated incident in Thalberg's career was
not to be repeated. That Moscheles lived to
witness the later school of von Bülow, Rubin-
stein, Tausig, must have given him satisfaction.
Though still too modern for his taste, there is
no doubt that they rank in his mind far above
Ascher, Herz, and Thalberg. Madame Schu-
mann he knew and appreciated.
prominence accorded to Chopin was, indeed,
not to his taste; but at least it had the redeem-
ing feature of being coupled with the salt of
Beethoven. The interest taken by Moscheles
in his own pupils at the Conservatory was
paternal in its kindness and intensity. Besides
the hours spent on them officially, he would
take them to his house, and there, with the
patience of an apostle, supplement the instruc-
tion just given them.
With his colleagues he always kept up the
best of relations. Only one incident is narrated
testifying to an estrangement. It is connected
with the celebrated pamphlet Das Judenthuri
in der Musik, the authorship of which was only
MOSCHELES
185
much later traced to Wagner. This attack on
his beloved Mendelssohn he could not suffer,
and suggested that Brendel, who had published
the diatribe, and who, with laudable discretion,
refused to disclose the name of the author,
should be dismissed--a suggestion that was,
however, not acted upon. Of Meyerbeer, at
whom the pamphlet was principally aimed, he
held a very high personal opinion, though he
did not approve his music.
Amusing particulars are related in connection
with the many audiences Moscheles had with
crowned heads. That he preferred a plated
travelling bag to the Legion of Honour offered
him by Louis-Philippe is given without ex-
planation, but the somewhat cavalier treatment
he received at the hands of the generally
courteous Prince Consort, who appointed him
his pianist, but scarcely spoke a word, and never
availed himself of his services, is singular. The
early interviews with William IV. and Queen
Adelaide are also devoid of cordiality. MO-
scheles is most indignant with one of the cham-
berlains whom he suspects of intriguing against
him. When at last he did play by command
before the Royal Family, he was so posted
that they could hear nothing, especially as it
seems to have been at that time, even more than
to-day, the custom to converse freely and in an
186
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
unrestrained tone of voice. As a courtier Mo-
scheles was not a success, though among his
staunchest defenders he could reckon the music-
loving Duke of Cambridge.
His family life, to which allusion has often
been made, was singularly cloudless. With the
exception of the eldest boy, who died in early
childhood, he lived to see all his children pro-
vided for. Both the daughters married well;
the eldest, a clever pianist, lived in London, the
second in Asia Minor, where her husband held
a diplomatic position. The son, who studied
painting at the Paris Academy, and who was
the godson of Mendelssohn, was delicate, and
gave room for some anxiety, but eventually
gained in health. Madame Moscheles survived
her husband, and edited his diary. The same
forms as complete a record of musical life during
the first three-fourths of our century as can pro-
bably be found anywhere.
When Moscheles died in 1870, at the ripe
age of seventy-six, he was calm and resigned.
Only a short time before his death he had
written into his diary the words, 'Dissolution
is what we live for.' Underneath, a few bars
in illustration seem to be dictated by placid
resignation. In his last days he never forgot
the classics that had been the guiding stars of
a long and laborious life passed in their service.
MOSCHELES
187
Without having claim to the name of a
genius, Moscheles has fulfilled a distinct mis-
sion; and his influence, hardly discernible, may
yet be traced in the growing worship of the
classics. The work so ably commenced by
Mendelssohn at Leipzig might have perished
but for the careful hands to which it had been
committed. During a long period, from the
death of Hummel until the advent of Chopin
inaugurated a new departure, Moscheles was
considered the leading pianist. That the
threatened extinction of the classics never
became quite absolute is largely due to the
energy with which he fanned the dying embers
of enthusiasm. But perhaps no country ought
to be more indebted to him than England.
The introduction of refined musical taste, asso-
ciated with Mendelssohn and consummated by
Halle, might have been postponed indefinitely
but for the unceasing efforts of their precursor
Moscheles.
That a man of such lofty aims
and actual achievements should have been
conspicuous for the most self-effacing modesty
can only further endear him to us. That his
merits, unadvertised in this age of self-adver-
tisement, deserve being placed on record will,
we hope, not be gainsaid.
PAGANINI
1784-1840
FEW
EW characters in musical history present
so striking and picturesque a figure as
Paganini ; yet, to those who attempt to gather
up the scattered threads of his biography, the
man is mostly shadowy and elusive. Tradition
is by no means lacking in eloquent references
to his magical sway in the concert-room; but
there are neither memoranda nor data at com-
mand to enable the scientific expert to give us
at once an adequate analysis of his weird power
and a summary of his claims to the unique
position he holds as the greatest master of the
divinest of instruments the world has yet heard ;
and the great master stands, like another Pro-
spero, shining amidst the mists of morning
romance. This doubtful advantage will ever
cling to Paganini, whose name, in little more
than fifty years after his great triumphs, has
come to be associated with all that is hazardous
and brilliant and unapproachable in the ex-
188
PAGANINI
189
quisite art of the violinist. Apart from his
marvellous attainments as a musician, his char-
acter has been the theme of the moralist and
the cynic; and terms of asperity—often, indeed,
the mere echo of the critic's selfish inner con-
sciousness—have been employed with unsparing
rigour to illustrate or describe his conduct.
Nicolo Paganini was born at Genoa on Feb-
ruary 18, 1784. He was of very humble origin,
the position of his father being probably among
the labouring classes, though it is variously
stated by numerous biographers as that of a
porter,' a 'commission broker,' and 'a small
tradesman.' Sir George Grove, following the
preponderating view, has adopted the latter
calling for the father of the great violinist. Of
his early surroundings there is some conflicting
and vague testimony. He was harshly treated
by his father, whose sordid nature, however,
was not proof against the remarkable talent
which he discovered in the child, who exhibited
a marvellous precocity with the violin as well
as musical instincts and insight of a high order.
To the best of his ability, therefore, the father
clid what lay in his power to foster and develop
the genius of his extraordinary son. His
methods were, unfortunately for the unhappy
child, rather those of a circus-trainer than one
190
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
competent to deal with the early bud and pro-
mise of a richly gifted nature; and, indeed, there
is no more remarkable instance of the power
and tenacity of genius, the offspring of sensi-
bility as well as rare intellectual endowment,
in its struggle with adverse circumstances, than
is here afforded.
'Those twin gaolers of the daring heart,
Low birth and iron fortune,'
exercised a cruel and relentless espionage over
his very cradle. The father, intent upon gain
from the remarkable powers of his son, was
deaf to entreaties or sobs; the stern task was
imposed and exacted with relentless austerity;
rebellion was nipped in the bud, and the hapless
child-a mere baby—was subdued into sub-
mission with blows. It was a hard and cruel
childhood ; hapless indeed even for the sternest
spirit; but for a child endowed in a high degree
with the gift of sensibility, how sad and bitter!
The fine nature, in its higher aspects, was
irretrievably deranged ; and the after character
of the youth, when he had escaped from bond-
age—his wild vagaries, his excesses, his turn foi:
avarice, his contempt for his audiences, and his
irregular life, were doubtless formulated, with
unconscious cerebral action, during the period
PAGANINI
191
of infant martyrdom. But the artistic genius
remained intact; it was stronger than the spirit
in which it was embedded. The boy made a
playfellow of his violin, and humoured it with
a thousand tricks, many of which afterwards
came to be associated with the fame of the
artist in all manner of adverse criticisms.
His precocity was remarkable. In his eighth
year he had acquired great proficiency on the
violin, and composed a sonata for the instru-
ment. Such a wonderful boy could not remain
long unknown. Although he lived in one of
the poorest quarters of Genoa, his fame had
spread as far as the conductor of the theatre,
whose sympathies were easily enlisted on the
boy's behalf after hearing an expression of his
wonderful powers on the violin ; and he was
placed under the care of Costa, at that time
principal violinist at Genoa. The tuition de-
rived from Costa was afterwards gratefully
remembered ; besides, it was at a period when
musical studies were for the first time disso-
ciated from the barbarous home treatment-
though the treatment was by no means dis-
continued.
Costa had a strange pupil to deal with. His
powers of execution were phenomenal, and
assiduous practice had given him a mastery and
192
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
control of the bow probably far beyond the
powers of the instructor. This is a wonderful
thing, when it is borne in mind that the pupil
had not yet attained his ninth year. The latter
had an independent style, too, and treated the
rules of methodical tuition with very little
respect. But the kindly tutor understood that
the boy had the rare faculty which enables
the possessor to absorb knowledge through all
pores, and sometimes fortunately places him
beyond the necessities of mere drill. At this
time Paganini played a concerto at church on
Sundays; and shortly afterwards, in his ninth
year, he made his first public appearance at the
theatre, where an enthusiastic audience greeted
his performance with tumultuous applause.
The boy selected for treatment a popular air,
La Carmagnole, which he played with variations,
and in a style that electrified his audience.
In 1795 Paganini was taken by his father to
Parma to be placed under the care of Rolla.
