E -
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 MRS. 
 
 ERIC SCHMIDT
 
 f
 
 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 H. H. HA.WEIS 
 
 ArTHOB OP "MUSIC AKD MOKALS," "AMERICAN HUMORISTS," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, PUBLISHERS 
 10 AND 12 DEY STREET 
 
 1884
 
 PUBLISHERS 1 NOTE. 
 
 This book is published from advance sheets, simultaneously with 
 its appearance in England. With the aid of the author, it has been 
 revised for publication in this country, portions being omitted which 
 were deemed of less interest to American readers. 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by 
 
 PUNK & WAGNALLS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C,
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 EARLY LIFE AND RECOLLECTIONS 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 HEARING Music ." 49 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 OLD VIOLLXS 85 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 PAGANINI 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 WAGNER 144 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 PARSIFAL 200 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE NIEBELTJNG'S RING. 
 
 I. Rheingold 225 
 
 II. Walkiire 230 
 
 III. Siegfried 236 
 
 IV. The Gdtterdammerung 242 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 LISZT. . . .251
 
 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EAKLY LIFE AND RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I THINK it was Lord Beaconsfield who said that .a 
 man is usually interesting in proportion as his talk runs 
 upon what he is familiar with ; and that as a man usually 
 knows more about himself than about anything else, he 
 seldom fails to be tolerable if his self-centred talk turns 
 out to be unaffected and sincere. To talk about one' s 
 self and to be dull is nevertheless possible. In the 
 early pages of this volume I shall have to do the first to 
 a considerable extent ; let me hope to avoid the second. 
 
 Music is not the business of my life, but it remains its 
 sweetest recreation ; and there is one opinion which used 
 to be widely held by my friends in the old days, and to 
 which I subscribed for many years. .Nature, they often 
 said, intended me for a violinist. In fact, my musical 
 life starts from the violin ; and, " Stradivario duce" 
 Stradivarius leading the way I feel inspired, " after 
 long years," to retrace with a certain keen pleasure 
 these labyrinthine passages of Musical Memory. 
 
 There is something about the shape of a violin its 
 curves, its physiognomy, its smiling and genial 's 
 which seems to invite and welcome inspection and 
 handling.
 
 C MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Tarisio, the Italian carpenter, came under this fascina- 
 tion to good purpose. He began by mending old 
 fiddles ; he himself played a little ; he grew more enam- 
 ored of these mysterious, lifeless, yet living companions 
 of his solitude, until he began to " trade in fiddles." 
 
 At the beginning of this century," hidden away in old 
 Italian convents and wayside inns, lay the masterpieces 
 of the Amati, Stradivarius, the Guarnerii, and Bergonzi, 
 almost unknown and little valued. But Tarisio's eye 
 was getting cultivated. He was learning to know a 
 fiddle when Tie saw it. 
 
 " Your violin, signor, requires mending ?" says the 
 itinerant peddler, as he salutes some monk or padre 
 known to be connected with the sacristy or choir of Pisa, 
 Florence, Milan. " I can mend it." 
 
 Out comes the Stradivarius, with a loose bar or a 
 split rib, and sounding abominably. 
 
 " Dio mio !" says Tarisio, " and all the blessed 
 saints ! but your violin is in a bad way. My respected 
 father is prayed to try one that I have, in perfect and 
 beautiful accord and repair ; and permit me to mend 
 this worn-out machine. ' ' 
 
 And Tarisio, whipping a shining, clean instrument 
 out of his bag, hands it to the monk, who eyes it and is 
 for trying it. He tries it ; it goes soft and sweet, 
 though not loud and wheezy, like the battered old Strad. 
 Tarisio clutches his treasure. 
 
 The next day back comes the peddler to the cloister, 
 is shown up to the padre, whom he finds scraping away 
 on his loan fiddle. 
 
 " But," he exclaims, " you have lent me a beautiful 
 violin, and in perfect order." 
 
 "Ah! if the father would accept from me a small 
 favor," says the cunning Tarisio.
 
 TARISIO. 7 
 
 " And what is that ?" 
 
 " To keep the violin that suits him so well, and I 
 will take in exchange the old machine which is worn out, 
 but with my skill I shall still make something of it !" 
 
 A glass of good wine, or a lemonade, or black coffee, 
 clinches the bargain. Off goes Tarisio, having parted 
 with a characterless German fiddle sweet and easy- 
 going and " looking nice," and worth now about 5 
 in perfect order, no doubt and having secured one of 
 those gems of Cremona which now run into 300. 
 Violin-collecting became the passion of Tarisio's life. 
 The story has been told by Mr. Charles Reade, and all 
 the fiddle- world knows how Tarisio came to Paris with a 
 batch of old instruments, and was taken up by Chanot 
 and Vuillaume, through whose hands passed nearly 
 every one of those chefs-d'oeuvre recovered by Tarisio in 
 his wanderings, which now are so eagerly contended for 
 by English and American millionaires, whenever they 
 happen to get into the market. 
 
 I have heard of a mania for snuff-boxes it was old 
 Lablache's hobby. There are your china-maniacs, and 
 your picture-maniacs, and your old-print connoisseurs 
 who only look at the margin, and your old-book hunters 
 who only glance at the title-page and edition, and your 
 coin-collectors, and your gem-collectors, who are always 
 being taken in ; but for downright fanaticism and 
 " gone-cooniness," if I may invent the word, commend 
 me to your violin -maniac. He who once comes under 
 that spell, goes down to the grave with a disordered 
 mind. 
 
 I said that I was, perhaps, intended for a violinist by 
 nature. I can understand Tarisio's passion, though I 
 never followed out that particular branch of it which led 
 him to collect, repair, and sell. I could not buy vio-
 
 8 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 lins the prices have risen since the days of the Italian 
 peddler. I could not cheat people out of them ; the 
 world was too knowing for that and then I was too 
 virtuous. I could not " travel " in violins ; it was not 
 ray vocation, and one may in these days go far and get 
 little for it is now about as easy to find a Stradivarius 
 as a Corregffio. But lon^ before I had ever touched a 
 
 OO CJ 
 
 violin I was fascinated with its appearance. In driv- 
 ing up to town as a child when, standing up in the 
 carriage, I could just look out of the window certain 
 fiddle-shops hung with mighty rows of violoncellos at- 
 tracted my attention. I had dreams of these large edi- 
 tions these patriarchs of the violin, as they seemed to 
 me. I compared them in my mind with the smaller 
 tenors and violins. I dreamed about their brown, big, 
 dusty bodies and affable good-natured-looking heads and 
 grinning 's. These violin shops were the great points 
 watched for on each journey up to London from Nor- 
 wood, where I spent my early days. 
 
 Youth is the great season of surprises, as it certainly 
 is of delights. There never were such buttercup fields 
 and strawberry ices as in the days of my childhood. 
 Men try to make hay now, but it is poor work ; and 
 as for modern ices, they are either frozen amiss or ill- 
 mixed. They are not good enough for me, who can re- 
 member what they were in the Exhibition of 1851. 
 One of my keenest musical impressions is connected 
 with that marvellous show. I shall never see such 
 another. As I stood in the gallery of the great crystal 
 transept and looked down upon a spectacle such as has 
 been witnessed since, but had never before been seen, a 
 feeling of intoxication there is no other word for it 
 came over me. 
 
 I remember perfectly well falling into a kind of dream
 
 A TRANCE. 9 
 
 as I leaned over the painted iron balcony and looked down 
 on the splendid vista. The silver-bell-like tones of an 
 Erard it was the 1000-guinea piano pierced through 
 the human hum and noise of splashing waters, but it 
 was a long way off. Suddenly, in the adjoining gallery, 
 the large organ broke out with a blare of trumpets that 
 thrilled and riveted me with an inconceivable emotion. 
 I knew not then what those opening bars were. Evi- 
 dently something martial, festal, jubilant, and full of 
 triumph. I listened and held my breath to hear Men- 
 delssohn's "Wedding March" for the first time, and 
 not know it ! To hear it when half the people present 
 had never heard of Mendelssohn, three years after his 
 death, and when not one in a hundred could have told 
 me what was being played that is an experience I shall 
 never forget. As successive waves of fresh inexhausti- 
 ble inspiration flowed on, vibrating through the building 
 without a check or a pause, the peculiar Mendelssohnian 
 spaces of cantabile melody alternating as they do in that 
 march with the passionate and almost fierce decision of 
 the chief processional theme, I stood riveted, bathed in 
 the sound as in an element. I felt ready to melt into 
 those harmonious yet turbulent waves and float away 
 upon the tides of "Music's golden sea setting toward 
 Eternity." The angel of Tennyson's Yision might have 
 stood by me whispering, 
 
 And thou listenest the lordly music flowing from the illimitable years. 
 
 Some one called me, so I was told afterward, but I did 
 not hear. They supposed that I was following ; they 
 went on, and were soon lost in the crowd. Presently 
 one came back and touched me, but I did not feel. I 
 could not be roused, my soul was living apart from my 
 body. When the music ceased the spell slowly dis-
 
 10 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 solved, and I was led away still half in dreamland. For 
 long years afterward the "Wedding March," which is 
 now considered banale and clap-trap by the advanced 
 school, affected me, strangely. Its power over me has 
 almost entirely ceased. It is a memory now more than 
 a realization 
 
 eheu ! fugaces. Posthume, 
 Poathume, labuntur anni 
 
 This was in 1851 ; but it must have been about the 
 year 1846 that I was taken up to a concert at Exeter 
 Hall, and heard there for the first time what seemed to 
 me to be music of unearthly sweetness. 
 
 The room was crowded. I was far behind. I could 
 only see the fiddlesticks of ' the band in the distance. 
 Four long-drawn-out tender wails on the wind rising, 
 rising ; then a soft, rapid, flickering kind of sound, high 
 up in the treble clef, broke from a multitude of fiddles, 
 ever growing in complexity as the two fiddles at each 
 desk divided the harmonies among them, pausing as 
 the deep melodious breathing of wind instruments sus- 
 pended in heavy slumbrous sighs their restless agitation, 
 then recommencing till a climax was reached, and the 
 whole band broke in with that magnificent subject 
 which marks the first complete and satisfying period of 
 musical solution in the overture to the "Midsummer 
 Night's Dream !" 
 
 I was at once affected as I had never before been. I 
 did not know then that it was the Mendelssohn mania 
 that had come upon me. It seized upon the whole 
 musical world of forty years ago, and discolored the 
 taste and judgment of those affected, for every other 
 composer. The epidemic lasted for about twenty years 
 at its height ; declined rather suddenly with the growing 
 appreciation of Schumann, the tardy recognition of
 
 NURSERY FIDDLES. 11 
 
 Spohr, and the revival of Schubert, receiving its quietus 
 of course with the triumph of Wagner. People now 
 " place" Mendelssohn ; then they worshipped him. 
 
 As my ideas group themselves most naturally about 
 my favorite instrument the violin I may as well 
 follow the thread of my narrative in connection with 
 my earliest violin recollections. I became possessed, 
 at the age of six years, of a small red eighteen-penny 
 fiddle and stick, with that flimsy bow and those thready 
 strings, which are made apparently only to snap, even 
 as the fiddle is made only to smash. I thus early 
 became familiar with the idol of my youth. But famil- 
 iarity did not breed contempt. I proceeded to elicit, 
 from the red eighteen-penny all it had to give : and 
 when I had done with it, my nurse removed the belly, 
 and found it made an admirable dustpan or wooden 
 shovel for cinders, and, finally, excellent firewood. 
 Many went that way, without my passion for toy fiddles 
 suffering the least decline ; nay, it rather grew by what it 
 (and the fire) fed on. It may not be superfluous to add 
 that I had by this time found means to make the flim- 
 siest strings yield up sounds which I need not here char- 
 acterize, and to such purpose that it became a question 
 of some interest how long such sounds could be endured 
 by the human ear. I do not mean my own. All vio- 
 linists, including infants on eighteen-pennies, admit that 
 to their own ear the sounds produced are nothing but 
 delightful ; it is only those who do not make them who 
 complain. As it seemed unlikely that my studies on 
 the violin would stop, it became expedient that they 
 should be directed. A full- sized violin was procured 
 me. I have every reason to believe it was one of the 
 worst fiddles I ever saw. 
 
 I had played many times with much applause, holding
 
 12 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 a full-sized violin between my knees. I was about eight 
 years old when the services of the local organist a Mr. 
 Ingram, of Norwood were called in. His skill on the 
 violin was not great, but it was enough for me ; too 
 much, indeed, for he insisted on my holding the violin 
 up to my chin. The fact is, he could not play it in any 
 other position himself, so how could he teach me ? Of 
 course the instrument was a great deal too large ; but I 
 strained and stretched until I got it up ; for as it would 
 not grow down to me, I had to grow up to it. And 
 here I glance at the crucial question, Ought young chil- 
 dren to begin upon small-sized violins ? All makers 
 say " Yes ;" naturally, for they supply the new violins 
 of all sizes. Put I emphatically say "No." The 
 sooner the child is accustomed to the right violin in- 
 tervals the better ; the small violins merely present him 
 with a series of wrong distances, which he has successively 
 to unlearn. It is bad enough if in after years he learns 
 the violoncello or tenor. Few violinists survive that 
 ordeal, and most people who take to the tenor or 'cello 
 after playing the violin keep to it. Either they have 
 not been successful on the violin, or they hope to 
 become so on its larger though less brilliant relation ; 
 but they have a perfectly true instinct that it is difficult 
 to excel on both, because of the intervals. Yet, in the 
 face of this, you put a series of violins of different sizes 
 into the pupil's hand, on the ground that, as his hand 
 enlarges with years, the enlarged key-board will suit his 
 fingers better ; but that is not the way the brain works 
 the brain learns intervals. It does not trouble itself 
 about the size of the fingers that have to stretch them. 
 
 A child of seven or eight can stretch most of the 
 ordinary intervals on a full-sized violin finger-board. 
 He may not be able to hold the violin to his chin ; but
 
 EARLY PRACTICE. 13 
 
 he can learn his scales and pick out tunes, sitting on a 
 stool and holding his instrument like a violoncello. Be- 
 fore the age of eight I found no difficulty in doing this. 
 But the greater the difficulty the better the practice. 
 The tendons cannot be too much stretched short of 
 spraining and breaking. Mere aching is to be made no 
 account of ; the muscles can hardly be too much worked. 
 A cliild will soon gain surprising agility, even on a 
 large finger-board. Avoid the hateful figured slip of 
 paper that used to be pasted on violin finger-boards in 
 my youth, with round dots for the fingers. I remember 
 tearing mine off in a fit of uncontrollable irritation. I 
 found it very difficult, with the use of my eyes, to put 
 my fingers on the dots, and even then the note was not 
 always in tune, for of course the dot might be covered 
 in a dozen ways by the finger-tips, and a hair's breadth 
 one way or the other would vary the note. But the 
 principle is vicious. A violin player's eyes have no 
 more business with his fingers than a billiard player's 
 eyes have with his cue. He looks at the ball ; and the 
 musician, if he looks at anything, should look at the 
 notes, or at his audience, or he can shut his eyes if he 
 likes. It is his ears, not his eyes, have to do with the 
 fingers. 
 
 I was about eight years old. My musical studies 
 were systematic, if not well directed. Every morning 
 for two hours I practised . scales and various tunes at a 
 double desk, my father on one side and I on the other. 
 "\Ye played the most deplorable arrangements, and we 
 made the most detestable noise. We played Beetho- 
 ven's overture to " Prometheus," arranged for two fid- 
 dles, Callcott's German melodies with piano-forte accom- 
 paniment, and without the violoncello part, and Corelli's 
 trios also without the third instrument. I had some-
 
 14 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 how ceased to take lessons now. My father's knowl- 
 edge of violin playing was exactly on a level with my 
 own. His skill, he modestly owned, was even less ; but 
 had it net heen for him I never should have played at 
 all. Our method \vas simple. We sat for two hours 
 after breakfast and scraped. In the evening, with the 
 addition of the piano, we scraped again anything we 
 could get hold of and we did get hold of odd things : 
 Locke's music to " Macbeth," old quadrilles, the 
 "Battle of Prague," "God save the Emperor," and 
 the ' ' Huntsman's Chorus. ' ' I confess I hated the prac- 
 tising ; it was simple drudgery and put it in what 
 way you will, the early stage of violin playing is drudg- 
 ery ; but it must be gone through with. And then I 
 had my hours of relaxation. I used to walk up and 
 down the lawn in our garden playing tunes in my own 
 fashion. I got very much at home on the finger-board, 
 and that is the grand thing after all. No one ever gets 
 at home there who has not begun young not so young 
 as I began, but at least under the age of twelve. I was 
 soon considered an infant phenomenon on the violin, 
 stood on tables, and was trotted out at parties, and I thus 
 early got over all shyness at playing in public. 
 
 At this time Jenny Lind and Ernst were both in Lon- 
 don ; and Liszt, I believe, passed through like a meteor. 
 I never heard any of them in their prime, though I did 
 hear Madame , Lind-Goldschmidt sing the "Ravens" 
 at a concert years afterward, and it was my privilege 
 to hear Ernst before he had lost his cunning, nor shall 
 I ever hear his like again. lie played once at Her 
 Majesty's Opera House, when the whole assembly 
 seemed to dream through a performance of the " Hun- 
 garian Airs." The lightest whisper of the violin con- 
 trolled the house ; the magician hardly stirred his wand
 
 EENST. 15 
 
 at times, and no one could tell from the sound when he 
 passed from the up to the down bow in those long can- 
 tabile notes which had such power to entrance me. 
 
 I heard Ernst later at Brighton. He played out of 
 tune, and I was told that he was so shaken in nerve, 
 that, playing a Beethoven quartet in private, and corning 
 to a passage of no great difficulty, which I have often 
 scrambled through with impunity, the great master laid 
 down his fiddle and declared himself unequal to the 
 effort. 
 
 Great, deep-souled, weird magician of the Cremona ! 
 I can see thy pale, gaunt face even now ! those dark, 
 haggard-looking eyes, with the strange veiled fires, semi- 
 mesmeric, the wasted hands, so expressive and sensitive, 
 the thin, lank hair and emaciated form, yet with noth- 
 ing demoniac about thee like Paganini, from whom thou 
 wast absolutely distinct. No copy thou thyself all 
 thyself tender, sympathetic, gentle as a child, suffering, 
 always suffering ; full of an excessive sensibility ; full 
 of charm ; irresistible and fascinating beyond words ! 
 Thy Cremona should have been buried with thee. It 
 has fallen into other hands. I see it every season in the 
 concert-room : Madame Norman-Neruda plays it. I 
 know she is an admirable artist. I do not hear thy Cre- 
 mona ; its voice has gone out with thee, its soul has 
 passed with thine. 
 
 ****** 
 
 In the night I hear it under the stars, when the moon 
 
 is low, and I see the dark ridges of the clover hills, and 
 
 rabbits and hares, black against the paler sky, pausing 
 
 to feed or crouching to listen to the voices of the night. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Alone in the autumn woods, when through the shiver-
 
 16 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 ing trees I see the angry yellow streaks of the sunset, 
 and the dead leaves fall across a sky that threatens storm. 
 
 # , * . * ^ * . * H 
 
 By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow 
 murmurs, like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the 
 beach. 
 
 ****** 
 
 In some still valley in the South, in midsummer, the 
 slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into 
 crimson and takes wing ; the bright-eyed lizard darts 
 timorously, and the singing of the grasshopper never 
 ceases in the long grass ; the air is heavy and slumbrous 
 with insect life and the breath of flowers. I can see the 
 blue sky intense blue, mirrored in the lake and a bird 
 floats mirrored in the blue, and over the shining water 
 conies the sound, breaking the singing silences of nat- 
 ure : such things are in our dreams ! 
 
 * * * * #'-" 
 
 It is thus only I can hear again the spirit voice of thy 
 Cremona, dead master ; but not at St. James's Hall, no 
 longer in the crowded haunts of men as once. Its body 
 only is there : its soul was the very soul of the master 
 who has passed to where the chiming is " after the 
 chiming of the eternal spheres." 
 
 I heard other great players : Sivori, delicate, refined, 
 with a perfect command of his instrument a pupil of 
 Paganini's, playing all his pieces, and probably no more 
 like him than a Roman candle is like a meteor ; Chat- 
 terton on the harp, a thankless instrument, without 
 variety and never in tune, whose depths are quickly 
 sounded an arpeggio, a few harmonics, a few full 
 glorious chords, an ethereal whispering, and da capo ! 
 Piatti on the violoncello a truly disembodied violon- 
 cello so pure and free from catgut and rosin came the
 
 MY SECOND MASTER. 17 
 
 sound ; and pianists innumerable in later days. But if, 
 looking back and up to the present hour, I am asked to 
 name off-hand the greatest players the very greatest I 
 have heard I say at once Ernst, Liszt, Rubinstein. 
 
 From such heights I am loath to return to my own in- 
 significant doings, but they happen to supply me with 
 the framework for my present meditations' : they are, in 
 fact, the pegs on which I have chosen to hang my 
 thoughts. I was at a complete standstill : I sorely 
 needed instruction. I went to the seaside for my health. 
 One day, in the morning, I entered the concert room of 
 the town hall at Margate. It was empty, but on a plat- 
 form at the farther end, half a dozen musicians were 
 rehearsing. One sat up at a front desk and seemed to 
 be leading on the violin. As they paused, I walked 
 straight up to him. I was about twelve then. 
 
 "Please sir," I began rather nervously, "do you 
 teach the violin ?" 
 
 He looked round rather surprised, but in another 
 moment he smiled kindly, and said : 
 
 "Why, yes at least," he added, " that depends. 
 Do you mean you want to learn ?" 
 
 " That's it," I said ; " I have learned a little. Will 
 you teach me ?" 
 
 "Wait a bit. I must finish here first, and then I'll 
 come down to you. Can you wait ?" he added, cheer- 
 
 37- 
 
 I had been terribly nervous when I began to ask him, 
 
 but now I felt my heart beating with joy. 
 
 " Oh yes," I said, " I can wait !" and I waited and 
 heard them play, and watched every motion of one 
 whom I already looked upon as my master. 
 
 And he became my master my first real master. 
 Good, patient Mr. Devonport ! I took to him, and he took
 
 18 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 to mo at once. He got me to unlearn all my slovenly 
 ways, taught me how to hold my fiddle and how to lin- 
 ger and how to bow. It seems I did everything wrong. 
 He used to write out Kreutzer's early exercises, over his 
 breakfast, and bring them to me all blotted, in pen and 
 ink, and actually got into disgrace, so he said, with his 
 landlady, for inking the table-cloth ! That seemed to 
 me heroic ; but who would not have mastered the crab- 
 bed bowing, the ups and downs and staccatos, and slur 
 two and bow one, and slur three and bow one, and slur 
 two and two, after that ! And I did my best, though 
 not to his satisfaction ; but he never measured his time 
 with me, and he had an indefinitely sweet way with him 
 which won me greatly, and made me love my violin a 
 five-pound Vuilhaume copy of Stradivarius, crude in 
 tone more than ever. 
 
 When I left the sea, I lost my master. I never saw 
 him again. If he is alive now, and these lines should 
 chance to meet his eye, I will join hands with him across 
 the years. Why should he not be alive ? Hullah and 
 Sainton and Piatti and Mme. Dolby and Mine. Lincl- 
 Goldschmidt, and I know not how many more of his 
 contemporaries, and my elders, are alive. Only there 
 was a sadness and delicacy about that pale diaphanous 
 face, its hectic flush, its light hair, and slight fringe of 
 mustache ; I can remember it so well ; and I must 
 own, too, there was a little cough, which makes me fear 
 that Devonport was not destined to live long. Some one 
 remarked it at the time, but I thought nothing of it 
 then. 
 
 I made a great stride under Devonport, and my next 
 master, whom I disliked exceedingly, was a young 
 Pole, Lapinski, who could not speak a word of English. 
 Our lessons were very dull. He taught me little, but
 
 THE MYSTERY OF TEACHING. 19 
 
 lie taught me something the art of making my fingers 
 ache the great art, according to Joachim. My time 
 with him was pure drudgery, unrelieved by a single 
 glow of pleasure or gleam of recreation ; he was a dog- 
 ged and hard taskmaster, knew exactly what he meant, 
 and was utterly indifferent to the likes and dislikes of 
 his pupil the very opposite to Devonport, whom in six 
 weeks I got positively to love. In music, you learn 
 more in a week from a sympathetic teacher, or at least 
 from some one who is so to you, than from another, 
 however excellent, in a month. You will make no 
 progress if he can give you no impulse. 
 
 What a mystery lies in that word " teaching" ! One 
 will constrain you irresistibly, and another shall not be 
 able to persuade you. One will kindle you with an am- 
 bition that aspires to what the day before seemed inac- 
 cessible heights, while another will labor in vain to stir 
 your sluggish mood to cope with the smallest obstacle. 
 The reciprocal relation is too often forgotten. It is as- 
 sumed that any good master or mistress will suit any 
 willing pupil. IS^ot at all any more than A can mes- 
 merize B, who goes into a trance immediately on the ap- 
 pearance of C. All personal relations, and teaching re- 
 lations are intensely personal, have to do with subtle 
 conditions unexplored, but inexorable and instantly 
 perceived. The soul puts out, as it were, its invisible 
 antennae, knowing the soul that is kindred to itself. I 
 do not want to be told whether you can teach me any- 
 thing. I Icnoio you cannot. I will not learn from you 
 what I must learn from another ; what he will be bound 
 to teach me. All you may have to say may be good, and 
 true, but it is a little impertinent and out of place. 
 You spoil the truth. You mar the beauty. I will not 
 hear these things from you ; you spoil nature ; you
 
 20 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 wither art ; yon are not for me, and I am not for you 
 " Let us go hence, my songs she will not hear." 
 
 My next master was Oury. I fell in with him at 
 Brighton when I was about sixteen. He had travelled 
 with Paganini and was a consummate violinist himself. 
 lie was a short, angry-looking, stoutly-built little man. 
 Genial with those who were sympathetic to him, and 
 sharp, savage, and sarcastic with others he made many 
 enemies, and was unscrupulous in his language. I 
 found he had been unlucky, and I hardly wonder at it ; 
 for a man more uncertain, unstable, and capricious in 
 temper I never met but he was an exquisite player. 
 His fingers were thick and plump, his hand was fat and 
 short, not unlike that of poor Jaell, the late pianist. 
 How he could stop his intervals in tune and execute 
 passages of exceeding delicacy with such hands was a 
 mystery to me ; but Jaell did things even more amazing 
 with his stretching the most impossible intervals, and 
 bowling his fat hands up and down the key-board like a 
 couple of galvanized balls. 
 
 I was at this time about sixteen, and a member of the 
 Brighton Symphony Society. "We played the sympho- 
 nies of the old masters to not very critical audiences in the 
 Pavilion, and I have also played in the Brighton Town 
 Hall. It was at these meetings I first fell in with Oury. 
 
 I noticed a little group in the anteroom on one of the 
 rehearsal nights ; they were chattering round a thickset, 
 crotchety-looking little man and trying to persuade him 
 to do something. He held his fiddle, but would not 
 easily yield to their entreaties. They were asking him 
 to play. At last he raised his Cremona to his chin and 
 began to improvise. What fancy and delicacy and ex- 
 ecution ! what refinement ! His peculiar gift lay not 
 only in a full round tone, but in the musical " embroid-
 
 OUUY. 
 
 eries" the long flourishes, the torrents of multitudi- 
 nous notes ranging all over the instrument. I can liken 
 those astonishing violin passages to nothing but the elab- 
 orate embroidery of little notes which in Chopin's music 
 are spangled in tiny type all round the subject, which is 
 in large type. When Oury was in good humor he 
 would gratify us in this way, and then stop abruptly, 
 and nothing after that would induce him to play another 
 note. He had the line large style of the De Beriot 
 school, combined with a dash of the brilliant and 
 romantic Paganini, and the most exquisite taste of his 
 own. In those days De Beriot's music reigned supreme 
 in the concert-room until the appearance of Paganini. 
 It had not yet gone out of fashion, and I remember 
 hearing Oury play De Beriot's showy first concerto with 
 a full orchestra, at the Pavilion, in a way which reminded 
 me of some conqueror traversing a battle field ; the en- 
 thusiasm he aroused was quite remarkable, in that lan- 
 guid and ignorant crowd of loitering triflers. He cer- 
 tainly brought the house down. He was a great player, 
 though past his prime, and he knew how to score point 
 after point without ever sacrificing his musical honor by 
 stooping to clap-trap. 
 
 From Oury I received, between the ages of fifteen 
 and seventeen, my last definite violin instruction. 
 After that I studied for myself and heard assiduously 
 the best players, but I w T as never taught anything. 
 Oury had been trained himself in the old and new 
 schools of Rode, Bail lot, and De Beriot, and only 
 grafted on the sensational discoveries, methods, and 
 tricks of Paganini, Ernst, and Sivori. But he was art- 
 ist enough to absorb without corruption and appropriate 
 without mimicry. He always treated me with a semi- 
 humorous, though kindly, indulgence. He was ex-
 
 22 MY MUSICAL MEMOKIES. 
 
 tremely impatient, and got quite bitter and angry with 
 my ways ; stormed at my self-will ; said I Lad such a 
 terrible second finger that he believed the devil was in 
 it. 1 had a habit of playing whole tunes with my second 
 finger on the fourth string. It seemed more muscular 
 than the rest, and from this point of view quite upset 
 the equilibrium of the hand. He had a habit of sighing 
 deeply over the lessons. 
 
 " You should have been in the profession. What's 
 the use of teaching you ? Bah ! you will never do any- 
 thing. I shall teach you no more.' ' 
 
 Then he would listen, as I played some bravura pas- 
 sage in my own way, half -amused, half-surprised, half- 
 satirical ; my method was clearly wrong, but how had I 
 got through the passage at all ? Then taking the violin 
 from me he would play it himself, without explanation, 
 and then play on and say : 
 
 " Listen to me ; that is your best lesson, you rascal ! 
 I believe you never practise at all. Nature has given 
 you too much facility. Your playing will never be 
 worth anything. You do not deserve the gifts God has 
 given you." 
 
 At times poor Oury took quite a serious and despond- 
 ing view of me. He would sit long over his hour, 
 playing away and playing to me, telling me stories about 
 Paganini's loosening the horsehair of his bow and pass- 
 ing the whole violin between the stick and the horse- 
 hair, thus allowing the loosened horsehair to scrape all 
 four strings together, and producing the effect of a 
 quartet. He described the great magician's playing of 
 harmonic passages, and showed me how it was done, and 
 told me how the fiddlers when Paganini played sat open- 
 mouthed, unable to make out how he got at all his con- 
 secutive harmonics.
 
 OURY'S METHOD. 23 
 
 In hislighterrnoods lie taught metlie farmyard on tlie 
 violin ; how to make the donkey bray, the hen chuckle, 
 the cuckoo sing, the cow moo. He taught me Paga- 
 nini's " Carnival de Yenise" variations ; some of them 
 especially the canary variation so absurdly easy to 
 any fingers at home on the violin, yet apparently so 
 miraculous to the uninitiated. But it remained his bit- 
 terest reflection that amateur I was, and amateur I was 
 destined to be ; otherwise, I believe, I should have been 
 a pupil after his heart, for he spent hour after hour with 
 me, and never seemed to reckon his time or his toil by 
 money. 
 
 If I did not acquire the right method, it was not. 
 Oury's fault. He taught me how to hold the violin ; 
 to spread my fingers instead of crumpling up those I was 
 not using ; to bow without sawing round my shoulder. 
 
 " In position," lie used often to say, " nothing is 
 right unless all is right. Hold your wrist right, the 
 bow must go right ; hold your fiddle well up, or you 
 cannot get the tone." , 
 
 Above all, he taught me how to whip instead of 
 scraping the sound out. This springing, elastic bowing 
 he contrasted with the grinding of badly-taught fiddlers, 
 who checked the vibration. Some violinists of repute 
 have been ll grinolers," but I could never bear to listen 
 to them. Oury poisoned me early against the grinders, 
 and all short of the men of perfect method. He in- 
 stilled into me principles rather than rules. I caught 
 from him what I was to do, and how I was to do it. 
 He did not lecture at me like some masters ; he took the 
 violin out of my hands without speaking, or with merely 
 an impatient expletive, of which, I regret to say, he was 
 rather too free, and played the passage for me. His ex- 
 planations I might have forgotten ; this I could never
 
 ^4 MY MUSICAL MEM01UES. 
 
 forget, and I could tell at once whether what I did 
 
 O " 
 
 sounded like what he did. 
 
 Ouiy taught me the secret of cantabile playing on the 
 violin how to treat a simple melody with rare phrasing, 
 until it was transfigured by the mood of the player. He 
 taught me Rode's Air in G that beautiful melody 
 which has been, with its well-known variations, \\\Q piece 
 d& resistance of so many generations of violinists and 
 soprani. I was drilled in every note, the bowing was 
 rigidly fixed for me, the whole piece was marked, bar by 
 bar, with slur, p and /", roll and crescendo. I was not 
 allowed to depart a hair's breadth from rule. When I 
 could do this easily and accurately, Oury surprised me 
 one day by saying, 
 
 " Now you can play it as you like, you need not at- 
 tend to a single mark !" 
 
 "How so?" I said. 
 
 " Don't you see/' he said, " the marks don't signify : 
 that is only one way of playing it. If you have any 
 music in you, you can play it in a dozen other ways. 
 Now, I will make it equally good," and he took the 
 violin and played it through, reversing as nearly as pos- 
 sible all the p"*s and /"'?, " bowing" the slur and slurring 
 the "bow," and it sounded just as well. I never for- 
 got that lesson. At other times Oury was most punctil- 
 ious about what he called ' ' correct' ' bowing. He 
 complained of my habit of beginning a forte " attaque" 
 with an \ip bow an unusual perversity, I admit but I 
 replied, in my conceit, I had observed Richard Bla- 
 grove do the same thing. Oury said, as sharply as 
 wisely, "When you play like Blagrove, you may do it 
 too ; until then, oblige me, sir, by minding your up and 
 down bow, or I cease to be your violin tutor." 
 
 I used about this time to hear some very good quartet-
 
 MY VIOLIN. 25 
 
 playing at Captain Xewberry's, Brunswick Square. The 
 captain Lad some fine violins ; one I specially coveted ; 
 he held it to be a genuine Stradivarius ; it was labelled 
 1712, quite in the finest period, and of the grand pattern 
 the back a magnificently ribbed slice of maple in one 
 piece ; the front hardly so fine ; the head strong, though 
 not so fine as I have seen more like a Bergonzi ; but the 
 fiddle itself could never be mistaken for a Bergonzi. It 
 had a tone like a trumpet on the fourth string ; the 
 third was full, but the second puzzled me for years, it 
 being weak by comparison ; but the violin was petulant, 
 and after having it in my possession for thirty years, I 
 know what to do with it if I can ever again take the 
 time and trouble to bring it into perfect order and keep 
 it so, as it was once my pride to do. 
 
 Ou Captain dewberry's death that fiddle was sent me 
 by his widow, who did not survive him long. She said 
 she believed it was his wish. 
 
 This violin was my faithful companion for years. I 
 now look at it under a glass case occasionally, where it 
 lies unstrung from one end of the year to the other. It 
 belonged to the captain's uncle ; he had set his heart on 
 it, and having a very fine pair of carriage horses, for 
 which he had given 180, he one day made them over 
 to his uncle and obtained the Strad. in exchange. This 
 was the last price paid for my violin, some fifty years 
 ago. It came into the hands of dewberry's relative 
 early in the present century how, I know not. Many 
 years ago I took this fiddle down to Bath and played it a 
 good deal there in a band conducted by the well-known 
 Mr. Salmon. I found he recognized it immediately. I 
 there made acquaintance with the score of Mendels- 
 sohn's " Athalie," playing it in the orchestra. I studied 
 the Scotch and Italian symphonies in the same way.
 
 26 ilY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 No- amateur should omit an opportunity of orchestral 
 
 or chorus work. In this way you got a more living ac- 
 quaintance with the internal structure of the great 
 masterpieces than in any other. I first made acquaint- 
 ance with the " Elijah" and " St. Paul " in this way. 
 What writing for the violin there is in the chorus parts ! 
 what telling passages are those in " Be not afraid," 
 where the first violins lift the phrases, rise after rise, 
 until the shrill climax is reached and the aspiring pas- 
 sage is closed with a long drawn-out^ 1 . 
 