This was the first parting from home, and the
child-genius was greatly moved at the separa-
tion from his mother, whom he loved with
tender passion. Of Paganini's mother we get
only a fugitive glimpse ; but even this glimpse
suggests the cheering thought that the wretched
boy was solaced amid the sordid miseries of his
PAGANINI
193
"laid up.
life by a mother's yearning love and careful
solicitude. Paganini himself relates the meet-
ing with Rolla. 'We found Rolla,' he says,
He appeared little inclined to see us
but his wife took us into a room adjoining the
bedroom until she had spoken to him. Finding
on a table a violin, and the music of Rolla's
latest concerto, I took up the instrument and
played the piece at sight. Astonished at what
he heard, the composer asked for the name of
the player; and when told that it was but a
young boy, he would not believe it until he had
seen for himself. He then told me that he had
nothing to teach me, and advised me to go to
Paër for instruction in composition. Neverthe-
less, Paganini studied under Rolla for several
months, and subsequently sought also the guid-
ance of Ghiretti, Paër's former master. It is
by no means difficult to imagine that Paganini
was very little advanced by the system of
studies suggested by these teachers, who, after
all, had nothing but skill to impart, and exe-
cutive skill was already mastered by the pupil,
who was able to produce results so delicate,
seemingly remote, and impossible, and yet so
expressive, suggestive, and apposite, that the
old and grey masters stood confounded and
dismayed in the presence of the child of genius.
VOL. II.
N
194
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
The practice of a single piece for ten hours in a
day had wrought the habit of patience into the
soul of the artist; and patience had elicited
discoveries of technical skill and finesse, which,
in their turn, laid almost all the possibilities of
the instrument, every turn and shade of the
bow, the uttermost capability of the finger-
board, bare before him. Knowing his power
and the resources of his instrument so well,
what the young artist needed was those aids to
soul-development, which is essential to, and,
indeed inseparable from, all rounded and excel-
lent expressions of genius.' These are some-
times to be found in reverent studies of the
great works of the masters, which awaken the
inward and passionate devotion of the highest
spirits, and thrill them to emulation; and some-
times, according to the needs and aspiration of
the searching soul, in life itself-life with its
vicissitudes and trials, its passionate woes, its
illusive mockeries, the storm and stress of the
spirit, the mysteries of hope and joy, of love
and despair !
Alas! it was in life, unguided, alone in spirit,
that young Paganini was to find the best proof
of his high capacity. The sordid father was
burning with desire to turn his son's gifts to
profit, and on returning to Genoa incessant
PAGANINI
195
practice was harshly enjoined. Relaxation for
pleasure or wanton idleness was neither desired
nor permitted. To this period are assigned the
first compositions of the young master; those
Études which even at this day are attempted by
violinists with mingled feelings of admiration
and despair. Of course, they are valued less on
account of their musical riches than for their
technical difficulties, which are really astound-
ing. The composer himself occupied many
hours in mastering the difficult passages. Their
educational value is attested by the fact that
Schumann and Liszt have transcribed many of
them for the pianoforte.
The first artistic tour through Northern Italy
in 1797 was a great success; and, moreover,
led to a separation between father and son, the
former having by his mercenary conduct
strained the relationship until it snapped
asunder. It is to be feared, also, that the
cupidity of the younger Paganini was awakened
by the great financial success of the under-
taking. The separation was viewed by both as
a temporary measure; and the elder, at any
rate, was bent upon patching up a peace. But
Paganini, having tasted freedom, was not dis-
posed to cry Truce,' and was very glad indeed
to shake off the tyranny under which he had
196
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
groaned so long. From this time the name of
Paganini's father disappears from history, no
writer apparently deeming it worth while to
trace the events of his later life and the circum-
stances of his death.
At the age of fifteen Paganini was adrift in
the world, and entirely dependent upon his
own resources. There was every prospect of
the rapid acquisition of fortune; for fame
preceded and pursued him on his travels.
Wherever he appeared he was rewarded by
large audiences, who thronged to hear the
musical prodigy, and whose admiration never
failed to merge into passionate enthusiasm.
Wherever he came he was heralded by doubt
and suspicion ; such talent and such youth were
deemed incompatible, even impossible; the
cognoscenti, therefore, came coldly critical, full
of wise saws and modern instances, all of which
pointed to a doubtful mood; but they only
heard and were conquered. His genius thawed
opposition into something like ecstatic admira-
tion, as the sun melts the glacier and leaves the
stern mountain laughing in the light of a thou-
sand leaping rivulets. Surely there never was
such a conqueror before ; nor ever such a
fiddler! Nero fiddled while Rome blazed ;
Paganini waved his enchanter's wand, and all
PAGANINI
197
Italy-nay, afterwards, all Europe-burst into
a blaze of adoration.
With the world at his feet, the young and
gifted master of the violin was not always
master of himself. He would have been more
than human if he were so. He was not even a
man : merely a boy of genius-one who had just
emerged from a wretched thraldom in a low and
sordid region of domestic cares, where affections
were denied with brutal coarseness, and love
and filial tenderness were displaced by blows
and rough usage; where genius was a mer-
chandise that might become a profitable sub-
ject of traffic, if properly kicked and cuffed
into the necessary shape. What wonder, then,
if in a gambling age, amid a gambling people,
he fell into a like passion ? Or that he had
developed some of the instincts cherished in
the paternal ambition, under the paternal roof?
From his father Paganini had inherited an
inordinate love for money. In his later years
this took the shape of trivial economies which
were often ridiculed by enemies, and could not
be refuted by friends. When, a mere boy, he
found himself in possession of money for the
first time in his life, his instinct was to double
it. The seductions of gambling are often proof
against the insight of the wisest among us.
198
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
1
The possibility of effecting easy and rapid
gains seems immeasurably preferable to the
slow and plodding everyday work for a modest
wage; the equal or greater chance of loss is
regarded through the spectacles of hope. It
is not astonishing that Paganini fell into the
Snares that have .engulfed so many victims of
small and great promise. His life became
henceforth an alternation of work and gaming
The ample receipts from his concerts were
regularly turned over to the croupiers and
gambling-hell keepers who infested Italy more
than most countries during that period. Very
often the artist was placed in the greatest
need; the receipts of concerts given, as well
as those in future, his jewellery, valuables,
even his violin, were often hypothecated to the
merciless bankers who held him within their
clutches.
It was thus that, deprived of his violin, he
was once compelled to apply to a French mer-
chant at Leghorn for the loan of an instrument
to play at a concert. The tones he elicited
from this violin, a true Guarnerius, were so
divine, that the music-loving Frenchman vowed
that nobody but the artist was worthy of hence-
forth playing on it, and gave it to him as a
present.
This violin remained his favourite
PAGANINI
199
instrument, and was at his death bequeathed
to the city of Genoa. Another violin—a Stradi-
varius—was also given to him under somewhat
similar circumstances.
But, with all his successes, there was reason
to fear that his passion for gambling would
not only ruin his pocket but also his feeble
health and highly strung, nervous temperament.
Matters looked darkest when a crisis occurred
which brought about a turning-point. Paganini
was again reduced to a small sum of money
and his Guarnerius. An Italian prince had
often pressed him to sell the violin, but he had
hitherto always refused. A renewed offer of
a hundred louis was particularly tempting at
a time when he knew not where to turn for his
next day's food. The struggle between desire,
necessity, and inclination was a bitter one. The
loss of the violin would be irreparable; it could
not be replaced by another equal in tone and
fidelity of response to the master's touch.
Thirty francs summed up the whole of his
wealth-the sole wealth of a man whom the
public loaded with the solid pudding' of
approval! With a wild hope he turned from
the precious utterer of melodies once more to
the gambling-table. Ten-twenty-twenty-
seven francs were immediately swallowed up
200
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
by the croupier! The last three francs won
a stake sufficient to enable him to tide over
temporary difficulty, and the violin was saved.
The incident was of salutary effect. From
this time Paganini forswore gambling.
From 1801 to 1804 Paganini lived in retire-
ment at the château of a lady of high rank.
Here he composed sonatas for the guitar and
violin; studied Locatelli; and took some in-
terest in gardening pursuits. Rumour accredits
romance and passion with being the principal
agents in producing this temporary eclipse of
the luminary, and the fair lady of the château
is woven into the story in accordance with the
disposition or fancy of the story-teller. After
emerging from retirement, we next find him
at Lucca, where the Princess Elisa Bacchiochi
has conferred upon him the appointment to
the post of first violinist—a position which he
filled for three years, attending at Court, and
occupying himself with love-intrigues. At the
request of one fair dame he composed a dia-
logue between two lovers, to be played on the
two outer strings only, the two centre ones
being entirely removed. He also composed a
concerto for one string, which he executed with
the greatest ease. It was a success in its way,
and solos on the G string became henceforth
PAGANINI
201
one of the regular features of his concert pro-
grammes.
For the next twenty years Paganini travelled
with his violin through Italy, France, Germany,
and England. His movements were subject to
caprice, and sudden disappearances for indefinite
periods added much to a reputation for eccen.
tricity and mystery. For months he would
hide from the world, leaving no trace of his
whereabouts; and when general surprise had
subsided he would suddenly reappear on the
concert platform and entertain his audiences
with increased power and ability. Rossini, who
met him at Bologna in 1814, tells how he lost
sight of him entirely until, by a mere accident,
he fell across him in Rome, where Paganini
had been living for a long time in enforced
retirement, and concealing his identity. At
the time he was emaciated by illness. He was
persuaded to resume his concerts; and Prince
Metternich, who met him at the Austrian Em-
bassy, prevailed on him to promise a visit to
Vienna. Subsequent ill-health, however, pre-
vented the fulfilment of this promise for several
years. At Milan, in 1813, he heard the opera
11 Noce di Benvento, by Süssmayer, a pupil
of Mozart, a motive of which he worked into
one of his best known compositions. Не
202
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
made a lengthened stay at Milan, one of his
favourite resorts, and thirty-seven concerts can
be traced to that city. He paid his first visit
to Naples in 1819, and was received there with
considerable coldness and suspicion ; the public
being doubtful of his supreme power, and the
musical authorities bent upon exploding a
reputation which they imagined rested solely
upon the applause of the vulgar. Darma, a
young scholar fresh from the Conservatoire,
was deputed to write a composition. The
piece bristled with difficulties, and seemed im-
possible of execution at first sight; but the
difficulties melted like snow before Paganini,
who performed the task set him with such
marvellous case, rare power, and sustained
brilliancy of effect, that his carping critics very
readily vailed their fronts and bowed down
before him.