 When the violins pealed louder and louder, mounting 
 upward, it was always a delight to me to hear my own 
 powerful first string thrilling through all the others. 
 The conductor used to know this passage and the way in 
 which it told on my Strad., and invariably gave me a 
 knowing nod as he heard my violin at the first fiddle- 
 desk through all the others. I may add that, as a rule, 
 when any particular violin in a band is heard above the 
 rest, it usually belongs to a bungler ; but there are pas- 
 sages where the leading violins have carte Blanche to play 
 up, and then, if you can, you may be allowed to sing 
 through the rest ; and, if this bo anywhere allowable, it 
 is of course so at the first violin desk. 
 
 Most boys find it difficult to keep up their music at 
 school ; with me it was the reverse ; my ill health was 
 the making of my music. I had been an invalid on 
 and off up to the age of seventeen. I remember Sir 
 Benjamin Brodie, the great doctor, a thin, wizen, little 
 old man, coming and staring at me, about the year 18*18, 
 at No. 2 Spanish Place, my grandfather's house in 
 London. I was then suffering from hip disease. They 
 asked him whether I should be taken to Brighton. He 
 mumbled something to himself and turned away to speak 
 to my father aside. I merely noticed an expression of
 
 FRESHWATER, ISLE OF WIGHT. 27 
 
 great pain and anxiety on my father's face as lie listened. 
 Afterward I knew the great doctor had said it did not 
 matter where I went, for in any case I could not live. 
 He thought it was a question of weeks. He little knew 
 how much it would take to kill me. People are born 
 long-lived. It runs in families. It has little to do with 
 health and disease. If you are long-lived you will 
 weather disease, and if you are short-lived you will 
 drop suddenly in full health, or be blown out like a 
 candle, with a whiff of fever or bronchitis. Sir Ben- 
 jamin pocketed his fee and departed. In great perplex- 
 ity what to do, we cast lots ; I think it was at my sug- 
 gestion. The lot came out in favor of Brighton. To 
 Brighton I was taken, apparently in a dying state, bat 
 at my grandmother's house in Brunswick Square I 
 began rapidly to amend. 
 
 My violin was my solace, when I grew strong enough 
 to hold it again. The time that should have been spent 
 upon mathematics, Latin, and Greek was spent in my 
 case upon French, German, and music 1 may add 
 novels, for between the ages of twelve and sixteen I read 
 all Bulwer, Walter Scott, G. P. R. James, Fenirnore 
 Cooper, and, in certain visits to Bath and Bognor, I took 
 care to exhaust the ancient stores of fiction which 1 
 found secreted in the antiquated lending libraries of 
 those privileged resorts. 
 
 When I was sixteen it became evident that I was not 
 going to die ; my health was still feeble, and my gen- 
 eral education defective. I was sent to an excellent 
 tutor at the Isle of Wight, the Rev. John Bicknell, now 
 incumbent of St. Saviour's, Highbury. That good man 
 never overcame my dislike to mathematics, but he got 
 me on in Latin, and he was kind enough to tolerate my 
 violin.
 
 28 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 I could no longer play cricket, or climb trees, the 
 chief delights of my earlier days nor could I take long 
 walks with the boys. I was left entirely alone in play 
 hours i.e., almost every afternoon. 1 think I was per- 
 fectly happy by myself. And there was such utter 
 solitude for me, in the silent lanes, the summer wood- 
 lands, and by the lovely sea-shore, that well I had 
 plenty of time to think. I sat on stiles and thought ; I 
 tasted almost every kind of berry and herb that grew i:i 
 the hedges. I watched the butterflies and the teeming 
 insect life, and I would lie down in the woody recesses 
 and leafy coverts like one dead, until the birds, the rab- 
 bits, and even the weasels and stoats came close enough 
 for me to see their exquisitely clean soft fur, bright 
 eyes, or radiant plumage. I have surprised a wild hawk 
 on her nest in the gorse, and she has never moved. 
 
 About this time I wrote quantities of the most dismal 
 poetry, which appeared at intervals in the columns of 
 the Brighton papers. It was naturally a mixture of 
 Bryant and Longfellow ; later on it became a jumble of 
 Tennyson and Browning but such matters belong more 
 to literature than to music. 
 
 Oury had already begun to direct my violin studies. 
 I had ample time at school in the Isle of Wight for 
 practising, and I practised steadily nearly every day. I 
 had a faculty for practising. 1 knew what to do, and I 
 did it. I always remembered what Joachim had said 
 about tiring out the hand ; and with some abominable 
 torture passages, invented for me by that morose Pole, 
 Lapinski, 1 took a vicious pleasure in making my fingers 
 ache, and an intense delight in discovering the magical 
 effects of the torture upon my execution. 
 
 I put my chief trust in Kreutzer's exercises admira- 
 ble in invention and most attractive as musical studies
 
 AT FARUINGFORD. 29 
 
 the more difficult ones in chords being little violin solos 
 in themselves. I perfected myself in certain solos at 
 this time. 1 had no one to play my accompaniments, 
 and no one cared to hear me play at school, except some 
 of the boys who liked to hear me imitate the donkey and 
 give the farmyard entertainment including the groans 
 of a chronic invalid and a great fight of cats on the roof 
 which never failed to be greeted with rapturous ap- 
 plause. 
 
 I said no one cared to hear me play at Freshwater. 
 Yes, some people did. One autumn while I was at 
 Freshwater, an old house, Farringford, with a rambling 
 garden at the back of the downs, was let to Baron A. 
 an eminent light of the Bench and his charming 
 family. I forget how they discovered my existence, but 
 I dare say Lady A. and the young ladies found the place 
 rather dull, and they were not the people to neglect 
 their opportunities. 
 
 I received an invitation to dinner ; my violin was also 
 asked. I did not reply like Sivori when similarly in- 
 vited to bring his violin with him : " Merci ! mon 
 violonne ne dine pas !" I saw to my strings and screws, 
 put together my solos, and went. 
 
 Soon after the A.'s left Farringford it was taken by 
 the Poet Laureate. At that time I was rapidly out- 
 growing Longfellow, and my enthusiasm for Mr. Tenny- 
 son amounted to a mania : he was to me in poetry what 
 Mendelssohn was in music. I can now place him. I 
 can now see how great he is. I can now understand his 
 relation to other poets. Then I could not. He con- 
 fused and dazzled me. He took possession of my im- 
 agination. He taught me to see and to feel for the first 
 time the heights and depths of life ; to discern dimly 
 what I could then have had little knowledge of " The
 
 30 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 world with all its lights and shadows, all the wealth and 
 all the woe. ' ' In fact, Tennyson was then doing for the 
 rising generation of that age what Byron and Shelley, 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge, had done for theirs ; only he 
 united in himself more representative qualities than any 
 one of the poets who preceded him, and in this respect he 
 seems to me still a greater poet, and certainly as subtle a 
 thinker, as any one of them, Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 not excepted. 
 
 All this is an after-thought. Then I did not analyze 
 or compare. The Brighton papers received elaborate 
 prose effusions from, my pen upon the subject, at the 
 time, of a frothy and rhetorical character. Sometimes I 
 look at them in my old scrap-books, and marvel at the 
 bombast, inflation, and prodigious inanity of the mat- 
 ter and the style. No doubt I was not quite right in 
 my head about Tennyson, and this accounts for my 
 wending my steps toward Farringford one autumn 
 afternoon, soon after he had come there. The poet 
 never went to church, so the poet could never be seen. 
 The man who, in the " In Memoriam," had recently 
 reformulated the religion of the nineteenth * century, 
 might, one would have thought, be excused the dismal 
 routine that went on at the parish church, and the patris- 
 tic theology doled out by the worthy rector. But no ! 
 Mr. Tennyson's soul was freely despaired of in the 
 neighborhood, and many of the people about Freshwater 
 would have been " very faithful" with him if they could 
 only have got at him but they could not get at him. 
 Under these circumstances I got at him. 
 
 I suppose the continued play of one idea upon my 
 brain was too much for me. To live so close to the man 
 who filled the whole of my poetic and imaginative hori- 
 zon, without ever seeing him, was more than I could bear.
 
 VISIT TO TEXXYSOX IX 1854. 31 
 
 I walked over the neglected grass-grown gravel between 
 the tall "trees yellowing in the autumn, and up to the 
 glass-panelled doors, as bold as fate. 
 
 "Mr. Tennyson," said the maid, "sees no one." I 
 was aware of that. Was Mrs. Tennyson at home ? 
 Perhaps she would see me ? The servant looked dubi- 
 ous. I was a shabby -looking student, sure enough, but 
 there was something about me which could not be said 
 nay ! I evidently meant to get in, and in I got. 
 
 In another moment I found myself in the drawing- 
 room lately tenanted by the Baron and Lady A'. 
 
 There was the arm-chair where Lady A. had sat re- 
 clining, with her head resting on a little cushion, as she 
 sang " Auld Robin Gray." 
 
 There was the piano beside which Miss M. stood and 
 sang very shyly and under protest in her simple white 
 muslin dress and a rose in her hair ; there but the door 
 opened, and a quiet, gentle lady appeared, and bowed 
 silently to me. I had to begin then. 
 
 I had no excuse to make,, and so I offered no apology. 
 I had called desiring to see Mr. Tennyson, that was all. 
 
 The lady looked surprised, and sat clown by a little 
 work-table with a little work-basket on it. She asked 
 me very kindly to sit down too. So I sat down. 
 What next ? Now I grew clumsy with a vengeance. All 
 my wits forsook me. I looked out at the tangled 
 garden everything was allowed to grow wild. I had 
 to say something. I looked at the kind lady, who had 
 already taken up her work and begun plying her needle. 
 I said that my admiration for Mr. Tennyson's poems 
 was so great that, as I was living in the neighborhood, I 
 had called with an earnest desire to see him. I then 
 began to repeat that I considered his poems so exquisite 
 that a smile was on the kind lady's face as she listened
 
 32 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 for the thousand and first time to such large and general 
 praises of the Laureate's genius. But the smfte some- 
 how paralyzed me. She evidently considered me a 
 harmless lunatic, not an impertinent intruder. 
 
 This was fortunate, for had I been summarily shown 
 the door I should not have been surprised. I should not 
 have gone, for I was desperate and prepared to show 
 fight, and be' kicked out, if needful, by the Laureate 
 alone ; but the Fates were propitious. 
 
 Said Mrs. Tennyson, " My husband is always very 
 busy, and I do not at all think it likely he can gee you." 
 
 " Do you think he would if you ask him ?" I stam- 
 mered out. 
 
 Said Mrs. Tennyson, a little taken aback, " I don't 
 know." 
 
 " Then," said I, pursuing my advantage with, if 
 any calm at all, the calmness of a calm despair, " would 
 you object to asking him to see me, if only for an 
 instant ?' ' 
 
 What passed in that indulgent lady's mind I shall 
 never know ; the uppermost thought was probably not 
 nattering to me, and her chief desire was, no doubt, to 
 get rid of me : He won' t go till he has seen my hus- 
 band he ought never to have got in ; but as he is here, 
 I'll manage it and have done with him. Or she might 
 have reflected thus : The poor fellow is not right in his 
 head ; it would be a charity to meet him half-way, and 
 not much trouble. 
 
 At any rate at this juncture Mrs. Tennyson rose and 
 left the room. She was gone about four minutes by the 
 clock. It seemed to me four hours. What I went 
 through in those four minutes no words can utter. 
 " Will he come ? I almost hope he won't, ^he won't 
 come, I shall have done all I could to see him, without
 
 VISIT TO TENNYSON IX 1854. 33 
 
 experiencing a shock to which my nervous system is 
 quite unequal." At that moment, indeed, I was trem- 
 bling with excitement from top to toe. I thought I 
 would try and recollect some of his own sublime verse ; 
 it might steady me a little. I knew volumes of it by 
 heart couldn't recollect a line anywhere, except 
 
 Wrinkled ostler grim and ihin, 
 
 Here is custom come your way, 
 Take my brute and lead him in, 
 
 Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay. 
 
 I believe I was muttering this mechanically when I 
 heard a man's voice close outside the door. 
 
 " Who is it ? Is it an impostor ?" 
 
 Ah, verily, the word smote me to the heart. What 
 right had I to be there? Conscience said, "Thou art 
 the man !" I would have willingly disappeared into 
 my boots, like the genie in the fairy tale. " O, that 
 this too, too solid flesh would melt ;" but I remained 
 palpable and motionless glued to the spot. 
 
 In another moment the door opened. The man whose 
 voice 1 had heard in other words, Mr. Tennyson 
 entered. 
 
 He was not in Court-dress ; he had not a laurel wreath 
 on his head, nor a lily in his hand not even a harp. 
 
 It was in the days when he shaved. 1 have two por- 
 traits of him without a beard. I believe they are very 
 rare now. 
 
 I thought it would be inappropriate to prostrate my- 
 self, so I remained standing and stupefied. He advanced 
 toward me and shook hands without cordiality. Why 
 should he be cordial ? I began desperately to say that I 
 had the greatest admiration for his poetry ; that I could 
 not bear to leave the island without seeing him. He 
 Boon stopped me, and taking a card of Captain Crozier's
 
 34 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 which lay on the table, asked me if I knew him. I said 
 I did, and described his house and grounds in the neigh- 
 borhood of Freshwater. 
 
 I have no recollection of anything else, but I believe 
 
 some allusion was made to Baron A , when the 
 
 poet observed abruptly, "Now I must go; good- 
 by !" and he went. And that was all I saw of Mr. 
 Tennyson for nearly thirty years. The next time I set 
 eyes on him was one Sunday morning, about twenty- 
 eight years later. lie came up the side aisle of my 
 church, St. James, Westmoreland Street, Marylebone, 
 and, with his son Hallam, sat near the pulpit, almost in 
 the very spot that had been pointed out to me when I 
 was appointed incumbent as the pew occupied by 
 Hallam the historian and his son Arthur the Arthur of 
 the " In Memoriam." 
 
 But I have not quite done with the interview at Fresh- 
 water. As the poet retired, Mrs. Tennyson re-entered 
 and sat down again at her work-table. To her surprise, 
 no doubt, I also sat down. The fact is, I had crossed 
 the Rubicon, and was now in a state of considerable 
 elation and perfectly reckless. I thanked her effusively 
 for the privilege I had had I believe I made several 
 tender and irrelevant inquiries after the poet's health, 
 and wound up with earnestly requesting her to give me 
 a bit of his handwriting. 
 
 This was perhaps going a little too far but I had now 
 nothing to lose no character for sanity, or prudence, or 
 propriety ; so I went in steadily for some of the poet's 
 handwriting. 
 
 The forbearing lady pointed out that she treasured it 
 so much herself that she never gave it away. This 
 would not do. I said I should treasure it to my dying 
 day, any little scrap by which I suppose I meant that I
 
 MRS. TEXXYSOX. 35 
 
 did not require the whole manuscript of " Maud," 
 which the poet was then writing, and which is full of 
 Freshwater scenery. I might be induced to leave the 
 house with something short of that. 
 
 "With infinite charity and without a sign of irritation 
 she at last drew from her work-basket an envelope in 
 Mr. Tennyson's handwriting, directed to herself, and 
 gave it to me. 
 
 It was not his signature, but it contained his name. 
 
 Then, and then only, I rose. I returned to my school, 
 and at tea-time related to my tutor with some little pride 
 and self-conceit the nature of my exploit that afternoon. 
 He administered to me a well-merited rebuke, which, 
 as it came after my indiscretion, and in 110 way interfered 
 with my long-coveted joy, I took patiently enough and 
 with all meekness. 
 
 There is a strange link between these two old mem- 
 ories of Farringford, Isle of Wight. I may call it the 
 link of a common oblivion. Years afterward I tried to 
 recall to Lady A., who frequented my church in her 
 later days, the, to me, delicious evenings I had. spent 
 with her and her daughters at Farringford. She had 
 not the slightest recollection of ever having received me 
 there, or sung to me there, or heard me play. She re- 
 introduced nio to her eldest daughter, the Marchioness 
 of S., then Yiscountess C., one night at her house in 
 Portland Place, who was probably not aware of ever 
 having seen me before, although I remembered her well 
 at Farringford. Years afterward I tried to recall to 
 Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson that preposterous visit of mine, 
 which I have detailed, but neither of them could recall 
 it in the slightest degree. 
 
 So strange is it that events which upon some of the 
 actors leave such an indelible impression pass entirely
 
 30 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 away from tlio memories of the others and what a ser- 
 mon might be. preached on that text ! The very same 
 scene in which you and I are the only ones concerned, 
 is nothing to you, everything to me. 
 
 ye tidal years that roll aver us all be kind ! Wash 
 out the memory of our pain and the dark blots of sin 
 and grief, but leave, oh leave us bright, the burnished 
 gold of joy, and the rainbow colors of our youth ! 
 
 1 have been a martyr to bad accompanists. All 
 young ladies think they can accompany themselves so 
 why not you or any other man ? The truth is that very 
 few ladies can accompany at all. If they sing they will 
 probably try, in the absence of any musical friend, to 
 make shift with a few chords in order that the assembly 
 may not be deprived of a song. But also if they sing 
 they w r ill probably have forgotten the little they once 
 knew about pianoforte playing. To accompany yourself 
 properly you must do it with ease and accuracy : nothing 
 is so charming and nothing is so rare. 
 
 Singing ladies, especially amateurs, are pitiably un- 
 scrupulous, and moderately unconscious of the wild 
 effect produced by that fitful and inaccurate dabbling 
 with the keyboard which they palm off upon their lis- 
 teners as an accompaniment. Now and then a Scotch 
 ballad may survive such treatment a Scotch ballad 
 seems always grateful for any accompaniment at all ; 
 but to attempt Gounod or Schubert in tjris style is con- 
 duct indicative of a weak intellect and a feeble con- 
 science. 
 
 To accompany well you must not only be a good 
 musician, but you must be mesmeric, sympathetic, intui- 
 tive. You must know what I want before I tell you ; 
 you must feel which way rny spirit sets, for the motions
 
 ACCOMPANISTS. 37 
 
 of the soul are swift as an angel's flight. I cannot pause 
 in those quick and subtle transitions of emotion, fancy, 
 passion, to tell you a secret ; if it is not yours already, 
 you are unworthy of it. What ! when I had played 
 three bars thus, you could not guess that I should hurry 
 the fourth and droop with a melodious sigh upon the 
 fifth ! You dared to strike in at the end of a note 
 which my intention would have stretched out into at 
 least another semibreve ! You are untrue to the rhythm 
 of my soul. Get up from the piano, my conceited, self- 
 satisfied young lady. Your finishing lessons in music 
 can do nothing for you. Your case is hopeless. You 
 have not enough music in you to know that you are a 
 failure. 
 
 But you may be even a good musician and yet not 
 .be able to accompany. If you cannot, be passive for 
 a while. You are of no use to me. You want to take 
 the initiative ; you must always be creating ; you think 
 you know best ; you impose your " reading " upon me. 
 What ! you will do this when I am the soloist or the 
 singer ! You are professional 'tis the vice of profes- 
 sionals and I am but an amateur. No matter; if I 
 know not best, that is my affair ; for better for worse 
 you have to follow me, or you will mar me. The art of 
 true accompanying lies in a willing self-immolation. 
 An excess of sensibility, but a passive excess. Yet must 
 your collaboration be strong. You must not desert me 
 or fail me in the moment of my need or expectancy. 
 You must cover me with thunder, you must buoy me up 
 as a bark is buoyed up on the bosom of a great flood. 
 You must be still anon and wait, dream with my spirit, 
 as the winds that droop fitfully when the sea grows 
 calm and the white sails flap idly, sighing for the 
 breeze. I sleep, but my heart waketh ! Every mood of
 
 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 mine must be thine as soon as it is mine, and when all is 
 finished my soul shall bless thee, and thou too shalt feel 
 a deep content. 
 
 As from the age of seven I have always played the 
 violin more or less publicly, I entered upon my amateur 
 career at Brio-hton without the smallest nervousness. 
 
 o 
 
 My facility was very great, but my execution, although 
 showy (and, I blush to add, tricky), was never as 
 finished as I could have desired. My tone, however, 
 was considered by Oury remarkable, and except when 
 drilling me with a purpose, he would never interfere 
 with my reading of a solo. It was the only point in 
 which he gave in to me. 
 
 " I never taught you that," he would say sharply. 
 
 " Shall I alter it ?" I would ask. 
 
 " No, no, let it alone ; follow your own inspiration ; 
 you must do as you will ; the effect is good." 
 
 Indeed no one ever taught me the art of drawing tears 
 from the eyes of my listeners. Moments came to me 
 when I was playing I seemed far away from the world. 
 I was not scheming for effect there was no trick about 
 it. I could give no reason for the rail, thej9, thejPj?, 
 they. Something in my soul ordered it so, and my fin- 
 gers followed, communicating every inner vibration 
 through their tips to the vibrating string until the 
 mighty heart of the Cremona pealed out like a clarion, 
 or whispered tremblingly in response. But thoso 
 moments did not come to me in mixed, buzzing audi- 
 ences ; then I merely waged impatient war with a mob. 
 
 They came in still rooms where a few were met, and 
 the lights were low, and the windows open toward the sea. 
 
 They came in brilliantly lighted halls, what time I had 
 full command from some platform of an attentive crowd 
 gathered to listen, not to chatter.
 
 DR. WHEWELL. 39 
 
 They came when, some one or other sat and played 
 with me, whose spirit-pulses rose and fell with mine 
 in a world of sound where the morning stars seemed 
 always singing together. 
 
 I was such a thorn in the side of my accompanists 
 that at last they came to have a wholesome dread of me. 
 In this way I often was rid of playing at houses where 
 people asked me to bring my violin impromptu, because 
 I happened to be the fashion. 
 
 I went up to Trinity College in 1856. I was com- 
 pletely alone. I had an introduction to Dr. "VVhewell, 
 the Master of Trinity. Soon after passing my entrance 
 examination, I was summoned into the great man's pres- 
 ence. The Master questioned me as to my aims and 
 ambitions. I had none I told him so very simply : I 
 played the fiddle. lie seemed surprised ; but from the 
 first moment of seeing him I took a liking to him, and I 
 believe he did to me. 
 
 When he married, the Master did a very graceful 
 thing. He sent for me one morning, brought Lady 
 Affleck into the drawing-room, and said in his bluff way, 
 '* Mr. Haweis, I wish you to know Lady Affleck, my 
 wife. She is musical ; she wishes to hear your violin." 
 The Master then left me with her, and she induced me to 
 arrange to come and play at the Lodge on the following 
 night at a great party. I was to bring my own accom- 
 panist. I had played at Dr. Whe well's before that 
 night, but that night the Master paid me special atten- 
 tion. It was part of his greatness and of his true humil- 
 ity to recognize any sort of merit, even when most 
 different in kind from his own. 
 
 "Whewell's ability was of a truly cosmic and universal 
 character, but nature had denied him one gift the gift 
 of music. lie always beat time in chapel, and gener-
 
 40 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 ally sang atrociously out of tune. I do not think he had 
 any ear ; music to him was something marvellous and 
 fascinating ; he could talk learnedly on music, admire 
 music, go to concerts, have music at his house, worry 
 over it, insist upon silence when it was going on ; and 
 yet I knew, and he knew that I knew, that he knew 
 nothing about it. It was a closed world to him, a riddle, 
 yet one he was incessantly bent upon solving ; and he felt 
 that 1 had the key to it and he had not. 
 
 On that night I played Ernst's " Elegie," not quite 
 so hackneyed then as it is now, and some other occa- 
 sional pieces by Ernst, in which I gave the full rein to 
 my fancy. The Master left his company, and taking a 
 chair in front of where I stood, remained in absorbed 
 meditation during the performance. 
 
 I was naturally a little elated at this mark of respect 
 shown to an unknown freshman in the presence of so 
 many " Heads" of Houses and the elite of the Univer- 
 sity. I played my best and indulged rather freely in a 
 few more or less illegitimate dodges, which I thought 
 calculated to bewilder the great man. I was rewarded, 
 for at the close Dr. Wheweli laid his hand upon my 
 arm. " Tell me one thing ; how do you produce that 
 rapid passage, ascending and descending notes of fixed 
 intervals?" I had simply as a tour de force glided my 
 whole hand up and down the fourth open string, taking, 
 of course, the complete series of harmonics up and down 
 several times and producing thus the effect of a rapid 
 cadenza with the utmost ease ; the trick only requires a 
 certain lightness of touch, and a knowledge of where 
 and when to stop with effect. I replied that I had only 
 used the series of open harmonics which are yielded, ac- 
 cording to the well-known mathematical law, by every 
 stretched string when the vibration is interrupted at the
 
 WIIEWELL AND MUSIC. 41 
 
 fixed harmonic nodes. The artistic application of a law 
 which, perhaps, he had never realized but in theory, 
 seemed to delight him intensely, and he listened whilst 1 
 repeated the cadenza, and again and again showed him 
 the various intervals on the finger-board, where the 
 open harmonics might be made to speak ; a hair's- 
 breadth one way or the other producing a horrid scratch 
 instead of the sweet flute-like ring. It struck him as 
 marvellous how a violinist could hit upon the various 
 intervals to such a nicety, as to evoke the harmonic 
 notes. I replied that this was easy enough when the 
 hand was simply swept up and down the string as 1 had 
 done ; but that to hit upon the lesser nodes for single 
 harmonics was one of the recognized violin difficulties. 
 I then showed him a series of stopped harmonics, and 
 played, much to his surprise, a tune in stopped harmon- 
 ics. He was interested to hear that Paganini had been the 
 first to introduce this practice, which has since become 
 common property. But I have some what Anticipated. 
 
 After the anxiety of my entrance examination at 
 Trinity College, which I passed without glory, I solaced 
 my loneliness by making as much noise as I ever could 
 on my violin. My mathematics may have been weak, 
 and my classics uncertain, but it was impossible to ig- 
 nore my existence. I had not been up a fortnight 
 when the president of the Cambridge University Musical 
 Society called upon me. He believed I played the vio- 
 lin. " How did he know that ?" Tasked. He laughed 
 out, "Everybody in the place knows it." Then and 
 there he requested me to join the Musical Society, and 
 play a solo at the next concert. I readily agreed, and 
 from that time I became solo violinist at the Cambridge 
 Musical Society, and played a solo at nearly every con- 
 cert in the Town Hall for the next three years.
 
 42 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 I confess to some nervousness on my first public ap- 
 pearance at a University Concert. It was a grand night. 
 Sterndale Bennett, our new professor of music, himself 
 conducted his " May Queen," and I think Mr. Coleridge, 
 an enthusiastic amateur and old musical star at the 
 University, since very well known in London, sang. I 
 had selected as my cheval de fiataille, Rode's air in G- with 
 variations, and to my own surprise, when my turn came 
 to go on, I was quite shaky. The hall was crammed, 
 the Master of Trinity sat in the front row with other 
 heads of colleges and their families. I tuned in the 
 anteroom. Some one offered me a glass of wine. I had 
 never resorted to stimulants before playing, but I rashly 
 drank it ; it was in my head at once. Sterndale Bennett 
 conducted me to the platform. I was a total stranger to 
 the company a freshman in my second month only. 
 My fingers felt limp and unrestrained, my head was half 
 swimming. The crowd looked like a mist. I played 
 with exaggerated expression. I tore the passion to tat- 
 ters. I trampled on the time. I felt the excess of sen- 
 timent was bad, and specially abhorrent to Sterndalo 
 Bennett, who followed my vagaries like a lamb, bless 
 him forever ! 
 
 But the thing took. The style was new ; at least it 
 was unconventional and probably daring, for I really 
 hardly knew what I was about. The air was listened to 
 in dead silence, half out of curiosity no doubt ; but a 
 burst of applause followed the last die-away notes. I 
 plunged into the variations ; I felt my execution slovenly 
 and beneath my usual mark ; but I was more than once 
 interrupted by applause, and at the close of the next 
 cantabile movement of extreme beauty, which I played 
 better a sort of meditation on the original air the en- 
 thusiasm rose to fever pitch ; men stood up in the dis-
 
 OLD YEXUA : A STRANGE VISITOR. 43 
 
 tant gallery and waved their caps, and I remained hold- 
 ing my violin, unable to proceed with the last rapid 
 variation. When silence was restored I played this 
 atrociously ; I hardly played it at all ; it was quite wild. 
 Sternclale Bennett, seeing that it was all up with me that 
 night, hurried and banged it through anyhow ; but the 
 critical faculty of the room was gone so was my head. 
 I had won by a toss, and although then, and often after- 
 ward, owing to neglect of practice, I was frequently 
 not up to my own mark, my position as solo violinist at 
 the University Concerts was never disputed up to the 
 time that I took my degree. 
 
 One day as I was sitting in my arrn-chair with an open 
 book upon my knee, contemplating vaguely the row of 
 china musicians' heads on little brackets over my man- 
 telpiece, a knock came at the door. My " oak was 
 sported," and I accordingly " did the dead." I was in 
 no mood for interruption. In front of me, in the cen- 
 tre of my china row of busts Handel, Mozart, Haydn, 
 Chopin stood Mendelssohn's bust, raised above the rest 
 and draped with black velvet, with F. M. B. in gold on 
 the velvet. The china face at times, as the light caught 
 the shadows about the delicate mouth, seemed to smile 
 down upon me. The high forehead surrounded by 
 wavy hair, the aquiline nose "What ? more knock- 
 ings ! I rose at last, and opening the door brusquely 
 was confronted by a strange figure with a sort of wide 
 plaid waistcoat, well-made frock-coat, heavily-dyed thin 
 whiskers, and dark wig (as I well saw when the 
 broad-brimmed hat was off), yellow gloves, and patent 
 boots. Middle-aged ? ]^o in spite of the wig and 
 showy gct-up old, very old, but oddly vigorous, in- 
 clined to embonpoint, ruddy, florid, perhaps choleric 
 face, marked features overspread now with a beaming
 
 44 Ml' MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 smile and a knowing twinkle in the rather rheumy 
 eyes. 
 
 I never saw such an odd man. My anger evaporated. 
 I laughed out almost, and instinctively extended my 
 hand and shook that of the irresistible stranger warmly, 
 although I did not know him from Adam. 
 
 o 
 
 "Beg pardon," he said, "may I come in? I tell 
 you, my friend, my name is Yenua never heard of me 
 no matter old Venua knows you : heard you play at 
 the Town Hall got the stuff in you ; you can play. 
 Old Venua, dey say to me, he know all about it he can 
 tell you how to play. Forty year ago you should have 
 heard me play de fiddle. I play de fiddle now ; gif me 
 your fiddle vonderful tone your fiddle where is your 
 fiddle ?" 
 
 All this was uttered without a pause, very rapidly. 
 
 The strange, rambling, stuttering, energetic, decided 
 old creature had now rolled into my room ; he had sat 
 down and pulled out an enormous silk pocket-handker- 
 chief. Then an old gold snuff-box. " This gif me by 
 ze Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt. You take a 
 pinch ? Oh no ! You are young man. You know 
 noding of snuff bad 'abit young man, bad 'abit ! never 
 you take snnff ! Old Yenua can' t get on widout his snuff. 
 All de bigwigs take snuff with old Yenua but where is 
 your fiddle ? bring him out I say. Vonderful tone let 
 me see him. ' ' 
 
 What a jargon ! "Was it Italian, French, or German- 
 English ? 1 could never make out. In an old book, 
 only the other day, I met with a short biography of a 
 certain Venua, violinist, who flourished at the beginning 
 of this century. Old Venua, of Cambridge, was un- 
 doubtedly this man. He was very long past his prime 
 and utterly forgotten. I brought him out the fiddle ;
 
 TENUA'S TALK. 45 
 
 lie put it to bis cliin ; in a moment I could see lie had 
 played his touch, execution, all but bis intonation were 
 gone, but his style was first-rate and his expression ad- 
 mirable in intention. 
 
 From that day I and old Yenua became close allies. 
 He used to ask me to dine with him, generally on Sun- 
 day, and his ceaseless flow of anecdote and dramatic 
 style of conversation amused me greatly. 
 
 He had known Paganini, he had seen Beethoven, 
 he had chatted with Spohr, he remembered the first 
 Napoleon. He mimicked Haydn's style of conversa- 
 tion, violin in hand, as though he had been intimate 
 with him too. Yet this was in 1859, and Haydn died 
 in 1809. 
 
 " Gif me a sobjech," says Haydn. " Zo ! here 
 Tra-la-doi-e-dee-dee, etc., etc. Zat will do, mein 
 freund. Haydn make you on zat sobjech a beautiful 
 melody, and work it wonderful ; gif you him a start off, 
 he do all the rest. No quartet like the Haydn quartet, 
 my young freund he is the great master of the string 
 instrument he knows the just combinazione he gif all 
 their due. Spohr he all first fiddle he make all de rest 
 lacqueys to first fiddle. Mendelssohn he make an or- 
 chestra of his quartet. Beethoven vonderf ul always. 
 Mozart he learn all of Haydn he come after him and 
 die before him. He never write quartet better zan de 
 Papa Haydn he find new ideas and he write new things 
 he great master of vat you call de form of his 
 composition but in de string quartet Haydn ze great 
 creator a Brince a real Brince and founder of ze 
 quartet art !" 
 
 Yenua loved the violin, and his impromptu lectures 
 upon it taught me much always characteristic, humor- 
 ous, genial, and to the point.
 
 46 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 " If you want to make a man irritable, discontented, 
 restless, miserable, give liim a violin." 
 
 "Why?" said I. 
 
 "Because," lie replied and I will now resume to 
 some extent the use of my own language " the violin is 
 the most exacting and inexorable of non-human things. 
 A loose joint somewhere and he goes ' tubby ' (a term 
 used to express a dull vibration), a worn finger-board and 
 he squeaks, a bridge too high and his note grows hard 
 and bitter, or too low and he whizzes, or too forward 
 and one string goes loud, or too backward and two 
 strings go soft and weak ; and the sound-post (i.e. the 
 little peg which bears the strain on the belly and back), 
 mein Gott ! dat is de Teifcl." But, correcting himself, 
 he added, " Ko, the French are right, they call it the 
 soul of the violin, Vdme du violon / and it is the soul 
 if that is not right, all the fiddle goes wrong. A man 
 may sit the whole morning worrying the sound-post a 
 shade this way or that, and at last, in despair, he will 
 give it up ; then he will go to the bridge and waste his 
 whole afternoon fidgeting it about, and then he will give 
 that up. A hair' s-bread th this way with the bridge 
 oh \ the fourth string is lovely ; but, bah ! the second 
 and third are killed ; a little back then, and now the 
 fourth is dead, and the chanterelle (i.e. first string) sings 
 like a lark misery ! it is the only string vat sing at all. 
 Give him a fiddle !" cried the old gentleman, gesticulat- 
 ing ; " yes, give him a fiddle, it will make him mad !" 
 
 Interspersed with such droll exaggerations were ex- 
 cellent hints, such as, " Leave your bridge and your 
 sound-post alone if ever you get the fiddle to sound near 
 right ; don't change your bridge unless you are abso- 
 lutely obliged sound-board, neck, head, nut, everything, 
 but not the bridge ; a fiddle and a bridge that have
 
 A SACRIFICE. 47 
 
 lived for years together love each other as man and 
 wife ; let them alone, my young freund, vy make mis- 
 chief ?" and old Yenua's eye twinkled as he chuckled 
 at his own joke, and never ceased talking and nourishing 
 his arms. 
 
 It was Yenua who first taught me about the fabric of 
 the violin what my old master, Oury who was a pupil 
 of Mori first made me feel about violin playing a 
 tender love and sympathy for the instrument as well as 
 the art. 
 
 What was Yenua's connection with Cambridge I 
 never could make out. He seemed independent. He 
 had long ceased to teach or play, yet he was frequently 
 away, and appeared only at intervals, always retaining 
 the same lodgings at Cambridge, and generally giving 
 me a call when he was in town. When I came up, 
 about a year after leaving the University, for my volun- 
 tary theological examination, I inquired for my old 
 friend Venua ; but he was gone, and no one could give 
 me any news of him. I never saw him again. He re- 
 mained to me simply a detached episode in my musical 
 life.* 
 
 From the time that I entered the Church I have never 
 played to any real purpose. I resolved to make that 
 sacrifice, and no subsequent reflection has led me to re- 
 pent of my decision. 1 could never have played the 
 violin by halves, and had I come up to London and en- 
 tered the Church in the character of a fiddling parson, I 
 should in all probability never have got credit for, or 
 applied myself seriously to win, any other position. At 
 all events, I should have been heavily weighted and laid 
 
 * As this is passing through the press there comes to me news that 
 lie died and was buried at Cambridge.
 
 48 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 myself open to many temptations. I should always 
 have been coining West in search of musical society and 
 distraction, and people would have said, as indeed my 
 old friends have said, and as my caricaturists continue to 
 say, " He should have stuck to the one thing which he 
 could do well, and not meddled with theology." These 
 good people sometimes gave me credit for having made 
 an heroic sacrifice. They knew nothing about it. The 
 sacrifice I made was a very small one. From the age of 
 eight to the age of twenty-three I had played the fiddle 
 in season and out of season. Applause had lost its 
 charm for me. I was hardened to flattery. My own 
 critical taste disenchanted me with my own perform- 
 ances. Nothing but the best suited me, and I knew I 
 never could attain to that as an executant myself, 
 because I never could take up the violin professionally. 
 Then, fiddling was not my only taste. I had a passion 
 for oratory, for literature, for the study of human nat- 
 ure, and for church work. For a time my new paro- 
 chial sphere with its special enthusiasms expelled every- 
 thing else.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HEAKIXG MUSIC. 
 
 WOULD you rather be blind or deaf ? Most people 
 will illogically reply, " Neither !" but when pressed, 
 nine out of ten will be found to answer, " Leave me the 
 sight of my eyes let me be deaf." Yet all experience 
 shows that they are wrong. Deafness tries the temper 
 more, isolates more, unfits for social converse, cuts off 
 from the world of breathing, emotional activity, tenfold 
 more than blindness. There is something as yet un- 
 analyzed about sound, which doubles and intensifies at 
 all points the sense of living : when we hear we are 
 somehow more alive than when we see. Apart from 
 sound, the outward world has a dreamlike and unreal 
 look we only half believe in it ; we miss at each 
 moment what it contains. It presents, indeed, innumer- 
 able pictures of still-life ; but these refuse to yield up 
 half their secrets. If any one is inclined to doubt this, 
 let him stop his cars with cotton wool for five min- 
 utes, and sit in the room with some intelligent friend 
 who enjoys the full use of his ears, and at the end of five 
 or ten minutes let the two compare notes. Of course, 
 we must suppose that both are doing nothing, except the 
 one taking stock of his loss, and the other taking stock 
 of his gain. 
 
 I sit, then, in my chair stone deaf. I look up at the 
 pictures on the wall a man driving a goat, a haystack, 
 and some pigs an engraving of Millais's " Black
 
 50 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Brunswicker. " lam tired of tlie sight of it. I notice 
 the bird on his perch ; his mouth is wide open, he looks 
 to me as if he were in a fit. I point at him in an 
 alarmed manner ; my friend shakes his head with a smile 
 the bird's only singing. I can't say I am glad to hear 
 it, for I cannot hear anything. Presently my friend 
 rises and goes to the door, opens it what on earth for ? 
 "Why, in jumps the cat. 1 suppose he heard it outside ; 
 it might have mewed till doomsday, as far as my ears 
 were concerned. My strange companion has no sooner 
 sat down on his chair, than he jumps up as if stung. 
 He points out, in answer to my bewildered look, that the 
 legs are loose ; he must have heard them creak, I sup- 
 pose. Then he goes up to the clock, and begins wind- 
 ing it up ; he must have noticed that it had left off tick- 
 ing. I might not have found that out for hours. 
 Another start ! he rushes from the room, I follow 
 the maid has spilt the coal-scuttle all down the stairs ; 
 he probably heard the smash. My wife might have 
 fallen down-stairs and broken her neck, and I should 
 have known nothing about it. No sooner are we alone 
 again, than he once more rises, I know not why ; but 1 
 perceive he is met at the door by some one who has called 
 him ; it is of no use for any one to call me. 
 
 There happens to be a kettle on the fire, and at a par- 
 ticular moment my prudent friend rises. I should never 
 have thought of it the kettle is going to boil over ; he 
 liears. All this is insupportable. I am being left out 
 of life it is worse than being shut up in the dark. I 
 tear the wool out of my ears long before the expiration 
 of the ten minutes, and my friend addresses me as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " I pass over the canary, the cat, the chair, the coal- 
 pcuttle, and the kettle. You happened to find out about
 
 THE MUSICAL EAR. 51 
 
 them a clay after the fair by using your eyes ; but besides 
 all this, of liow much vivid life were you deprived how- 
 many details of consciousness, how many avenues of 
 thought were lost to you in less than ten minutes ! As 
 I sat, I could hear your favorite nocturne of Chopin 
 being played in the next room. Perhaps you did not 
 know it was raining ; nor should I have noticed it, only 
 I heard it on the skylight. I therefore rang the bell, 
 ordered a trap-door open in the roof to be shut, and sent 
 the carriage for a lady who would have otherwise had to 
 walk home. You did not notice a loud crack behind 
 you ; but, in fact, a hot coal flew out of the fire, and I 
 seized it in time to prevent mischief. The postman's 
 knock reminded me of some letters I ought to write, and 
 I made a note of them. The band playing outside put 
 me in mind of some concert-tickets I had promised to 
 send. A neighboring church-bell reminded me of the 
 fact that it was Wednesday, and about a quarter to 
 eleven o'clock. Punch and Judy heard in the distance 
 reminded me of the children, and some toys I had prom- 
 ised. I could hear the distant wliistle of a train. The 
 pleasant crackling of the fire behind me was most genial. 
 I let a poor bee out who was buzzing madly upon the 
 window-pane. I heard a ring at the street-bell ; presently 
 I heard a well-known voice in the hall. I knew who 
 had arrived ; I knew who met him ; I could shrewdly 
 conjecture where they went together, and I guessed not 
 unnaturally that the children's lessons would be neg- 
 lected that morning, since a far more agreeable compan- 
 ion had stepped in to monopolize the eldest daughter. 
 Of all which things, my poor friend, you knew nothing, 
 because your ears were stuffed with cotton wool." 
 
 Alas ! too many of us go through life with our ears 
 stuffed with cotton wool. Some persons can hear, but
 
 52 KY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 not well ; others can hear common sounds and musical 
 sounds, and no one would suspect in them any defect, 
 until it some day turns out that they do not know the 
 difference between " God save the Queen" and " Auld 
 lang syne. ' ' Thus we reach the distinction between the 
 common ear and the musical ear. Then, in connection 
 with the musical ear, there are mysteries. Some cannot 
 hear sounds lower than a certain note ; others cannot 
 hear them higher than a certain note, as musical sounds. 
 
 The mystery of the musical ear has not been solved. 
 Yet some things are known about it. There is probably 
 no ear so radically defective except a deaf car as to be 
 incapable of a certain musical training. The curate who 
 arrives in a High Church parish without a notion of the 
 right note to intone upon, and with the vaguest powers 
 of singing it when it is given him, in a few months 
 learns to take fairly the various pitches in the service. 
 
 But still the question remains a physiological one 
 why is one ear musical and another not ? Professor 
 Helmholtz, whose discoveries in the sound-world are 
 only comparable to the discoveries of Newton in the 
 world of light, has put forth an ingenious theory some- 
 what to this effect : He discovered within the ear, and 
 soaked in a sensitive fluid, rows and rows of microscopic 
 nerves several hundred in number each one of which, 
 like the string of a pianoforte, he believed vibrated to 
 some note ; therefore, we were to infer that just as a 
 note sung outside a piano will set up in the correspond- 
 ing wire a sympathetic vibration, so any sound or 
 sounds in the outer world represented by a nerve wire, 
 or nerves in the ear, could be heard by the ear ; and, as 
 a consequence, I suppose any absence of or defect in 
 these internal nerve wires would prevent us from hear- 
 ing the sound as others better constituted would hear it.
 
 WHAT IS THE MUSICAL EAR? 53 
 
 The next direct question of musical ear now becomes 
 one of inherited tendency and special training. The 
 musical ear is the ear that has learned by constantly 
 using the same intervals to recognize the tones and 
 semi-tones of the usual scale, and to regard all variations 
 of quarter-tones as exceptions and subtleties not to be 
 taken account of in the general construction of melody 
 and harmony. Now, our octave, and our division of 
 the octave into tones and semi-tones, is not artificial, but 
 natural, founded as much upon certain laws of sound- 
 vibration as our notation (if I may say so) of color is 
 founded upon the laws of light- vibration. But although 
 the selection of eight notes with their semi-tones is the 
 natural and scientific scale, seeing that the ear is capable 
 of hearing impartially vast numbers of other vibrations 
 of sound which produce vast numbers of other intervals, 
 quarter-notes, etc., what we have to do in training the 
 musical ear is just to harp on the intervals which com- 
 pose the musical scale in various keys, and on these only. 
 In this way the ear is gradually weaned from sym- 
 pathy with what is out of tune ceases to be dog-like or 
 savage-like, and becomes the cultured organ for recogniz- 
 ing the natural order and progression of those measured 
 and related vibrations which we call musical sound. Of 
 course, a tendency like this can be inherited just as 
 much as any other, and in almost all cases it can be im- 
 proved and cultivated. 
 
 I have mentioned Professor lielmholtz's theory, but 
 have reason to think that he is not, on reconsideration, 
 prepared to indorse it fully. The little rows of minute 
 nerve-wires, each vibrating to a definite sound, are indeed 
 a fascinating idea ; but whether true or false, it enables 
 us, by a kind of physical parable, to understand the 
 sort of way in which the ear, being capable of perceiving
 
 54 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 a large variety of sounds, may be trained to give the 
 preference to certain ones by constantly allowing itself 
 to be exercised by their vibrations, and accustoming it- 
 self to select certain notes, and establish between them 
 definite and fixed relations. The exact physical mechan- 
 ism which enables the ear to do this may have yet to be 
 discovered, but that it exists there can be no doubt, and 
 the use and cultivation of it is in fact the use and culti- 
 vation of what we call " an ear for music." 
 
 And now I feel I owe the reader an apology. When 
 I have some subject which I am desirous to discuss, 
 something over which I may have been brooding for 
 years, my first instinct is to plunge into the middle of 
 it ; my second is to begin at the beginning ; my third 
 (and this is the one I generally succumb to) is to begin 
 before the beginning. Thus the important remarks 
 which I am about to make on hearing music have been 
 fairly pushed aside, first, by one preface on the sense of 
 hearing generally, and second, by another preface on the 
 musical ear in particular ; but In medias res shall be 
 my motto now ; no more dallying with the subject ; no 
 more strutting in front of the curtain ; no more pro- 
 logue the actors wait, the bell rings, the curtain rises ; 
 let us hope there is a good audience. 
 
 This is an afternoon " AT HOME." These words, 
 you will observe, are printed in very large type. In a 
 corner of the card we gather from the small word 
 "music," the quite mixed and genial nature of the 
 whole entertainment. Signer Boreo Guffaw, the well- 
 known bass singer, is expected to look in, a few ama- 
 teurs have promised to help if necessary, and every one 
 who knows Mrs. de Perkins is aware that this is one of 
 those two annual assemblies in which that well-meaning
 
 ilKS. BE PERKINS "AT HOME." 53 
 
 lady endeavors to pay off the various dinners and (l At 
 Homes' ' which she may herself have been exposed to 
 during the last year. De Perkins, who is elderly, en- 
 gaged in the city, and not wealthy, won't give dinners ; 
 he does not like these " At Homes ;" but he is told 
 that they are necessary and then Guffaw, who taught 
 Mrs. de Perkins before she was married, is very good- 
 natured, and so is every one ; and the rooms, not very 
 large, are soon full, the staircase early ceases to be navi- 
 gable, and Mrs. de Perkins, who really is rather nice, 
 stands at the door, and does her best to catch every 
 one's eye, although, by a certain wild and anxious look 
 in her face, we know that she is wondering why Guffaw 
 does not begin. 
 
 Jammed into a niche which just fits me if I hold my 
 arms quite stiff, and stand up stark and straight, I pres- 
 ently hear the eminent foreigner begin " In questa 
 Tomba 'scura." Do I enjoy this song? In the first 
 place I am ill at ease. I crane my neck to look round 
 the corner. I can just see the portly basso with his 
 thumbs in his waistcoat pockets ; but just opposite me 
 stands my hostess receiving more guests, and the conse- 
 quence is that Guffaw's " Tomba" is mixed up with 
 all kinds of sotto voce's " So glad you've come," 
 " How's- -?" "You mustn't talk," "Tea in the 
 next room" while in front of me conversation, 
 momentarily suspended, recommences, all about some 
 garden party and some one being lost, and where they 
 were found, and who they were with, and so on. 
 
 Do I enjoy the music ? Whether I do or not, I in- 
 tend to get out of this miserable niche away to the 
 other room, where there is tea. The song is over, and 
 there is naturally a pause in the conversation : at last I 
 find some one that I wish to talk to. I am just explain-
 
 56 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 ing with unequalled lucidity the new scheme for boring 
 the Channel Tunnel attracting, in short, more than one 
 attentive listener when up trips my anxious but smiling 
 hostess : " You must really listen to this gentleman who 
 is playing a clergyman, you know, most gifted ; he 
 plays nothing but the oldest masters, Bach, and that 
 sort, you know. Hush ! hush !" and she glides off tap- 
 ping and silencing people right and left, just as they 
 have got into a nice chat and are beginning to make 
 way as I was, in fact. 
 
 T look round me. Disappointed, cross, irritable-look- 
 ing faces, which a moment before were smiling and ani- 
 mated, and from the distance the hard tinkle of the per- 
 fectly self-satisfied musician grating upon every one's 
 nerves why ? Not because it is so bad ; simply because 
 it is not wanted then and there. Gradually, as the ever- 
 lasting fugue goes on and on, or runs into another fugue, 
 people begin to talk feebly. I begin about the Channel 
 again, but by this time my audience has dispersed ; my 
 most devoted hearer a lady who suffers frightfully 
 from sea-sickness does not seem to remember where I 
 left off. I can't quite remember myself we drop the 
 subject. I have to begin all over again, but with 
 something different, to some one else ; then at last the 
 fugue leaves off. Did any one enjoy the music ? Then 
 Guffaw is put on to sing a duet just as I was telling that 
 capital story about the sparrow in church. Well, of 
 course it was no good, all the point was taken out of it 
 because I had to hurry over it and end in a guilty kind 
 of underbreath. I did not stay to hear the new amateur 
 tenor, Mr. Flutuloo, who, 1 am told, sang with an eye- 
 glass fixed rigidly in one eye, while he positively wept 
 with the other. I can believe that the sensation he 
 created may have been considerable ; I was a great deal
 
 CONCERTS AND BALLADS. 57 
 
 too sore about the Channel Tunnel and the sparrow, 
 etc., to care ; in short, I left Mrs. de Perkins's At Home 
 in a very bad humor after, I regret to say, hearing some 
 music, but certainly not enjoying it. The moral of this 
 is 
 
 1. Let it be either music or conversation, but not 
 both. 
 
 2. If music, let all the audience be musical, and all 
 the musicians good. 
 
 3. Don't cram the room and suffocate the singers, but 
 ask a moderate company, let them all be seated, and let 
 the conversation in between be limited to the merest in- 
 terchange of courtesies. 
 
 4. Avoid the current musical "At Home." The 
 De Perkins method never answers ; it offends the real 
 musicians, encourages musical impostors, and bores the 
 company. 
 
 Some people enjoy themselves at concerts. But 
 " some people" and "concerts" are vague terms. 
 You must go with the right people, and you must go to 
 the right concerts. These right conditions will, of 
 course, vary according to taste and cultivation. The 
 right people for you are in all cases the people with 
 whom you are musically in sympathy. The right con- 
 certs for you are the concerts you can at least in some 
 measure enjoy and understand. The classical pedant 
 sneers at people who delight in ballad concerts and hate 
 "Wagner ; but the greatest composers have not been above 
 ballads, and although there are bad ballads, yet the 
 characteristics of a ballad namely, that it should be 
 lyrical, simple, and easily understood are not bad char- 
 acteristics. Some of the greatest men have been infinite 
 losers because they happened to be generally unintel- 
 ligible, while inferior people have exercised an influ-
 
 58 MY MUSICAL MEMO HIES. 
 
 ence out of proportion to their merits, simply because 
 they made themselves generally understood. And be it 
 observed, that this element of intelligibility is one com- 
 mon to the ballad and all the greatest works of art. The 
 greatest men all " strike home." The transfiguration is 
 simple so is the Moses of Michael Angelo. So is Han- 
 del's Messiah taken as a whole. So is the Elijah of 
 Mendelssohn. They are a great deal more than simple, 
 but they are that. 
 
 There are other kinds of mixed concerts which have 
 their excuse, but they are private ; there are no contra- 
 dictions, no aggravations, no jolts in them. We are not 
 shocked out of one phase of emotion into another ; we 
 are not compelled to swallow an Italian bitffo song after a 
 duet from Mozart's requiem, or a ballad of Claribel, fol- 
 lowed by a bit of Spohr's Last Judgment. And yet the 
 programme is mixed, varied as the conversation of 
 friends is varied, flitting birdlike through many lands, 
 pausing above giddy precipices, gliding over summer 
 seas, lingering in bright meadows, poised above pop- 
 ulous cities, lingering about the habitations of man. 
 But no more prosy efforts to describe what is indescriba- 
 ble ; let the curtain rise once more and let the actors 
 themselves appear before me. 
 
 She is fair, with brown-red hair ; she is serene, with 
 one of those quiet, equable temperaments, whose priv- 
 ilege it is to blend others into harmony by yielding to 
 each new wave of thought and feeling as it rises, with 
 that sort of simple, unaffected pleasure, the very sight 
 of which makes others happy. Alas ! she has been 
 dead these many summers ; yet it is the privilege of 
 memory to unlock the doors of old rooms, and find there 
 suddenly, as in a dream, the scenes that have faded out 
 of the real world forever. For a moment I close my
 
 SHADOWS OF THE PAST. 59 
 
 eyes. It is an autumn e\ 7 ening by the sea. How pleas- 
 antly the waves came plashing in as we paced the shore 
 in the deepening night ! We spoke of those weird songs 
 of Schubert which seem like sad eyes looking out into 
 the sunset over some waste of measureless waters ; we 
 spoke of those Nocturnes of Chopin, like dream scenes, 
 painted on tinted backgrounds. 
 
 "His life," said Ferdinand, "was what Kovalis 
 would have called a dream within a dream." 
 
 "Yes," I answered, "but a dream always starting 
 from reality and breaking into it again." 
 
 " And is not that reflected in his music?" rejoined 
 Estelle. " It makes it sometimes quite terrible to me, 
 the harsh contrast between the reality and the dream, a 
 chord, a transition bar, and then fainter and fainter 
 grows the shadow-land, so intensely real and passionate 
 the moment before it darkens and melts into a thin, 
 cold mist just as those gorgeous shadows of purple and 
 orange on the sea, which seemed a minute ago almost 
 substantial, melt and leave the cold sea dark, and the air 
 keen and sharp." 
 
 "Yes, that was the history of Chopin's life; the 
 love of Madame Sand was his dream, and the awaken- 
 ing was the cold sea and the sharp, keen air that killed 
 him." 
 
 " But before the end what dreams haunted him, frag- 
 ments of the never-forgotten days, embalmed in fugitive 
 melody, and mystically woven harmonies ! I think he 
 must have lived over again* perfectly in such moments. 
 They were the realities ; and the outer-life, latterly at 
 least, became the dream. Listen ! 
 
 * * # x * * 
 
 " What sweetness ia here, this grassy bank, these 
 drooping citron flowers, these glowing azaleas, fringing
 
 60 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 the summer islet, set like a jewel in the bosom of the 
 Mediterranean ! The name of Lucrezia Floriani rises 
 to my lips, the name of the Prince Karol, who is 
 Chopin. Time is not. These skies are eternally blue. 
 This welling up of crystal water, just kissing the fringe 
 of drooping blossom against the shore ; this hum of in- 
 sect life, breaking the silence, only to make the summer 
 air more slumbrous ; the little rain-cloud on the horizon, 
 which, toward evening, will creep up, until the distance 
 is blotted out, and the black sky is rent with forked 
 lightning such things entered into Chopin's soul, and 
 live forever in his profound and strange musical reveries. 
 " But apart from this deeply personal element, the 
 deepest thing of all, as it is in the nature of every true 
 Pole, was the undertone of sad patriotism ; this pierces 
 when least expected ; this is never long absent. Listen ! 
 
 * V: * w # * 
 
 " It is a dazzling crowd, glittering with diamond 
 lights a profusion of rare jewels ; the halls are filled 
 with perfume, the strains of a mazurka are in the air. 
 They seem to call forth as by magic, and support with 
 the breath of some mystic life, these floating, swaying 
 forms of beautiful women, and these countrymen of 
 Chopin, without a country ; and as the dance goes weaving 
 on, with a certain dreamy and pensive grace, we per- 
 ceive that in the heart of the music there is a deep 
 wound, a minor chord of inextinguishable pain, hidden 
 by lovely arabesques of subtle sweetness, winning, be- 
 guiling, subduing, but never for long hiding the for- 
 lorn sorrow of a hopeless but undying patriotism. Xow 
 it is a Polonaise. Listen ! 
 
 . r .. *'*.*.'# 
 
 " What enterprise, what indomitable effort to achieve 
 the impossible, what frantic exploits, as of one resolved
 
 A tflGHT IN THE PAST. 61 
 
 to die on the battle-field, but before dying to overwhelm 
 with deeds of intrepid valor his terrible and relentless 
 foe ! The pauses are the pauses of sheer exhaustion ; in 
 them we catch through the sulphurous clouds a sight of 
 remote battle-scenes and distant combinations, until i.he 
 warrior rises again in his strength, and once more for a 
 time his enemies fly scattered. ' ' 
 
 " I shall think of all this when I play your favorite 
 Polonaise." She drew her shawl close to her the mist 
 crept round the bay it was no longer summer ; we 
 went in, we three, Low happy, how harmonious, 
 blended by the grace the free, the tender grace of 
 one lovely and beloved presence ! 
 
 * **** 
 
 Unlock the door let no footfall from the present 
 disturb this shadow- scene. It is the old room the 
 familiar room. I see her there. There is no sense of 
 strangeness or unreality about her ; she smiles, as she 
 was wont to smile, she moves softly her fingers turn 
 the music leaves the candles are lighted her face is 
 half in shade 1 can hear her low melodious laugh. I 
 seem to be once more holding my Stradivarius violin 
 lovingly. What ! there is no sign of dust, or age, or 
 neglect about this long-closed room. As we go back to 
 past chapters of a beloved story, so have I gone back to 
 read again a fragment of life, and as I look, and look, 
 and look, the intervening years roll away, the shadows 
 become real, " till only the dead seem living, and only 
 the living seem dead." 
 
 Let it be Mendelssohn's D minor trio. The playing of 
 that night remains with me. AVe seemed alive sensi- 
 tively alive to every vibration ; her fingers caressed the 
 cool ivory keys lovingly, the Stradivarius spoke raptur- 
 ously to the lightest touch of the bow, the full-toned
 
 62 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 violoncello gave out the deep but tender notes, like the 
 voices of the sea in enchanted caves. How clean and 
 " seizing," as the French say, was her rendering of the 
 opening movement ! How wonderfully woven-in were 
 the parts ! We all three made but one, yet retaining 
 our perfect individualities. A mystic presence invisible 
 seemed to be with us ; we felt as if playing in the presence 
 of the great, the gentle Mendelssohn ; and though we 
 played, so absorbed were we, that we seemed at the same 
 moment to be following our own music like listeners, in 
 ourselves and out of ourselves. Between the movements 
 we spoke not. I marked the flush upon her cheek the 
 bright light in her eyes. He was grave, intensely pre- 
 occupied the dream-power was upon us all. The peace 
 and full contentment of the slow movement with its rich 
 and measured flow of melody melting at last into that 
 heavenly trance at the close, which leaves us at the open 
 gates of Paradise ; then the sudden break at the scherzo, 
 as though a joyous troop of lower earth- spirits had burst 
 in to tear us away from the divine contemplation, and 
 toss us back into a world of wild uproar and merriment ; 
 then a slight pause before the tempestuous, but intensely 
 earnest, conclusion. Here is the battle of life, with its 
 suspense, its failure, its endeavor striving for the vic- 
 tory, its wild and passionate overthrow, its indomitable 
 recovery and untamed valor ; that is the bracing and 
 sublime atmosphere of the last movement more true to 
 life than ecstasy, more wholesome than peace, more dig- 
 nified than pleasure ; and that is where the D minor 
 trio leaves us. 
 
 Then we drifted into talk of Mendelssohn. As she 
 sat she occasionally played some fragment from a con- 
 certo some striking chord from the St. Paul, some pas- 
 sage from Ruy jBlas, or an echo from the incomparably
 
 A XIGHT li* TUL} PAST. G3 
 
 delicate overture to the beautiful "Melusine," till one 
 said " Sing," and she sang from Schumann, the ballads 
 from Heine those tragedies and melodramas in three 
 verses, or in two lines, and Brahm's " Guten Abend, 
 Gate Xacht." Then followed songs without words, and 
 sitting in the shadow I saw her face in the light, and 
 felt her spirit rise and fall upon the pulses of invisible 
 sound, in unison with ours. Then came some of Ernst's 
 reveries on the violin, and so the evening wore away, 
 and we took no account of the liours. 
 
 Were there any other listeners ? Yes, at times one 
 and another of them would recall a passage a like- 
 ness between Mendelssohn and Bach, a phrase of Scar- 
 latti, or a combination of Wagner in a Brahms move- 
 ment. 
 
 This, if you like, was a mixed programme, but its 
 parts were mixed with subtle sympathies, and united by 
 the finest threads of thought and emotion. Thus we 
 moved on from one delight to another with no sense 
 of unpleasant or disjointed break as those who pass out 
 of a lovely grotto into the sunlight, and after winding 
 through hedgerows of May bloom to the quiet shore, 
 pass back into a garden of tall trees and smooth lawns, 
 and thence to some lovely conservatory filled with tropi- 
 cal bloom, thence to a marble vestibule, thence to halls 
 of tapestry, and luxurious couches and repose. And 
 there has been no break nothing has jarred upon us in 
 the midst of variety. Hand in hand we have been with 
 friends ; we have seen smiles upon dear faces. We 
 have poured forth words, and soul has been revealed to 
 soul ; and without, the world of fair things has imaged 
 the life of vivid and inexhaustible thought and feeling 
 within. Compare, I pray you, these parables of 
 "Hearing Music" aright, with the strange and dis-
 
 C4 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 jointed legend of " Mrs. de Perkins and her musical At 
 Home." 
 
 ###### 
 
 I will take a wider sweep. I have received the keen- 
 est national impressions from music. 
 
 At midnight I heard the players pass by. The warm 
 Italian air, scarce chilled by the night, came in from the 
 orange gardens. I leaned my head forward to breathe 
 its full fragrance. The musicians had come from 
 yonder lighted palace ; now they pass on up through the 
 groves of citron and myrtle, from the distant deep shad- 
 ows ; the regular pulse of the music brings back the feel- 
 ing of the dance ; it is a mere echo, a shadow dance 
 fainter and fainter now ; I can hear it no more. I look 
 up, the stars burn like gold. 
 
 All Italy in a moment is resumed for me in that slight 
 picture. A few bars of music, heard at random, may 
 conjure it up again first the emotion, then the picture. 
 * # * x # # 
 
 The feast of the Kermess was over in Amsterdam. 
 The town filled with country -people had been emptying 
 all through the night. The booths in the market-places 
 were struck. I stood high up, looking over the network 
 of canals toward the Scheldt. Abo re my head I heard 
 the cry of the wild swan, winging its way southward 
 from Sweden, and below a rough chorus of men and 
 women came over the bridge. It was loud, boisterous 
 singing, but in parts well defined, rhythmic, and full 
 of a strong charm ; they passed into a side street ; the 
 drinking chorus seemed to split into fragments and then 
 to cease. How often has it since rung in my ears, and 
 so often has it brought back with it the hearty, coarse, 
 eager life of Holland, and the keen, brackish odor of the 
 wind blowing in from the North Sea.
 
 EMOTION AND THE PAINTER. 65 
 
 But in each case observe the peculiar, direct power 
 which music has of dealing with the nerve centres. It 
 is not the image which is recalled and which brings back 
 the feeling ; but the sound awakes directly a peculiar 
 rhythm of nervous wave-motion, which is the physical 
 vehicle for a peculiar feeling. Thus a breath of the past 
 in a desert at first unpeopled, and the very atmosphere of 
 a past moment is restored, in which mystic air the forms 
 of dead scenes and persons begin to live and grow again, 
 and at last become intensely vivid. In this, note that 
 music differs from every other art. The painter and poet 
 alike depend directly upon scenes and concrete images 
 for their emotion ; but the musician depends directly 
 upon emotion for his ecenes and images, and even when 
 these are absent, he is not less potent sometimes more 
 so ; for he can handle and mould the temperature of 
 the mind itself at will, wind up feeling unconnected 
 with thought through every semitone, modulate and 
 change it, fit and unfit us for exertion, make us forget 
 the hard, persistent images of pain and trouble, and the 
 coarse realism that damps joy by creating an atmos- 
 phere within, in which these cannot breathe, and so are 
 expelled as to any power they may have to move us 
 actually expelled for a season from the mind. 
 
 There is a phrase, " I was carried away by the 
 music." That expression is true to feeling; it means, 
 " When I heard this or that, I ceased to be affected by 
 the outward things or thoughts which a moment before 
 
 o o 
 
 moved me ; I entered a world of other feeling, or 
 what I before possessed was so heightened and changed 
 that 1 seemed to have* been ' carried away ' from the 
 old thing in a moment." But it would be still truer 
 to say, not "music earned me away," but "music 
 carried away, or changed, the mood, and with it tho
 
 66 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 significance of the things which occupied me in that 
 mood." 
 
 The easy command over the emotions possessed by 
 sound, and elaborated by the art of music, is due to the 
 direct impact of the air- waves upon the drum of the ear, 
 which collects them and sends them to the seat of con- 
 sciousness in the brain by means of the auditory nerve. 
 The same, of course, is true of the waves of color upon 
 the eye, scent upon the nose, and vibrations of touch 
 taken by the brain even from the most distant nerve in 
 the body. But the auditory nerve has in some things a 
 strange advantage and prerogative of power over the 
 others. First, the distance from the ear to the brain is 
 shorter than that of any other of the sensitive surfaces, 
 so the time taken to convey the impressions of sound is 
 less, and therefore the impact more direct. This meas- 
 ured by time is infinitesimal, but measured by emotional 
 effect it counts for much. Secondly, the vibrations of 
 sound as distinguished from the vibrations of light, and 
 even the vibrations of touch, which are, after all, 
 differently local the vibrations of sound induce a sym- 
 pathetic vibration on every nerve in the body ; they set it 
 going, in short, as the strings of a piano are set going by 
 the stroke of a hammer on the floor, and when the sound 
 is excessive or peculiar, all the great ganglionic centres 
 are disturbed, the diaphragm and many other nerves and 
 muscles are influenced, the stomach is affected, the 
 spine "creeps," as we say, the heart quickens and 
 throbs with strong beatings in the throat. Thus a curi- 
 ously sympathetic action is set up through this physical 
 peculiarity which sound has of shaking, moving, and at 
 times causing to tremble the human body. 
 
 But the cause of the sympathetic action of the great 
 ganglionic centres under the pulsations of sound lies
 
 AUDITORY XEUVE. 67 
 
 deeper still. It is to be found in the fact that the audi- 
 tory nerve is closely connected, at its origin in the me- 
 dulla oblong ata of the brain, with that of the important 
 nervus vagus or pneumogastric supplying the heart, 
 lungs, and the most important abdominal viscera. It is 
 also in intimate communication with the branches of the 
 great sympathetic nerve from the ganglia which supply 
 the muscles regulating the tension of the ear's drum, and 
 which modify the effect of the waves of sound upon it. 
 And these branches, again, are in direct communication 
 with the vagus and the great ganglionic centres, control- 
 ling the action of the heart and stomach. Thus excita- 
 tion of the auditory nerve readily agitates these close 
 neighbors, and they proceed to spread the influence far 
 and wide through all the delicate network of sympa- 
 thetic nerve telegraphy which pervades the entire system. 
 Thus the effect of sound is speedily propagated through 
 myriad side -channels, until the whole body is thrilling 
 with its confluent waves. 
 
 Now we can explain, perhaps, why it is that our musi- 
 cal sensations are different in small rooms and large 
 ones, or, to speak more closely, why the relations 
 between the volume of sound and the space to be filled 
 must be suitable in order to produce the right effect. I 
 can sit close to a piano and listen to a " Lied ohne 
 Worte." I can take in every inflection of touch with 
 ease, not a refinement is lost ; but if I go to the end of 
 a long room, the impact is less direct, the pleasure is less 
 intense ; the player must then exaggerate all his effects, 
 hence a loss of refinement and ease. Public players and 
 gingers constantly make shipwreck thus in private rooms. 
 Accustomed to vast spaces, they roar and bang until the 
 audience is deaf, and the only reason why the unknow- 
 ing applaud on such occasions, and the only difference,
 
 C8 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 as far as they are concerned, between the professional 
 and the amateur, is simply that the first is so much 
 louder than the second. This makes them clap their 
 hands and cry "Bravo !" but in reality they are ap- 
 plauding a defect. 
 
 The only musical sounds which really master vast 
 spaces like the Albert Hall are those of a mighty organ 
 or an immense chorus. The Handel Festival choruses 
 are fairly proportioned to the- Crystal Palace, but on one 
 occasion, when a terrific thunderstorm burst over Syden- 
 ham in the middle of Israel in Egypt, every one beneath 
 that crystal dome felt that, acoustically, the peal of 
 thunder was very superior to the whole power of the 
 chorus, because the relation between the space to be filled 
 and the volume of sound required to fill it was iu better 
 proportion. But there is still something which has not 
 yet been said for small sounds in large places. Trans- 
 port yourself in imagination to the Albert Hall on some 
 night when, as is usually the case, there is but a scanty 
 orchestra, and presently a new mystery of sound will 
 present itself to you. At first you will be disappointed. 
 Any one can hear that the hall is not properly occupied by 
 the sound ; the violins should be trebled at least, several 
 of the wind instruments doubled, etc. You think you 
 will not listen to this charming E flat symphony of 
 Mozart ; you cannot help feeling that you lose a delicate 
 inflection here, a staccato there, a flute-tone, a pianis- 
 simo on the drum, or a whole piece of counter melody 
 owing to the scattered conditions of isolated vibrations 
 lost in space. 
 
 But you have still something to learn, something like 
 a new musical truth, which few people seem yet to have 
 noticed. Listen ! The sounds from the band reach 
 you too late, perhaps ; they arc not simultaneous. Tha
 
 SOUXD-FILTERINa. 69 
 
 impact on the ear is somewhat feeble, you must even 
 strain attentively to catch what is passing ; but the more 
 you do so the easier it becomes, just as the eye, in look- 
 ing through a lens, may see all dim, but gaze on until 
 the objects grow sharp and clear. The nerves of the eye 
 have adapted themselves to the new conditions ; the 
 longer yen look the better you see. So in these vast, 
 uncomfortable spaces, the longer you listen the better 
 you hear. A certain special training is required, and 
 then gradually a new quality is perceived we must give 
 the process a new name " sound filtering." From this 
 point of view, which it requires some delicate and atten- 
 tive ear-culture to appreciate, new delights are born from 
 the defective space conditions usually complained of. I 
 have heard the voice of Madame Lemmens-Sherrington 
 in the extreme distance at the Crystal Palace, when she 
 was exerting herself to the utmost, and it sounded like a 
 voice from heaven, full of unearthly, far-away sweetness ; 
 the same intensity and volume in a small room would 
 have been intolerable. I have heard Bottesini on the 
 double-bass in the open air with similar effect. 
 
 Listen to an orchestra or quartet, however fine, in a 
 moderate -sized room ; there is the catgut, the rosin, the 
 Gcrape, the bite of horse-hair on strings ; the earthly 
 cannot be completely got rid of. But space will filter all 
 that, and leave nothing but a kind of spiritual disem- 
 bodied sound, like the tones of those plugged pipes in 
 the organ that seem to steal out of some remote cloud- 
 land with a certain veiled sweetness that makes us hold 
 our breath. 
 