Such a fame as Paganini's could hardly exist
without exciting envy, and the shafts of malice
were often directed at his devoted head. His
pride of bearing, his contempt for inferiority
in his art, which comprehended a curt refusal
to exalt the commonplace and the namby-
pamby, his grave reticence, and his haughty
self-consciousness, all contributed to make him
personally unpopular. The pride of genius
PAGANINI
203
is not always amiable in expression, and some-
times the mere possession of the quality is an
incentive to the mischievous excitement of
small minds. Possibly the neighbours of Mil-
ton contemplated the sublime poet with a
species of mild derision as a superior kind
of schoolmaster, who gave himself airs; and
several choice spirits who met at the Mermaid
Tavern had a pronounced idea that Will Shake-
speare's merits were in an inverse ratio to their
That 'inwardness' which gives genius
a consciousness of superiority unhappily served
to accentuate the severe outline of Paganini's
character, and even to cast all its blemishes
into strong relief. The public bowed to his
wonderful sway as a musician, because he
mastered the public by the force of his great
powers; yet there was often evident antago-
nism between them. But the attraction and
repulsion were nicely equipoised. He cared
nothing for the public except in its capacity
as applause-giver and paymaster. His life was
alone, inward, passionate; an exalted egoism
sustained and nourished his spirit; but out-
wardly he was constrained, hard, impassive-
an attitude which evoked a certain amount of
resentment.
own.
The most incredible stories were invented
204
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
and believed. One of his auditors declared
that he saw the Evil One standing behind him
while he was playing; and this stupid story,
eagerly accepted by the superstitious and the
ignorant, formed the basis of a general belief
in a species of musical witchcraft possessed by
the peerless fiddler. Another story to the effect
that Paganini's life was haunted by a dark
tragedy obtained wide currency and belief. He
was the son of the Evil One; he had murdered
his wife, and cunningly covered up all traces of
the crime. These absurd ideas, while they
added a zest and piquancy to his public ap-
pearances, necessarily divided him from his
audiences, who regarded him with a kind of
awe that was distinguished by dread rather
than devotion. Anything in his appearance
that denoted a difference from their expecta-
tions excited momentary criticism. One day
at Leghorn,' he tells us, 'a nail had run into
my heel, and I came on limping, at which the
audience laughed. At the moment I was about
to commence my concerto, the candles of my
desk fell out. An'ther laugh. After the first
few bars of my solo my first string broke,
which increased the hilarity; but I played the
piece on three strings, and the sneers quickly
changed to applause.' At Ferrara he was hissed
PAGANINI
205
Improvising a sudden scheme of revenge, he
proposed at the end of the concert to imitate
the voices of animals. After running through
the various tone-characteristics of numerous
bipeds and quadrupeds, to the intense delight
of the people, he paused, and, advancing to the
footlights, exclaimed,' Questo è per quelli che han
fischiato' (“This is for those who hissed'), then
coolly proceeded to produce from his instrument
the harsh and discordant strains of a braying
donkey. A frightful scene of tuinult and dis-
order ensued, the occupants of the pit rushing
to the orchestra bent upon the destruction of
the too intrepid violinist, who fled precipitately
before the storm he had raised. The offensive
sound of a 'hee-haw' was, like the biting of the
thumb among the retainers of the Montagues
and Capulets, a signal of antagonism which,
while it likened him in stupidity and obstinacy
to the meekest and most patient of quadrupeds,
goaded the Ferrarese to savage rage and violence.
The tableau may therefore be easily left to the
imagination of the reader.
In Italy it was his fate to evoke the most
conflicting passions. He was at once idolised
and execrated; he was glorified and maligned.
The public heart was possessed against the
man; but the public imagination, which ad-
206
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
mitted so large a space for music, was prostrated
before the enchanter, the arch-magician, who
wakened into actual expression and reality the
glorious myths of antiquity, who gave a living
world a new consciousness of belief in those
fables of harmonious wizardry detailed in the
poems of the Greeks long before the birth of
Italian history, in which Apollo, Orpheus, and
Amphion moved gods, men, and trees with
music. The mysterious power assigned to the
divine art when
"Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing.'
was associated with the playing of Paganini,
who carried everywhere with his violin an
'open sesame' to the wonder and astonishment
of crowded cities. His playing was informed
by an individuality powerful, strong, and origi-
nal, to which his instrument seemed rather to
constitute a weird echo than a complementary
vehicle of expression for the music in hand.
He crossed the Alps on his long-contemplated
tour, and his reception in Vienna in 1828 was
unparalleled. He at once became the idol of
fashion, of society, and of art circles. His
picture was in every print-shop. It was copied
PAGANINI
207
on the covers of cigar-boxes containing favourite
brands bearing his name; the haberdasher, the
milliner, and other tradesmen, vied with each
other in giving the popular favourite a liberal
advertisement. Gloves, shoes, restaurants, re-
cherché dishes, places of amusement, were called
after his name. Replicas of his bust in bone
and ivory were formed into handles for umbrellas
and walking-canes; a dashing or superlative
stroke at billiards was immediately styled 'a
Paganini stroke.' This popularity was extended
to him in all the principal cities of Germany.
Paris, in its turn, exhibited a frenzy of enthusi-
asm; and he crossed the Channel in May 1831
only to experience, if possible, a warmer and
more enthusiastic reception. In London he was
surfeited with public adulation, which, according
to his own account, soon palled upon him.
When his concerts were over the crowds waited
around the doors to catch a glimpse of him ;
they pressed upon him and jostled him in the
streets, bent upon touching him to feel that he
was not an insubstantial presence aided by the
ethereal powers. He complains of this treat-
ment. Although,' he says, 'the public curiosity
to see me is long since satisfied, though I have
played in public at least thirty times, and my
likeness has been produced in all possible styles
208
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
and forms, yet I can never leave my home
without being mobbed by people who are not
content with following and jostling me, but
actually get in front of me, and prevent me
going either way; address me in English, of
which I do not understand a word, and even feel
inze, as if to find out if I am flesh and blood.
And this not only the common people, but the
upper classes.' His concerts at the Royal Italian
Opera House were thronged, though he asked
extortionate prices, appraising his value at some-
thing like £3390 per night—that is the sum, or
near it, that he would have realised if his original
prices had been maintained. These, however,
were reduced, and he was even refused 1000
guineas for a performance at the Oxford Com-
memoration Festival. When we consider the
enormous gains of a Patti in our time, this
latter sum seems a comparatively insignificant
reward for such a 'draw'as Paganini. George IV.
asked him to play at Court, and offered fifty
guineas instead of the hundred guineas deside-
rated. If His Majesty wishes to hear me,' said
Paganini, 'he can do so at my concerts at a
much lower price; but I never bargain.'
Any consideration of Paganini's playing must
refer chiefly to the passionate individualism and
unapproachable executive skill through which
PAGANINI
209
he held a sway over multitudes of people that
stands alone in the history of music. He has
been accused of trickery and charlatanism ; and
the implication of employing methods calculated
to 'split the ears of the groundlings' has come
even from authoritative sources which command
some measure
measure of respectful attention. An
analysis of the criticisms of some of his leading
contemporaries, however, shows that the chief
cause of offence was not so much Paganini's
immense genius as his disregard of established
methods of playing. No doubt, many aptitudes
of a constant public performer, who has accus-
tomed himself to the delightful sensation of
moving the souls of men with absolute ease
and force of will, are open to question. But it
would be as absurd to blame the Himalayas for
towering above the Cheviot Hills as to expect
Paganini to fulfil the traditions of the tame
classical school of Viotti and Rode. He was
a giant in the land; he bestrode that narrow
world of executive perfections like a Colossus.
The little men who peeped under his huge legs
were conscious of their inferior stature, while
they were loth to admit aloud that there was any
difference in height or breadth, and, of course,
ascribed their lack of popular favour to the
perfection which Paganini condescended to out-
VOL. II.
O
210
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
rage. Moscheles, indeed, having surrendered
to the spell of the musician, admits that he
derived thence a new musical sense. 'His
constant and daring flights,' he says, 'his newly
discovered flageolet tones, his gift of fusing and
beautifying subjects of the most diverse kind-
all these phases of genius so completely be-
wilder my musical perceptions that for days
afterwards my head is on fire and my brain
reels.' Spohr, on the other hand, viewed with
suspicious coldness a fame based upon powers
which fired into a blaze, while they dazzled and
obliterated ordinary conceptions of classical
reverence and due observance for established
rules. The execution of Paganini's left hand
always excites his fervent admiration; but, he
adds, in his compositions and his style of play-
ing I find a strange mixture of genius and
want of taste.' Moore, in his Memoirs, says:
• Paganini abuses his powers; he could play
divinely, and does so, sometimes for a minute
or two; but then come his tricks and surprises,
his bow in convulsions, like the mewlings of an
expiring cat.'
The writer of the article on
Paganini in Grove's Dictionary, without being
misled by the wail of mere depreciation, how-
ever significant the source from whence the
wail arises, comments on these criticisms with
PAGANINI
2II
an impartiality that is at once generous and
discriminating. 'Here, no doubt,' he says, “is an
explanation, and to a certain extent a justifica-
tion, of Spohr's criticism. The frequent use of
tremolo and of sliding indicate an impure style
which ought not to serve as a model ; it was
Paganini's style founded on the man's inmost
nature, which was as peculiar and as excep-
tional as his talent. Spohr's criticisms sincere
enough but often biassed and narrow-prove
nothing more than that Paganini was no scion
of the classical school of Viotti and Rode. In
fact, he belonged to no school. He followed
the bent of his individuality, in which the
Southern element of passion and excitement
was very strong, and showed itself in a manner
which to a colder Northern taste appeared
exaggerated and affected.' Of the power and
effect of his playing there can be no question.
The player lived in his execution, which was
vital and exhausting. One critic exclaimed :
'Every concert is a nail in his coffin, every
pizzicato may be the last nervous grasp of his
stiffening fingers.' His style was large, impres-
sive, and passionate—a style which possessed
his audience and swayed it to his mood; and
in tender passages he moved the assembly to
tears. When asked how he produced his marvel-
212
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
lous effects, he replied : 'Chacun a ses secrets.'
Something uncanny and weird about his ap-
pearance helped the impression of power of an
extra-natural kind. There is a sketch by Sir
Edwin Landseer, in which the tall, gaunt figure,
clothed in evening dress, with long, white, bony
hands, and set white face of waxen pallor,
illuminated by a pair of flashing black eyes
and surrounded by the abundant hair which
falls in copious masses on his shoulders, has an
almost phantasmal effect. He compelled atten-
tion, and easily succeeded in holding it spell-
bound, the spell only being broken by loud sobs
and great sighs which served as a momentary
escape-valve for unutterable emotions. The
concerts were followed by the pressure of ex-
cited mobs, who lingered at the skirts of the
great master who could wake in them such
varied and masterful feelings; and in England,
as we have seen, the crowds endeavoured to
assure themselves, by the medium of touch,
that the magician was real flesh and blood, and
not some errant visitor from another planet.
On his return to Italy, Paganini, who had
acquired great wealth in his travels, bought the
beautiful Villa Gajona, near Parma; and here,
except for occasional visits to Milan and
Genoa, he lived in happy retirement, only dis-
PAGANINI
213
turbed by the vexations attending his connec-
tion with the Paganini Casino at Paris. He
had joined a syndicate for the building of this
place, which was designed for gambling pur-
poses under the veil of a music-hall. The
Government refused a licence, and, to save
what could be saved from the large sums of
money he had invested in the undertaking,
Paganini started for Paris. He was in very
bad health at starting, and arrived at Marseilles
more dead than alive. Here he received the
news that the Casino syndicate was declared
bankrupt, and that he had been condemned to
pay a fine of fifty thousand francs, the court
refusing to hear any defence. The loss of his
money, added to his intense suffering from
laryngeal phthisis, hastened the end. He made
an effort to reach Genoa, but at Nice he took
to his bed-from which he was never to rise
again. In an obscure lodging, away from the
world which he had swayed into storms of
opposition and billows of tumultuous enthu-
siasm, the great violinist passed his last days
alone. His violin, in which slumbered a world
of vision and ideal beauty, tempests of passion-
ate melody, and the arcana of the ideal life
which is embodied in music, to the unravelling
and unsealing of which he alone held the key,
214
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
remained untouched, its myriads of weird spirits
and celestial harmonies to be evoked no more
for ever! Yes: once more he filled the air
with its pathos and passion-once only. The
dying man was thinking of a former meeting
with Byron; and thus the great English poet,
whose glowing verse, impregnated with a wild
and wayward cynicism, still swells greatest
among his contemporaries, was blended in the
last moments of the great king of the violin in
a mood that reflects a tinge of tender lustre
over the fame of both. O the littleness of
life!so small in its best fulfilment; too
small to admit of bitterness and envy. This
admission embodied a
a remark of Byron's,
which came floating back upon the memory,
pained and pleased in that moment of attenua-
tion and physical decrepitude; and then, for the
last time, the divine strains of the violin filled
the sick-room, and were wafted out, bearing the
best and highest mood of Paganini's sombre
spirit, across the lovely Italian landscape.
Paganini died a few days later, on May 27th,
1840. The bulk of his property was bequeathed
to his son Achille, the offspring of a tie formed
with the actress Bianchi, to whom was left a
pittance of 1200 francs out of a fortune esti-
mated at two million francs.
PAGANINI
215
Whatever divergence of opinion may exist
as to the merits and defects of this singular and
gifted man, there can only be one opinion as
to his place among musicians. He is a fixed
star in the musical firmament; alike dazzling,
brilliant, and glowing. While there is much to
justify the idea that he owes his unique position
to the halo cast by tradition over his extra-
ordinary career, it is hardly possible to hope
that he can have a legitimate successor. The
instrument is now rendered subservient to the
work of the great composer, and the violinist
now most commands interest and respect, as
well as applause, who is the most faithful
interpreter. Paganini stands alone in a world
of his own, the one name to associate with all
the marvels of the violin.
SPO HR
1784-1859
SPO
POHR lived a life of calm serenity, marked
by as many of the red-letter days of
triumphant success as ever fell to the fortu-
nate career in music. Readers who are familiar
with the picture of his face have doubtless
remarked its expression of quiet repose, un-
ruffled by perplexity, doubt, or stress of care.
It is a very fine face, pleasing in a high degree ;
every lineament expressing intellectual supe-
riority, and leaving an impression on the
observer of an absorbed, even exalted, nature,
which has happily been neither suppressed nor
distorted by circumstances, but has flowed on
at an equable pace, through its due channel,
into the broad ocean of a full life of ample work
and adequate satisfactions ; indeed a noble face,
indicating a lofty type of manly beauty, neither
furrowed by irregular or inordinate passions nor
marred by moral weakness and impotence of
will. The front of Jove himself is expressed
216
SPOHR
217
in the expansive forehead, massive, high, and
broad; the speaking eyes that glance stead-
fastly and clearly under the finely pencilled
arches of the eyebrows, which add a new grace
to their lustrous fire; the long, straight nose
with sharply curved nostrils, imperial with the
pride of sensibility and spiritual power; the
firm, handsome mouth; and the powerful chin,
with its strong outlines melted into the utter
grace of oval curves. In its calmness and repose,
in its subdued strength and pervading serenity,
it is the picture of the man's life in little.
Ludwig (or Louis) Spohr, the son of a
physician, was born at Brunswick on April 25th,
1784. Two years after his birth his parents
removed to Seesen, where his early years were
passed. Like all refined German homes, the
family circle at Seesen was enlivened with music,
and musical taste and culture were among the
surroundings of young Ludwig's cradle. It soon
became to him a passionate playmate, with
whom he had such insatiable delight that his
parents took counsel together, with the result
that he was sent to Brunswick to pursue the
study of the violin under Maucourt, an excellent
violinist of capacity and intelligence in the
orchestra there. He made rapid progress, and
at twelve years of age played an original com-
218
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
position before the Court. His proficiency and
astonishing talent interested the Duke, who
induced him, two years later, to join the
orchestra, and subsequently he bestowed a
pension on his protégé to enable him to pursue
his studies under Franz Eck, then the most
distinguished violinist in Germany. With his
tutor he travelled through the principal cities of
Germany, France, and Russia, and on his return
to Brunswick received the appointment of first
violinist in the orchestra at a salary of three
hundred thalers. In 1804 he undertook a
concert tour on his own account, travelling
through Saxony and Prussia, where his playing
was received with iinmense enthusiasm. His
success led to his appointment as Conzertmeister
to the Duke of Gotha in 1805.
Before leaving for Gotha he bade farewell to
the good Duke, who always remained his friend.
You will always find a welcome here,' were
his last words to Spohr. It is not related what
was said on this occasion by the Duchess,
who had expressed the curtest disapproval of
Spohr's fortissimo, at one Court concert even
going so far as to send a chamberlain to request
the violinist not to make so much noise !
Prior to entering upon his duties at Gotha,
Spohr received an invitation to be present at
SPOHR
219
the military manœuvres at Magdeburg under
the direction of the accomplished Prince Louis
Ferdinand of Prussia, who had inherited no
inconsiderable share of the military genius of
the Great Frederick, with all his love for music.
Life in the camp was stirring and characteristic.
In the early hours of the morning, at the very
break of day, the Prince would send for
Spohr, who attended hurriedly with his violin
in a déshabillé of dressing-gown and slippers.
He would find the Prince, habited in a still
slighter costume, already seated at the piano-
forte, and impatient to begin the concert.
Orderlies and officers in full uniform added
to the piquancy of the matutinal group, and
served to complete its picturesquc character.
On leaving the camp, Spohr was informed
apologetically that the Prince was compelled
to defer the pleasure of making him a present
for his pains on account of the impoverished
condition of his exchequer.
A year later this
brave young Prince—the first notable victim,
on the Prussian side, of the French War-died
gloriously at the head of a charge of cavalry at
Saalfeld, only a few days before Spohr's good
friend, the Duke of Brunswick, was mortally
wounded at the battle of Jena.
At Gotha life ran on even and smooth lines.
220
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
The duties demanded were not heavy, and the
Serene Highnesses conbined with a genuine
appreciation of music an amiable regard for
the musician. Here Spohr met and wedded
the Fräulein Dorothea Scheidler, the most
famous harpist in Germany and a very accom-
plished musician, with whom, during a life of
success and fame, he enjoyed a long term of
happiness. He composed a number of pieces
for violin and harp which were performed
afterwards with great distinction at concerts
on tour through Germany, and elicited much
popular favour for the fair harpist.