 Since I have learned to listen to these peculiar effects 
 in all their strange gradations, a new class of musical im- 
 pressions has been revealed to me, and I have become 
 much reconciled to h caring music in vast spaces. I do
 
 
 70 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 not go there for the kind of normal impressions, for the 
 direct study, for the strong, immediate impact gained 
 from music in a moderately sized room I lose much of 
 all that ; but I gain a number of new abnormal effects, 
 which also have a power over certain hidden depths and 
 distant fastnesses of the emotional region. 
 
 Music has a vast future before it. "YVe are only now 
 beginning to find out some of its uses. With the one 
 exception of its obvious and admitted helpfulness, as an 
 adjunct of religious worship, as a vehicle for and incen- 
 tive of religious feeling, I had almost said that we had as 
 yet discovered none of its uses. It has been the toy of 
 the rich ; it has often been a source of mere degradation 
 to both rich and poor ; it has been treated as mere 
 jingle and noise supplying a rhythm for the dance, a 
 kind of Terpsichorean tomtom or serving to start a 
 Bacchanalian chorus, the chief feature of which has 
 certainly not been the music. And yet those who have 
 their eyes and ears open, may read in these primitive uses, 
 while they run, the hints of music's future destiny as a 
 vast civilizer, recreator, health-giver, work-inspirer, arid 
 purifier of man's life. The horse knows what he owes 
 to his bells. The factory girls have been instinctively 
 forced into singing, finding in it a solace and assistance 
 in work. And for music, the health-giver, what an 
 untrodden field is there ! Have we never known an in- 
 valid to forget pain and weariness under the stimulus of 
 music ? Have you never seen a pale cheek flush up, a 
 dull eye sparkle, an alertness and vigor take possession 
 of the whole frame, and animation succeed to apathy ? 
 What does all this mean ? It means a truth that we 
 have not fully grasped, a truth pregnant with vast 
 results to body and mind. It means that music at- 
 tacks the nervous system directly, reaches and rouses
 
 MUSIC AS A RESTORATIVE. 71 
 
 where physic and change of air can neither reach nor 
 rouse. 
 
 Music will some day become a powerful and acknowl- 
 edged therapeutic. And it is one especially appropri- 
 ate to this excited age. Half our diseases, some physi- 
 cians say all our diseases, come from disorder of the 
 nerves. How many ills of the mind precede the ills of 
 the body ! Boredom makes more patients than fever. 
 Want of interest and excitement, stagnation of the emo- 
 tional life, or the fatigue of overwrought emotion, lies 
 at the root of half the ill-health of our young men and 
 women. Can we doubt the power of music to break Tip 
 that stagnation ? Or, again, can we doubt its power to 
 soothe ? to recreate an overstrained emotional life, by 
 bending the bow the other way ? There are moods of 
 exhausted feeling in which certain kinds of music would 
 act like poison, just as whip and spur which encourage 
 the racer at first, tire him to death at last. There are 
 other kinds of music which soothe, and, if I may use 
 the word, lubricate the worn ways of the nervous cen- 
 tres. You will ask what music is good for that ? We 
 reply, judgment and common-sense, and, above all, sym- 
 pathy, affectional and musical sympathy, will partly 
 be your guide, but experience must decide. Let 
 some friend well versed in the divine art sit at the 
 piano, and let the tired one lie on a couch and pre- 
 scribe for herself or for himself. This will happen : 
 ' ; Do not play that Tannhauser overture just now, 
 it wears me out, I cannot bear it ; " or, " Yes 
 sing that l Du bist die Ruh,' and after that I must 
 hear Mendelssohn's ' Notturno,' out of the Jtfid- 
 summer Night? s Dream ;" and then and then what 
 must come next must be left to the tact and quick sym- 
 pathy of the musician. I have known cases where nn
 
 72 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 hour of this treatment did more good than bottlefuls of 
 bark or pailfuls of globules ; but I do not wish to over- 
 state the case. I merely plead for an unrecognized 
 truth, and I point to a New Vocation the vocation of 
 the Musical Healer. 
 
 How many a girl might turn her at present uncared- 
 for and generally useless musical abilities to this gentle 
 and tender human use. Let her try. At the end of the 
 seance, let her and her patient note the abatement of 
 the headache brought about directly by the counter ex- 
 citement of a nerve-current set up by music. Let her 
 friend admit that she has suffered less during that hour 
 the mind having been completely called off from tho 
 contemplation of a special pain, and the pain meanwhile 
 having passed or abated. There are cases chiefly con- 
 nected with disorders of the spine, cases of apathy, 
 where music is almost the only thing which seems to stir 
 the torpid nerves and set up a commotion, quickening 
 the heart and flushing the cheek. Then, I say, let 
 music open the shut gate, and let health come in that 
 way, codestis janitor aulce. But I want, before I pass, 
 to fix my musical healer upon the reader's mind. She is 
 gentle ; she is glowing with health, but not boisterous ; 
 she has a quick sympathy for pain ; she has a cool, soft 
 hand that does the hot brow good ; she rather moves 
 than walks ; the sound of her footfall is seldom heard. 
 Oh, Alma ! the fostering one, the healing presence, you 
 are in many households, but you hardly know your 
 powers ; the sick bless you ; they love to hear your 
 voice ; but days and weeks pass, and you never exercise 
 your gifts for them. You are a beautiful musician, but 
 your music would not make you the healer without 
 your tact in applying it, your sympathy, your quick 
 judgment, your watchfulness of effect, your faculty of
 
 THE MUSICAL HEALER. 73 
 
 giving yourself when you sing and when you play. It 
 is the union of musical talent with personal qualities like 
 yours that will give you grace to apply the medicine of 
 music to disease, 
 
 Have you ever thought of that ? You have played 
 casually to the weary, the idle, or even the sick ; but 
 you have not with reflection played to refresh, to stimu- 
 late, or to soothe ; and you cannot do this all at once. 
 
 1. You must have the idea of doing it : that is, you 
 must conceive of music as a therapeutic art. 
 
 2. You must gain a certain easy command of a wide 
 range of compositions that you may select your remedies 
 wisely. 
 
 3. You must take care to establish between yourself 
 and your patients that kindly rapport which will predis- 
 pose them to listen to you ; it must be the hand of 
 something like a friend upon the white keys or upon 
 the strings of a zither, an instrument of heavenly sooth- 
 ing qualities, as of harps in the wind at sunset. It must 
 be the voice of something like a friend ; the voice that 
 has said with no feigned earnestness, but with the wide, 
 warm love of a Christlike nature, " I wish I could do 
 you good." Such a voice will sing well and pleasantly, 
 and bring peace. 
 
 4. Self- training, judgment, and experience gener- 
 ally. The music-healer must indeed have gifts of mind, 
 but hers will be almost as much a vocation to be learned 
 as that of nursing itself. She must study different 
 kinds of temperament and disease, watch and write 
 down and remember the effect which certain pieces or 
 kinds of music have on certain temperaments. J>nt the 
 fascination of the new calling would lie in the delight of 
 its exercise, the variety and endless excitement and sur- 
 prises of its results, the incessant study of character, the
 
 74 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 * 
 
 constant self -training and cultivation of sympathy for a 
 definite and immediate end, and in the intense happiness 
 of feeling that upon the waves of heavenly melody and 
 harmony which lifted up your own soul, another's pain 
 and distress were floating away, and that you had been 
 the active agent in procuring this pleasure, this relief, 
 this recovery. 
 
 Let some pen more competent than mine expand this 
 new doctrine of " music considered as a therapeutic." 
 If it found support from any well-accredited medical 
 authority, with what faith and favor would it be re- 
 ceived by thousands of sufferers ! with what alacrity 
 would spring up right and left our musical healers, 
 coveting and exercising earnestly the best gifts of char- 
 acter and training ! It would not be long before we had 
 a handbook on the subject, with suggestions for a 
 course of treatment based on actual experience. 
 
 Music is not only a body healer ; it is a mind regula- 
 tor.' The great educational function of music remains 
 almost to be discovered. The future mission of music 
 for the million is the Discipline of Emotion. 
 
 "What is the ruin of art ? Ill-regulated emotion. 
 
 What is the ruin of life ? Again, ill-regulated emo- 
 tion. 
 
 "What mars happiness? What destroys manliness? 
 What sullies womanhood ? What checks enterprise ? 
 What spoils success ? Constantly the same ill-regu- 
 lated emotion. The tongue is a fire ; an uncontrolled 
 and passionate outburst swallows up many virtues and 
 blots out weeks of kindness. 
 
 There is one thing more important than knowing self ; 
 it is governing self. There is one thing better than 
 crushing impulse ; it is using impulse. The life of the 
 ascetic is half true, the life of the voluptuary is the other
 
 THE GREEKS "MUSICAL 7 DISCIPLINE. 75 
 
 half of the truth. The stoic may be said to be blind at least 
 of one eye. The cynic is very nearly blind of both, since 
 the power and the passion and the splendid uses of exist- 
 ence are hidden from him, and all these go wrong in 
 various ways, from abusing, misusing, or neglecting the 
 emotional life. 
 
 The Greek was not far wrong when he laid such stress 
 on gymnastics and music. Of music, indeed, in its 
 modern, exhaustive, and subtle developments, as the 
 language of the emotions, he knew nothing ; but his 
 faint guess was with a certain fine and unerring instinct 
 in the right direction ; shame upon us that, in the blaze 
 of modern music, we have almost missed its deepest 
 meaning ! The Greek at least understood how sound 
 regulated motion, which is, after all, only the physical 
 expression of emotion. Not a procession, not a social 
 gathering, not a gymnasium, nay, not even an impor- 
 tant oration, was thought complete without the introduc- 
 tion of musical sound ; and that not as a mere jingle or 
 pastime, but to regulate the order, the variety, the in- 
 tensity of bodily motions, actions, and words, so that 
 throughout there might be an elaborate discipline carried 
 on through musical sound a discipline which, thus 
 learned at the schools, met the Greek again at every 
 turn in his social and political life, and ended by making 
 his earth-life that rounded model of physical and intel- 
 lectual harmony and perfection which have made at once 
 the despair and wonder of sculptors, poets, and philoso- 
 phers of all ages. 
 
 And we, living in the full development of this divine 
 art of music, put it to less practical uses than the Greek, 
 who never went beyond music as a rhythmic and melodic 
 regulator of dancing, feasting, and oratory ! 
 
 It remains for us to take up the pregnant hint, and
 
 76 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 claim modern music as the great organ of emotional cult- 
 ure and emotional discipline. This practical view of 
 the unique and perfect functions of the musical art is, I 
 think, sufficiently new to require a little further explana- 
 tion. 
 
 "How," it will be asked, "apart from mere pleas- 
 ure pleasure, if you will, of a harmless and elevating 
 kind am I a bit better for the hearing of music ?" 
 
 In answering this question, I leave out the effect 
 produced on bodily health through the agitation of 
 the nervous centres by musical sound, as dwelt upon 
 above. 
 
 I will come to close quarters again with Music and 
 Morals, and I will show how "hearing music in the right 
 way gets up, as it were, the steam power of emotion, 
 collects it, concentrates it, and then puts it through such 
 innumerable stages of discipline that the very force of 
 emotion which, allowed to run wild, brings ruin into 
 life, grows, through the right hearing of great and skil- 
 ful music, docile, controlled, indefinitely plastic, or at 
 the call of the will, resistless in might. 
 
 Music, in short, is bound, when properly used and 
 understood, to train us in the exercise of our emotions, 
 as the gymnasium trains us in the exercise of our limbs. 
 The Greek understood both these uses ; we probably un- 
 derstand neither. 
 
 First, then, music rouses the emotions. Inward ac- 
 tivities, long dormant or never before awakened, are 
 called up, and become new powers within the breast ; 
 for, remember, emotion nerves for action. The stupid- 
 est horse that goes up hill to the sound of bells, the timid- 
 est soldier that marches to battle with fife and drum, the 
 most delicate girl who spins round tireless in the dance, 
 the poorest laborer who sings at his work any of them
 
 TALE OF A "SOXQ WITHOUT WORDS." 77 
 
 is good enough to prove that music rouses and sustains 
 emotion. 
 
 But, secondly, music disciplines and controls emotion. V 
 
 That is the explanation of the art of music, as dis- 
 tinguished from the mere power of the musical sound. 
 You can rouse with a stroke ; but to guide, to moder- 
 ate, to control, to raise and depress, to combine, to work 
 out a definite scheme involving appropriate relations and 
 proportions of force, and various mobility for this you 
 require the subtle machinery of an art ; and the direct 
 machinery for stirring up and regulating emotion is the 
 wonderful vibratory mechanism created by the art of 
 music. 
 
 I wish to give here a short example of the way in 
 which a train of abstract emotion, capable of being fitted 
 to different ideas, or capable of underlying more than 
 one series of mental events (so long as the relations of 
 them be similar and parallel), can be roused and devel- 
 oped in a fixed artistic form by music. My present 
 limits will not allow me to take one of the great sym- 
 phonies of Beethoven or Mendelssohn for this. I will 
 select a " Lied ohne Worte ;" let us take, for instance, 
 Xo. 10, the fourth Lied of the Second Book. I will 
 mention the bars by their numbers, instead of using 
 technical terms, such as a key of D or F, subdominant, 
 tonic, etc. It is difficult to describe mental states apart 
 from particular thoughts ; but as far as possible we will 
 try to do so, and so express the consciousness of a state 
 of mind which might be equally appropriate to several 
 separate and distinct, though similar and parallel, trains 
 cf thought. 
 
 Understand what I mean by similar and parallel trains 
 of thought. Let me even appeal to the eye, and put my 
 similar thoughts in parallel columns, thus :
 
 78 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 I. Man losing his temper. I. Sea ruffled with wind. 
 
 II. Man lost his temper. II. Sea convulsed. 
 
 III. Smashes the furniture. III. Thunder and lightning. 
 
 IV. Is appeased by wife. IV. Blue sky, wind drops. 
 
 V. All is forgiven and forgotten. V. Sun breaks out, sea calms. 
 
 One and the same train of emotion or general cast of 
 feeling may fitly underlie such two progressive scenes ; 
 but the events must in every case be similar in tone and 
 run parallel ; only in this sense does music, as it is some- 
 times loosely said, mean all sorts of things to different 
 people. 
 
 I now return to an emotional analysis of Lied IV., of 
 Book II., Mendelssohn. With the first bars of rapid 
 semi-quavers, increasing from p to sf, we are thrown 
 into a state of restless emotion, dashed (bars 4, 5, 6) 
 with suspense, as when one heaves and holds his breath 
 at a passing thought of some agitating possibility ; 
 (7, 8, 9, 10), the flash of suspense passes off, lowering 
 back the tone of mind to its first state ; that state, 
 instead of subsiding as before, passes into a reflex sort of 
 reasoning upon itself, as though one said (15, 16, 17, 18j, 
 "But why should I disquiet myself in vain ? ? ' 
 (18, 19, 20). " I will resist, I will shake it off (21) ; I 
 will be free (22) ; the cloud has passed (23) ; I see my joy 
 (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30). () ecstatic vision ! I lose 
 myself in this splendid revelation, I float out upon the 
 tide of triumph. Now I rest, bathed in tranquil peace 
 and perfect satisfaction (31, 32, 33) ; I prolong the 
 dream." But already the ecstatic glow has cooled 
 (33, 34, 35, 36), a faint touch of earth bitterness, a 
 misgiving (D sharp) has crept in (37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42), 
 r*nd is confirmed until the vision of bliss is almost oblit- 
 ' crated, and the emotion is in danger of sinking back at 
 once to its first condition of morbid restlessness ; but that
 
 LIED OHXE WORTE, BOOK II. 79 
 
 would be monotonous (45). At this point it is, therefore, 
 caught by new reflex action of the feelings, and a strug- 
 gle takes place (46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51), represented by 
 the opening subject struggling up in the bass, checked, 
 then struggling up in the treble, checked at sf, and then 
 creso.j struggling up (51) once more. Then there is a 
 pause, emotion is at a standstill, and at last grows almost 
 tepid and indifferent; dropping at 57, p and 6foV&., al- 
 most listless, -when at 60 the struggle recommences with 
 fresh violence, the great effort of the mind to cast out 
 the restless, passionate broodings of the first page (60 
 to 71) produces a storm of conflicting emotions, in. 
 which now one side, now another seems uppermost, till 
 at last the mind, trembling on the morbid verge, passes 
 over the line with a kind of wilful and helpless self-sur- 
 render ; but this time the experiences through which it 
 has passed make it impossible quite to repeat the morbid 
 and restless series, and (72) only half the first subject is 
 given, the emotion is hampered, it does not run easily, 
 it cannot get on ; then (76) the same phrase over again, 
 piu f, with growing impatience. A change of some sort 
 is evidently at hand (81) ; the old subject is tossed away 
 as worthless and unfit for the purpose, as the spirit feels 
 itself breathed upon once more, and held by some new 
 force, through a series of bars (81 to 87), until expec- 
 tancy is crowned, and with a crescendo of ascending 
 octaves, which makes us fairly hold our breath, while 
 the action of the pulse is rapidly quickened, suddenly 
 but this time on a higher pitch, and with quite bewil- 
 dering power of effect the glory breaks again upon the 
 soul, and we seem " rapt from the fickle and the frail," 
 and caught up into that splendid air of joy and bounding 
 triumph. The poor shaken and earth-worn spirit is 
 thus held for a little space in Paradise. It is its last
 
 80 MY MUSICAL MEMOIUES. 
 
 gleam of perfect peace. Already at 103, the vision has 
 well-nigh faded out ; at 111 the light of common day 
 has been fairly reached, and the perilous struggle 
 between morbid brooding and noble endurance is in 
 danger of recommencing. Four times, at 119, 123, 125, 
 and 126, the morbid passage reminding us of the open- 
 ing phrase, knocks (ff) passionately for admittance, and 
 is sternly negatived by the bass. At 129, 130, 131, there 
 is a very natural pause of brief exhaustion &tp. At 132 
 the emotion is stirred, but this time less strongly ; we 
 feel that a new and more normal life is now going to 
 open out, into which indeed we are not permitted to 
 enter, for the Lied draws to its close. The vision of 
 triumph has had its own chastening and purifying effect, 
 although the triumph of joy is evidently not near ; still 
 the restless and passionate mood of anxious brooding, 
 which so unfits for the life that has still to be lived out, 
 has also passed. The last unemphatic memory of it occurs 
 at 138 ; not even hal/i\\Q first subject, as before, is repeat- 
 ed only onebar of it, and the emotion is then left unim- 
 passioned and suspended on a long D, the same chord for 
 six bars, without change in treble or bass, serving to 
 close the piece, and leaving the mind in a self-contained 
 and reconciled, if not a happy mood, ready now to enter 
 without harrowing preoccupation upon the more ordi- 
 nary phases and pursuits of life. 
 
 Now if music does really rouse and then take in hand 
 and rule at its will, and thereby teach us to rule, the 
 emotions, it is obvious that we are, when we hear 
 music intelligently and sympathetically, actually culti- 
 vating abstract habits of mind which may afterward be 
 transferred as trained forces to the affairs of daily life. 
 As the study of Euclid trains the mind in the abstract, 
 the study of music trains the emotions in the abstract.
 
 EFFECT OF THE "MESSIAH" ON THE MASSES. 81 
 
 If you want to touch and train this emotional life, music 
 is your all-powerful ally. 
 
 The time is not distant when this great truth will be 
 understood and practised in connection with our toiling 
 masses our artisans, our poor, our laborers, our degraded 
 denizens of back streets, cellars, and foul alleys. There 
 are millions whose only use of the emotional life is base, 
 undisciplined, and degraded. Pleasure with many means 
 crime ; restraint, the real handmaid of pleasure, is un- 
 known ; system, order, harmony in their feelings, habits 
 of self-control, checking the impulses, moderating and 
 economizing the feelings, guiding them to powerful pur- 
 poses and wise ends and wholesome joys of all this our 
 masses are chiefly ignorant ; yet if what I have main- 
 tained be true, all this music would mightily help to 
 teach and to give. 
 
 I have known the oratorio of the Messiah, draw the * 
 lowest dregs of Whitechapel into a church to hear it, 
 and during the performance sobs have broken forth fron? 
 the silent and attentive throng. "Will any one say tha* 
 for these people to have their feelings for once put- 
 through such a noble and long-sustained exercise as that, 
 could be otherwise than beneficial ? If such perform- 
 ances of both sacred and secular music were more fre- 
 quent, we should have less drunkenness, less wife-beat- 
 ing, less spending of summer gains, less pauperism in 
 winter. People get drunk because they have nothing 
 else to do ; they beat their wives because their minds 
 are narrow, their tastes brutal, their emotions, in a 
 word, ill-regulated ; they spend their wages because 
 they have no self-control, and dawdle in public-houses, 
 where money must be spent, simply in the absence of 
 all other resources ; and they starve in winter because 
 they have not acquired the habit of steady work, which
 
 82 MY MUSICAL MEMOKIES. 
 
 is impossible without study and wholesome recreation 
 or that steady thrift and self-control which is impossible 
 apart from disciplined emotion. 
 
 The question of music for the people will some day 
 become a great government question. A few thousands 
 spent on promoting bands, cheap and good, accessible 
 and respectable, would save the country millions in poor- 
 rates. I do not say that music will ever shut up all our 
 prisons and workhouses ; but I venture to believe that as 
 a chief and sovereign means of rousing, satisfying, and 
 recreating the emotions, it would go far to diminish the 
 number of paupers and criminals. It would help them 
 to save, it would keep them from drink, it would recreate 
 them wholesomely, and teach them to govern their feel- 
 ings to use, and not invariably abuse, their emotions. 
 
 One Saturday afternoon I stood outside a public- 
 house, and saw the groups of men standing round the 
 door. Those that came to the door did not enter ; those 
 who came forth with lighted pipes, paused ; a slatternly 
 girl or two, with a ragged child in her arms ; a wife who 
 had followed her husband to look after the Saturday 
 wages, which were going straight to the gin-shop ; a 
 costermonger with his cart drew up ; the idle cabmen 
 came across the road ; even a few dirty, stone-throwing, 
 dog- worrying boys ceased their sport ; and two or three 
 milliners' " Hands" stood still. And what was it all 
 about ? I blush for my country ! A wretched cornet 
 with a harp, no two strings of which were in tune, the 
 harpist trying wildly to follow " The Last Rose of Sum- 
 mer" with but two chords, and always in with the wrong 
 one. The weather was bitterly cold, the men's hands 
 were in their pockets, the girls shivered ; but they were 
 all taking their solace. This was the best music they 
 could get : it seemed to soothe and refresh them. Oh,
 
 GIVE THE PEOPLE MUSIC. 83 
 
 that I could have led those people to some near winter 
 pavilion, or even a cold garden, where they could have 
 walked about and heard a popular selection of tunes, an 
 overture, anything, by a common but excellent German 
 band ! What good that would have done them ! How 
 they would have enjoyed it 1 And supposing that every 
 Saturday they could look forward to it, admission two- 
 pence apiece, the men would be there with their wives 
 and children ; they would spend less on the whole 
 family than they would have squandered on themselves 
 in one drunken afternoon. They could meet their 
 friends, have their chat and glass of ale, or cup of 
 coffee, in the winter garden ; they would go home sober ; 
 and being satisfied, recreated, having had their exercise 
 and company, would be more likely to go to bed early 
 than to get druak late. Surely all this is better than 
 boozing in public-houses. 
 
 Oh, what a vast, what a beneficent future has music 
 in the time to come ! Let its true power and use be 
 once understood ; let some one man who loves the peo- 
 ple, and is willing to consult their tastes without pander- 
 ing to them, open a promenade for the lower stratum of 
 the population, at a low price, on Saturday afternoon, 
 and let us see the result. Let the musical part be under 
 some fit and intelligent musical dictator, and let some 
 able and sympathetic administrator, intimately and 
 wisely in sympathy with the masses a Miss Octavia 
 Hill organize the refreshments, the admissions by pay- 
 ment, the general distribution of tickets, passes, adver- 
 tisements, accommodation, etc. Let this be tried fairly 
 at first, of course, with an outlay of charitable funds 
 and then I prophesy four things : 
 
 1. It will soon be self -supporting.
 
 84 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 2. It will hare a definite and marked influence upon 
 the crime and intemperance of the district. 
 
 3. It will promote thrift, and increase the sum, now 
 lamentably small, of the people's wholesome pleasures. 
 
 4. It will become a national institution, and spread 
 in a short time throughout the length and breadth of the 
 land. 
 
 Then shall music, ceasing to be the luxury of the rich 
 and the degradation of the poor, open the golden gates 
 of a wider and a happier realm of recreation for the 
 masses. In its wake might follow, under similar man- 
 agement, a regenerated and popular drama, pictorial 
 exhibitions, short and systematic lectures to groups in 
 separate alcoves, electrical experiments, the microscope, 
 the telescope, and a thousand other elevating and instruc- 
 tive seances to each seance one halfpenny apiece extra, 
 or one penny to frank for the whole. 
 
 Once get the people together by the power of music, 
 you can mould them ; one closed chamber of their minds ^ 
 after another might be unlocked ; and were the scheme 
 conducted with ability, and carefully watched, we should 
 soon hail the dawn of a new era of popular enlighten- 
 ment and genial instruction combined with an almost 
 boundless variety of accessible, innocent, and elevating 
 enjoyment.
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 OLD VIOLINS. 
 
 THE construction, the history, the sound of the vio- 
 lin would make a romantic work in three volumes "as 
 sensational as, and far more instructive than, most 
 novels. The very pine-wood smells good, to begin 
 with. The forests of the Southern Tyrol, which now 
 teem with saplings, when the old violins were made, 
 from 1520 to 1750, still abounded in those ancient trees, 
 so eagerly and often vainly sought out by modern build- 
 ers, and which the old viol-makers found to possess the 
 finest acoustic properties. 
 
 The mighty timbers were felled in late summer. They 
 came in loose floating rafts from the banks of the Garda ; 
 they floated down the Mincio to Mantua. Brescia was 
 in the midst of them. From Como they found their 
 way to Milan, and from Lake Maggiore direct, via the 
 Ticino and the Po, to Cremona. 
 
 TThat market days were those ! What a timber feast 
 to select from ; and what cunning lovers and testers of 
 wood were the old viol-makers, the fathers of the vio- 
 lin ! The rough heaps of pine, pear, lemon, and ash, 
 beloved of the Brescians of maple and sycamore, pre- 
 ferred by the Cremonese lay steaming dry and hard in 
 a few hours beneath the sun of the southern Alps. 
 
 Before a beam was bought, the master passed his hand 
 over the surface. He could tell by touch the density of 
 its fibre. Then he would take two equal slips of deal
 
 86 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 and weigh them, and judge of their porousness. The 
 very appearance of the wood would guide him to its 
 probable vibrational powers. Then he would, per- 
 chance, before leaving the market, cut strips of equal 
 length, and elicit their relative intensities by striking 
 their tongues. He would often select for a definite 
 purpose, looking for a soft, porous piece, or a specially 
 hard and close-fibred grain a certain appearance he 
 would instinctively associate with rare acoustic properties. 
 The seller would be eager to find the pieces, useless to 
 other customers, invaluable to an Andreas Amati, for he 
 was sure that the viol-maker would buy what suited him 
 at a long price. After the lapse of nearly two centuries, 
 we can trace such favorite beams by peculiar ctains, 
 freckles, and grainings. When, after cutting up a dozen 
 trees, once in two or three years a piece of fine acoustic 
 wood was found, it was kept for the master's best work. 
 The same pine-beam will crop up in the bellies of Strad- 
 ivarius at an interval of years. Another can be traced 
 in the violins of Joseph Guarnerius, and after his death 
 Carlo Bergonzi got hold of the remnants of it, and we 
 detect it by a certain stain in the fibre. 
 
 The anxiety to retain every particle of a precious 
 piece of wood is seen in the subtle and delicate patching 
 and repatching of backs and bellies. The seams are only 
 discoverable by a microscope, so perfect is the cabinet 
 work. How different from the modern maker at Ma- 
 drid, whom Tarisio relates as having to repair a damaged 
 Stradivarius, and, finding the belly cracked, sent it 
 home with a brand-new one of his own manufacture ! 
 
 The properties of fine violin wood are very myste- 
 rious. Only to be surrounded by a selection of fine vio- 
 lins is an experience which cannot be forgotten. Sit in 
 the room with them with your eyes shut, and, although
 
 VIOLIX AXATOMY. 8? 
 
 you may not touch one of them, you will soon be aware 
 of ghostly presences. Even the old seasoned backs and 
 bellies of unstrung violins are full of the strangest 
 echoes, and Mr. Hill, the violin-maker, tolls me that as 
 he sits in his workroom, where old violin carcasses are 
 piled in hundreds on shelves and cupboards pell-mell, 
 ribs, bellies, and backs, he constantly hears them mutter- 
 ing and humming to themselves, in answer to his tools, 
 the stroke of his hammer, the sound of his voice. 
 
 Let us now look at the violin anatomically. It is. a 
 miracle of construction, and as it can bo taken to pieces, 
 put together, patched, and indefinitely repaired, it is 
 almost indestructible. It is, as one may say, as light as 
 a feather and as strong as a horse. It is composed of 
 fifty-eight or seventy pieces of wood. Wood about as 
 thick as a half-crown, by exquisite adjustments of parts 
 and distribution of strain, resists for several centuries an 
 enormous pressure. The belly of soft deal, the back of 
 hard sycamore, are united by six sycamore ribs, sup- 
 ported by twelve blocks with linings. 
 
 It appears that the quick vibrations of the hard wood, 
 married to the slower sound-waves of the soft, produce 
 the mellow but reedy timbre of the good violin. If all 
 the wood were hard, you would get the tone light and 
 metallic ; if all soft, it would be muffled and tubby. 
 
 There is every conceivable variety of fibre both in 
 hard and soft wood. The thickness of back and belly is 
 not uniform ; each should be thicker toward the middle. 
 But how thick ? and shaved thin in what proportions 
 toward the sides ? The cunning workman alone knows. 
 As a rule, if the wood be hard he will cut it thin ; if 
 soft, thick ; but KQW thin and how thick, and exactly 
 where, is nowhere writ down, nor can be, because no- 
 where for handy reference are recorded the densities
 
 88 MY MUSICAL .MEMORIES. 
 
 of all pine and pear and sycamore and maple planks that 
 have or shall come into the maker's hands. 
 
 The sound-bar is a strip of pine wood running ob- 
 liquely under the left foot of the bridge. It not only 
 strengthens the belly for the prodigious pressure of the 
 four strings, whose direction it is made to follow, for 
 vibrational reasons, but it is the nervous system of the 
 violin. It has to be cut and adjusted to the whole 
 framework ; a slight mistake in position, a looseness, an 
 inequality or roughness of finish, will produce that hol- 
 low teeth-on-edge growl called the "wolf." 
 
 It takes the greatest cunning and a life of practical 
 study to know how long, how thick, and exactly where 
 the sound-bar should be in each instrument. The 
 health and morale of many an old violin has been im- 
 paired by its nervous system being ignorantly tampered 
 with. Every old violin, with the exception of the 
 " Pucelle," has had its sound-bar replaced, or it would 
 never have endured the increased tightness of strings 
 brought in with our modern pitch. Many good forge- 
 ries have thus been exposed, for in taking the reputed 
 Stradivarius to pieces, the rough clumsy work inside, 
 contrasting with the exquisite finish of the old masters, 
 betrays at once the coarseness of a body that never really 
 held the soul of a Cremona. 
 
 The sound-post, a little pine prop like a short bit of 
 cedar pencil, is the soul of the violin. It is placed up- 
 right inside, about one eighth of an inch to the back of 
 the right foot of the bridge, and through it pass all 
 the heart-throbs or vibrations generated between the 
 back and the belly. There the short waves and the 
 long waves meet and mingle. It is the material throb- 
 bing centre of that pulsating air column, defined by 
 the walls of the violin, but propagating those mystic
 
 STRAIN OF STRINGS AND NECK. 89 
 
 Bonnd-waves that ripple fortli in sweetness upon ten 
 thousand ears. 
 
 Days and weeks may be spent on the adjustment of 
 this tiny sound-post. Its position exhausts the patience 
 of the repairer, and makes the joy or the misery of the 
 player. As a rough general rule, the high-built violin 
 will take it nearer the bridge than the low-built, and a 
 few experiments will at once show the relation of the 
 " soul " to tightness, mellowness, or intensity of sound. 
 For the amateur there is but one rnotto : " Leave well 
 alone. ' ' 
 
 The prodigious strain of the strings is resisted first by 
 the arch of the belly ; then by the ribs, strengthened 
 with the upright blocks, the pressure among which is 
 evenly distributed by the linings which unite them ; 
 and, lastly, by the supporting sound-bar, sound- post, 
 and back. Many people, on observing the obvious join 
 between the neck and tlie head of old violins, fancy that 
 the head is not the original. It is the neck that is new. 
 All the necks of old violins have thus been lengthened, 
 and the old heads refixed, for the simple reason that 
 Corelli's finger-board will not do for Pagan ini, and 
 mightier execution requires an ampler field for its eccen- 
 tric excursions. 
 
 The scroll, or head, fitted with its four simple screws 
 of ebony, box, or rosewood, is the physiognomy of the 
 violin. At first all fiddle-heads look alike as do all 
 pug-dogs, or all negroes, and, indeed, England, "Wales, 
 Italy, Holland, and most other countries have their 
 general faces ; so have violins but a practised eye sees 
 the difference at a glance. Look for half an hour every 
 day at a late Joseph Guarnerius, an early Nicholas 
 Ainati, and a grand pattern Strad., and you will be sur- 
 prised that you could ever have confounded their
 
 90 1IY MUSICAL MEMOKIES. 
 
 forms. What is called the '''throwing" of the scroll 
 betrays the master's style like handwriting, and he lays 
 down his type in every curve, groove, and outline. A 
 keen eye can almost see the favorite tool he worked 
 with, and how his hand went. These subtleties are like 
 the painter's "touch," they can hardly be imitated so 
 as to deceive one who has mastered the individual work 
 of the great makers. " 
 
 The ebony finger-board must be nicely fitted, as also 
 the neck, to the hand of the player ; on its even smooth- 
 ness and true curve depends the correct stopping of the 
 notes. You cannot, for instance, stop fifths in tune on 
 a rough or uneven finger-board. The button to which 
 the tail-piece is fastened is full of style, and not, like the 
 pegs, a thing to be dropped and changed at will ; it is a 
 critical part of the violin, takes a good third of the 
 leverage of the whole strain, is fixed like a vice, rooted 
 in the very adamant of the wood, carefully finished, and 
 cut round, pointed, or flat, according to the taste of the 
 maker. 
 
 The purfling, more or less deeply embedded, emphasizes 
 the outline of the violin. It is composed of three thin 
 strips of wood, ebony, sometimes whalebone, the centre 
 of two white strips ; it is often more or less embedded, 
 and betrays the workman's taste and skill. The double 
 purfling and purfling in eccentric patterns of some of the 
 old violins is very quaint, but a doubtful adjunct to the 
 tone. But, strange to say, prior to 1600, appearances 
 were more thought of than tone. The old guitars and 
 viols are often so profusely carved or inlaid with tortoise- 
 shell, ivory, and silver, that they have but little sound, 
 and that bad. I do not think that this has ever been 
 noticed before, but it is undoubtedly a fact that attention 
 to tone only dates from the rise of the violin proper in
 
 THE CHEMONA VARNISH. 91 
 
 the sixteenth century, and is, in fact, coincident with 
 the rise of the art of modern music. 
 