A very pleasing incident at Munich shows
majesty in a gracious attitude of bending
courtesy, and is worth remarking. The King,
noticing the omission of the usher to place a
seat for Madame Spohr, placed his own gilded
throne-chair on the platform, and, with royal
mildness of insistence, would brook no refusal
from the lady. Another incident showing that
genius has its absolutism as well as royalty
occurred at Stuttgart. Spohr informed the
chamberlain-greatly to the horror of that
solemn functionary—that he must absolutely
decline to play at Court if the King persisted in
amusing himself with cards during the concert,
that being a royal weakness most irritating to
SPOHR
221
the sensitive artist. The King good-naturedly
conceded the point, but stipulated that the two
pieces set down in the programme for Spohr
should follow each other, so as to effect a saving
of royal time. At the conclusion of each piece,
no signal being given by the King, a solemn
silence reigned in the salon; which, however,
does not prove that the King had the best
of the situation, but only that ruffled majesty,
being merely human after all, is not above a
small kind of revenge.
Spohr composed his second opera, Alruna, at
Gotha. It was submitted to Goethe, who must
have been shocked with the weakness of the
libretto, which was entirely valueless as litera-
ture, and lacked grace and animation. It was
never performed.
In the memorable year 1808 the great con-
gress of princes assembled at Erfurt. Spohr,
burning with desire to look upon the faces
of Napoleon and his satellites, undertook the
study of the cornet with a view of obtaining
a place in the orchestra, which, besides the
guests, was alone admitted to a place in the
theatre. The regulations, however, were of the
most stringent character, and it was enjoined
upon the orchestra to sit with their backs
towards the august assembly, no member
222
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
thereof to look round during the proceedings.
Spohr frustrated the intention of this order by
the ingenious device of affixing to his instrument
a mirror; but he was soon so absorbed in the
performance on the stage that he forgot all
about the imposing pageant which comprised
the audience behind him.
The time passed very agreeably at Gotha,
and a contemplated visit to Prussia was easily
relinquished at the request of the Duchess, who
was Spohr's admirer and friend. But in 1813
an offer of the leadership of the Theatre an der
Wien, at a liberal salary, was too good to be
refused ; so he repaired to Vienna in the stirring
times when Napoleon had just been defeated
at the decisive battle of Leipzig and the victory
was crowned by the entrance of the Allies into
Paris. The gay city of Vienna was even brighter
than usual. An additional sparkle was added
to its general festive character by the throngs
of rich and pleasure-loving visitors attracted
thither by those stirring political events which
culminated in the Vienna Congress. The city
was besieged by brilliant crowds of distinguished
guests, and the theatres and other places of
amusement reaped golden harvests.
Although Spohr was well received in the
city, he did not find the coveted position equal
SPOHR
223
to his expectations, and resolved to free him-
self as soon as possible. Still, Vienna was the
home of art-friendships such as could not fail to
delight a temperament like Spohr's. Among
those who gave him a cordial welcome was
Beethoven, who, feeling a sincere admiration
for Spohr-a feeling that was only partially
reciprocated-discarded for the moment his
inclination to reserve and seclusion, and came
forward with assurances of high regard and
appreciation. Spohr wrote his opera Faust for
the theatre, but it was not produced—a dis-
appointment which doubtless accelerated his
rupture with the managers, and the engagement
was cancelled by mutual agreement.
A concert tour in Germany and Italy was
next undertaken, and the period thus spent
was among the most delightful of Spohr's after-
reminiscences. His progress was a veritable
artistic triumph ; at Milan, Venice, Florence
Rome, and Naples he was received with gratify-
ing marks of appreciation. At Venice he
played a sinfonia concertante of his
composition with Paganini. This time, when
pleasure and study alternated with travel and
concerts, was the happiest of his life. In
his diary passages occur expressing paternal
anxiety and sense of loss in the absence of his
Own
224
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
children ; but on the whole the pages of the
diary breathe joyous content and an expansion
of feeling which the many jealousies in the
theatre and the petty annoyances of North
German Court life stunted in later years. Spohr
liked travel ; and the life of the virtuoso, with
its pleasing variety of incident, the ever con-
stant sense of triumph in fresh fields and
pastures new, its recurring pleasures, and its
thousand delightful friendships, giving the
heart fresh vigour and the mind new strength
and buoyancy, was very much to his taste. He
had no intention of relinquishing a career which
he found so congenial; and a tour through
the Rhenish provinces, and another through
Holland; had been fully resolved upon, when
he accepted the directorship of the theatre at
Frankfort-on-the-Main in consideration for the
delicate health of his wife, who found constant
travel both irksome and enervating.
But Spohr was not an easy man to deal with
in business, and his exalted artistic standard
was sometimes found to conflict with managerial
instincts; financial eventualities, when these
came into conflict with musical tendencies,
were beneath artistic consideration in his eyes.
The dissensions which led to the cancellation
of the Vienna engagement were not long in
SPOHR
225
manifesting themselves at Frankfort. The
proprietor of the theatre was in favour of
varying the performances and of making some
rational concessions to public taste. There was
a clamour for Rossini's Tancredi, which Spohr
was not disposed to give way to, the opera not
being to his taste. Other matters embittered
the state of feeling between proprietor and
director, and brought about a separation, which
took place in 1819, when Spohr once more
resumed the vocation of travelling virtuoso.
He made his first appearance in London on
March 6th, 1820. His success was a brilliant
one, and formed the prelude to many future
triumphs in England, where his clear style and
high artistic capacity, added to his reputation
as a composer of rare merit, commanded im-
mediate sway. His popularity was immense ;
the artistic world vied with the public in doing
honour both to the man and the artist. In
later years his recollections of England were
a source of unalloyed pleasure. At the time,
however, there was one drawback to his full
enjoyment of the new scene of artistic victories.
The failing health of Madame Spohr compelled
her to put aside the harp, of which instrument
she was the most renowned exponent of the
day. It may easily be imagined that the lady
VOL. II.
Р
226
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
產 ​.
did not resign the position without a struggle,
and the study of the pianoforte only partly con-
soled her for the loss of the more melodious,
if more exacting, instrument.
Among royal patrons in England the Spohrs
received great favour and courtesy from the
Duke and Duchess of Clarence. Spohr notes
some extravagant characters whom he met in
London. An elderly lady, he tells us, would
play nothing but Beethoven, and persisted in
working through the piano scores of the concert
pieces without any accompaniments. Another
pupil, a general verging towards the seventies,
would brook no criticism from the teacher, and
abruptly broke off in the middle of a piece
when the clock struck the hour. Spohr, who
did not speak English, instructed his pupils
mostly in deep silence, the majority of them
being unacquainted with French or German.
The enthusiasm of the English reception did
not find an exact counterpart in Paris, which
capital was visited in the following year. Spohr
was too thoroughly German in his idiosyncrasies
and in the character of his music to harmonise
exactly with the Frenchmen of that age. Paris
was decidedly 'uppish' in its notions about art,
and not only considered itself as at the head of
the musical world, but arrogated to the com-
SPOHR
227
posers within its walls an absolute monopoly
of artistic taste. The critics disputed Spohr's
title to great merit as a composer, and, while
allowing him some distinction as a performer,
suggested that a due and proper employment of
his opportunities in Paris would qualify him to
return to Germany and instruct 'ces bon Alle-
mands' in music as it ought to be performed.
A visit to Dresden, undertaken to procure
singing lessons for his daughters, led to an
engagement which determined the course of his
future life. Carl M. von Weber, music director
at Dresden, had been offered the post of
Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hesse-Cassel.
In declining the appointment he took occasion
to suggest Spohr for the place. Spohr accepted
in 1822, the terms being two thousand thalers
per annum, with two months' leave of absence,
while the engagement was made absolute for
life.
Spohr settled down quietly to his duties, and
is henceforth only shown as composer, teacher,
and director. He found the position agreeable
enough, though William II. and his son and
successor were by no means amiable people to
deal with. His opera, Jessonda, completed after
his installation at Cassel, was performed through-
out Germany with brilliant success, and is justly
$
228
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
considered his best work. Later on, however,
the death of his beloved wife in 1834 cast a
shadow over his life, which was not relieved by
excessive sympathy at headquarters, the petty
spirit of the Elector expressing itself in a
thousand forms of annoyance to the Kapell-
meister. Spohr consoled himself at length
with a second wife, in whose companionship
he was fortunate and happy. The Elector ob ..
jected strongly to this marriage, and was only
brought to give his consent by Spohr agreeing
to waive the right of his wife to a pension, to
which she was clearly entitled.
Spohr further aggravated the spiteful temper
of his master by showing political sympathy
with the people when, in 1848, Hesse-Cassel
was found to be one of the worst-governed
electorates in Germany. Perhaps he showed
more zeal than was discreet under the circum-
stances ; but, the risk he encountered being his
own, his feeling did him honour. Misgovern-
ment drew a hornet's nest about the ears of
the proud and pinchbeck Elector. A military
occupation was followed by the general re-
pression of revolutionary ideas throughout
Germany, and the reappointment of the
popular Hassenpflug to the Ministry was the
death-knell to the hopes of Hessian Liberalism.
un-
SPOHR
229
Matters speedily found the ancient groove ;
and the changes made in the Government of
Hesse-Cassel were by no means beneficial to
the people, with whom Spohr sympathised and
suffered.
The new Elector had no great love for music,
and moreover was mean and grasping. He
tacitly resented the contract which bound the
Government to the Kapellmeister for the life-
time of the latter. Spohr was soon given to
understand that he could look for no help in
that quarter.
All his proposals met with
vehement opposition, and some were only
carried in the teeth of the most hostile an-
tagonism. Some of Wagner's operas were put
on the stage.