 I come now to the Cremona varnish. What is it ? 
 About 1760 it disappeared, and never reappeared. All 
 the Cremonas have it. Was it a gum or an oil, or a dis- 
 tillation from some plant, or some chemical once largely 
 in use and superseded, as the old oil lamps have gone 
 out before gas and paraffine ? How was it mixed ? Is 
 the recipe lost ? No one seems to be able to answer 
 these questions definitely. There it lies, like sunlit 
 water, mellow, soft, rich, varying in color golden, 
 orange, or pale red tint on the Guarnerius ! rich gold, 
 deep orange, or light red on the Stradivarius back ; and 
 when it rubs softly away rather than chips off hardly, 
 like the German and French imitations 3 it leaves the 
 wood seasoned, impregnated, and fit to resist heat, cold, 
 and the all-destroying worm for ages. Mr. Charles 
 Reacle gives one account of the matter. He thinks the 
 wood, cut in winter, varnished in the hot summer 
 months, was first bathed several times in oil ; thus, he 
 says, were the " pores of the wood filled, and the grain 
 shown up." The oil held in solution some clear gum. 
 " Then upon this oil varnish, when dry, was laid some 
 heterogeneous varnish, namely a solution in spirit of some 
 sovereign, high-colored, pellucid, and, above all, tender 
 gum." These gums were reddish yellow and yellowish 
 red, and are accredited with coloring the varnish. On 
 the other hand, it must be stated that, although the 
 difficulties in the amber theory are great, Mr. Perkins, 
 the eminent chemist, has discovered amber in the var- 
 nish of Joseph Guarnerius, and he believes the coloring 
 to be derived from an herb common throughout Pied- 
 mont, and, following out his conviction, Mr. Perkins 
 has made a varnish which certainly does resemble very
 
 92 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 closely tlie Cremonese hue and gloss. Dod, \vho died 
 in 1830, professed to have got the Cremona recipe, and 
 while employing John Lott and Bernard Fendt to make 
 his violins, always varnished them himself ; and, indeed, 
 his varnish is very superior, and his violins are highly 
 prized. But perhaps in a general description like this to 
 discuss further the varnish theory would be superfluous. 
 
 The bridge of the violin is to many a true Asses' 
 Bridge ; you may try and try again, and its true posi- 
 tion will still be represented by an unknown x. It is 
 but a small piece of hard boxwood, 2 inches by 1 in 
 size ; it is quaintly perforated ; it clings closely to the 
 violin's belly with its two little thin feet ; is about as 
 thick, where thickest, as a five-shilling piece, thin- 
 ning steadily toward the top, which obeys the curve of 
 the finger-board and lifts the strain of the four strings. 
 The bridge is movable ; but it is so important and all- 
 essential to the propagation of any sound at all, that it 
 may be called the wife of the violin. All old violins 
 have had many bridges in their time ; but there is no 
 reason why the union, if happy, should not last for forty 
 or fifty years. A perfectly harmonious marriage is as 
 rare between violins and their bridges as it is between 
 men and women, though in either case there is a consider- 
 able margin for the gradual adjustment of temperaments. 
 Although the old violin is very capricious in his choice, 
 and often remains a widower for years, he does not 
 object to elderly bridges, and when he finds one he can 
 get on with, will obstinately resent any rash interference 
 with the harmony of his domestic arrangements. 
 
 This is a point not nearly enough considered even by 
 wise violin doctors and repairers. The heartless substi- 
 tution of raw young bridges for old and tried compan- 
 ions is common and much to be deplored, and a sensitive
 
 THE SENTIMENT OF THE BKIDGE. 93 
 
 old Strad. will never cease to spar with the fresh, con- 
 ceited, wayward young things, utterly incapable of en- 
 tering into his fine qualities, and caring naught for his 
 two hundred years of tonal experience ; and the jarring 
 and bickering go on until he gets rid of one after 
 another and settles down, if not with his old favorite, at 
 least with some elderly and fairly desiccated companion. 
 I do not believe in bridges being worn out. After a 
 year or two the hard box -fibre yields very little under 
 the cutting of the strings ; there is a considerable margin 
 for the shifting of the strings, and no string but the first 
 will materially grind. Rather than change so precious a 
 thing as a congenial partner, glue, mend, patch, repair 
 her, just as you would her priceless old husband ; if he is 
 in the prime of life at about one hundred and fifty, she 
 may well be a little made up at sixty or seventy. Thirty 
 years ago my Stradivarius, 1712, grand pattern, came by 
 gift into my possession. I soon found it did not get on 
 with its bridge a new, sappy, crude, thick thing, which 
 seemed to choke and turn sour its mellow vibrations. 
 About that time I received the present of a very old 
 bridge from the violin of F. Cramer. It was delicate, 
 exquisitely finished, evidently very old. I thought its 
 build too slight, but clapped it on at once, and the old 
 violin waked as out of a long sleep, like a giant refreshed 
 with wine. It was then some time before 1 found ex- 
 actly the right place, and for several years, on and off, I 
 fidgeted about with the bridge. One day, in shifting it, 
 I snapped it ; but after trying other bridges, I glued the 
 old one together, and once more the violin found its old 
 sweetness and solace. Years passed, I left off playing, 
 the Strad. lay neglected, got damp, and its joints loos- 
 ened. I lent it to a cunning doctor ; he " fixed it up" 
 again, but sent it back with a new bridge, and sounding
 
 94 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 well, like files and vinegar ! I recovered the old 
 bridge that he declared now worn out. I restored it to 
 its beloved husband, now only in his one hundred and 
 seventy-first year ; he received his lost wife with effu- 
 sion, and I think the harmony made by the two was 
 never more perfect than it is now. Truly amantium 
 not irce^ but separacio amoris integratio est. 
 
 A word about violin strings. The positive thickness 
 of the strings depends upon the temperament and build of 
 the violin, providing that the player's fingers are equal 
 to thick or thin strings. Thick strings will mellow the 
 screaminess of a Stainer, elicit the full tone of a Joseph 
 Guarnerius or grand Strad., while the older violins of 
 Brescia, and even the sweet Nicolas Amati, will work 
 better with thinner strings ; but in such matters the 
 player must come to the best compromise he can with 
 his fingers and his fiddle, for the finger will often desire 
 a thin string when the fiddle cries out for a thick one. 
 New violins as a rule will take thicker strings than the 
 
 O 
 
 fine old sensitives of the sixteenth or seventeenth centu- 
 ries. Of the English, French, German, and Italian 
 strings, the Italian are the best ; and of the Italian, 
 the Roman hard and brilliant, a little rough, and Neapol- 
 itan smooth, soft, and pale are preferred. Paduans are 
 strong, but frequently false. Veronese are softer and 
 deeper in color. The Germans now rank next, and the 
 white smooth Saxon strings are good substitutes for, but 
 no rivals of, the Italians. The French firsts are brittle, 
 the Italian strings sound well, and the French patent 
 fourth silver string, perfectly smooth and shining, is 
 preferred by some soloists to the old covered fourth. 
 The English strings, of a dirty green and yellow color, 
 are very strong, and good enough for hack work in the 
 orchestra. The best and strongest strings are made from
 
 HOW TO CHOOSE STRINGS. 95 
 
 the intestines of spring lambs killed in September, and 
 the superiority of the Italian over others is explained by 
 the climate, for in Italy the sun does what has to be done 
 artificially in more northern latitudes. 
 
 The demand for the interior of the September lamb 
 being out of all proportion to the supply, there is a vast 
 sale of inferior strings always going on at high prices. 
 In string selection the objects are three : 
 
 1. To suit the constitution of your instrument, and 
 choose that thickness and quality of string which wi-ll 
 develop tone with the greatest ease, roundness, and 
 freedom. 
 
 2. To choose strings which will give good fifths a 
 matter sometimes a little dependent on the shape of 
 your own fingers and the cut of your finger-board, but 
 also controlled by the relative thickness of your strings. 
 
 3. To avoid false strings an epidemic which rages 
 incontinently among E violin strings. Spohr's recipe 
 for detection was to hold the string between the fingers 
 and thumbs, and if, when he set it vibrating from one 
 end to the other, only two lines appeared, he decided 
 that it was true ; if a third, it was deemed false. Once 
 on, however, there can never be any doubt. 
 
 It is only necessary to glance at the enormous variety 
 of shapes that the viol tribe has assumed, both before 
 and after the creation of the violin, to judge of the inex- 
 haustible dominion which the conception seems to have 
 exercised over the human mind. The collector who 
 cannot play, and the player who cannot collect, are alike 
 victims of this mania for violins. Of what interest can 
 they be to the collector, who keeps dozens of them, un- 
 strung and unmended, in cupboards and cabinets, and 
 shows them about to his bewildered guests like old pots 
 or enamels ?
 
 96 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Look at a fine specimen or two, on and off, when you 
 have the chance, and the mystery may possibly dawn 
 upon you too. 
 
 There, in a small compass, lies before you such a 
 wonder of simplicity, subtlety, variety, and strength as 
 perhaps no other object of equal dimensions can possess. 
 The eye is arrested by the amber gloss and glow of the 
 varnish, the infinite grace of the multitudinous curves, 
 the surface, which is nowhere flat, but ever in flowing 
 lines sunlit hollows of miniature hills and vales, irregu- 
 lar, like the fine surface of a perfectly healthy human 
 body. Its gentle mounds and depressions would almost 
 make us believe that there is a whole underlying system 
 of muscle a very living organism, to account for such 
 subtle yet harmonious irregularity of surface. It is posi- 
 tively alive with swelling and undulating grace. 
 
 Then the eye follows with unabating ardor the out- 
 line, clipping in here or bulging there, in segments of 
 what look like an oval or a circle, but which are never 
 any part of an oval or a circle, but something drawn un- 
 mechanically, like a Greek frieze, after the vision of an 
 inward grace. 
 
 Its voice may be as fair as its form and finish ; yet 
 unstrung and silent, more truly can it be said of a violin 
 than of any human creature, that "it is a thing of 
 beauty and a joy forever," for its beauty grows with 
 the mellowness of age, its voice is sweeter as the cen- 
 turies roll on, and its physical frame appears to be 
 almost indestructible. 
 
 And the player, who is not always a judge of a genu- 
 ine violin, but goes by the sound qualities which suit 
 him he naturally adores what is, within its limits, scien- 
 tifically the most perfect of all instruments. 
 
 The four strings, of course, limit and define its har-
 
 POWER OF THE VIOLIN". 97 
 
 monic resources. In combination, and viewed collec- 
 tively in the quartet alone, is it able to compass the ex- 
 tended developments of harmony in bass, tenor, and 
 treble clef ; but as a tone-producing instrument it has no 
 rival. It possesses accent combined with sustained and 
 modified tone. The piano has accent, but little sus- 
 tained and no modified tone ; the organ has accent, and 
 sustained, but in a very imperfect sense, modified tone ; 
 the violin possesses in perfection all three. With the 
 stroke of the bow comes every degree of accent / with 
 the drawing and skilful sostenuto of up and down bow- 
 ings the notes are indefinitely sustained to a degree far 
 exceeding the capacity of the human lungs ; while every 
 pulse of emotion is through the pressure of the finger 
 communicated to the vibrating string, and the tone trem- 
 bles, shivers, thrills, or assumes a hard, rigid quality, 
 passing at will from the variety of a whisper to a very 
 roar or scream of agony or delight. 
 
 Can the soul of the musician fail to yield loving or 
 utter allegiance to the sovereign power of the violin, 
 which is so* willing and ideal a minister of his subtlest 
 inspirations equal to the human voice in sensibility and 
 expression, and far superior to it in compass, execution, 
 variety, and durability ? 
 
 The hotter suns and splendid river supplying the fine 
 wood-market, and the commercial prosperity enjoyed by 
 Cremona, seem to have attracted and fixed the manu- 
 facture of the violin ; and there became a growing 
 demand, not only from all the churches, but also 
 throughout the palaces of Italy. We must ever view 
 that central square of Cremona, where stood the Church 
 of St. Dominic, with feelings of the deepest interest. 
 Standing opposite the fayade on our right hand lies the
 
 98 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 house of the Amati ; there worked Andrew, the founder 
 of the school, making, in 1550, close copies of the Bres- 
 cians, Gaspar and Haggini. 
 
 There were the boys, Anthony and Jerome, who 
 afterward made jointly those violins so much sought 
 after ; but oddly enough reverted to the tubbier model, 
 and over-grooved the sides of their bellies and backs, 
 thinning their tone, until the genius of Jerome discerned 
 the error and reverted to the Brescian type. 
 
 Here was born the great Nicolas Amati, 1596-1684:, 
 who struck out his own model, flattened, and in his best 
 time scarcely retaining a trace of the vicious side-groove 
 of the earlier Amatis. 
 
 On the same work-bench, as students in the school of 
 the immortal Nicolas, sat Andrew Guarnerius and the 
 incomparable Stradivari us, finishing their master's vio- 
 lins and copying for years his various models with su- 
 preme skill and docility. 
 
 Almost next door, probably on the death of Nicolas 
 Amati, Stradivari us set up his shop, opposite the west 
 front of the big church ; there for fifty years more he 
 worked with uninterrupted assiduity ; and next door to 
 him the family of the Guarnerii had their work-rooms, 
 and in that little square were all the finest violins made 
 in the short space of about one hundred and fifty years. 
 The body of Stradivarius lies in the Church of the 
 Rosar} 7 , not a stone's-throw from his own house ; and so 
 these great men died, and were buried, working in 
 friendly rivalry, and leaving their echoes to roll from 
 pole to pole. 
 
 The great Nicolas (1596-168-1) began to change 
 .his model, reverting to the later Brescian in all but his 
 sound holes and two curves, about 1625. His violins in- 
 creased in size, and would have increased in power, had
 
 STRADIVARI US. 99 
 
 it not been for a remnant of tlie early Amati side-groov- 
 ing, which is said to thin the tone. The dip from the 
 foot of the bridge is thought to be too great, but the 
 upper part of the grand pattern is truly noble. Some 
 of his scrolls have been criticised as too small and con- 
 tracted, but there is nothing of this in a 1676 specimen 
 before me ; and although the corners are pointed and 
 highly elegant, there is nothing weak ; yet the whole is 
 full of feminine grace. 
 
 The varnish, when not as is usual rubbed off, inclines 
 to light orange with clear golden tints. The tone is so 
 sweet and sensitive that it seems to leap forth before the 
 bow has touched the strings, and goes on like a bell long 
 after the bow has left them. To a fine Joseph Guarne- 
 rius you have sometimes to lay siege, and then you are re- 
 warded ; but the Kicolas Amati is won almost before it 
 is wooed. 
 
 The incomparable Antonius Stradivarius, or Stradi- 
 vari, lived between 16J4-1737. His latest known vio- 
 lin bears date 1736, and mentions his age, ninety-two. 
 He worked without haste and without rest. His life 
 was interrupted only by the siege of Cremona in 1702. 
 But his art knew no politics, and the foreign courts of 
 Spain and France were quite as eager to get his violins 
 as the Governor of Cremona, or the Duke of Modena. 
 
 Up to about 1668 he was simply the apprentice of 
 Nicolas ; we find scrolls and sound-holes cut by the pupil 
 on the master's violins. He even made and labelled for 
 Nicolas. 
 
 In 1668 he leaves his master's shop and sets up for 
 himself. But for thirty years this consummate student, 
 while making every conceivable experiment with flutes, 
 guitars, and violins, practically copied closely the best 
 models of Xicolas Amati.
 
 100 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Still we notice that from 1686-1694 his sound holes 
 begin to recline, his form grows flatter, his curves ex- 
 tended, his corners tossed up and pointed, the scroll 
 bolder, varnish inclining away from the browns and 
 light orange to the rich yellows and light reds. Notice 
 the way in which his purfiing at the corners, like a little 
 curved wasp's sting, follows no outline of the violin, and 
 is not in the middle of the angle, but points freely toward 
 the corner of the angle. What chic ! as the French say. 
 
 In 1687 the master makes his long pattern not really 
 longer, but looking longer because of the contracted 
 sides. The Spanish Quatuor, inlaid with ivory, illus- 
 trates the fancy and skill of the workman. 
 
 It was not until Stradivarius had entered upon his 
 fifty-sixth year that he attained his zenith and fixed his 
 model, known as the grand pattern. Between 1700 and 
 1725 those extraordinary creations passed from his 
 chisel, even as the master-pieces on canvas passed from 
 the brush of Raphael. The finest of these specimens 
 like that possessed by Mr. Adams, the Dolphin, and by 
 Mr. Hart, the Betts Strad. fetch from 300 to 1000. 
 
 To try to describe these instruments is like trying to 
 describe the pastes, glazes, and blues of Nankin China. 
 Beneath the tangible points of outline, scroll, character, 
 and variety of thickness and modification of form, depend- 
 ent on qualities of wood known to the master, there lie 
 still the intangible things which will hardly bear describ- 
 ing, even when the violin is under the eye one might 
 almost say under the microscope. A rough attempt by 
 contrast may be made in detail. Take but one detail for 
 the benefit of the general reader, the inner side curves 
 and angles of the middle boughts. 
 
 In Gaspar and Maggini those curves are drooping at 
 the corners, longish and undecided in character ; in
 
 THE END OF STEADIVARIUS. 101 
 
 Duiffoprugear they amount almost to wriggles. Nicolas 
 Amati balances the top and bottom of his hollow curve 
 with a certain mastery, but it still has a long oval sweep, 
 with a definite relation of balance between the top and 
 the bottom angle. Having mastered this sweep, Stradi- 
 varius begins to play with his curves and angles. He 
 feels strong enough to trifle, like a skilled acrobat, 
 with the balance. He lessens the oval, and tosses up his 
 lower corner with a curious little crook at the bottom ; 
 the top angle towers proudly and smoothly above it, yet 
 it is always graceful delicious from its sense of free- 
 dom, almost insolent in its strength and self-confidence. 
 There is a touch about Stradivarius here as elsewhere ; 
 it is that which separates the great masters everywhere 
 from their pupils Raphael from Giulio Romano, Paga- 
 nini from Sivori, Stradivarius from Carlo Bergonzi. 
 The freedom of Stradivarius becomes license in Carlo 
 Bergonzi and over-boldness in Joseph Guamerius ; for, 
 although the connection between Joseph and Stradiva- 
 rius has been questioned, to my mind it is sufficiently 
 clear. 
 
 Although Stradivarius worked down to the last year of 
 his life, still, after 1730, feeling his hand and sight begin- 
 ning to fail, he seldom signed his work. We catch one, 
 and only one, glimpse of him as he lived and moved and 
 had his being at Cremona in 1730, Piazza Domeiiico. 
 Old Polledro, late chapel-master at Turin, describes 
 " Antonius, the lute-maker," as an intimate friend of 
 his master. He was high and thin, and looked like one 
 worn with much thought and incessant industry. In 
 summer he wore a white cotton night-cap, and in winter 
 one of some woollen material. He was never seen with- 
 out his apron of white leather, and every day was to him 
 exactly like every other day. His mind was always
 
 102 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 riveted upon his one pursuit, and he seemed neither to 
 know nor to desire the least change of occupation. His 
 violins sold for four golden livres apiece, and were con- 
 sidered the best in Italy ; and as he never spent anything 
 except upon the necessaries of life and his own trade, he 
 saved a good deal of money, and the simple-minded Cre- 
 monese used to make jokes about his thriftmess, and the 
 proverb passed, " As rich as Stradivarius." 
 
 A traveller who lately visited his house, still standing 
 in the square of Cremona, remarked that it was heated 
 through with the sun like an oven. He said you might 
 sit and sweat there as in a Turkish bath. That was how 
 the Cremona makers dried their wood, and so it was their 
 oils distilled slowly and remained always at a high tem- 
 perature, their varnish soaked into the pine bellies and 
 sycamore backs beneath the tropical heat of those sev- 
 enteenth century summers ! _j_ 
 
 Joseph Anthony Guarnerius del Gesu IHS (1687- 
 1745) towers a head and shoulders above the other illus- 
 trious Guarnerii, viz., Andrew and Joseph, his sons, 
 Peter, brother of Joseph (son}, Peter of Mantua, son of 
 " Joseph Filius Andrese." The loud and rich tone of 
 the later Joseph del Gesu violins makes him the formi- 
 dable rival of Stradivarius. Paganini preferred his 
 Joseph, now in the Municipal Palace of Genoa, to all 
 others. 
 
 Who was Joseph's master ? The idea that Joseph, or 
 any one who lived either in Amati's or Guarnerius's 
 house Amati on the right, Guarnerius on the left of 
 Stradivarius, in the same square at Cremona was en- 
 tirely unaffected by the great man's influence, has always 
 seemed to me absurd. That influence has been denied 
 as vehemently in late years as it used to be formerly 
 taken for granted. Still, the great Joseph is claimed as
 
 THE GREAT JOSEPH. 103 
 
 the pupil of Joseph, son of Andrew that Andrew who 
 sat by the side of Stradivari ns in Nicolas Amati's work- 
 shop. With this I find no fault ; hut if the influence of 
 Stradivarius cannot be seen in earlier Josephs, the later 
 Josephs show undoubted signs of the master, who 
 between 1700 and 1730 had eclipsed all his predecessors. 
 In some details Joseph's undoubted reversion to Brcs- 
 cian influence, and that early, is interesting the flat 
 model, the long sound-holes, and, it must be added, 
 often the rough work. Still, in Joseph'? middle period 
 there occurs that very high finish which reminds one of 
 Stradivarius. The elegance of the Strad. scroll is never 
 attained, perhaps not even aimed at. The Josephs of 
 about 1740 are most in request. They are large and 
 massively made, the wood of finest acoustic property, 
 the Breseian sound-hole toned down and rounded more 
 like Stradivarius. A fine genuine violin of this period 
 will not go for less than two hundrd guineas, and four 
 hundred would not be an out-and-out price. The Guar- 
 nerius head or scroll is often quaint and full of self-asser- 
 tion. The violin has the strongest make, temper, and 
 stamp ; the fourth string is often as rich as a trumpet. 
 His last period is troubled by certain inferior violins 
 called prison fiddles. The tale runs that Joseph was 
 imprisoned for some political offence, and was supplied 
 with refuse wood by the jailer's daughter. The prison 
 fiddle is a boon to forgers ; their bad fiddles pass freely 
 for interesting " prison Josephs." 
 
 "With Carlo Bergonzi (1718-1755) and Guadagnini 
 (1710-1750) the great Cremona school comes to an end. 
 The very varnish disappears, the cunning in wood-selec- 
 tion seems to fail the pale reflectors of a dying art, and 
 the passion for vigor and finish has also departed. The 
 violin, although it culminated, was not exhausted at
 
 104 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Cremona ; but it would lead me into a new branch of 
 my subject to deal with the other schools. These, after 
 all, are but reflections, more or less pale or perfect, of 
 the incomparable Cremonese masters.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAGANINI. 
 
 WHO is this man who rises up suddenly in the world 
 of music, and whose fame passes with the brightness and 
 rapidity of a meteor through the civilized world ; who, 
 at the moment when Baillot, Spohr, Rode, and Lafont 
 seemed to have explored the heights and depths of the 
 violin, opened up new vistas full of strange, unparalleled 
 mysteries, and gave us glimpses into a hell, purgatory, 
 and paradise beyond the dreams even of Dante ; whose 
 gaunt and supernatural figure startled and fascinated the 
 crowds that thronged about him, a solitary man among 
 men, but so unlike them that he seemed to belong to 
 another race, and to discourse in the weird music of 
 another world ; who bowed to none, yet was idolized by 
 all ; whose engagements were negotiated by kings and 
 ministers ; who could spurn the prayers of princes and 
 grand duchesses, and yet received honor at their hands, 
 and was alternately decorated by the pope, and anathe- 
 matized by the clergy ? Who was this exceptional being 
 reigm'ng supreme for forty years without a rival over the 
 conflicting schools of Italy, Germany, and France ; at 
 whose approach the greatest masters confessed them- 
 selves vanquished ; who, although he set the fashions, 
 fired whole populations, invented a new school, yet, 
 in his own peculiar greatness, had no masters, no equals, 
 and has left no followers ? This man, who has stamped 
 BO indelible an impression of himself upon the musical
 
 106 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 world, while his name will survive as the synonym of 
 wonder and mystery to the remote ages this Hercules of 
 the violin was Nicolo Paganini. 
 
 That a man's grandmother, or even his father and 
 mother, are of some consequence when he derives lustre 
 or gain from them of any kind, no one will deny ; but 
 when he sheds back upon them the only kind of reflex 
 glory which they are capable of receiving, the glory of 
 an imperishable name, no one will blame the biographer 
 for skipping a few dull and stupid antecedents. 
 
 Paganini pere may have been a street porter, as 
 some pretend ; or small tradesman, as others, prob- 
 ably in the right, "affirm. He was a sharp man ; he was a 
 cruel man ; he did overmuch to develop his son's talents, 
 and overmuch to ruin his health, and, probably, is 
 chargeable with having destroyed his mental and moral 
 equilibrium for life. Nicolo's mother was a sweet, 
 amiable woman. She loved her boy, she believed in 
 him, she often stood between him and the rod, she 
 prayed for him, and saw one night in a vision a celestial 
 being, who told her that the boy would become the 
 greatest violinist that ever lived. How far this dream, 
 which she lost no time in communicating to father and 
 son, increased the father's severity, and fired the boy's 
 ambition, we cannot tell ; but the dream seems to have 
 been a well-established fact, and years afterward, when 
 the mother was old, and the son at his zenith, she re- 
 minded him of it, as of an incident which had been 
 familiar to both of them throughout their lives. 
 
 In these early days of boyhood were probably laid the 
 seeds of that idiosyncrasy of temperament which became 
 at once the glory and curse of his life. Little as we 
 know about the human brain, it is tolerably certain that 
 its particles move in physical grooves and acquire
 
 THE DESPAIR OF HIS MASTERS. 10? 
 
 methodical arrangements, which correspond to what we 
 call mental qualities and states of mind. Illness may 
 perpetuate some and modify others. Great severity 
 may have a similar effect ; recurrent outward action, for 
 instance, may create intense propensity in certain direc- 
 tions, and thus impart the perseverance of mania to in- 
 ward dispositions ; the nervous system at the same time, 
 if it does not break down, becomes over-developed, and 
 is then endowed with an almost supernatural sensibility. 
 Something of this kind appears to have been the case 
 with Paganini. He was by nature very delicate. At 
 four years old he was nearly buried alive ; he lay for a 
 whole day in a state of catalepsy, and was already placed 
 in his shroud, when he revived, but with a nervous sys- 
 tem which from that time forward showed signs of a 
 strange and unnatural susceptibility. By his own tem- 
 perament, as soon as he could hold the violin, he was 
 urged to an intense and dangerous application. For the 
 least fault he was severely beaten by his father, which 
 seemed only to increase an ardor which should, for his 
 own sake, have been rather moderated. Precocity was 
 still further forced on by starvation. Had it not been 
 for his mother, he might never have survived this brutal 
 treatment. We shall see by and by how lovingly he 
 remembered her in the midst of his triumphs. 
 
 Paganini was born at Genoa on the 10th of February, 
 1784. After exhausting his father's instruction, he was 
 taken in hand by Signor Servetto, of the Genoese thea- 
 tre ; then Giacomo Costa, chapel-master, taught him, 
 and the child was often seen playing in the Genoese 
 churches on a violin almost as large as himself ; but, 
 like Mozart before him, and Mendelssohn after him, 
 Kicolo was the despair of his masters, who were in turn 
 angry with his innovations, and astonished at his preco-
 
 108 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 cious facility. In his nintli year lie appeared at a con- 
 cert, and electrified every one with variations on the 
 French air, La Carmagnole. This triumph impelled his 
 avaricious father to discover some one who could further 
 teach him ; the young talent was to be pressed and 
 squeezed to its utmost limit, in order to produce the 
 golden harvest. 
 
 At Parma lived the celebrated musician Holla. To 
 Holla was the boy taken ; but Rolla was ill. "While 
 waiting in the ante-room little Nicolo took up a violin, 
 and played off at sight some difficult music which he 
 found lying on the table. The invalid composer raised 
 himself on his bed to listen, and eagerly inquired who 
 the great master was who had arrived and was playing 
 in his ante-room. "A mere lad! impossible!" but 
 on Paganini's making his appearance as an humble 
 pupil, Holla at once told him that he could teach him 
 nothing. Thence to Pae'r, who was glad to make his 
 difficult charge over to Ghiretti, and this master gave 
 him three lessons a week in harmony and counterpoint. 
 It is not clear that this extraordinary genius owed much 
 more to any one but himself his indomitable perseve- 
 rance and his incessant study. His method is to be 
 noted. For ten or twelve hours he would try passages 
 over and over again in different ways with such absorp- 
 tion and intensity that at nightfall he would sink into 
 utter prostration through excessive exhaustion and fa- 
 tigue. Though delicate, like Mendelssohn, he ate at 
 times ravenously, and slept soundly. When about ten 
 he wrote twenty-four fugues, and soon afterward com- 
 posed some violin music, of such difficulty that he was 
 unable at first to play it, until incessant practice gave 
 him the mastery. 
 
 In 1797 Paganini, being then thirteen years old, made
 
 HOW HE LOST AND WON VIOLINS. 109 
 
 his first professional tour ; but not as a free agent. His 
 father took him through the chief towns of Lombardy, 
 and, not unnaturally, prescribed the task and pocketed 
 the proceeds. But the young neck was already begin- 
 ning to chafe against the yoke. In 1798 he escaped, 
 with his father's tardy consent, to Lucca, where a musi- 
 cal festival in honor of St. Martin was going on. He 
 there gave frequent concerts, and was everywhere met 
 with applause, and, what was more to the purpose, with 
 money. Surrounded by men of inferior talents, a mere 
 inexperienced boy, without education, without knowl- 
 edge of the world, with nothing but ambition and his 
 supreme musical genius, he now broke wildly away from 
 all wise restraints, and avenged himself upon his father's 
 severity by many youthful excesses. He gambled he 
 lost he was duped by his companions ; but he made 
 money so fast, that he soon owned about 1000. It is 
 pleasant to think that he at once thought of giving some 
 of this to his father and mother ; it is unpleasant to 
 record that his father claimed, and eventually got, 
 almost the whole sum from him. But it did not much 
 matter now, for everything seemed literally to turn into 
 gold beneath those marvellous fingers, and bad luck 
 proved nearly as profitable to him as good. 
 
 By the time he had reached seventeen, Paganini was 
 a confirmed gambler. He had little left but his Stradi- 
 Varius violin, and this he was on the point of selling to a 
 certain prince, who had offered him 80, a large sum at 
 the beginning of this century even for a Stradivarius. 
 Times have changed, and in these latter days we think 
 nothing of giving 300 for a genuine instrument of the 
 first class. But the reckless youth determined to make 
 a last stand for his violin. " Jewels, watch, rings, 
 brooches," to use his own words, " I had disposed of
 
 110 MY MUSICAL MEMOKIES. 
 
 all ; my thirty francs were reduced to three. With this 
 small remains of my capital I played, and won 160 
 francs ! This amount sa^ed my violin, and restored my 
 affairs. From that time," he adds, "I abjured gam- 
 ing, to which I had sacrificed a part of my youth, con- 
 vinced that a gamester is an object of contempt to all 
 well-regulated minds." The violin he narrowly missed 
 losing was given him by Parsini the painter, who on one 
 occasion brought him a concerto of extraordinary diffi- 
 culty to read at sight, and, placing a fine Stradivarius in 
 his hands, said, " This instrument shall be yours if you 
 can play that concerto at first sight in a masterly 
 manner." "If that is the case," replied Paganini, 
 " you may bid adieu to it ;" and, playing it off at once, 
 he retained the violin. Easy corne easy go'. Some 
 years later at Leghorn, being again in great straits, he 
 was obliged to part, for a time at least, with this same 
 Stradivarius ; but this disaster was only the means of 
 procuring him the favorite Guarnerius, upon which he 
 ever afterward played. In his need, Monsieur Livron, 
 a distinguished amateur, lent him this splendid instru- 
 ment, and was so enraptured by his playing that he ex- 
 claimed, "Never will I profane the strings that your 
 fingers have touched. It is to you that my violin 
 belongs." This violin is still shown at Genoa under a 
 glass case. 
 
 At the age of seventeen Paganini appears to have been 
 entirely his own master weak in health, nervous, irrita- 
 ble, and excitable ; his wild and irregular habits and 
 pursuits were, at this critical age, threatening to hurry 
 him to an early grave, when an event occurred which, 
 although but too characteristic of the looseness of Italian 
 manners, probably saved his life. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of new discoveries and uncx-
 
 STUDY AND COMPOSITION. Ill 
 
 ampled successes, Paganini ceased to play the violin. 
 He retired into the depths of the country, and devoted 
 himself for three years to agricultural pursuits, and to 
 the society of a lady of rank who had carried him off to 
 her Tuscan estate, and to the guitar. With the sole ex- 
 ception of the late Regondi, no such genius had ever 
 been concentrated upon this limited and effeminate in- 
 strument. But the lady's taste ran that way, and the 
 great violinist lavished for a time the whole force of his 
 originality and skill upon the light guitar. He wrote 
 music for it, and imitated it on the violin, but seldom 
 touched it in after life until quite the close, although, as 
 we shall presently see, he was able to produce a prodig- 
 ious effect upon it when he chose. These years of 
 country life and leisure, during which he was delivered 
 from the pressure of crowds, the excitement of public 
 performances, and, most of all, the grinding anxieties 
 of life, had the effect of bracing him up in health, and 
 prepared him for that reaction toward intense study and 
 exhausting toil which left him without a rival the first 
 violinist in the world. 
 
 In 1804 he returned to Genoa, where he seems, 
 among other thirigs, to have given lessons to a young 
 girl of fifteen, named Catherine Calcagno, who appears 
 to havo caught something of his style, and to have 
 astonished Italy for a few years ; but after 1816 we hear 
 no more of her. And now the neglected violin was 
 taken up once again, but this time with maturer powers 
 and settled intentions. There is a strange thoroughness 
 about Paganini nothing which any previous musician 
 knew or had done must be unknown or left undone by 
 him ; there was to be no hitting him between the joints 
 of his armor ; no loop-hole of imperfection anywhere. 
 He now occupied himself solely with the study of his in-
 
 112 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 stmment, and with, composition wrote four grand quar- 
 tets for violin, viol, guitar, and violoncello ; and bra- 
 vura variations with guitar accompaniment. At the 
 age of twenty-one (1805) he made a second professional 
 tour, passing through Lucca and Piombino, and in one 
 convent church, where he played a concerto, the excite- 
 ment was so great that the monks had to leave their 
 seats to silence the uproar in the congregation. It was 
 at the end of this tour that Napoleon's sister, the Prin- 
 cess Eliza, offered the new violinist the direction of the 
 court music, and gave him the grade of captain in the 
 Royal Guard, with the privilege of wearing that officer's 
 brilliant uniform on state occasions. 
 
 Between 1805 and 1812, while in the service of the 
 Princess Eliza, afterward Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 
 Paganini probably reached his acme of power, if not 
 of fame. He had for years been at work upon new 
 effects and combinations, but, at the very time when 
 each new exploit was being greeted with frantic ap- 
 plause, he betook himself to an exhaustive study of the 
 old masters. Something he seemed to be groping after 
 some clue he wished to find. How often had he 
 thrown over Yiotti, Pugnani, Kreutzer ; how often had 
 he returned to their works ! All were found utterly in- 
 adequate to suggest to him a single fresh thought, and it 
 was nothing short of a new world that he was bound to 
 discover. 
 
 In studying the ninth work of Locatelli, entitled 
 " L'Arte de Nuova Modulazione, " his brain was set 
 suddenly to going in the peculiar direction of his new 
 aspirations. Eveiy original genius seeks some such clue 
 or point of departure. Something in Locatelli's method 
 inflamed Paganini with those conceptions of simulta- 
 neous notes struck in different parts of the instrument ;
 
 PLAYING ON ONE STRING. 113 
 
 the hitherto unknown management of the screws, in 
 which the violin was tuned all sorts of ways to reach 
 effects never heard before or since ; the harmonic flying 
 out at all points ; the arpeggios and pizzicatos, of which 
 more anon these, which were in after years brought to 
 such perfection, were born out of infinite study and prac- 
 tice, under the stimulating influence of the Grand 
 Duchess and her court. 
 
 It is at this season of his life that Paganini appears 
 most like other people, the idol of the court, un- 
 touched as yet by any definite malady, occupying an offi- 
 cial post, and systematically laboring to perfect a talent 
 which already seemed too prodigious to belong to any 
 one man. All conditions seemed most favorable to his 
 peace and pleasure, could they have only lasted ; but 
 this was not possible. They continued until he had 
 achieved the last step in the ladder of consummate skill, 
 and no longer. Probably all his executive peculiarities 
 were developed at this time. It was at Florence, for 
 instance (and not in a prison), that Paganini first played 
 upon only two the first and fourth strings, and then 
 upon one the fourth string. Being in love with a 
 lady of the court, who reciprocated his attachment, he 
 gave out that he would depict upon his violin a Scene 
 Amoureuse the treble string, we presume, was the lady, 
 and the fourth string the gentleman. The emotional 
 dialogue was carried on between the two in a manner 
 which fairly overcame the audience with delight, and led 
 to the Grand Duchess requesting him to try one string 
 alone next time. How he succeeded in that exploit 
 is known to all the world, for he ever afterward re- 
 tained an extreme partiality for the fourth string. 
 