Tannhäuser was well received,
but a repetition of the performance was not
allowed, while Lohengrin was ordered to be
withdrawn from rehearsal. A fall on the ice in
1851 was attended with severe injuries. The
Elector, nevertheless, withheld his signature to
the permit for the two months' leave expressly
stipulated in Spohr's engagement; and when
the irate musician left without the permit, five
hundred and fifty thalers were deducted from
his salary—a point which the Elector carried in
a court of law on technical grounds. Vexatious
bickerings were now the order of the day. He
230
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
was compelled to refuse an invitation to England
to conduct his own oratorio owing to the fierce
opposition of the Elector, maintained in spite of
the intercession of the English Government
Spohr's friends warned him that it was the
intention of the angry Elector to dismiss him
from his post, and advised him to resign. This
he declined to do, feeling that the humiliation,
when it arose, would be on the side of the petty
tyrant, whose insolent abuse of power rendered
himself ridiculous, while he could bring no slur
upon a life passed in peaceful sympathy with
fellow-creatures and honourable devotion to
The miserable and narrow-minded Elector
added one further acrobatic gyration to his
'fantastic tricks before high Heaven' by dis-
missing Spohr from his post in 1857.
Spohr was in his seventy-third year when he
parted with the Elector of Hesse-Cassel. He
had just finished the last performance of
Jessonda, when he met with a serious accident.
A fall on a stone staircase fractured his left
arm. He suffered considerably, but the fracture
healed rapidly—not, however, without leaving
a permanent weakness in the arm. The re-
nunciation of the beloved violin was the pre-
lude to the end. The aged musician devoted
his remaining days to composition. But his
SPOHR
231
1
last works indicate a marked decline in creative
power and vigour of treatment; he himself
acknowledged this painful fact, and looked
forward without passion to the impending
dissolution. On the 22nd of October 1859 he
passed away, in the full consciousness of his
surroundings and with an undiminished mental
grasp, from a life that was chiefly marked by
happiness and content, full of good work for
his fellow-men, its even serenity heightened and
illuminated by a noble pursuit of art, and only
slightly ruffled in its close by the petty shafts
of ignoble and narrow-minded bigotry.
The name and influence of Spohr have out-
lived his death ; and the great fame awarded
to him by his contemporaries has not declined
even in our day, though new methods have
come to be associated with instrumental music.
He was the last, and probably the greatest,
of the old school of violinists associated with
the names of Viotti, Rode, and Boucher, and
zealously cultivated by the Paris Conservatoire
long after Paganini, Ole Bull, and De Bériot,
breaking from the old traditions of stiff and
broad bowing, great volume of tone even in
pianissimo passages, and wooden staccato, led
the way to the lighter and more elegant treat-
ment of the instrument which has since been
232
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
universally adopted. The number of pupils he
instructed was very great; but many of them
had to unlearn part of his lesson in order to
qualify themselves for the modern school, whose
rank heresies Spohr execrated with an un-
deviating sense of abhorrence, and would never
tolerate under his roof. He was, nevertheless,
one of the great violinists of all times—though
the assurance may have a paradoxical sound-
and a teacher of great beneficial influence. It
must be admitted, however, when estimating
his value as an executant, that he limited him-
self strictly to the old school, with a pre-
ponderating favour for his own compositions,
which, indeed, contain as much teaching for the
melodious and powerful handling of the violin
as the salon virtuoso can desire.
As a composer for the violin, Spohr is one
of the most fertile of his kind. His music,
framed on the lines of his idol Mozart, is
invariably sweet and intense, but marked by a
strong and powerful individuality. Schumann
compared it, in this respect, to the great
Napoleon, who, appearing at a dance in dis-
guise, was instantly recognised by the folded
arms and the well-known pose. Just as in-
fallibly,' says Schumann, 'Spohr's individuality
must be revealed in whatever form he may
SPOHR
233
choose to conceal it.' It is essentially German:
it breathes the sentimentality of Werther and
Jean-Paul, unrelieved by the virile qualities so
remarkable in the great German composers.
Spohr's taste was not catholic. It stopped
at Mozart, only admitting, in a grudging
manner, the first period of Beethoven. His
judgment of Beethoven's later works is un-
compromisingly unfavourable. The Ninth
Symphony, he says, is atrocious, and the
choral part wholly unworthy of its composer.
It is difficult to reconcile this view with the
high opinion he held of Wagner. The as-
sumption that Spohr's judgment was misled by
an inordinate vanity is by no means borne out
by the tone of his diary. He there certainly
indicates a pardonable sense of the merits of
his own compositions, but always frankly
admits their inferiority to those of Mozart. On
the other hand, he is so naïf in his expressions
of pleasure at the receipt of praise from others
that one is disinclined to admit a doubt of the
sincerity and simplicity of his character. Of
the latter-day men he held Mendelssohn in high
esteem.
TAUSIG
1841-1871
СА.
ARL TAUSIG was the favourite pupil of
Liszt, and some of Liszt's great charac-
teristics were reproduced in Tausig in a vivid
and intensified form, after being subjected to
the formative influences of a strong individuality
and a virile musical genius.
He was born at Warsaw in 1841, and was
presented to Liszt at Weimar when he was
fourteen years of age. The great man was
peremptory in his refusal to accept any more
pupils. The boy's father remonstrated ; the
inaestro was inexorable. He did not wish to
add to his engagements as a teacher; and
he was especially resolved to have nothing
to do with an infant prodigy—for somewhat in
that character the boy's father recommended
him to Liszt. “There are so many of them,
said Liszt, "and they never get beyond their
infancy.
Lo! a strange thing happened. While the
234
TAUSIG
235
great master shook his leonine head with
obdurate emphasis, and the father pleaded in
vain, the sounds of a pianoforte reached them.
The boy was pleading his own cause with the
great master in a language that could not fail.
He had stolen to the instrument unobserved,
and, as his fingers wandered tremulously over
the keys, the desire of his soul trembled into
music. The mouth of the great master relaxed
its stern expression, the lips quivered and
parted with an expression of pleased surprise,
the eyes shone with the soft light of newly
awakened interest. The cause was won.
I'll
take him !' were the only words of the great
master. The words had an import of life and
joy. They embodied a rapturous devotion and
enthusiasm for the happy boy at the piano-
forte ; they filled the grateful father's heart
with gladness and a benison of thanks inex-
pressible.
Carl remained with Liszt for over five years,
and a great friendship and camaraderie grew
out of the initial relationship of master and
pupil. The latter was faithful to his studies;
erratic, careless, reckless in other respects, but
when seated at the piano a stern and indomit-
able student. The kindly master was
remitting in his attention to the boy, viewed
un-
236
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
his progress with an eye of critical admiration,
and regarded his many grave escapades with
mild indulgence and benevolent human sym-
pathy. Tausig was extravagant in money
matters, and frequently resorted to the pawn-
broker and the money-lender for aid. It is
averred that on one occasion a score of Liszt's
found its way, among a parcel of music-doubt-
less by accident-into the hands of the ac-
commodating 'uncle.' Liszt got wind of the
matter, and redeemed the manuscript, enjoin-
ing secrecy upon the broker, who was re-
quested not to mention the affair to Carl, as
it might hurt his feelings.
When Tausig commenced his public career,
about the year 1860, he created a great stir in
the musical world. His technique was the
theme of universal praise. Without being
exactly second to that of Liszt, it was clear,
powerful, and captivating. His style had
intensity, passion, distinction; but there was
headlong youth in it, and it lacked the repose
inseparable from the highest expression of art.
His faults of style, and the position he assumed
as a violent adherent of Wagner and the
extreme revolutionary school, militated against
his immediate success, and disposed various
critics to take sides against him.
TAUSIG
237
t
Yet he speedily established his position as
an artist of the highest rank, and no amount of
criticism could serve to gainsay his genius, his
power, or the growing ripeness and classical
grandeur of his style. After a series of artistic
tours, interspersed by temporary sojournings
at Dresden and Vienna, he decided to take
up his residence at Berlin, where in 1865 he
established an academy for instruction of the
pianoforte, which gained him fame and fair
emoluments. Tausig was a man of great mental
power, an eager student of science, and could
boast considerable intellectual and artistic
acquirements. As an instructor he became a
great authority. The system of teaching in-
augurated by him has been widely adopted by
teachers; it reduces the technical part of piano-
forte playing to a science such as could only
have been conceived by a logical thinker and
a man of superior methodical power. As a
teacher he was almost brutal in his sternness.
Tears nor sighs had any power to move him ;
no word of satisfaction ever passed his lips.
He would stand over the trembling débutante
(they were mostly girls) as if he were about to
strike her. "Terrible! Unheard of! Shock-
ing!' were his mildest epithets. “There ought
to be soul in that music, child ; soul! do you
238
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
hear? You play it like a nutcracker !'-and
then, pushing the child from the stool, he would
play the piece himself. “This ought to be a
rose-garden,' he said on another occasion, 'but
I see nothing but potatoes!' Such rigour has
its advantages, no doubt; but one can hardly
think complacently of the poor little tremblers,
with their pitiful convulsive eyelids, in the
presence of the iron-hearted, draconic master,
who roused them, by such a system of terror,
into superhuman efforts after what the first
Lord Lytton would call the Beautiful with a
capital B. It is a comfort to learn that Tausig
was often away on his travels, and that the
pupils of the academy were left in charge of
his partner, an equally sound teacher, though
without Tausig's reputation as a pianist. Too
much of the ogre strain might have proved
disastrous !