 In 1808 he obtained from the Grand Duchess leave 
 to travel. His fame had preceded him. Leghorn,
 
 114 II Y 3ILSICAL MEMOIIIES. 
 
 where seven years before lie had forfeited his famous 
 Stradivarius and won a Guarnerius, received him with 
 open arms, although his appearance was marked by an 
 amusing contretemps. He came on to the stage limping, 
 having run a nail into his heel. At all times odd-look- 
 ing, he, no doubt, looked all the more peculiar under 
 these circumstances, and there was some tittering among 
 the audience. Just as he began, the candles fell out of 
 his desk more laughter. He went on playing ; the first 
 string broke more laughter. He played the rest of the 
 concerto through on three strings, but the laughter now 
 changed to vociferous applause at this feat. The beggarly 
 elements seemed of little consequence to this magician. 
 One or more strings, it was all the same to him ; indeed, 
 it is recorded that he seldom paused to mend his strings 
 when they broke, which they not unfrequently did. 
 Whether from abstraction or carelessness he would allow 
 them at times to grow quite ragged on the finger-board, 
 and his constant practice of plucking them, guitar-like, 
 with the left hand, as well as harp-like with the fore- 
 finger- of the right hand, helped, no doubt, to wear 
 them out rapidly. 
 
 At Ferrara both he and his violin met with a different 
 reception. A singer had failed him, and he had in- 
 duced a danseuse who had a pretty voice to come to the 
 rescue. Some graceless fellow in the audience hissed 
 her singing, which caused Paganini to take a revenge 
 little suited to the occasion. In his last solo he imitated 
 the cries of various animals, and suddenly advancing to 
 the foot-lights, caused his violin to bray like an ass, with 
 the exclamation, " This is for him who hissed !" In- 
 stead of laughter, the pit rose in. fury, and would have 
 soon made short work of him and his violin, had he not 
 escaped by a back door. It appears that the country
 
 HIS APPEARANCE. 115 
 
 folk round Ferrara called the town's people, whom they 
 hated, "asses," and were in the habit of singing out 
 " hee-haw !" whenever they had to allude to them ; 
 hence the angry reception of Paganini's musical repartee. 
 
 We get but fugitive glances of the great artist during 
 this professional tour, but it is too true that at Turin he 
 was attacked with that bowel complaint which ever after- 
 ward haunted him like an evil demon, causing him the 
 most frightful and protracted suffering, and interrupting 
 his career sometimes for months together. His distrust 
 of doctors and love of quack medicines no doubt made 
 matters worse, and from this time his strange appearance 
 grew stranger, his pallor more livid, his gauntness and 
 thinness more spectral and grotesque, while greatly, no 
 doubt, in consequence of suffering, his face assumed that 
 look of eagle sharpness, sometimes varied by a sardonic 
 grin, or a look of almost demoniacal fury, which artists 
 have caricatured and sculptors have tried to tone down. 
 Indeed, he must have been altogether an exceptional 
 being to behold in the flesh. People who knew him say 
 that the figure which used still to be exhibited at 
 Madame Tussaud's, some twenty-five years ago, was a 
 remarkable likeness. He looked an indifferently dressed 
 skeleton, with a long parchment face, deep dark eyes, 
 full of flame, long lank hair, straggling down over his 
 shoulders. His walk was shambling and awkward, the 
 bones seem to have been badly strung together, he ap- 
 peared as if lie had been fixed up hastily on wires and 
 the wires had got loose. As he stood, he settled himself 
 on one hip, at a gaunt angle, and before he began, the 
 whole business looked so unpromising, that men won- 
 dered how he could hold his violin at all, much less play 
 it! 
 
 It must have been at his first visit to Florence, before
 
 116 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 his appearance was familiar, as it afterward became, to 
 the inhabitants of that city, that we get one of those side- 
 views of the man which are more precious than many 
 dates and drier details. 
 
 Slowly recovering from illness, Paganini repaired to 
 Florence, probably in May of the year 1809. He must 
 have then Jived in almost complete solitude, as he does 
 not appear to have been recognized there before the 
 month of October, when he was officially recalled to his 
 duties by the late Princess, now Grand Duchess, at the 
 Court of Florence. 
 
 Those who have wandered in spring-time about the en- 
 virons of Florence, know the indefinite charm there is in 
 the still and fertile country, without the walls of the city. 
 Outside the gate of the Pitti, on the summit of a steep 
 hill, stands Fiesole, bathed in clear air and warm sun- 
 shine. How many an invalid has walked up that wind- 
 ing and rugged path, gathering, here and there, a sweet 
 wild-flower, resting from, time to time to drink in the 
 delicious air, until pure health seemed borne back to the 
 feeble frame upon the soft and fragrant breeze. 
 
 Alone, on a bright morning, a tall, ungainly figure 
 goes slowly up the hill toward Fiesole. He pauses at 
 times, he looks round abstractedly. He is talking to him- 
 self out load, unconscious of any one near him- he ges- 
 ticulates wildly then breaks out into a loud laugh ; but 
 stops suddenly, as he sees coming down the hill a young 
 girl, carrying one of those large baskets full of flowers 
 so commonly seen in the streets of Florence. She is 
 beautiful with the beauty of the Florentine girls ; the 
 brown flesh-tints mellowed with reflected light from the 
 white road strewn thick with marble-dust ; under the 
 wide straw hat the free curls flow dark and thick, clus- 
 tering about her temples, and lowering the forehead.
 
 IX THE STORM. 117 
 
 Suddenly the large black eyes, so common among the 
 Italian peasants, seem transfixed with something be- 
 tween wonder and fear, as they fall upon the uncouth 
 figure approaching her. In another moment, conscious 
 of the stranger's intense gaze, she stands motionless, like 
 a bird charmed by a serpent ; then she trembles invol- 
 untarily from head to foot. A strange smile steals over 
 the pale and haggard face of Paganini was he, then, 
 conscious of exercising any mesmeric power ? At times 
 he seemed so full of some such influence that individ-. 
 uals, as well as crowds, were irresistibly drawn and fas- 
 cinated by his look. 
 
 But the strange smile seemed to unloose the spell, the 
 startled girl passed on, and the solitary artist resumed 
 his walk toward Fiesole. 
 
 Heavy clouds riven with spaces of light were driving 
 before the wind. Over the bridge Delle Grazie, up tho 
 hill once more without the gates of Florence, we pass 
 toward a ruined castle. A storm seems imminent, the 
 wind whistles and howls round the deserted promontory, 
 the bare ruin that has braved the storms of centuries 
 stands up dark against the sky, and seems to exult in the 
 fury of the elements, so much in harmony with its own 
 wild and desolate look. But what are those low wail- 
 ings ? Is it the wind, or some human being in anguish ? 
 The traveller rushes forward in a cavity of the deep 
 ruin, among the tumbled stones, overgrown with moss 
 and turf, lies a strange figure a lonely, haggard man. 
 He listens to the wind, and moans in answer, as though 
 in pain. Is he the magician who has conjured up the 
 tempest, and is the scene before us all unreal ? or has 
 the tempest entered into his soul, and filled him with its 
 own sad voice ? Indeed, as he lies there, his pale, 
 almost livid face distorted, his wet hair streaming wildly
 
 US MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 about his shoulders, his uncouth form writhing with 
 each new burst of the hurricane he looks the very im- 
 personation of the storm itself. But, on being observed, 
 his look becomes fixed the stranger insensibly recoils, 
 and feels awkwardly the sense of intrusion. If the 
 strange man is in pain he wants no help ; thus rashly ex- 
 posed to the weather, hardly recovered from his griev- 
 ous malady, he may well be actually suffering ; but most 
 likely he is merely possessed for the time by certain 
 emotions impressed upon his sensitive and electric organ- 
 ization by the tempest from without. He is drinking in 
 the elemental forces which, by and by, he will give out 
 with a power itself almost as elemental. 
 
 Some of us may have walked in the soft moonlight 
 under the long avenue (Cascine) that runs by the brink 
 of the rushing Arno straight out of Florence. We can 
 remember how the birds love those trees, and the 
 broken underwood beneath them. When the city 
 sleeps, the heart of those woods is alive ; even the day- 
 light birds are sometimes aroused by the nightingales, as 
 they answer each other in notes of sweetness long drawn 
 out, and tender raptures that seem to swoon and faint 
 into the still more tender silences of the summer night. 
 But suddenly the birds' song is checked other strains 
 of incomparable sweetness arise in the wood. The birds 
 are silent, they pause and listen ; the notes are like 
 theirs, but more exquisite they are woven by a higher 
 art into phrases of inspiration beyond even the nightin- 
 gale's gift. The strange whistler ceases, and the birds 
 resume, timidly, their song ; again the unearthly music 
 breaks forth, and mingles with theirs. As we push 
 apart the bushes, we discover the same weird figure that 
 but lately lay moaning in the storm among the ruins 
 upon yonder hill.
 
 OX THE GUITAR. 119 
 
 The person to whom we owe, substantially, the above 
 glimpses, met this extraordinary man again in the streets 
 of Florence a few days later. A merry party of young 
 people, laughing and shouting, pass by toward the Uffizi. 
 We listen to their ringing voices, occupied with them- 
 selves, and, youth-like, caring for nothing at the time 
 but their own gayety, when suddenly the voices fall, the 
 twanging of the guitar ceases ; a curious murmur runs 
 through the merry throng, and not a pleasant murmur ; 
 a tall, pale man, with eyes on fire, and strange, imperi- 
 ous look, has pushed brusquely in among them. 
 
 He seizes the guitar, and, sweeping its strings with 
 passion, causes it to wail like a zither, then peal out like 
 the strains of a military band, and finally settle into the 
 rich chords and settled cadences of a strong harp. All 
 resistance and murmuring cease as the astonished party 
 follow him, spell-bound. His cravat flies loose, his coat- 
 tails wave madly to and fro, he gesticulates like a 
 maniac, and the irresistible music streams forth louder, 
 wilder, more magical than ever, he strides, leaps, dances 
 forward with the guitar, which is no longer a guitar, but 
 the very soul of Nicolo Paganini. A few days later still 
 the mystery was cleared up. Paganini had been offi- 
 cially called to Florence by the Grand Duchess to super- 
 intend the court concerts, and the whole of the town 
 was soon ringing with his name. 
 
 About the age of thirty, at which time, as we shall 
 presently narrate, Paganini became free never again to 
 be bound by any official appointment, the great violin- 
 ist had exhausted all the possible resources of his instru- 
 ment. From this time Paganini, incredible as it may 
 appear, seldom, if ever, played, except at concerts and 
 rehearsals, and not always even at rehearsals. If he 
 ever practised, he always used a mute. Mr. Han-is, who
 
 120 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 for twelve months acted as his secretary, and seldom left 
 him, never saw him take his violin from its case. At 
 the hotels where he stopped the sound of his instrument 
 was never heard. He used to say that he had worked 
 enough, and had earned his right to repose ; yet, with- 
 out an effort, he continued to overcome the superhuman 
 difficulties which he himself had created with the same 
 unerring facility, and ever watched by the eager and en- 
 vious eyes of critics and rivals. In vain ! No false in- 
 tonation, no note out of tune, no failure was ever per- 
 ceptible. The Times critic, reviewing him in London 
 some years before his death, says his octaves were so true 
 that they sounded like one note, and the most enormous 
 intervals with triple notes, harmonics and guitar effects, 
 seem to have been invariably taken with the same pre- 
 cision. In the words of a critical judge, M. Fetis, " his 
 hand was a geometrical compass, which divided the 
 finger-board with mathematical precision." There is an 
 amusing story told of an Englishman, who followed him 
 from place to place, to hear him play in private, in the 
 hope of discovering his "secret." At last, after many 
 vain attempts, he managed to be lodged in the next 
 room to the great artist. Looking through the key- 
 hole, he beheld him seated on a sofa, about to take his 
 violin from its case at last ! He raises it to his chin 
 but the bow ? is left in the case. The left hand merely 
 measures with its enormous wiry fingers a few mechani- 
 cal intervals, and the instrument is replaced in silence ; 
 not even then was a note to be heard ! 
 
 Yet every detail of rehearsal was an anxiety to him. 
 Although he gave a prodigious number of concerts, he 
 was always unusually restless and abstracted on the 
 morning of the day on which he had to perform. He 
 would be idle for hours on his sofa or, at least, he
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 121 
 
 seemed to be idle perhaps the works were then being 
 wound up before going to rehearsal. He would then, 
 before starting, take up his violin, examine it carefully, 
 especially the screws, and, having satisfied himself, re- 
 place it in its shabby-worn case without striking a note. 
 Lastly, he would sort and arrange the orchestral parts of 
 his solos, and go off to rehearsal. He was very unpunc- 
 tual, and on one occasion kept the whole band waiting 
 for an hour, and was at last found sheltering from the 
 rain under a colonnade, rather than take a cab. This 
 was in London. At the rehearsal there was always the 
 most intense eagerness on the part of the band to hear 
 him play, and when he came to one of his prodigious 
 cadenzas, the musicians would rise in their seats, and 
 lean forward to watch every movement, and follow every 
 sound. Paganini would then just play a few common- 
 place notes, stop suddenly, and, turning round to the 
 band, wave his bow, with a malicious smile, and say, 
 " Et caetera, Messieurs!" If anything went wrong he 
 got into a paroxysm of fury ; but when things went 
 well he freely showed his satisfaction, and often ex- 
 claimed, " Bravissimo sieti tuti virtuosi !" 
 
 He could be very courteous in manner, and was not per- 
 sonally unpopular with his fellow-musicians, who stood 
 greath r in awe of him. No one ever saw the principal 
 parts of his solos, as he played by heart, for fear of the 
 music being copied. The rehearsal over, he carried 
 even the orchestral parts away with him. He would then 
 go straight home, take a light meal, throw himself on his 
 bed, and sleep profoundly until his carriage arrived to 
 take him to the concert. His toilet was very simple, 
 and took hardly any time ; his coat was buttoned tightly 
 over his chest, and marked the more conspicuously the 
 impossible angles of his figure ; his trousers hung loose
 
 122 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 for trousers of the period ; his cravat was tight about lus 
 .neck. He sweated so profusely over his solos that he 
 always carried a clean shirt in his violin trunk, and 
 changed his linen once at least during the concert. At 
 concert time he usually seemed in excellent spirits. His 
 first question on arriving was always, " Is there a large 
 audience ?" If the room was full he would say, " Excel- 
 lent people ! good, good !" If by any chance the boxes 
 were empty he would say, " Some of the effects will be 
 lost." He kept his audience waiting a long time, and 
 he would sometimes say, ' ' I have played better, " or " I 
 have played worse," and occasionally his first solo 
 would be more effective than his last. After once or 
 twice trying the music of Kreutzer and Rode in public, 
 he decided never to play any but his own, and said to 
 his secretary, Mr. Harris, " I have my own peculiar 
 style ; in accordance with this I regulate my composi- 
 tions. I had much rather write a piece in which I can 
 trust nrvself entirely to my own musical impressions.'* 
 " His art," observes M. Fetis, "was an art born with 
 him, the secret of which he has carried to the grave." 
 
 Some have pretended that, as Paganini never cared to 
 play except in public, his art was nothing to him but a 
 means of making money. It would be, perhaps, nearer 
 the truth to say that his art was so entirely himself, that 
 lie did not require, except at, seasons, and chiefly for 
 others, to give it outward expression. He needed no 
 more to play than Beethoven needed to hear. Happier 
 than Beethoven, he was not deprived of the power of 
 realizing outwardly the art in which he inwardly lived ; 
 but probably the creations of his spirit infinitely out- 
 stripped the utmost limits even of his executive powers, 
 until in his eyes they seemed, after all, the faint and in- 
 adequate symbols of his wild and inspired dreams.
 
 ART AND LIFE. 12IJ 
 
 There are times when the deepest feeling is the most 
 silent music may come to the aid of words ; but there 
 is a point at which music itself is a mere beggarly element. 
 What made Paganini so exceptionally great was the 
 portentous development, the strength and independence, 
 of the emotional fountain within. The whole of life 
 was to him nothing but so many successions of psycho- 
 logical heat and cold. Incidents immediately became 
 clothed with a psychic atmosphere perhaps the life of 
 emotion was never so completely realized in itself, an.d 
 for itself, as in the soul-isolation of Paganini. That 
 life, as far as it could be individually expressed, was ut- 
 tered forth by his violin. On his concert bills he used to 
 
 put, 
 
 Paganini fara sentire il suo violino. 
 
 What the tempest had told him his violin would pro- 
 claim ; what the summer night had whispered was 
 stereotyped in his soul, and the midnight song of birds 
 came forth from the Cremona depths at his bidding. 
 Kor was there any phase of passion unknown to him, 
 ave, alas ! the phase of a pure and lasting love. His wild 
 soul had early consumed itself with unbridled excesses, 
 and although in his maturer years he grew more sober in 
 such matters, it was not before he had fathomed the 
 perilous depths of more than one grande passion, and 
 made himself master of all its subtle expressions. 
 
 When, then, we are told that he seldom played, we 
 must remember that his inmost life was itself one vast 
 cosmos of imaginary concord and discord he was music, 
 although only at times "the tides of music's golden 
 sea " would burst forth with incomparable splendor, and 
 gather a kind of concrete existence in sound ; yet to him 
 his own inspirations were as real perhaps more real 
 without it. For music exists apart from physical vibra-
 
 124 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 tions, nor can such vibrations, however subtle and 
 varied, express it wholly as it lives in the creative heart. 
 The ear of the soul hears what no ear of sense can hear, 
 and a music fairer than anything on earth is often sound- 
 ing in the spirit of the true musical seer. Nay, does he 
 not feel, like Beethoven, the bitter descent when he 
 formulates his thoughts upon paper, strikes the keys, or 
 sets in vibration the strings which after all are but feeble 
 apologies for the ideal beauty, the intense, the subtle, or 
 exalted harmonies of the inner life ? 
 
 Shall we now assist at one of Paganini's perform- 
 ances ? How many descriptions have been written, and 
 how inadequate ! It is hardly possible to do more than 
 describe a few salient peculiarities. But even our pale 
 sketch would be incomplete without such an attempt. 
 
 Enter Paganini a shudder of curiosity and excite- 
 ment runs through the crowded theatre, the men ap- 
 plaud, the women concentrate a double-barrel fire of 
 opera-glasses upon the tall, ungainly figure that shuffles 
 forward from the side scenes to the foot -lights, with 
 such an air of haughtiness, and yet so many mechanical 
 bows. As the applause rises again and again, the appari- 
 tion stands still, looks round, takes in at a glance the vast 
 assembly. Then, seizing hjs violin, he hugs it tightly 
 between his chin and chest, and stands for a few seconds 
 gazing at it in motionless abstraction. The audience is 
 now completely hushed, and all eyes are riveted upon one 
 silent and almost grotesque form. Suddenly Paganini 
 raises his bow and dashes it down like a sledge-hammer 
 upon the strings. The opening of the concerto abounds 
 in solo passages, in which he has to be left almost without 
 accompaniment ; the orchestra is reserved for the tuttis 
 and slight interludes. Paganini now revels in his dis- 
 tinctive and astonishing passages, which hold the audi-
 
 HIS INDEPENDENCE. 125 
 
 encc breathless. At one time torrents of chords peal 
 forth, as from some mimic orchestra ; harmonic passages 
 are thrown off with the sharpness and sonority of the 
 flute accompanied by the guitar, independent phrases 
 being managed by the left hand plucking the strings, 
 while the right is playing legato passages with the bow. 
 The most difficult intervals are spanned with ease the 
 immense, com pass- like fingers glide up and down every 
 part of the key-board, and seem to be in ever so many 
 places at once. Heavy chords are struck indifferently 
 with the point or heel of the bow, as if each inch of the 
 magic wand were equally under control ; but just when 
 these prodigious feats of skill are causing the senses to 
 reel with something like a painful strain, a low, meas- 
 ured melody steals forth and penetrates the souls of all 
 present, until some of the audience break out into un- 
 controllable applause, while others arc melted to tears, 
 overpowered by the thrilling accents. Then, attenuated 
 as it were to a thread but still distinctly audible and 
 resonant the divine sound would die away ; and sud- 
 denly a grotesque flash of humor would dart up from a 
 lower sphere and shift the emotional atmosphere, as the 
 great maestro too soon dashes, with the impetuosity of a 
 whirlwind, into the final " rondo " or " moto perpetuo." 
 
 Paganini was not inexorable about encores he was 
 always gratified by applause. After the concert the 
 people often waited outside to accompany him to his 
 hotel. He seemed delighted with this kind of hom- 
 age, and would go out at such seasons and mix freely 
 with them ; but he was often quite inaccessible, and 
 bent upon absolute seclusion. 
 
 Let us now resume the chronological narrative. 
 Toward the end of 1812, Paganini quarrelled with his 
 royal patroness, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. She
 
 126 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 liad given him leave, as above mentioned, to wear at 
 court the uniform of captain of the body-guard, and one 
 night he appeared in the orchestra attired in this splen- 
 did costume. The Duchess seems to have thought this 
 inappropriate, and sent word desiring him to change his 
 uniform for an ordinary dress. The offended artist de- 
 clined point-blank, and that evening threw up his ap- 
 pointment and left the Florentine Court and all its 
 works forever. It is not at all improbable that Paganini, 
 who could now command any sum of money, had grown 
 tired of official duties, which could no longer shed any 
 new lustre upon him, and that, longing to be free, he 
 gladly availed himself of the first ready pretext for 
 flight. In vain his royal mistress sent after him, implor- 
 ing him to return. Paganini was inexorable, and it was 
 even whispered that the Duchess's entreaties were 
 prompted by a feeling still more tender than the love of 
 music a feeling which Paganini had ceased to recipro- 
 cate. 
 
 Paganini was very fond of Milan, and he stayed there 
 during the greater part of 1813. He visited that city 
 three times in five years, staying often for several 
 months, and giving in all thirty-seven concerts, most of 
 them at the Scala. 
 
 It was in 1811 that he first made the acquaintance of 
 Rossini at Bologna. The great composer, like every 
 other connoisseur, regarded him with admiration and 
 astonishment, arid a friendship was then begun which 
 was strengthened when the two celebrities met in 1817 
 at Rome, and in 1831 at Paris. 
 
 Paganini treated his fellow-musicians and rivals with 
 simple and unaffected courtesy. He expressed his great 
 admiration of Spohr's violin -playing, and he went all the 
 way from Genoa to Milan to hear Lafont. When they
 
 HIS HEALTH. 127 
 
 met, Lafont proposed that they should give a concert, in 
 which each should play a solo. " I excused myself," 
 Bays Paganini, " by saying that such experiments are 
 always impolitic, as the public invariably looked upon 
 them as duels. Lafont, not seeing it in this light, I was 
 compelled to accept the challenge." Commenting upon 
 the results, he added with singular candor and modesty : 
 " Lafont probably surpassed me in tone, but the applause 
 which followed my efforts convinced me that I did not 
 suffer by comparison.' ' Although usually anxious, more 
 for the sake of others than for himself, to avoid such 
 contests, he never declined them ; and a similar trial of 
 skill took place between him and the Polish violinist, 
 Laprinski, in 1818, at Plaisance, the t\vo artists remain- 
 ing excellent friends. 
 
 At this time Paganini' s health seems to have been in 
 an unusually critical condition. We have noticed that 
 he seldom consulted doctors, and when he did so he was 
 not in the habit of following their advice ; but his 
 credulity was worse than his scepticism. He dosed him- 
 self immoderately with some stuff called " Leroy ;" he 
 believed that this could cure anything. It usually pro- 
 duced a powerful agitation in his nervous system, and 
 generally ended in upsetting the intestinal functions. 
 Sometimes it seems to have deprived him of the power 
 of speech. 
 
 In 1816 he went to Venice, where he seems fairly to 
 have collapsed after giving a few concerts. However, 
 in the following year (1817) he was much better, and 
 went to Genoa to see his mother, taking Milan en route. 
 He has been called avaricious, suspicious of his kind, and 
 devoid of all natural affection. He, no doubt, loved 
 money, and had a general distrust of his friends, but it is 
 certain that he was attached to his mother, and took care
 
 128 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 to supply her with every comfort. She writes to him 
 some years later : 
 
 I am delighted to find that after your travels to Paris and London, 
 you purpose visiting Genoa expressly to embrace me. My dream has 
 been fulfilled, and that which God promised me has been accom- 
 plished your name is great, and Art, with the help of God, has 
 placed you in a position of independence. We are all well. In the 
 name of all your relations I thank you for the sums of money you 
 have sent. Omit nothing that will render your name immortal. 
 Eschew the vices of great cities, remembering that you have a 
 mother who loves you affectionately. She will never cease her sup- 
 plications to the All-powerful for your preservation. Embrace your 
 amiable companion for me, and kiss little Achille. Love me as I 
 love you. Your ever affectionate mother, 
 
 THEKESA PAGANINI. 
 
 The ' ' amiable companion ' ' seems to have been a 
 cantatrice, Antonia Blanchi di Como, with whom he ap- 
 pears to have lived at one time, and who bore him his 
 only son, " the little Achille." 
 
 In the same year, 1817, he arrived in Rome in time 
 for the Carnival, where he excited the greatest enthu- 
 siasm. He was frequently to be found at the palace of 
 Count de Kaunitz, the Austrian Ambassador, where 
 he met all the great people in Rome, and among them 
 M. de Metternich, who did his utmost to persuade him 
 to visit Vienna. From this time Paganini determined, 
 sooner or later, to visit the principal cities in Germany 
 and France, but the state of his health was still very 
 precarious. In 1818-19 he gave concerts at A r erona, 
 Plaisance, Turin, and Florence, after which he visited 
 Naples for the first time. His advent had been long 
 looked for with feelings of jealous expectation and dis- 
 trust. The chief professors and musicians of the place, 
 who had never heard him, were not very favorably dis- 
 posed. They, however, gave him a reception, on which 
 occasion a piece of music was casually placed before him,
 
 INHUMAN TREATMENT. TRAVELS. 12D 
 
 full of the most ingenious difficulties that could be de- 
 vised. Paganini was not unaccustomed to this kind of 
 trap, and upon being requested to play it at sight, he 
 merely glanced at it and played it off with the greatest 
 ease. 
 
 But he had even worse foes than the professors. He 
 seems to have got into damp apartments close under 
 St. Elmo, and his lungs, at no time very strong, now 
 showed unmistakable signs of consumption. The land- 
 lord, fearing that he would die in his house, actually 
 turned him and all he possessed out into the street, where 
 his friend, Ciandelli, happening to come by at the very 
 nick of time, administered a sound thrashing to the 
 brutal host with a stick, and took the invalid artist to 
 a more comfortable lodging. In 1820 he returned to 
 his favorite city, Milan, where he founded a musical 
 society, conducted several concerts, and received various 
 crowns, medals, and decorations. In December of the 
 same year he returned to Home, and in the following 
 year, 1821, paid a second visit to Naples, giving concerts 
 at the Fondo and the Theatre Nuovo. At the end of 
 the year he crossed over to Sicily, but the people of 
 Palermo hardly appreciated him ; and in 1822 he was 
 again at Yenice and Plaisance. From thence he would 
 have gone straight to Germany, in accordance with the 
 proposals of Metternich ; but on his way to Pavia, in 
 1S23, he was attacked by his old complaint, and for some 
 time it did not seem likely that he would recover. He was 
 advised to go to Genoa for rest, and while there he re- 
 covered sufficiently to give concerts at the Theatre St. 
 Augustine, when the prophet in his own country for 
 once attracted enthusiastic crowds. The Milanese, who 
 had never expected to see him alive again, gave him an 
 enthusiastic reception at the Scala, on the 12th of June,
 
 130 MY MUSICAL MEMOKIES. 
 
 1824. He seems to have been still unable to tear him- 
 self away from Italy, for in the same month he returned 
 to Genoa, then passed to Venice, and in 1825 he was at 
 Trieste. Then he proceeded, for the third time, to 
 Naples, and going over to Palermo, for the second time, 
 he now met with a most astonishing success. He re- 
 mained in Sicily for a whole year, and seems in this de- 
 licious climate to have recovered his health sufficiently 
 to undertake a long professional tour. He was then de- 
 tained in Italy for nearly two years more, for in 1826 he 
 visited again Trieste, Venice, and gave five concerts at 
 Rome. In 1827 he was decorated by Pope Leo XII. 
 with the Order of the Golden Spur. He then repaired 
 to Florence, where a disease in one of his legs stopped 
 his progress for several months. It was only in the 
 spring of 1828 that he went on to Milan, where he at 
 length gave his farewell concert, before starting on his 
 long-projected visit to Vienna. 
 
 To dwell upon the reports of his first appearance at 
 Vienna would be only to repeat what has already been 
 said. " The first note that he played on his Guarne- 
 rius," writes M. Schilling in the Lexique Universel de 
 Musigue, " indeed, from his first step into the room, 
 his reputation was decided in Germany. Acted upon, 
 as by an electric spark, a brilliant halo of glory appeared 
 to invest his whole person ; ho stood before us like a 
 miraculous apparition in the domain of Art !" lie gave 
 concerts in the capital of Austria on the 13th, IGth, aiul 
 18th of April, 1828. The greatest players and musicians 
 from all parts flocked to hear him. Mayseder, Jansa, 
 Slawich, Strebinger, Bohni, united in extolling the new 
 prodigy. In a very few days Vienna seemed to be 
 turned upside down no class of people was unmoved 
 by the presence of this extraordinary man. The news-
 
 TRIUMPHS AT VIEXXA. 131 
 
 papers were full of verses and articles on Paganmi. 
 Cravats, coats, gloves, hats, shoes, and even cigar-cases 
 and snuff-boxes everything was now d la Paganini. 
 The fashionable cooks called new dishes by his name ; 
 any great stroke at billiards was a coup d la Paganini. 
 
 He stayed several months at Vienna, but time did not 
 injure his popularity ; his talent bore the most critical 
 inspection all round he was at once colossal in the 
 breadth and majesty of his effects, and microscopic in 
 the perfection and subtlety of his details. At the acme 
 of his fame he left Vienna, and commenced a tour 
 through Austria, Bohemia, Saxony, Poland, Bavaria, 
 Prussia, and the Rhenish Provinces. Prague was the 
 only city which failed to appreciate him. There was a 
 stupid rivalry, of which we find traces in the days of 
 Mozart, between Vienna and Prague, and it was gener- 
 ally understood that whoever was applauded at Vienna 
 was to be hissed at Prague, and vice versa. Bat on 
 reaching Berlin the great artist was received with such 
 an ovation, that he is said to have exclaimed, on his first 
 appearance, " Here is my Vienna public !" 
 
 From this time to the end of his life, the wildest 
 stories began to be circulated about him, chiefly in 
 the Italian and French newspapers ; but the Leipzig 
 Gazette du Monde Elegant cannot be held quite 
 blameless, for it inserted one of the most extravagant of 
 these tales. One man gravely affirmed that Paganini's 
 miracles of skill were no longer to be wondered at, 
 because he had seen the devil standing close behind him 
 moving his arms for him. Another eye-witness wrote 
 that he had for some time observed a beautiful woman 
 at Paganini's concerts ; he went to the theatre in the 
 hope of again seeing her on the occasion of Pagani- 
 ni's last performance. The master appeared, played
 
 132 MY MUSICAL MEMOllIES. 
 
 divinely ; the house was crammed, but where was the 
 lady ? Presently in one of the soft pauses a deep 
 sigh was heard ; it proceeded from the beautiful lady ; 
 tears were streaming down her cheeks. A mysterious 
 person was seated by her side, with whom Paganini ex- 
 changed a ghastly smile ; the lady arid her cavalier soon 
 rose; the strange cavalier grasped her hand she grew 
 deadly pale. They proceeded out of the theatre. In a 
 narrow by-path stood a carriage with coal-black steeds 
 the horses' eyes seemed on fire ; the two entered, the 
 carriage vanished where, apparently, there was no road 
 at all. The inference of all which is that Paganini was in 
 league with the devil ! It is strange but true that these 
 absurd legends gained some credence among the igno- 
 rant populace of Italy and France, though they were 
 probably laughed at in Germany. 
 
 But other stories of a different kind annoyed him far 
 more. He was a ruffian \vho had murdered one mistress, 
 and decamped with another man's wife ; he was an es- 
 caped convict ; he was a political busybody. He was 
 a spy, a thief, an immoral swindler ; he had been in 
 prison, it was said, for years, and had thus learned his 
 skill upon one string, all the others having been broken. 
 It is necessary, even at this time of day, to give a dis- 
 tinct denial to this last legend. Paganini' s morals were 
 not above, but they were not below, the average of the 
 somewhat dissolute state of society in which it was his 
 misfortune to have been born and bred. He never com- 
 mitted a murder, or fought a duel, or betrayed a friend, 
 or left without provision those whom he had given just 
 claims upon him. As to politics, he knew nothing and 
 cared nothing for them ; and he never read the news- 
 papers except when they contained something about 
 himself. In Paris they pasted up a coarse wood-cut of
 
 PAOANLX1 S MORALS. Ud 
 
 Paganini chained in a dungeon about the walls and 
 
 c5 O 
 
 hoardings of the city. Paganini describes himself as 
 having stood before it in nmte astonishment, until a 
 crowd gathered round him, and, recognizing the like- 
 ness, mobbed and hustled him in the most inconvenient 
 manner. It was these reports that he afterward bitterly 
 complained of, and M. Fetis, at his request, drew up 
 a letter, which was afterward published throughout 
 Europe, in which the aggrieved violinist vindicates his 
 character from the current calumnies. His protesta- 
 tions, however, were far from stilling the rumors,, and, 
 when he arrived in London, some years later, there was 
 no absurd and extravagant tale about him that was not 
 eagerly caught up and circulated throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land. A lesser man might have 
 courted this sort of notoriety, but Paganini, who could 
 do without it, was intensely annoyed and wounded. 
 We cannot follow the great violinist in detail through 
 his German campaign, in the years 1828-29-30, but 
 some notion of his way of life may draw his personality 
 a little closer to the reader ere we prepare to greet him 
 on our own shores. 
 
 Ill health, at times acute suffering, which turned his 
 pale bony face to a green, livid hue, an intensely sus- 
 ceptible nervous system, an outward life alternating 
 between scenes of highly- wrought excitement, amazing 
 exertion, and fitful repose these causes combined to pro- 
 duce a character singular for its mingled abstraction and 
 plasticity. At times he seemed in the body, at other 
 times out of the body ; sometimes he appeared to be only 
 semi-conscious of life, at other times more intensely con- 
 scious than any dozen people put together. Physical 
 causes acted at times oddly and instantly upon his 
 brain ; at others they found him like stone. He was
 
 134 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 not always open to impressions, which at certain 
 moments would find him so receptive that he became 
 the utter incarnation of them. He was full of contra- 
 dictions, which he cared little to explain either to himself 
 or to others. He travelled with the utmost speed from 
 place to place ; in the hottest weather he would have 
 all the carriage windows closed. Although latterly his 
 lungs affected his voice, which became thin and feeble, 
 he delighted to talk loudly when rattling over the 
 roads ; the noise of the wheels seemed to excite him, 
 and set his brain going. He never entered an inn on 
 the road, but would sit in his carriage until the horses 
 were ready, or walk up arid down wrapped in his great 
 cloak, and resent being spoken to. Arrived at his 
 hotel, he would throw all his doors and windows open, 
 and take what he called an air bath ; but he never ceased 
 to abuse the climate of Germany, and said that Italy was 
 the only place fit to live in. His luggage was extremely 
 simple a small napkin might have contained the whole 
 of his wardrobe ; a coat, a little linen and a hat-box, a 
 small carpet-bag, a shabby trunk, containing his Guar- 
 nerius violin, his jewels, a clean shirt, and his money 
 that was all. He carried papers of immense value in a 
 red pocket-book, along with concert tickets, letters, and 
 accounts. These last no one but himself could read, as 
 he knew hardly any arithmetic, and calculated, but with 
 great accuracy, on some method of his own. He cared 
 little where he slept, and seldom noticed what he ate or 
 drank. He never complained of the inns everyplace 
 seemed much alike to him out of Italy ; he detested 
 them all equally. He seldom noticed scenery, or paid 
 attention to the sights of foreign towns. To himself he 
 was the only important fact everywhere. He often 
 started without food in the early morning, and remained
 
 PAQANIXl'S TEMPERAMENT. 135 
 
 fasting all day. At night he would take a light supper, 
 and some chamomile tea, and sleep soundly until morn- 
 ing. At times lie ate ravenously. He remained taci- 
 turn for days, and then he would have all his meals sent 
 rip to his room ; but at some hotels he would dine at the 
 table d'hote, and join freely in conversation. He lay on 
 his sofa doing nothing the greater part of every day ; 
 but when making plans for the publication of his works 
 or the founding of a musical institution, which at one 
 time occupied much of his thoughts, he would stride up 
 and down his room, and talk in a rapid and animated 
 manner. After dinner he habitually sat in his room in 
 total darkness until half-past ten, when he went to bed. 
 Sometimes from sixty to eighty people, eager to see 
 him, would wait upon him at his hotel in the course of 
 the day. When compelled to see visitors, he was 
 polite ; but the intrusion of strangers fatigued and an- 
 noyed him, and he often refused himself to every one. 
 He would bolt his door, and not take the least notice of 
 any knocks. 
 