No one could live with the irascible musi-
cian for any length of time. His wife, a talented
musician, lived apart from him ; his partner,
Ehlert, who had done most of the drudgery of
the academy, had to leave him after an associa-
tion which had lasted for years. Still, his value
as a teacher was highly esteemed; and when,
after five years of toil, he resolved upon closing
his establishment in 1870, many tears and
TAUSIG
239
entreaties were employed to turn him from his
purpose.
The stirring events of the Franco-German
War filled the public mind to the exclusion of
all other matters. While all Europe viewed
with hushed breath the terrific struggle between
the two mighty Powers, little regard was had
for artistic affairs, and the thoughts of few only
were occupied with the movements of even the
most celebrated pianist. It was known that
Carl Tausig had left Berlin; and it was
expected that he would speedily return, bring-
ing fresh laurels and ennobled powers for service
in the cause of music, of which he had already
proved himself a brilliant and masterly ex-
ponent. The news of his death from typhoid
fever, which occurred on the 17th July 1871,
was heard with widespread sorrow among his
friends, and created a sensation in the musical
world. His body was brought to Berlin and
buried there with great ceremony.
In his later years Tausig's style underwent
a great change. He proved himself one of the
greatest living masters of the pianoforte. The
wild and fantastical excesses of his early style
gave place to a calm and massive repose, so
perfect as to seem almost a miracle.
His
former critics were not slow to acknowledge
240
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
1
this; and he was given a place second only to
Liszt. That Liszt himself shared this opinion
is certain. For wild geniality and flaming
passion, for all that is most inspiring, awesome,
weird, demoniacal in music, for that brilliant
mastery of the pianoforte which takes away the
breath of the hearer and compels attention, the
pupil came near to the master; but in calm-
ness and moderation of power, in wise balance
of mind, in the higher superiority of restraint,
Liszt maintained his title to the laurel. To be
second to Liszt is at any rate to hold the most
conspicuous place in that brilliant quartettwhich
includes with Tausig's the honoured names of
Clara Schumann, von Bülow, and Rubinstein.
Tausig, like Liszt, had an unbounded admira-
tion for Wagner. His few important composi-
tions are mostly arrangements of Wagner's
scores for the pianoforte. They can only be
attempted by past-masters of the instrument;
a conclusion which also applies to his études,
the mere sight of which makes the fingers ache.
Great as was the achievement of Tausig, it is
only natural to infer that he died long before
his powers had reached their zenith. At thirty!
The possiblities before this great artist at the
moment when he was stricken by the All-
conqueror are unspeakable !
THALBERG
1812-1871
HE musical career, like that of literature,
is pursued over a stony road, rough with
thorns, by the majority of its followers; and
from the story of a Mozart or a Schubert we
learn that even the highest genius and endow-
ment constitute no certain passport to imme-
diate recognition and fortune. Among the
fortunate virtuosi
'Whose even thread the Fates spun round and full,
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool,'
surely the happiest and the luckiest was Sigis-
mund Thalberg, who was launched upon his
artistic career with the good-will and patron-
age of the great, and £20,000 in his pocket,
derived from the coffers of his graceless and
unorthodox father, the Prince. Moreover, to
his talent and good fortune were added a hand-
some person, graceful and winning manners,
an amiable wit, and a courteous bearing that
VOL. II.
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242
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
drew crowds of friends to him as easily as a
magnet attracts steel, won him the smiles of
beauty everywhere, and filled his concert-room
with audiences ready primed for admiration
and applause. What more could the artistic
soul desire ?
Sigismund Thalberg, the son of Prince Die-
trichstein (a dissolute bachelor who had many
lovers but no wife) and the Baroness Wetzler,
was born at Geneva on February 7th, 1812.
His mother, a highly accomplished lady, took
particular pains with his early education, and
doubtless it was from her that he derived his
taste for music. At ten years of age he was
taken from Geneva to his father's palace at
Vienna. The prince was much attached to the
boy, and devoted himself to his education,
intending to fit him for a diplomatic career.
Sigi'-_by which affectionate diminutive the
boy was styled by his father-surprised him
by his aptitude for music and languages, and
especially by the progress he made in Greek
and geography. But his decided bent towards
music, and a wonderful fluency and proficiency
on the piano, was the most astonishing thing
i Mendel says May 5th, and Fétis January 7th. The above
date is given on the authority of Dr. Engel, who avows that he
got it from Mr. Leitzinger, Thalberg's half-brother.
THALBERG
243
of all. When fourteen years of age he played
at an evening party given by Prince Clemens
Metternich, and achieved a great success. His
teachers were Mittag and Sechter. The latter,
a most able musician, taught him counterpoint.
The Prince at first demurred to his son's prefer-
ence for an artistic career, but eventually over-
came his objection, and, after his appearance in
1833 as a pianist at a soirée of Count Apponyi's,
the Austrian Ambassador at Paris, assented to
the position, endowed him with £20,000, and
thus launched him upon his musical career in
a position of independence and affluence.
His position in Paris was at once assured.
His brilliant style took the world by storm.
It was new and astonishing. For the next
four years he appeared in all the principal
capitals of Europe; became a sort of reigning
favourite, whose partisans claimed that he was
even greater than Liszt. We know better now.
Liszt, though his commanding figure has been
taken away, still lives in our hearts, while
Thalberg was forgotten even in his life-time.
The publication of the compositions of the
latter was a death-blow to his glory. They
prove that even mediocrity could accomplish
those seemingly brilliant passages at which
the audiences of long ago stared open-mouthed
244
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
with wonder and astonishment; that that public
sat before thoroughly human artifices, accessible
even to those who had been deluded into the
belief that a new musical Messiah had arrived.
But Thalberg played for applause, and this
did not fail him. His ambition was not fixed
by the love of art which rises superior to personal
considerations, and enjoins devotion and service.
In a lucky inspiration he discovered how to
display the mechanism of his instrument as if
it were the soul of music and not the inanimate
object from which music is evoked by the soul
as well as the fingers of the player. The rapid
development of the pianoforte undoubtedly
called for new instrumentation, the possibilities
of which had probably never occurred to the
old masters. That the bass would become
something more than a meagre harmonic ac-
companiment had not entered into their idea.
No doubt the Erards and Pleyels would have
influenced the pianoforte compositions of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven. In their most advanced
works the melody and accompaniment are
separated. By blending the two together, while
still preserving their individualities, and by
supplementing the marked rhythm with em-
bellishments of arpeggios—thus producing the
cheap effects of silvery harmonics stringing the
THALBERG
245
melodies together like a cascade of pearls-
Thalberg leapt into popularity, and won the
vulgar comparison which defiantly placed him
above Liszt. Even Liszt himself was deceived
by the tricks. At first hearing he said, 'Thal-
berg is the only artist who can play the violin
on the keyboard'-an opinion which he modified
in an extraordinary degree as soon as he dis-
covered all the force and meaning of the imposi-
tion. 'I hope,' he said, with grim satire, 'to
play as Thalberg does if I should happen to be
paralysed and limited to the use of one hand.'
Thalberg's opera, Florinda, with a libretto by
Scribe, was produced at Drury Lane in 1851.
It proved a dismal failure, in spite of splendid
accessories, in spite of the efforts of Cruvelli,
Sims Reeves, Lablache, and an orchestra con-
ducted by Balfe ; it fell flat before an audience
including the flower of the English aristocracy,
who attended, headed by the Queen and Prince
Consort, ready and eager to applaud the anti-
cipated triumph. A second attempt in this
direction proved equally disastrous, and Thal-
berg did not try a third time.
A trip to South America, lasting a year and
a-half, and a long tour through the United
States, were designed to close his career as a
virtuoso. Thalberg was sufficiently famous;
246
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
he had been adored, fêted, and caressed in
every part of the civilised world; besides, he
was rich. He had been married to Madame
Boucher, a daughter of Lablache, since 1843,
and he now retired with his wife to Posilipo,
on the Bay of Naples. His resolution was not
final, however. He emerged from retirement
in 1862, and gave concerts in Paris and London,
and at Brazil. He found the same rage every-
where for his métier; his popularity was un-
diminished, crowds thronged to his concerts,
and the ladies flocked round their favourite
with the old zeal and enthusiasm. He might
have continued his career of glory and profit
with unabated triumph. But even popularity
had lost its zest; the adoration of the ladies
became fatiguing at length; there was no longer
the relish of novelty in the breath of popular
applause; and Thalberg was never imbued
with the spirit of the artist, which loves and
works on and endures, sustained by its own
consciousness of the ideal, for art's sake. He
retired to his splendid villa at Naples, replete
with every comfort and all the accessories of
luxury and refinement. But no piano was to
be found within its walls-a very significant
omission, if we only consider it. Here he died
in 1871.
THALBERG
247
While taking exception to the position as-
sumed for Thalberg as an artist by his contem-
poraries, it must not be forgotten that he won
the praise of celebrated men. As already indi-
cated, he astonished Liszt at first. Schumann
seems undecided between praise and blame;
when he praises he does so with a sense of limi-
tation. An adverse judgment, he says, might
draw down upon him the wrath of the ladies.
Mendelssohn admires him, and even admits his
merit as a composer. Rubinstein, when asked
why he had placed on a programme Thalberg's
Fantasia on Don Giovanni under Liszt's selec-
tions from the same opera, replied : ‘Pour bien
faire ressortir la différence entre cet épicier et le
Dieu de la rusique,' the designation of grocer
applying, of course, to Thalberg.
Although Thalberg has ceased to exist for
us as a musician, nothing could eclipse his
popularity in his own day. He was esteemed
like a god at the piano—an idea with which
his personal beauty and commanding charm of
manner had most to do. It is easy to under-
stand this personal fascination from a glance
at his picture, which gives us a leonine head,
well-poised and majestic, a perfectly handsome
face, with fine eyes embedded in protuberant
lids and heavily underlidded, an exquisitely
248
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
carved nose and mouth, the former long and
straight, with elaborate curves, the latter deli-
cately pencilled-sweet and sensitive, yet cold
and disdainful—and a proud, strong chin,
moulded to the faultless outline of the face,
We must remember, too, that his figure was
handsome and perfectly proportioned.
VIEUX TEMPS
1820-1881
H
ENRI VIEUXTEMPS, a distinguished
violinist, was born at Verviers, in Belgium,
on February 17th, 1820. His father, a musician,
early discovered the boy's remarkable talent for
music, and had him instructed by a local
musician named Lecloux. The baby-pupil
made astonishing progress with the violin, and
in his sixth year he played Rode's 5th Con-
certo in public. A year later he went on a
concert tour with his master. On this tour he
met De Bériot, who manifested the kindest
interest in the youthful prodigy, giving him
lessons, and preparing him for a subsequent
appearance in Paris, to which capital he accom-
panied De Bériot in 1828.
After the return from Paris in 1831, the boy
studied hard at Brussels for three years, when,
accompanied by his father, he undertook a very
successful tour through Germany, during which
he met Spohr, Molique, and other musicians of
249
250
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
light and leading, who took him by the hand
and helped to forward his career. Among his
experiences at this period was a performance
of Fidelio, which served to enlarge his intel-
lectual view, and to give new life and increased
force and amplitude to his studies. He made
rapid progress. His style broadened and
deepened; he began to realise that the master
of the violin must have constantly in view
something that lies beyond perfect technique
and dexterous manipulative skill. His full,
rich tone, pure intonation, and refined and
graceful style excited a general chorus of
praise. But these qualities, he felt, admirable
as they are, were not sufficient to constitute the
highest excellence. He took lessons in counter-
point from Sechter; derived considerable advan-
tage from genial and instructive intercourse
with Czerny and Mayseder; and succeeded in
astonishing these masters by the consummate
ease with which he played a manuscript piece
of Mayseder's at sight. He added to his laurels
by a careful and finished performance of Beet-
hoven's Violin Concerto, then quite new to the
public. He passed though Leipzig on the
homeward journey, and was warmly welcomed
by the large-hearted Schumann in an apprecia-
tive article in his Neue Zeitschrift.
VIEUXTEMPS
251
He made his appearance in London with De
Bériot in 1834, playing at the Philharmonic
Concerts with great success.
But a greater
thing than mere success happened to him in
London. He heard Paganini play La Streghe
('The Witch'). The performance filled his soul
with delighted wonder and an ecstasy of ad-
miration. Words, he declares, were inadequate
to express his feelings; and the wonder and
delight lived with him all through his life, not
unmixed with a sense of personal incomplete-
ness and a kind of artistic despair. It is from
tributes of this high character that we are some-
times enabled to approach the remote confines
of the great world of music in which Paganini
ruled as absolute king. Ernst followed him
from town to town, fascinated by his weird
power and transcendent skill; and, many years
after the occasion referred to, Vieuxtemps, then
esteemed as one of the first performers of the
age and the most remarkable composer for the
violin, writes to a friend : Paganini's bow was
fabulous in rapidity ; his certainty stupefying,
never even a doubtful note; he was infallible.
... How can I venture to give an opinion on
him—moi, pygmée ? 'i
1 Vide From Mozart to Mario.
Reminiscences of Half-a-
Century, by Louis Engel (London : Bentley and Son, 1886),
vol. ii. p. 231.
252
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
During the next year Vieuxtemps studied
composition under the guidance of Reicha, and
to this and the following two years (1835-37),
passed in Paris, may be dated some of the best
of his earlier compositions. A second visit to
Vienna in 1837 was shortly followed by a tour
in Russia, part of which was undertaken in the
company of Henselt.
of Henselt. His success was of the
brilliant order-such, indeed, as warranted a
second visit in the following year. He journeyed
viâ Riga in company with Servais. They met
Wagner on the road, and a very pleasant trip
was suddenly interrupted by a serious attack of
illness, which kept Vieuxtemps a prisoner on
the road, and lost him his winter season amid
the brilliant cities of the great empire. He
devoted the summer to composition, and com-
pleted, among other works, his Concerto in E
and Fantaisie Caprice. Both works were pro-
duced in the winter with prodigious success.
He played the Concerto at the Rubens Fêtes
in Antwerp in 1840, where the now famous
violinist was publicly decorated with the Order
of Leopold. Next year (1841) he carried his
new works to Paris, where they were performed
at the Conservatorial Concerts, and in London
at the Philharmonic Concerts.
The subsequent record of Vieuxtemps' life
VIEUXTEMPS
253
consists of a succession of travels in Europe and
America, broken only by the incident of his
marriage, in 1844, to Miss Josephine Eder, an
eminent pianiste of Vienna ; and a space of six
years (1846-52) spent at St. Petersburg, where
he received the appointment of solo-violinist to
the Emperor, to which was added the post of
professor in the Conservatorium.
His master-passion was travel, Variety of
incident, light and shade of life, as these are
evidenced amid rapid transitions and new
scenes, had become essential to his happiness.
His restless spirit found solace and sustenance
in change and movement, derived an intel-
lectual impetus from varied associations of
artistic and social interest ; for it was during
the periods of travel that he composed his
principal works. The Concerto in D minor
was produced in 1853 on tour.
He spent a
brief sojourn in retirement in Belgium, near
Frankfort; after which he again repaired to the
United States with Thalberg; and in 1858 we
find him once more in Paris engaged in the
composition of his 5th Concerto in A minor
(Op. 37). The next ten years were spent in
constant travel, with the result that Vieuxtemps'
name was familiar as a household word at every
concert-room of note in Europe.
254
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
Vieuxtemps was a man of gay spirits, not
weighed down or depressed by trifles, heartily
enjoying a happy life in the freedom of travel,
light-hearted as a bird of passage, and, like a
bird of passage, paying his way in music. But
he was also a man of deep and earnest feeling;
and the great happiness he enjoyed, to which
the companionship of his beloved wife was the
highest contribution, was suddenly struck into
the great shadow of pain and despair by the
blow of her death, which occurred on June 29,
1868. This sad event, following close upon the
death of his father, plunged him into the deepest
sadness and dejection, out of which he roused
himself to find a mental and moral tonic in
renewed travel.
More European tours were speedily followed
by another artistic flight to America in 1870.
On his return he filled the post of teacher at
the Brussels Conservatoire from 1871 to 1873.
In 1872 he was elected a member of the
Académie Royale of Belgium, and on the
occasion of his receipt of this honour he read
a memoir of Étienne Jean Soubre. He devoted
himself to his work with great energy and
industry, when he was stricken down by ill-
ness, which culminated in a stroke of paralysis,
which deprived him of the use of the whole
VIEUXTEMPS
255
of the left side of his body. For some time
he still continued his duties as a teacher ; but
with the surrender of the violin he felt that
his career was finished. With this feeling the
old passion for travel revived. But it was no
longer artistic triumph, embellished by high
social distinction and intellectual intercourse
with the choice spirits of the art circles of the
world, but health and change, that he sought
in travel. The gay-spirited artist, the idol
of luxurious and brilliant cities, the lavishly
petted but unspoiled favourite of Paris, Vienna,
and St. Petersburg, found a grave in the obscure
and remote burial-ground of Mustapha-lez-
Alger, in Algiers, in 1881.
Vieuxtemps was an amiable man, beloved
by all his associates, and with a true spiritual
feeling for art; his manners were gentle and
affectionate; and he was noble-minded and
generous in his appreciation of artistic excel-
lence, which he acknowledged in no grudging
spirit. He did not like the custom of 'encores,
and earnestly deprecated a system by which
an affectation for art is allowed to express itself
in a travesty of enthusiasm. A pleasant story
illustrating this feeling is told by one of his
biographers. The famous Mélodie Religieuse,
adapted to the First Prelude of Bach by Gounod,
256
THE GREAT VIRTUOSI
was performed at Baden-Baden. Madame
Miolan-Carvalho sang the soprano part, Vieux-
temps played the violin, Thalberg the piano, Dr.
Engel the harmonium, and Berlioz conducted
the chorus and orchestra. The effect was mag-
nificent; the 'encore' was a blast of thunder.
Vieuxtemps, preparing to leave the ante-cham-
ber, grumbled, Voilà vingt ans qu'on scie le dos
avec cela.' 'The idea,' exclaimed the prima
donna, 'of refusing such an encore! I shall
certainly fall in with it. In deference to the
wish of the lady, Vieuxtemps submitted; but
when the audience clamoured for a third per-
formance he hurriedly locked up his fiddle
and fled from the place.
As a composer Vieuxtemps is still popular
and successful, and his best works are to this
day numbered among the stock - pieces of
French and German violinists. Deservedly so;
for they are marked by many fine qualities,
the leading ideas are skilfully worked out, and
they have a remarkable charm of sentiment
and melody
Nor can there be any difficulty in assigning
him his true place among the virtuosi. There
is ample testimony to prove that he is one of
the greatest violinists of the century. He
attained brilliant success as a quartett-player,
VIEUXTEMPS
257
and some of his greatest triumphs were achieved
in the concertos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn.
His taste and finish in execution were such as
amounted to power in themselves; but he had
power and depth of feeling in a high degree.
These qualities, added to unrivalled technique,
a command of the bow that has never been
surpassed, a perfect intonation, and a tone of
breadth and majesty, suffice to place him, with
De Bériot, at the head of the modern French
school; and, indeed, his artistic sympathy and
soul-elevation even raise him above that school.
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