 He would sit for hours almost motionless in a kind of 
 trance, and apparently absorbed in deep thought ; but 
 he was not always averse to society. He was fond of 
 conversing with a few friends, and entered into whatever 
 games and recreations were going on with much zest ; 
 but if any one mentioned music, he would relapse into a 
 sullen silence, or go off to some other part of the room. 
 He disliked dining out ; but when he accepted he usu- 
 ally ate largely of everything on the table, after which 
 he was generally attacked by his old bowel complaint. 
 At the time, however, he would eat and drink largely 
 without any inconvenience. Although he mixed freely 
 with the world, like Chopin, he was a solitary man, and 
 reserved to the last degree. No one seemed to be in his
 
 13G MY MUSICAL MEMOIUES. 
 
 confidence. He had an excellent memory yet certain 
 faces seemed to pass from him absolutely. His fidelity 
 to both his parents was not the least remarkable point in 
 his strange character, and although ardently attached to 
 money, he could be generous at the call of what he con- 
 sidered duty, and even lavish when charity was con- 
 cerned indeed, he frequently gave concerts for the 
 benefit of the poor, remembering the time when he had 
 been a poor man himself. 
 
 Paris, always eager for novelty, the self-elected critic 
 of the civilized world in all matters appertaining to art, 
 was by this time imperative in her demand to see and 
 hear Paganini ; so, early in the spring of 1831, he set 
 out for that fashionable capital. Fame had preceded 
 him with every kind of strange rumor he could not 
 only play on one string, it was said, but his fiddle still 
 gave forth strange music when all the strings were re- 
 moved. The old calumnies revived. The town was 
 placarded with villainous wood-cuts of him in prison. 
 Others represented him in caricature, playing on one 
 string. In short, expectation was wound up to its high- 
 est pitch, when he suddenly arrived, in bad health, and 
 immediately gave a performance at the Opera-House, on 
 March 9th, 1831. The calm and judicious veteran of 
 the Royal Conservatory of Music in Belgium, M. Fetis, 
 who knew him well, and heard him often, and to whose 
 work I am so much indebted for the present sketch, can 
 find no other words to express the sensation which he 
 created on his first appearance at Paris than ' ' uni versal 
 frenzy." The whole city flocked to hear him, the pro- 
 fessors and virtuosi crowded round him on the platform, 
 as near as they dared approach, in order to watch him 
 play, after which they were no wiser than before. At 
 the end of each piece the whole audience, it is said, rose
 
 PAGANINI IN LOXDOX. 137 
 
 en masse to recall him ; the tongue of envy forgot to 
 wag, and rivalry was put out of court. It was hoped 
 that he might have thrown some light upon certain pro- 
 digious violin studies which he had published, and which 
 had long been known at Paris. No one could play 
 them, or even conjecture how some of them were to be 
 played ; nor did Paganini reveal the secret, which lay, 
 no doubt, partly in a peculiar way of tuning the instru- 
 ment, as well as in a length and agility of finger which 
 he alone possessed. 
 
 About the middle of May he left Paris for London, 
 and the Times newspaper, which, at that time, hardly 
 ever noticed concerts, devoted half a column in a vain 
 attempt to give some idea of his first performance at the 
 King's Theatre. Paganini, to save himself trouble, had 
 agreed, for an enormous sum of money, to let himself to 
 a speculator during his stay in England, who made all 
 arrangements for him and took the proceeds. This plan 
 has since been adopted by several illustrious artists, M. 
 Joachim among them ; and, although it has been stig- 
 matized as wanting in dignity, it is probably, on the 
 whole, the most satisfactory to the artist, though, not 
 always to the public. An attempt was made to double 
 the prices at the Opera-House, which raised great indig- 
 nation ; the prices ultimately charged were the usual 
 Opera charges no more and no less and this was 
 doubtless thought exorbitant for a concert, although the 
 solo performer was supported by an orchestra and some 
 of the best Opera singers, the famous Lablache among 
 them. The crowd at the doors on the first night was 
 excessive, and the pit was full to overflowing, but the 
 boxes were thin. Paganini was suffering at that time 
 from the inroads of his old complaint, aggravated by the 
 rapid encroachments of his last fatal malady, consump-
 
 138 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 tion. He appeared contrary to the advice of his physi- 
 cians, and was received with the usual tumult of ap- 
 plause. From a heap of contemporary criticism strug- 
 gling vainly with the difficulty of the subject, we ex- 
 tract a few passages from the pen of an eye-witness, 
 which strikes us as unusually graphic. 
 
 Mr. Gardner, of Leicester, writes : " At the hazard 
 of my ribs, I placed myself at the Opera two hours and 
 
 a half before the concert began The concert 
 
 opened with Beethoven's second symphony, admirably 
 played by the Philharmonic band, after which Lablache 
 sang ' Largo al Factotum,' with much applause, and 
 was encored. A breathless silence, and every eye was 
 watching the action of this extraordinary violinist ; and 
 as he glided from the side scenes to the front of the 
 stage, an involuntary cheering burst from every part of 
 the house, many rising from their seats to view the 
 Spectre during the thunder of this unprecedented cheer- 
 ing his gaunt and extraordinary appearance being more 
 like that of a devotee about to suffer martyrdom than 
 one to delight you with his art. With the tip of his 
 bow he sent off the orchestra in a grand military move- 
 ment with a force and vivacity as surprising as it was 
 new. At the termination of this introduction he com- 
 menced with a soft streaming note of celestial quality, 
 and with three or four whips of his bow elicited points 
 of sound that mounted to the third heaven and as bright 
 
 as the stars He has long legs and arms, and 
 
 his hands in his playing often assume the attitude of 
 prayer, with the fingers pointed upward. It was curious 
 to watch the faces of Lindley, Dragonetti, and the other 
 great players, who took up places on the platform to 
 command a good view of him during his performance ; 
 they all seem to have agreed that the like had never
 
 SPECIALTIES. 139 
 
 been licard before, and that in addition to liis marvellous 
 eccentricities and novel effects, lie had transcended the 
 highest level of legitimate art that had ever been 
 reached." 
 
 It has often been asked in what respects Paganini's 
 playing differed from that of other great violinists in 
 what has he enriched the art what has he discovered or 
 invented ? These questions have been to some extent 
 answered by the painstaking Professor of Music, Guhr, 
 who had many opportunities of watching him closely. 
 
 He was peculiar, first, in his manner of tuning. 
 Sometimes the first three strings were tuned half a note 
 higher, the G string being a third lower. Sometimes he 
 tuned his G to B ; with a single turn of his peg lie 
 would change the pitch of his G string, and never fail in 
 his intonation. These artifices explain, no doubt, many 
 of his extraordinary intervals. 
 
 Secondly, in his management of the bow he has had 
 many imitators, though none have approached him in the 
 romantic variety and " fiend-like power with which he 
 ruled over the strings. " His ordinary staccato, played 
 with a very tight bow, was prodigiously loud and firm, 
 like the strokes of a hammer, while his method of dash- 
 ing the bow on the strings, and letting it leap through 
 an infinity of tiny staccato notes with unerring precision 
 was wholly his own invention. 
 
 Thirdly, his tremolo use of the left hand exceeded 
 anything which had been attempted up to that time. 
 This effect has been, like every other one of his inimita- 
 ble effects, driven to death by subsequent violinists. 
 
 Fourth, his use of harmonics, now universally known 
 to violinists, was then absolutely new. Formerly only the 
 open harmonics had been used, and that very charily ; 
 but Paganini astonished the world by stopping the string
 
 140 MY MUSICAL MEMOIUES. 
 
 with the first finger, and extracting the harmonic simul- 
 taneously with the fourth. By sliding up the first finger 
 together with the fourth, he played entire melodies in 
 harmonics, and got, on an average, about three octaves 
 out of each string ; his use of double harmonics in rapid 
 passages, and such trifles as four simultaneous A flats, 
 are still problems which few if any hands but his have 
 been able to solve. 
 
 Lastly, his habit of plucking the strings, sometimes 
 with the right, sometimes with the left hand, and pro- 
 ducing those rapid pizzicato runs, on an accompaniment 
 of a harp or guitar, was absolutely new ; beyond these 
 things it was found impossible much farther to analyze 
 his playing. His secret, if he had any, died with him ; 
 his music does not reveal it. Although he wrote quar- 
 tets, solos, duets, and sonatas, fragments of about 
 twenty-four of which are in existence, only nine were 
 found complete ; of these the Rondo known as " Clo- 
 chette," and often played by M. Sivori, and "La 
 Streghe," arc perhaps the best known. The celebrated 
 variations on the " Carnival de Yenise" do not appear 
 to have been published as he played them, though both 
 Ernst and Sivori claim to play the Paganini Carnival. 
 M. Fetis considers his finest compositions have not been 
 preserved among those he reckons a magnificent con- 
 certo played at Paris in 1813, and a grand military 
 sonata for the fourth string only. 
 
 The rest of Paganini' s story is soon told. Broken in 
 health, after an absence of six years, he returned to 
 Italy, where he was now nearly worshipped by his 
 countrymen. He had grown immensely rich, and 
 bought various properties in Tuscany. He played at 
 concerts from time to time, and was always most gener- 
 ous in giving his talents for the benefit of the poor.
 
 THE XIGHT COMETH. 141 
 
 Mr. Dubourg, in his valuable work on the violin, as- 
 serts that he went to America ; but of this I can find no 
 trace in the biography of M. Fetis, nor in any other docu- 
 ments which I have as yet come across. In 1835 Paga- 
 nini lived much between Milan and Genoa. The Duch- 
 ess of Parma had conferred the Order of St. George on 
 him in 1834. 
 
 In 1836 he got into bad hands. He lent his great 
 name to the establishment of a Casino in Paris, which 
 failed. He was obliged to go to Paris, and the journey, 
 no doubt, hastened his end. His consumption grew 
 worse ; he could not bear the cold ; he was annoyed by 
 the unscrupulous speculators, who tried to involve him 
 in their own ruin, and then refused to bear the burden 
 with him. They even succeeded in mulcting him in the 
 sum of 50,000 francs, and he was actually detained by 
 legal proceedings until he had paid the whole sum. 
 
 But his days of speculation and glory were alike num- 
 bered. In 1839 he was a dying man. lie struggled 
 with indomitable energy against his deadly foe. He 
 now often took up the guitar, which, in the spring-time 
 of his life, had been so intimately associated with his 
 first romantic attachment. He was a great admirer of 
 Beethoven, and not long before his death he played one 
 of that master's quartets, his favorite one, with aston- 
 ishing energy. In extreme weakness, he labored out 
 to hear a requiem of Cherubini for male voices, and soon 
 afterward, with all his last energies, he insisted upon 
 being conveyed to one of the churches in Marseilles, 
 where he took part in a solemn mass of Beethoven. His 
 voice was now nearly extinct, and his sleep, the greatest 
 of consolations, was broken up by dreadful fits of cough- 
 ing ; his features began to sink, and he appeared to be 
 little more than a living skeleton, EO excessive and fear-
 
 142 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 fill was liis emaciation. Still lie did not believe in tlio 
 approach of death. Day by day lie grew more restless, 
 and talked of passing the winter at jSTice ; and he did 
 live on till the spring. 
 
 On the night of May -27th, 1840, after a protracted 
 paroxysm, he suddenly became strangely tranquil. He 
 sank into a quiet sleep, and woke refreshed and calm. 
 The air was soft and warm. He desired them to open 
 the windows wide, draw the curtains of his bed, and al- 
 low the moon, just rising in the unclouded glory of an 
 Italian sky, to flood his apartment. He sat gazing in- 
 tently upon it for some minutes, and then again sank 
 drowsily into a fitful sleep. Rousing himself once more, 
 his fine ear caught the sound of the rustling leaves as 
 they were gently stirred by some breath of air outside. 
 In his dying moments this sound of the night wind in 
 the trees seemed to affect him strangely, and the summer 
 nights on the banks of the Arno long ago may have flashed 
 back upon his mind, and called up fading memories. 
 But now the Arno was exchanged for the wide Mediter- 
 ranean Sea, all ablaze with light. Mozart in his last 
 moments pointed to the score of the Requiem, which 
 lay before him on his bed, and his lips were moving, to 
 indicate the effect of kettledrums in a particular place, 
 as he sank back in a swoon ; and it is recorded of Paga- 
 nini that on that fair moonlight night in May, as the 
 last dimness came over his eyes, he stretched out his 
 hand to grasp his faithful friend and companion, his 
 Guarnerius violin, and as he struck its chords once more, 
 and found that it ceased to speak with its old magic 
 power, he himself sank back and expired, like one 
 broken-hearted to find that a little feeble, confused noise 
 was all that was now left of those strains that he had 
 created and the world had worshipped.
 
 OVER THE DEAD. 143 
 
 He left 80,000 to his son, Baron Acliille Paganini, 
 and about 45 a year to Antonia Bianchi, with whom 
 he had long since quarrelled. He had previously pro- 
 vided for his mother. His violin he left to his native 
 city, Genoa, with directions that no other artist should 
 ever play upon it. 
 
 "VVe have no heart to dwell upon the wretched strife 
 over his dead body. Paganini, who had no great opin- 
 ion of the Catholic religion or the Catholic priests, died 
 without confession and the last sacraments. He was, 
 accordingly, refused burial in consecrated ground by the 
 Bishop of Parma. For a long time his corpse remained 
 at a room in the hospital at ]^ice. The body then lay 
 for four years at Villa Franca, when, owing, it was 
 affirmed, to the ghostly violin sounds that were heard 
 about the coffin, his son, by paying large sums of money, 
 got permission to bury his father with funeral rites in 
 the village church near what had been his favorite resi- 
 dence, the Villa Gajona. This last tribute was tardily 
 paid to the ashes of the immortal musician in May of 
 1845.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 WAGNEK. 
 
 4 
 
 WAGNER is the most powerful personality that has ap- 
 peared in the world of music since Beethoven. But in- 
 deed he seems to me, in his wide range as poet, drama- 
 tist, musician, and philosopher, almost alone in the his- 
 tory of Art. 
 
 Beethoven was a musician only. His glory is to have 
 carried the art of music to its extreme limits of develop- 
 ment ; no one has yet gone beyond him. 
 
 Wagner said, " I have invented nothing." You can- 
 not invent metre after the Greeks, or the modern drama 
 after Shakespeare, or coloring and perspective after the 
 Italians : there is a point at which an art ceases to grow 
 and stands full-blown like a flower. 
 
 Most people admit that in music, as in other arts, that 
 point has been reached. What then remained ? This, 
 ' according to Richard Wagner : to concentrate into one 
 dazzling focus all the arts, and, having sounded and de- 
 veloped the expressional depth, and determined the 
 peculiar function of each, to combine them at length into 
 one perfect and indivisible whole. 
 
 Words seem childishly inadequate to render all at once 
 such a conception as this. Slowly we may master some 
 of its details and allow them to orb into a perfect whole. 
 If you stand at the foot of one of the Alps, you can see 
 but a little portion of it a hamlet, a sloping patch of 
 vineyard, and a pine copse beyond ; but as you ascend
 
 WAGNER THE BOY. 145 
 
 the winding patli the prospect opens to right and left ; 
 cascades leap by to lose themselves in the torrent below ; 
 you plunge into the gloom of a forest and emerge on 
 to the higher meadows and pleasant scenes of pastoral 
 life ; yonder the soil grows rocky, and tumbled boulders 
 lie around you ; the cloud lifts, and a vista of mountains 
 and valleys is suddenly opened up, and pressing forward 
 you leave far below the murmurs of one world, and 
 raise your enraptured eyes to the black eagle, as he 
 wheels aloft in the golden air beyond the stainless and 
 eternal snows. 
 
 So when we are brought face to face with such a va- 
 ried, complex, and immense intelligence as that of Rich- 
 ard Wagner we are apt to dwell on a part a peculiarity 
 of the music a turn of the drama a melody, a situa- 
 tion, an eccentricity. But the secret lies, after all, in 
 the unity of effect. Close your eyes after a day in the 
 Alps, and, as the visions pass before you, all will grow 
 clear to your inner consciousness, and the varied scenes 
 you have realized only in succession will at last arrange 
 themselves into one great and majestic whole. ") 
 
 "Perhaps ho has some talent for music," said the 
 sick man, as he heard little Richard, then only seven 
 years old, strumming a tune from Der Freyschutz on 
 the piano. It was Louis Geyer, his step-father 
 painter, author, and actor then on his death-bed, think- 
 ing of the future, planning as dying men plan, and hit- 
 ting the mark as they often hit it, quite at random. 
 The child's vivid temperament and eager, sensitive 
 mind had always made him a favorite with the actor and 
 the poet, and he thought of making a painter of Rich- 
 ard, but the boy seemed to have no turn for it. His 
 mother, a woman full of life and imagination, was less 
 anxious and more \visc. She let him grow, and happily
 
 146 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 lie was left to her, " with no education," as he says, 
 but life, art, and myself." 
 
 Indeed any attempt to hasten "Wagner's development, 
 or to fix his career, would doubtless have failed. From 
 the first, the consciousness of his own force has been one 
 of his strangest and strongest peculiarities. At times it 
 seems to have almost intoxicated him at others it sus- 
 tained and cheered him in utter loneliness ; it has dom- 
 inated all who have come in personal contact with him, 
 and bent the minds and wills of the rebellious like reeds 
 before the wind. 
 
 And the reason is evident. AYagner was always pro- 
 digious in his ability. Like those very fast trotters that 
 flash along the highways of England and America, he has 
 been in the habit of passing every one on the road, and 
 passing them easily. But the consciousness of power 
 bred in him a singular wilfulness. At school he could 
 learn anything, but he would learn only as he chose and 
 what he chose. When his time came he mastered, with 
 incredible rapidity and accuracy, Greek, Latin, mythol- 
 ogy, and ancient history. As for his music-master, ho 
 soon sent him to the right-about, telling him he would 
 learn music in his own way. Indeed the variety of in- 
 fluences, and the rapidity with which he absorbed them, 
 one after the other, quite unfitted him for going into 
 harness early in any one direction. 
 
 At the age of seventeen he had dipped into most lit- 
 eratures, ancient and modern, glanced at science, learned 
 English in order to read Shakespeare, weighed several 
 schools of philosophy, studied and dismissed the con- 
 tending theologies, absorbed Schiller and worshipped 
 Goethe (then eighty-four years old), turned away from the 
 conventional stage of Kotzebue and Inland, tasted poli- 
 tic?, nnd been deeply stirred by the music of Beethoven.
 
 EXPRESSION. 147 
 
 There was doubtless a great indistinctness about his 
 aims at this time. To live, to grow, to feel, to be filled 
 with new emotions, and to sound his enormous capacities 
 for receiving impressions and acquiring facts this had 
 hitherto been enough ; but the vexed question was in- 
 evitable : to what end ? 
 
 The artistic temperament could give but one answer 
 to that " Expression !' ? Creation itself man, the 
 world, the universe, is nothing but that. There is ever 
 this imperious divine necessity for outward expression. 
 This is the lesson of the ages and of the universe, of 
 which we see but a little speck realized upon our tiny 
 and overcrowded planet. But this burning thought 
 turns the mind of man itself into a divine microcosm 
 he, too, begins to obey in his higher activities what ho 
 perceives to be the supreme law of the divine life. He, 
 too, must flash into self-consciousness, and breathe in 
 form, until all that slept in the silence of his heart 
 comes forth swift and radiant with the wind and lire 
 of emotion, and stands at last like an angel, full of 
 wreathed melodies and crowned with stars. 
 
 Such to the artist soul is the beloved parable of earth. 
 The life within must become outward ; all that we are 
 is dying to be born is craving to realize itself, to know, 
 to possess, to adore ! 
 
 It is quite obvious that life is here seized, not from 
 the intellectual, but from the emotional side. The in- 
 tellect is used to fathom, to formulate, to economize, 
 and represent, in their most impressive forms, the feel- 
 ings which would otherwise be wasted and misspent ; 
 but the intellect, which has played so important a part 
 in Wagner's system, is always the second, never the first 
 factor, and its function has been to analyze the various 
 expressional media of the past and present, and to create
 
 148 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 some form or combination more exhaustive and power- 
 ful than all the rest. 
 
 "Wagner was willing to be led ; but he could not help 
 feeling that an artist now is the heir of all the ages, that 
 now for the first time he can stand and gauge the crea- 
 tions of the past in poetry, painting, drama, and music, 
 and ask himself, how far, through these, has the inner 
 world of the mind found utterance. "Wagner had the un- 
 conscious but inflexible hardihood to take up each art in 
 turn, weigh it, and find it wanting. Each fell short of 
 the whole reality in some respect. Painting leaves out 
 motion and solidarity, sculpture possesses solidarity 
 without motion, and usually without color. Poetry 
 without drama appeals to the senses chiefly through the 
 imagination ; in itself it has neither sound, color, nor 
 solidarity. The spoken drama lacks the intensity which 
 it is the unique function of musical sound to give ; 
 while mere pantomime, whether of dance or drama, 
 lacks the indefinite power of sound as well as the defi- 
 nite suggestion of words ; and, lastly, musical sound 
 alone provokes the eternal " why ?" which can only be 
 answered by associating the emotion raised with thought, 
 for music is without solidarity, color, or thought, while 
 possessing motion and sound in the highest perfection. 
 
 It will be said, "Yes, but each art is complete in it- 
 self." True, but not complete as a means of expressing 
 thought and feeling. You urge, " But the power of art 
 lies often in its suggest! vcncss. I read a poem and shut 
 my eyes, and the vision is more splendid than anything 
 that could be presented outwardly." Yes, indirectly, 
 because you have imagination ; the vision was beautiful, 
 but its quality depended on you, not on the art. Art is 
 for expression, and that art is best which expresses most. 
 Do not confuse the effects of imagination and association
 
 INDIVIDUALISM OF SHAKESPEARE. 149 
 
 with the effects of art. A barrel-organ or a daub may 
 serve to set a-going imagination and memory, but art 
 has to do with expression, and is defective qua art just 
 where it begins to make these demands upon imagination 
 and memory. 
 
 Those who have traced Wagner's career from boyhood 
 know how patiently he has questioned every art, how 
 passionately he has surrendered himself to it, for a 
 time ; how willing he would have been to rest ; how in- 
 exorably experience and feeling have urged him on 
 until, like the hardy navigators of old, he broke at last 
 into a new and undiscovered ocean. At the age of 
 eleven he had read Shakespeare. Surely dramatic ex- 
 pression of thought and feeling could go no farther. 
 But he would test it as a form of art by experiment, 
 and see how it worked. He immediately constructed a 
 drama, horrible and thorough a cross between Hamlet 
 and King Lear. Forty-two characters suffered death in 
 the first four acts, so that in the fifth, in order to people 
 his stage at all, most of them had to reappear as ghosts. 
 The Shakespearian method was closely adhered to, and 
 for several years he continued to brood over it lovingly. 
 
 Here was a form intensely individual, self-conscious 
 in which man explored the depths of his own nature. 
 On that rough wooden stage of the Globe Theatre so 
 vivid were the characters, so rapid and complex the feel- 
 ings, so perfect and expressive the pantomime, that the 
 want of stage trappings and accessories was hardly felt. 
 Still, it was a restrained expression ; it was too mosaic ; 
 the individuals lacked an universal element in which to 
 live and move and have their being ; we sit fascinated 
 and bewildered with the subtle analysis and changing 
 episodes ; but the characters do not run up into univer- 
 sal types, they are too entirely absorbed by their own
 
 150 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 thoughts and feelings. The contest here is not with, 
 Fate and Time, as on the Greek stage, but with Self 
 and Society. 
 
 Excited, but oppressed, by the complex inner life of 
 the Shakespearian drama, Wagner still felt the need of 
 wedding the personal life to some larger ideal types, and 
 intensifying the emotional element by the introduction 
 of musical sound. Then the cramped wooden stage of 
 the Globe Theatre vanished, and in its place rose the 
 marble amphitheatre, open to the sky, embedded in the 
 southern slope of the Athenian Acropolis. In the clas- 
 sical drama nothing was individual the whole life of 
 Greece was there, but all was summed up in large and 
 simple types. The actors speak through fixed masks. 
 All fine inflection is lost all change of facial expression 
 sacrificed to massive groupings and stately poses, regu- 
 lated by the shrill pipe and the meagre harp. But still 
 there is in the dramas of ^Eschylus, Euripides, and 
 Sophocles a breadth of expression which enables the soul 
 to shake itself free from its accidental surroundings and 
 enter into general sympathy with the wider life of 
 humanity. It is this escape into the ideal which the 
 modern self-conscious spirit most needs ; this merging 
 of discordant self in the universal harmony which drew 
 "Wagner toward the theatre of the Greeks. There we 
 start from the gods, the ideal representatives of human 
 thought and emotion. Zeus is in Agamemnon, Ares in 
 Achilles, Artemis in Iphigenia, Aphrodite in Phaedra ; 
 and there is something prophetic and sublime in the 
 spontaneous growth of these types beneath the human 
 touch, until they transcend the gods and conquer Olym- 
 pus itself. Cassandra is greater than the gods in her 
 consciousness of injustice ; Prometheus is sublime in 
 his god-like defiance of fate ; Antigone triumphs
 
 THE SOUL OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 151 
 
 through voluntary sacrifice. It is the inexorable progress 
 of the human conscience toward a higher Olympus, a 
 purer deity ; men come from gods, but excel the gods. 
 Then follows the inevitable decline, " the dusk of the 
 gods," and, lastly, the assertion of man's divinity and 
 the rehabilitation through man of the divine idea. 
 
 This thought Christianity should eternally present ; 
 but as its votaries unhappily trampled upon one half of 
 human life, and caricatured the other all through the 
 Middle Ages, the Renaissance insisted upon reviving the 
 types of Greek beauty and force, in order to restore the 
 balance and reassert the place and dignity of the down- 
 trodden senses. That protest, in the teeth of our mod- 
 ern religious narrowness, will continue to be popular 
 until the reconciliation between the old and the new 
 world-spirit is reached in a higher, freer life, recogniz- 
 ing and making room for the development in due bal- 
 ance of every part of human nature. The Greek view 
 of life may not be adequate, but it had elements which 
 we want ; and to study Art we must still go to Athens. 
 Within his limits the Greek remains our supreme stand- 
 ard. 
 
 For what the Greek was, and for what he saw, his theatre 
 found an almost perfect art-form. The dance or science 
 of pantomimic motion was part of his daily education. 
 His body was trained in the Palaestra, or gymnasium, 
 and his life was one of constant drill to enable him to 
 take part in the games and national festivals. The elas- 
 tic tongue of Homer had been enriched and fired by a 
 hundred poets before the full development of the Greek 
 drama, and hymns and songs, set to rhythmic and choral 
 melodies of every character and variety, supplied him 
 with ready emotional utterance upon all occasions. Add 
 to this the profound enthusiasm which still accompanied
 
 152 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 the ancient rites, the Delphic oracles and the Eleusinian 
 mysteries, and we have all the materials which were 
 woven into one harmonious whole by ^Eschylus poet, 
 warrior, stage manager, and religious devotee. 
 
 The soul of the Greek drama, freed from accidental 
 associations, must now be melted down in the new cruci- 
 ble. 
 
 Wagner found there an intense earnestness of purpose 
 the devout portrayal of a few fundamental types the 
 large clear outline like the frieze of the Parthenon a 
 simple plot and well-developed phases of feeling as pro- 
 nounced and trenchant as the rhythmic motions of the 
 dramatis person / and lastly he found what he found 
 not in Shakespeare the Greek chorus. This gave its 
 binding intensity to the whole drama this provided the 
 universal element in which the actors lived and moved 
 and had their being. The chorus ever in motion a 
 band of youth or maidens, priests or supernatural beings, 
 fluid and expressive, like the emotions of the vast and 
 earnest assembly the chorus bore aloft a wail over the 
 agonies of Philoctetes, a plaint for Iphigenia, a ques- 
 tioning of the gods for Cassandra ; it enveloped the 
 stage with floods of passionate declamation ; it rushed, it 
 pointed, it swayed, it sighed and whispered in broken 
 pathetic accents ; it was like the sobbing of the sea on 
 a rocky strand the sound of the waves in Ionian caves 
 the wild sweep of the tempest answering back man's 
 passionate plaint, and fitting the simple feelings of the 
 great types on the stage with an almost elemental inten- 
 sity of expression. The mysterious variety of Greek 
 metres, the varied spasmodic rhythms, can only be under- 
 stood when the vision of the Greek chorus rises before 
 us in its eager bursts of appropriate but fitful activity. 
 That changing chant, that harsh ringing progression of
 
 UNION" OF THE ARTS. 153 
 
 notes on the Greek scales of which Gregorians are still 
 the Christian relics we should not call it music, it was 
 not melody, much less harmony ; but it was sound inflex- 
 ions marvellously used to drill declamation, posture, and 
 pantomime. The soul of it has transmigrated in these 
 latter days it has become the "Wagnerian orchestra. 
 
 Turn back now, for a moment, to the Shakespearian 
 drama. Chorus, musical sound, band, song, all the 
 voices of universal nature environing man appalling, 
 consoling, inspiring him have vanished. A new inner- 
 world, unknown to the Greeks, has taken their place, 
 and man is absorbed with himself. Yet without that 
 universal voice which he can make his own, how he 
 shrinks, dwarfed by his narrow individuality ; no longer 
 a part of the great whole and soul of things ; nature no 
 longer his mother, the winds no more his friends, the sea 
 no more his comforter ! The ideal atmosphere of the 
 Greek chorus is missed ; the power of music, however 
 rudimentary, is absent ; Shakespeare seems to have felt 
 it ; it passes over his sublime creations as an invocation 
 to Music in T'toelfth Night, or in Ophelia's plaintive 
 song. And this is the point of contact between the old 
 drama of yEschylus and the new drama of Shakespeare ; 
 the two stand forever for the opposite poles of dramatic 
 art the universal type, the individual life and both 
 are necessary. The individual is naturally evolved from 
 the universal, but once evolved and developed it must 
 be restored to the universal and be glorified by it. 
 
 At this crisis, in his quest after a perfect art-form, 
 Wagner found himself confronted with Beethoven's 
 music. He did not believe that drama could be carried 
 farther than ./Eschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, or 
 music any farther than Beethoven ; but he did con- 
 ceive the project of leading the whole stream of the
 
 154 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Beethovenian music into the channels of Shakespearian 
 drama. The Greek chorus might have been adequate 
 to the simple types of Greek tragedy ; but modern life, 
 with its self-conscious spirituality, its questions, its 
 doubts, its hopes, and its immense aspirations this 
 seemed to require quite a new element of expression. 
 The voice of this inner life had been preparing for four 
 hundred years ; when it was ready it turned out to be 
 no inflexible mask, through which a human voice might 
 speak, nor even a mobile chorus, but a splendid and 
 complex organ of expression, fitted so closely about the 
 soul of man as to become the very JEolian harp upon 
 which the breath of his life could freely play. 
 
 In the great world-laboratory of Art, Wagner found 
 already all that he required. There was, as he re- 
 marked, nothing left for him to invent ; the arts of 
 poetry, music, painting, and pantomime had been ex- 
 plored separately and perfected ; nay, one step more had 
 been made the arts had actually been combined at 
 different times in different ways. Music with panto- 
 mime and poem by the Greeks ; music with pantomime, 
 drama, painting, and every conceivable effect of stage 
 scenery and costume, as in modern opera ; music and 
 words, as in oratorio or the cantata. But in Greece music 
 was wholly undeveloped as an art ; acting had never 
 sounded the depths of individual life and expression. 
 The Shakespearian drama left out music. The cantata 
 and oratorio omitted pantomime and painting ; while 
 modern opera presented a meretricious and maimed 
 combination of the arts resulting from a radically defect- 
 ive form. 
 
 "With a surprising vigor of intellect, "Wagner has 
 analyzed the situation, and explained exactly why he 
 felt dissatisfied with the best operatic efforts of the past,
 
 ITALIAN OPERA ANALYZED. 155 
 
 and why he seeks to supersede opera with the " musical 
 drama." 
 
 1 think his critical results may be briefly summed up 
 thus : In the musical drama, poetry, music, scenery, 
 and acting are to be so blended as that each shall have its 
 own appropriate share, and no more, as a medium of ex- 
 pression. The acting must not be cramped by the 
 music, as in common opera, where a man has to stand 
 on one toe till he has done his roulade, or pauses in the 
 dead of night to shout out a song about " Hush ! we 
 shall be discovered !" when there is not a moment to 
 spare. The music must not be spoiled for the acting, as 
 in ballet and pantomime, where acting is overstrained to 
 express what the sister arts of poetry and music are 
 better fitted to convey. And poetry which after all 
 supplies the definite basis and answers the inevitable 
 " why ?" must not be sacrificed, as in our opera libretti, 
 to the demands of singers for aria and scena ; while the 
 scenery must only attempt effects and situations which 
 can be made to look real. The object of the grand 
 musical drama is, in fact, to present a true picture of 
 human feeling with the utmost fulness and intensity, 
 freed from every conventional expression by the happy 
 union of all the arts, giving to each only what it is able 
 to deal with- but thus dealing with everything, leaving 
 nothing to the imagination. The "Wagnerian drama 
 completely exhausts the situation. 
 
 Filled with this magnificent conception, "Wagner 
 looked out upon the world of modern opera and what 
 did he see ? First, he noticed that the opera had made 
 a false start. It sprang, not from the earnest feeling of 
 the miracle plays, but from the indolent desire of the 
 luxurious Italian nobles to listen to the delicious popu- 
 lar melodies in a refined form. The spontaneous street
 
 15G MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 action (which may to this day be admired in ^Naples or 
 Florence) was exchanged for a sort of drawing-room 
 stage, and poets were hire'd to reset the Italian melodies, 
 as Moore reset the Irish melodies, for ears polite. This 
 new aristocratic mongrel art had nothing to do with the 
 real drama. Metastasio himself was only an Italian Mr. 
 Chorley the very humble servant of everybody's tunes ; 
 but these times had to be strung together, so the recita- 
 tive, used for centuries in church, was borrowed ; then 
 the product was naturally a little dull, so the whole had 
 to be whipped up with a dance ; hence the ballet, and 
 there you have the three fixed points of the opera 
 aria, recitative, and ballet which to this day determine 
 the form of modern opera. Thus opera, while it had 
 no connection with the real drama, did not even spring 
 from the best musical elements. " From the prosperity 
 of opera in Italy," says Wagner, "the art-student will 
 
 date the decline of music in that country No 
 
 one who has any conception of the grandeur and in- 
 effable depth of the earlier Italian church music Pales- 
 trina's " Stabat Mater," for instance will ever dream 
 of maintaining that Italian opera can be looked upon as 
 the legitimate daughter of that wondrous mother."* 
 
 As ear-tickling, and not truth of expression, was the 
 chief thing, and as there was nothing much to be ex- 
 pressed, the arias became wider and wider of the words, 
 and at last the words became mere pegs, and the music 
 totally irrelevant as who should dance a jig over a 
 grave. 
 
 Gluck's reform consisted in making the operatic 
 tunes once more true to the words ; but the improve- 
 ment touched the sentiment only, without reaching the 
 
 * Music of the Pidure : Letter to F. Villot, p. 10.
 
 GLUCK AND THE INCORRIGIBLE OPERA. 157 
 
 defective form. In France the form was slightly re- 
 deemed by the superior libretti and more elaborate pan- 
 tomime ; while in Germany opera arrived as a finished 
 foreign production, and Mozart and others had to go to 
 Italy to learn it. " In expressing my highest admira- 
 tion of the exquisite beauty of our great masters," says 
 Wagner, " I did not detract from their fame in showing 
 that the cause of their weaknesses lay in the faultiness 
 of the genre."* And the defect of genre lay chiefly 
 in the immolation of the libretto to the exigencies of 
 fixed aria, scena, and recitative. The drama, which has 
 to be stretched upon that Procrustean bed, must neces- 
 sarily become disjointed and lifeless in the process. 
 Rossini retarded the progress of the musical drama for 
 at least fifty years through the absolute triumph of 
 melody, in the most fascinating abundance, over the re- 
 sources of the orchestra and the inspirations of the poet. 
 " His opera," writes Edward Dannreuther, to whose 
 pamphlet on "Wagner I am so much indebted, " is like a 
 string of beads, each bead being a glittering and intoxi- 
 cating tune. Dramatic and poetic truth all that makes 
 a, stage performance interesting is sacrificed to tunes. 
 Poet and musician alike had felt this. Goethe and 
 Schiller both found the operatic form, and even the ex- 
 isting stage, so uncongenial, that they took to writing 
 narrative and descriptive plays not to be acted at all, and 
 have been followed in this by Byron, Tennyson, Brown- 
 ing, and Swinburne. Beethoven wrote but one opera, 
 Fiddio, in which the breadth of the overture, or over- 
 tures, seems to accuse the narrowness of the dramatic 
 form, although the libretto of Fidelia is very good, as 
 times go. Mendelssohn and Schumann could never find 
 a suitable libretto. 
 
 * Music of the Future: Letter to F. Villot, p. 22.
 
 158 MY MUSICAL MEMOIUES. 
 
 The conclusion of all this is obvious. The perfect 
 medium which was to combine the apparently unmanage- 
 able arts was yet to come, and Wagner proposed to him- 
 self the task of harnessing these fiery steeds to his 
 triumphal car, and driving them all together. He must 
 choose his own subject, with a simple plot and a few 
 strong passions and great situations. He must write his 
 own drama, which, without being either orthodox verse 
 or fixed metre, would aim in its mobile and alliterative 
 pathos at following the varied inflexions of natural feel- 
 ing. He must arrange his own scenery, perfect in detail, 
 and within the limits of stage possibility ; and finally he 
 must compose his own music and drill his band, chorus, 
 and characters. 
 
 To his prophetic vision the old opera form of aria, 
 scena, and recitative had disappeared. The orchestra in 
 a wondrous fashion floods the soul with an emotion ap- 
 propriate to the situation. The drama itself advances 
 unshackled by any musical exigency ; the music flows on 
 continuously, not imposing a form, but taking its form 
 from the emotion of the sentences as they follow each 
 other. Snatches there are here and there of exquisite 
 melody, broken up by part-singing, with a wild burst 
 of chorus when needful to fulfil the dramatic occasion ; 
 but never must action be delayed, never must emotion 
 be belied, never truth sacrificed : only at times, when 
 the expressional power of words ceases, the music will 
 fulfil, deepen, combine, and sometimes lift the drama 
 almost out of itself. Then the spectator is raised into a 
 sphere of ecstatic contemplation ; the pageantry passes 
 before his eyes as in a dream, while his soul lives and 
 moves only in the ideal sphere of the varied and intense 
 passions which arc being played out before him. 
 
 "While these perceptions and aims were slowly matur-
 
 WAGNER'S MASTEKS. 159 
 
 ing in him, "Wagner found himself constantly at war 
 with his age and his surroundings. At sixteen, he had ' 
 resolved to devote himself to music, finding in it the 
 ineffable expression for emotions otherwise mainly inex- 
 pressible. Musical notes and intervals were to him ra- 
 diant forms and flaming ministers. Mozart taught him 
 
 o o 
 
 that exquisite certainty of touch which selects exactly 
 the right notes to express a given musical idea. Weber 
 taught him the secret of pure melody, how to stamp 
 with an indelible type a given character, as in the return 
 of the Samiel motive in Der freyschutz he also per- 
 ceived in that opera the superiority of legend and popu- 
 lar myth, as on the Greek stage, to present the univer- 
 sal and eternal aspects of human life in their most pro- 
 nounced and ideal forms. Beethoven supplied him 
 with the mighty orchestra, capable of holding in suspen- 
 sion an immense crowd of emotions, and of manipulat- 
 ing the interior and complex feelings with the instanta- 
 neous and infallible power of a magician's wand. Schu- 
 bert taught him the freedom of song ; Chopin the magic 
 elasticity of chords ; Spohr the subtle properties of the 
 chromatic scale ; and ev^en Meyerbeer revealed to him 
 the possibility of stage effect through the Grand Opera. 
 Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller suggested the kind of 
 language in which such dramas as Lohengrin and RJiein- ^ 
 gold might be written ; while Madame Schroder Devri- 
 ent revealed to him what a woman might accomplish in 
 the stage presentation of ideal passion with such a part 
 as Elsa in Lohengrin, or Briinnhilde in Walkure. 
 
 But the immediate result of this, as I have said, was 
 not promising. Contrary to the advice of his friends, 
 he had thrown himself, heart and soul, into the study of 
 music as a profession. Under the Cantor Weinlig, at 
 Leipsic, and while at the University, he produced an
 
 1GO MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 overture and symphony, which- were played, and not un- 
 favorably received, at the Gewandhaus ; but his early 
 work, with here and there an exceptional trait in har- 
 mony, was nothing but a pale copy of Mozart. 
 
 His health now broke down. He was twenty years 
 old (1833), and he went to his brother, a professor of 
 music at Wurzburg, where he stayed a year, at the end 
 of which time he was appointed musical director at the 
 Magdeburg theatre, where, under the combined influ- 
 ence of Weber and Beethoven, he produced two operas 
 The Fairies and The Novice of Palermo neither of 
 which succeeded. He left his place in disgust, and ob- 
 tained another post at the Konigsberg theatre. There 
 he married an actress a good creature, who, without 
 being much to blame, does not seem to have materially 
 increased his happiness, but who decidedly shared the 
 opinion of his friends that the composition of " pot- 
 boilers " was superior to the pursuit of the Ideal. The 
 Ideal, however, haunted Wagner, and Poverty. 
 
 In 1836 he left with Mina for Riga on the shores of 
 the Baltic, and there, as chef d" orchestre at the theatre, 
 he really appears to have enjoyed studying the operas of 
 Mehul, Spontini, Auber ; for, while suffering what he 
 describes as a dull, gnawing pain at the frequent irrele- 
 vance of the sentiment to the music, the nobler corre- 
 spondences and beautiful inspirations gave him far-off 
 glimpses of that musical drama to which he even now 
 dimly aspired. 
 
 In the midst of his routine duties Buhver's novel, 
 Jiienzi, struck his imagination. There, as on a large and 
 classic stage, was portrayed that eternal revolt of the 
 human spirit against tyranny, routine, selfishness, and 
 corruption, of which the Polish insurrection of 1831 and 
 the Revolution of July were the modern echoes.
 
 RIENZI. 101 
 
 Rienzi, a tribune of the people, dreaming of tlie old 
 austere Republic, in the midst of corrupt Papal Rome 
 a noble heart, a powerful will at war with a brutal and 
 vulgar age, supported, cheered by the enthusiasm of a 
 devoted and patriotic sister, raised by a wave of popu- 
 larity to the highest summit of human power, then 
 hurled down by the Papal anathema, betrayed by a 
 mean and cowering aristocracy, banished by the mob 
 that had so lately hailed him as a deliverer, and at last 
 falling by a treacherous hand upon the charred and 
 crumbling ashes of his own homestead, the last great 
 tribune of Rome ! here was a subject with immense 
 outlines, full of situations in which the greatest breadth 
 might be joined to the most detailed inflexions of feel- 
 ing. In it "Wagner, while not departing avowedly from 
 the form of the grand opera then in vogue at Paris, has 
 in fact burst the boundaries. Rienzi is already the 
 work of an independent master it is, at least, prophetic 
 of Lohengrin and Tristan, while comparing favorably 
 in pure melody and sensational effects with any of the 
 current operas. What rush, triumph, aspiration about 
 the large outlines and tramping measures of the overture 
 what elan and rugged dignity in the choruses what 
 elevation in Rienzi's prayer, " God of Light !" what 
 fervor and inexhaustible faith in the phrase, " Thou hast 
 placed me as a pilot on a treacherous and rocky strand " 
 what imagery, as of vast buildings and ranged towers 
 dimly seen athwart the dull red dawn, in the music of 
 " Scatter the night that reigns above this city," and 
 what chastened exaltation, free from all Italian flourish 
 or ornament, of " Rise, thou blessed sun, and bring 
 with thee resplendent liberty !'' 
 
 But in 1830, which saw the text and the completion 
 of the first two acts, we are far indeed from the produc-
 
 162 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 tion of JRiensi it struck, however, the key -note of a 
 most important and little-understood phase in Wagner's 
 career the political phase. 
 
 Musicians, poets, and artists are not, as a rule, politi- 
 cians. Their world is the inner world the world of 
 emotion and thought, which belongs to no special age or 
 clime, but is eternal and universal. Goethe and Beetho- 
 ven cared little for revolutions, and have even been 
 deemed wanting in patriotism. But Wagner was a hot 
 politician. He was at one time a mob orator, and was 
 seduced by his illustrious friend Rockel, who was after- 
 ward put in prison, to throw himself at Dresden into the 
 rise of Saxony arid the agitations of 1848. He was pro- 
 scribed and banished from German soil, and years after- 
 ward, when he had, if not recanted, at all events acqui- 
 esced in things as they were, he was obliged to fly from 
 Munich, warned by the friendly king that his life was in 
 danger. The title of but one of his numerous semi-polit- 
 ical pamphlets, " Art and the Revolution," gives us the 
 real clue to all this. People have accused Wagner of 
 time-serving and change in politics ; but the fact was 
 that he favored social revolution because he thought it 
 needful to art revolution. Conventionality and stagna- 
 tion in art seemed to him the natural outcome of con- 
 ventionality and stagnation in society ; the world must 
 be recalled to feeling and reality before art could again 
 become the ideal life of the people, as it was once in 
 Greece. But when, through royal patronage later on, 
 all impediment to the free development of his art-work 
 disappeared, his revolutionary tendencies also disap- 
 peared. He too was, first and foremost, Artist, and 
 he came to realize his vocation, which had to do with 
 Art and with "the Revolution " only in so far as it 
 affected "Art."
 
 THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT. 1G3 
 
 But, in fact, no ardent soul could escape the romantic 
 and revolutionary contagion that swept over France, 
 Germany, and even England, between 1830 and 1850. 
 Europe seemed to breathe freely once more after the 
 iron hand of ^Napoleon I. had been lifted from her op- 
 pressed bosom but then, like a wayward child, she 
 burst into all kinds of excesses. 
 
 The atheism of the first revolution, the brutality of 
 [Napoleon Buonaparte's administration, the dulness of 
 Louis Philippe's, the revived taste for Greek art, com- 
 bined with the inflexible dogmatism of the Papal creed 
 all these conspired to fill the ardent youth of the 
 period with a deep revolt against things as they were. 
 "With this came a settled longing for a return of some 
 sort to nature and freedom, and a vague but intense as- 
 piration toward the ideal and immaterial world, which 
 in other times might have taken the form of a religious 
 revolution, but in 1830 broke out in what has been 
 called " Romanticism " in Art. It was seen in the 
 writings of Mazzini and the mutterings of Italian free- 
 dom ; in the insatiable and varied developments of 
 Madame Sand's genius, in the wild and pathetic cries of 
 Alfred de Musset, in the sentimentalism of Lamartine, 
 in the vast scorn and bitter invective of Hugo, in the 
 heart-broken submission of Lacordaire, and in the de- 
 spair of De Lammenais. Byron, Shelley, and Tennyson 
 caught both the most earthly and the most heavenly 
 echoes of the romantic movement in England ; while its 
 inner life and genius have found, after all, their most 
 subtle expression in the music of Beethoven, Mendels- 
 sohn, Schumann, Berlioz, Chopin, Wagner, Liszt, and 
 Rubinstein. 
 
 <b It seems, indeed," writes Wagner, in one of those 
 veins of flashing perception in which he so abounds,
 
 164 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 " that human sentiment, as if intensified by the pressure 
 of conventional civilization, had sought an outlet for as- 
 serting itself according to its own laws of expression. 
 The astounding popularity of music in our time proves 
 the correctness of the supposition that the modern de- 
 velopment of this art has met an innate desire of the 
 human spirit."* 
 
 WagTier had left Magdeburg for Riga, but he soon 
 came to the end of his tether there. A stupid little 
 provincial town was not likely to become then what 
 Wagner has made Bayreuth since the stage for turning 
 upside down the art-theories of the civilized world. 
 Pushed by what he calls " despair," without money and 
 without friends, but with that settled faith in himself 
 which has made him independent of both until it has 
 won both, the obscure chef d orchestra resolved to go 
 to Paris and storm the Grand Opera, then at the feet of 
 Rossini and that strange, unscrupulous bric-a-brac com- 
 poser, Meyerbeer ! The small vessel in which he sailed 
 was blown about the Baltic for three weeks, put into 
 many desolate coast-nooks, arid nearly wrecked. After 
 many hardships, shared with the rough and often starv- 
 ing crew, the lonely musician arrived in London (1840), 
 with his head full of Paris and the Grand Opera, and 
 with Rienzi in his carpet-bag. 
 
 While here he playfully seized the musical motive of 
 the English people. It lay, he said, in the five consec- 
 utive ascending notes (after the first three) of " Rule 
 Britannia ;" there was expressed the whole breadth and 
 downright bluff " go " of the British nation. He 
 threw " Rule Britannia" into an overture, and sent it by 
 post to Sir George Smart, then omnipotent musical pro- 
 better to Villot, p. 30.
 
 WAGNER AND MEYERBEER. 1G5 
 
 fessor in London ; but the postage being insufficient, 
 the MS. was not taken in, and at this moment is prob- 
 ably lying in some dim archive of the Post-Office, " left 
 till' called for." 
 
 Crossing to Dieppe, he met the crafty and clever 
 Meyerbeer, who instantly saw the man he had to deal 
 with, and probably conceived in a moment that policy 
 of apparent support but probable intrigue which made 
 him throughout life Wagner's pet aversion. 
 
 It has been unwarrantably asserted that Wagner hated 
 the Jews because of Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, and 
 hated Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn because they were 
 successful ; but Wagner's dearest friends have been 
 Jews ; he only objected to what he considered the low 
 level of their art theories ; and if he hated Meyerbeer 
 and Mendelssohn two men also at loggerheads, by the 
 way it was not simply because they had the ear of 
 Europe, but because they and their friends kept every 
 one else out of the field, while Meyerbeer debased musi- 
 cal art to the level of the vulgarest sensation, and Men- 
 delssohn never rose in Wagner's opinion above the plane 
 of a drawing-room prophet, while creating an elegant 
 and pseudo-classic standard of excellence to which every 
 one soon learned to bow down. 
 
 In this opinion I shall never concur. Mendelssohn 
 has been to me as much a revelator of the beautiful as 
 Wagner has been of the sublime. Nothing is more 
 painful to me than the bitter opposition between the 
 friends of Mendelssohn and Wagner. These two great 
 spirits were probably as antipathetic as Moore and 
 Wordsworth ; but although Wagner is the inexorable 
 and colossal development in art since Beethoven, Men- 
 delssohn reigns forever in a sweet wayside temple of 
 his own, full of bright dreams and visions, incense and
 
 166 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 ringing songs. And partly is he so sweet because, un- 
 burthened with any sense of a message to utter, a mis- 
 sion to develop, he sings like a child in the valleys of 
 asphodel, weaving bright chaplets of spring flowers for 
 the whole world, looking upon the mystery of grief and 
 pain with wide eyes of sympathy, and at last succumb- 
 ing to it himself, but not understanding it, with a song 
 of tender surprise upon his lips. 
 
 Wagner passed two terrible years, 1840-42, in Paris. 
 Meyerbeer had given him introductions, and introduced 
 him later to Mr. Joly, a stage-director at Paris, whom 
 he must have known to be on the point of bankruptcy, 
 and who suspended the rehearsal of the No-vice of Pa- 
 lermo at the last moment. But this was but the end of a 
 series of checks. He wrote an overture to Faust. His 
 good friend and faithful ally, Schlesinger, editor of the 
 Gazette Musicale, got it rehearsed at the Conserva- 
 toire. It sounded quite too strange and bizarre to those 
 ears polite, and was instantly snuffed out. 
 
 He submitted a libretto, " Love Forbidden," to a 
 theatrical manager, but it had no chance, and dropped. 
 Schlesinger now employed him to write, and he 
 wrote articles and novels, and so kept body and soul 
 together. No one would listen to his music, but he 
 was not a bad hack, and was hired for a few francs to 
 arrange Ilalevy's " Queen of Cyprus " for the piano, 
 and the latest tunes of Donizetti and Bellini for piano 
 and cornet a piston. 
 
 At night he stole into the Grand Opera, and there, as 
 he tells us, felt quite certain that his own works would 
 one day supersede the popular efforts of Rossini and 
 Meyerbeer. He does not seem to have been dejected 
 like a lesser soul ; in what the French called his immense 
 orgueil, he was sorry for their want of appreciation, but
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, 1841. 167 
 
 never dreamed of altering his ideas to suit them. " Je 
 me flattais, " says the unpaid musical hack, " d'imposer 
 les niiennes." Meanwhile the splendid band of the 
 Conservatoire, under Habeneck, consoled him, and on 
 the Boulevards he often met and chatted with Auber, for 
 whom he had a sincere respect and admiration. Auber 
 was at least a conscientious musician of genius, who 
 knew his business, and did not debase what was at no 
 time a very exalted but still a legitimate branch of his 
 art, the opera comique and, besides, Auber was a Ion 
 comarade, and liked Wagner, probably without under- 
 standing him. 
 
 After months of drudgery, and chiefly penny-a-lining 
 for the Gazette Musicale, Wagner felt the imperious 
 necessity for a return to his own art. He took a little 
 cottage outside Paris, hired a piano, and shut himself 
 up. He had done for a time, at least, with the mean, 
 frivolous, coarse world of Paris he did not miss his 
 friends, he did not mind his poverty. He was again on 
 the wild Norwegian coast, beaten about with storms, 
 and listening to the weird tales of mariners, as in broken 
 and abrupt utterances, or with baled breath, they con- 
 fided to him the legend common in one form or other to 
 seafaring folk in all parts of the world the legend of 
 the Flying Dutchman. The tale sprang from the lives 
 and adventures of those daring navigators of the fif- 
 teenth and sixteenth centuries, and reflects the desperate 
 struggle with the elements, the insatiable thirst for the 
 discovery of new lands athwart unknown seas ; and it 
 seems to embody forever the avenging vision of men 
 who, resolved to win, had so often dared and lost all. 
 A famous captain, mad to double the Cape of Storms, 
 beaten back again and again, at length swears a mighty 
 oath to persevere throughout eternity. The devil takes
 
 108 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 him at his word. The captain doubles the cape, but is 
 doomed to roam the seas forever from pole to pole as 
 the Wandering Jew to tread the earth his phantom 
 vessel the terror of all mariners, and the dreadful herald 
 of shipwreck. Here was a legend which needed but one 
 inspired touch of love to make it a grand epitome of sea- 
 faring life, with its hard toils, its forlorn hopes, and its 
 tender and ineffably sweet respites. The accursed doom 
 of the Flying Dutchman can be lifted by human love 
 alone. The captain, driven by an irrepressible longing 
 for rest, may land once in seven years, and if he can find 
 a woman who will promise to be his and remain faithful 
 to him for one term of seven years, his trial will be 
 over he. will be saved. 
 
 The legend thus humanized becomes the vehicle for 
 the expression of those intense yet simple feelings and 
 situations which popular myth, according to Wagner, 
 has the property of condensing into universal types. 
 Immense unhappiness, drawn \>y magnetic attraction to 
 immense love, tried by heartrending doubt and uncer- 
 tainty, and crowned with fidelity and triumphant love, 
 the whole embodied in a clear, simple story, summed 
 up in a few situations of terrible strength and inexorable 
 truth such is Wagner's conception of the drama of 
 the Flying Dutchman with its " damnation " motive 
 belonging to the captain, and its " salvation " motive 
 given to the bride its sailor's subject its pilot's song 
 its spinning-wheel home-melody and its stormy 
 " TIo ! e ho !" chorus. The whole drama is shadowed 
 forth in the magic and tempestuous overture, and stands 
 out as this composer's first straightforward desertion of 
 history proper, and adoption of myth as the special 
 medium of the new musical drama. 
 
 Six weeks of ceaseless labor, which to Wagner were
 
 FIRST SUCCESS. 169 
 
 weeks of spontaneous and joyful production, sufficed to 
 complete the music of the Flying Dutchman. The 
 immediate result in Paris was ludicrous. The music 
 was instantly judged to be absurd, and Wagner was 
 forced to sell the libretto, which was handed over to a 
 Frenchman, one M. P. Fouche, who could write music. 
 It appeared, with that gentleman's approved setting, 
 under the title of Le Vaisseau Fantome. 
 
 This was enough ! No lower depth could well be 
 reached, and Wagner was preparing to leave Paris to 
 the tender mercies of Rossini, Meyerbeer, and M. P. 
 Fouche^ when news reached him from Germany that 
 Rienzi, flouted in the capital of taste, had been accepted 
 in Berlin and Dresden ! 
 
 It was the spring of 1842, and it was also the rapid 
 and wondrous turn of the tide for Wagner. He hurried 
 to Dresden, to find the rehearsals of Rienzl already 
 advanced. The opera was produced with that singular 
 burst of enthusiasm which greets the first appreciation 
 of an important but long-neglected truth, and Wagner, 
 having become the favorite of the Crown Prince, was 
 elected Kapellmeister at Dresden, and found himself for 
 the first time famous. Some might now have rested on 
 their laurels, but to Wagner's imperious development 
 Rienzi was already a thing of the past. He had drunk 
 of the crystalline waters of popular myth, and was still 
 thirsty. The Flying Dutchman had opened up a new 
 world to him, more real because more exhaustive of 
 human feelings and character than the imperfect types 
 and broken episodes of real history. He seemed to 
 stand where the fresh springs of inspiration welled up 
 from a virgin soil ; he listened to the child-like voices of 
 primitive peoples, inspired from the simple heart of 
 Nature, and babbling eternal verities without knowing it.
 
 170 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Legend was the rough ore the plastic element he could 
 seize and remould, as ^Eschylus remoulded Prometheus, 
 or Sophocles GEdipus, adding philosophic analysis and 
 the rich adornments of poetic fancy and artistic form. 
 
 The legend of Tannhiiuser now engrossed him. The 
 drama was soon conceived and written. There he sum- 
 med up, in a few glowing scenes, the opposition between 
 that burst of free sensuous life at the Renaissance, and 
 the hard, narrow ideal of Papal Christianity. Christ 
 not only crowned with thorns, but turned into stone, is 
 all the answer which that Christianity had to give to the 
 stormy impulse which at last poured its long pent-up 
 torrent over Europe. The deep revolt still stares us in 
 the face from the Italian canvases, as we look at the 
 sensuous figures of .Raphael or Titian the free types of 
 fair breathing life, surrounded with the hard aureole of 
 the artificial saint, or limned as in mockery, like the 
 dreams of a pagan world upon the walls of the Vatican. 
 
 Tannhiiuser, a Thuringian knight, taking refuge with 
 Yenus, no longer the beneficent Holda, joy of gods and 
 men, but turned by the excesses of the ascetic spirit into 
 a malign witch, and banished to the bowels of the earth 
 in the Yenusberg ; Tannlmuser, with a touch eternally 
 true to nature, bursting the fetters of an unruly sensual 
 life, and sighing for a healthier activity ; Tannhiiuser 
 seeing for a moment only, in the pure love of woman, 
 the reconciliation of the senses with the spirit, a recon- 
 ciliation made forever impossible by the stupid bigotry of 
 a false form of religion, but which is ultimately sealed and 
 accomplished by love and death in heaven this is the 
 human and sublime parable of the drama, wrought out 
 with the fervor of a religious devotee, and epitomized in 
 that prodigious overture wherein the dirge of the Church 
 mingles with the free and impassioned song of the min-
 
 LOHENGRIN, 1347. 171 
 
 strel knight, and clashes wildly with the voluptuous 
 echoes of the fatal Yenusberg. 
 
 Wagner's progress was now checked by that storm 
 of invective which burst out all over the art Avorld 
 of Germany not on account of Rienzi, but in conse- 
 quence of the Flying Dutchman, and especially of 
 Tannhduser. The reason is simple. The power of 
 Rienzi, the audacity of its sentiment, the simplicity of 
 its outline, and the realism of its mise en scene, together 
 with a general respect for the old opera forms, insured it 
 a hearing which resulted in a legitimate triumph. But 
 in Tannhduser the new path was already struck out, 
 which singers, band, audience, critics, and composers, in 
 a body, refused to tread in short, aria, recitative, and 
 ballet were dethroned, and suddenly found themselves 
 servants where they had been masters. 
 
 In 1843 the Flying Dutchman was produced at Dres- 
 den, and failed. Rienzi was still revived with success. 
 "Wagner now sent the Dutchman and Tannhduser to 
 various theatres. The former was tried at Berlin in 
 1844, and failed. Spolir had the intelligence to take it 
 up at Cassel, and wrote a friendly and appreciative letter 
 to "Wagner ; but the MS. scores were, as a rule, returned 
 by the other theatres, and the new operas seemed to 
 react on the earlier success, for at Hamburg Rienzi 
 failed. 
 
 Meanwhile, failure, together with the close sympathy 
 of a few devoted friends, convincing him that he was 
 more right than ever, Wagner now threw himself into 
 the completion of that work which is perhaps of the 
 whole his most perfect, as it certainly is his most popu- 
 lar creation, Lohengrin. The whole of Lohengrin is in 
 the prelude. The descent of the Knight of the Swan 
 from the jasper shrines of the sacred palace of Montsal-
 
 172 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 vat, hidden away in a distant forest land liis holy mis- 
 sion to rescue Elsa from her false accusers his high and 
 chivalric love his dignified trouble at being urged by 
 her to reveal his name, that insatiable feminine curiosity 
 which wrecks the whole the darker scenes of treachery 
 by which Elsa is goaded on to press her fatal inquiry 
 the magnificent climax of the first act the sense of 
 weird mystery that hangs about the appearance and re- 
 appearance of the swan, and the final departure of the 
 glittering Knight of the Sangraal allegory of heavenly 
 devotion stooping to lift up human love and dashed 
 with earth's bitterness in the attempt ; to those who 
 understand the pathos, delicacy, and full intensity of 
 the Lohengrin prelude, this and more will become as 
 vivid as art and emotion can make it. Lohengrin in its 
 elevation, alike in its pain, its sacrifice, and its peace, is 
 the necessary reaction from that wreck of sensual pas- 
 sion and religious despair so vividly grasped in the scenes 
 of the Venusberg, in the pilgrim chant and the wayside 
 crucifix of Tannhauser. 
 
 Lohengrin was finished in 1847, but the political 
 events of the next few years brought "Wagner's career in 
 Germany to an abrupt conclusion. His growing dis- 
 satisfaction with society coincided, unconsciously no 
 doubt, with the failure of his operas after that first dawn 
 of success. He now devoted himself to criticism and 
 politics. He read Schopenhauer, whose pessimist philos- 
 ophy did not tend to soothe his perturbed spirit ; and 
 during the next ten years, from 1847 to 1857, he spoke 
 to the world from different places of exile in that series 
 of political and aesthetical pamphlets to which I have 
 before alluded. 
 
 In 1855 the Philharmonic Society invited him over to 
 London, and here he conducted eight concerts. He was
 
 LONDON, 1855. 173 
 
 not popular ; lie was surprised to find that the band 
 thought it unnecessary to rehearse, and the band was 
 surprised that he should require so much rehearsal. But 
 he drove the band in spite of itself, and the band hated 
 him. They said he murdered Beethoven with his baton, 
 because of the freedom and inspiration of his readings. 
 Mendelssohn's Scotch symphony had been deliberately 
 crushed or it was the only thing that went according 
 to which paper you happened to read. He did not care 
 for the press, and he was not much surprised that the 
 press did not care for him. The unfailing musical intel- 
 ligence of the Queen and Prince Albert was the one ray 
 of sunlight in this his second visit, but the power of the 
 man could not be hid, even from his enemies ; his cult- 
 ure astonished the half -educated musicians by whom he 
 was surrounded, his brilliant originality impressed even 
 his own friends, who saw him struggling through an im- 
 perfect acquaintance with French and English to make 
 himself understood. One evening, alone in company 
 with M. Sainton, Hector Berlioz, and Ferdinand 
 Praeger, Wagner surprised them all by suddenly launch- 
 ing out on art, music, and philosophy. Berlioz was an 
 elegant speaker, accustomed to lead easily, but Wagner, 
 with his torrent of broken French and his rush of molten 
 ideas, silenced, bewildered, delighted, and astonished 
 them all. Berlioz is gone, but that night still lives in 
 the memory of those who were present who survive, and 
 from whose lips I have the incident. 
 
 Thus Wagner passed through England for a second 
 time, leaving behind him a vague impression of power 
 and eccentricity, the first of which the musical press did 
 its best to kill, while fanning the second into a devouring 
 flame which swallowed up Wagner's reputation. Not- 
 withstanding the exertions of a few devoted believers,
 
 174 MY MUSICAL MEMOKIES. 
 
 twenty- one years flitted by, and little enough was heard 
 of Richard Wagner in England until, owing to the in- 
 creasing agitation of a younger school of musicians, the 
 Flying Dutchman was at last indifferently produced at 
 Covent Garden. 
 
 In 1874 Herr Hans von Billow, pupil of Liszt and 
 great exponent of Wagner's music, came over, and by 
 his wonderful playing, aided steadily by the periodical 
 Wagnerian and Liszt concerts given by Messrs. Dann- 
 reuther and Bache, at which Billow conducted Wag- 
 ner's music, brought about the rise of the new Wagner 
 movement in England, which received its development 
 in the interest occasioned by the Bayreuth Festival, and 
 reached its climax in the Wagner Festival actively pro- 
 moted by Herr Wilhelnvj, in 1877, at the Albert Hall. 
 
 Mina, Wagner's h'rst wife, was now dead. I cannot 
 here tell at length how Liszt (whose daughter, Cosima 
 von Billow, became Wagner's second wife in 1870) 
 labored at Weimar with untiring zeal to produce Wag- 
 ner's works, and how his efforts were at last crowned 
 with success all over Germany in 1849-50. It was a 
 popular triumph. I remember old Cipriani Potter, the 
 friend of Beethoven, saying to me at the time when the 
 English papers teemed with the usual twaddle about 
 Wagner's music being intelligible only to the few, " It 
 is all very well to talk this stuff here, but in Germany it 
 is the people, the common people, who crowd to the 
 theatre when Tannkiiuser arid Lohengrin are given." 
 I have noticed the same at the Covent Garden concerts ; 
 it was always the pit and gallery who called for the 
 Wagner nights, while the opera which had the great 
 run with Carl Rosa's English company was the Flying 
 Dutchman, while TarinJiauscr and Lohengrin at both 
 houses were invariably the crowded nights.
 
 THE TETRALOGIE MEISTER. TRISTAN. 175 
 
 In 18G1 the Parisians showed their taste and chic by 
 whistling Tannhauser off the stage. 
 
 In 1863 Wagner appeared at Vienna, Prague, Leip- 
 sic, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Pesth, and conducted con- 
 certs with brilliant success. In 1864 his constant friend, 
 the Crown Prince, now Ludwig II. of Bavaria, sum- 
 moned him to Munich, where the new operas of Tristan 
 in 1865, and Meistersinger in 1868, Das Rheingold in 
 1869, and Die Walkiire in 1870, were successively given 
 with ever-increasing appreciation and applause. 
 
 The Meistersinger, through which there runs a 
 strongly comic vein, deals with the contrast between the 
 old stiff forms of minstrelsy by rule and the spontaneous 
 revolt of a free, musical, and poetical genius, and the 
 work forms a humorous and almost Shakespearian pen- 
 dant to the great and solemn minstrelsy which fills the 
 centre of TannJiduser. In "Wagner's opinion it is the 
 opera most likely to find favor with an English audience, 
 a point since established by the German opera perform- 
 ances under Richter. 
 
 Tristan and Iseult, in which the drama and analysis 
 of passion love and death is wrought up to its highest 
 pitch, was thrown off between the first two and last two 
 great sections of the Tetralogie, and the Tetralogie, it- 
 self planned twenty years ago and produced at Bayreuth 
 in 1876, seemed the last most daring and complete mani- 
 festation of Wagner's dramatic, poetic, and musical 
 genius, until Parsifal revealed still greater heights and 
 depths in 1882. 
 
 The purpose and power of that great cycle of Scandi- 
 navian and German myths, unrolled in the four colossal 
 dramas of RJieingold, Walkiire, Siegfried, and Gotter- 
 daminerung, would carry me far beyond the limits of a 
 biographical chapter. Both the Ring and the Parsifal
 
 176 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 I dwell upon at some length in my account of the per- 
 formances at Bayreuth of 1876, and the memorial per- 
 formances of 1883. 
 
 I will now give a sketch of the general impression that 
 Wagner made upon me and upon others with whom he 
 came in contact, and I shall conclude these biographical 
 pages with a notice of his last days in Yenice and his 
 funeral at Bayreuth. Wagner offended a great many 
 people in the course of his life, but then a great many 
 people offended Wagner. Those who hated him lied 
 about him unscrupulously, but not even his worst ene- 
 mies ever accused Wagner of lying about them. He 
 was an egotist in the sense that he believed in himself ; 
 but, then, one must remember that, in his own estima- 
 tion, for more than forty years, Richard Wagner had 
 been the greatest figure in the musical world, and it took 
 quite thirty years of his life to convince the world of 
 that fact which now, for about a couple of years, we 
 have had proclaimed by all the newspapers of Europe. 
 If in general company his manner was reserved, and 
 even a little acrid, was there not a cause ? Such a man, 
 with an immense consciousness of power, meeting with 
 marvellous neglect, and trampled upon, but never 
 crushed, by penury, misfortune, and the bitterest perse- 
 cution and ridicule, naturally becomes an egotist, and is 
 apt to play the king in disguise, and behave, even in the 
 midst of insult, as if he expected all men to bow down 
 before him ; and then as naturally, when at last they 
 do bow down in the most abject of attitudes, he feels a 
 little inclined to kick them. 
 
 When I remember that about forty years ago Rienzi, 
 and the Flying Dutchman, followed by Tannliauser and 
 Lohengrin, were finished, that the master then truly 
 of the future was patronized here, snubbed there, and
 
 WAGNER'S EGOTISM. 17? 
 
 supported himself by arranging tunes for the cornet-a- 
 piston and piano ; that he starved a little, was banished 
 for his opinions, nearly shipwrecked, and altogether un- 
 able to get anybody except Ferdinand Praeger, Liszt 
 (perhaps M. Sainton and half-a-dozen intimes, some of 
 them as unrecognized as himself) to believe in him at 
 all why, if there ever was a training for egotism, that 
 was ! In fact, for nearly half a century there was no /, 
 one to believe in Richard "Wagner except Richard "Wag- 
 ner. Then, by and by, the crowned heads, and, what 
 was more, the heads of opera-houses, came round, and 
 we had bowing and scraping on all sides ; and con- 
 noisseurs arrived, cap in hand, to interview the great 
 man, and tell him to his face, " Richard Wagner, we 
 deem you one of the greatest musicians that ever lived." 
 " Bah !" says "Wagner, " I told you that forty years 
 ago ; I can do without you now !" " Oh, fie ! what a 
 vain man !" says your offended aristocrat. I never 
 thought Richard Wagner vain. I knew him to be irri- 
 table so are other people, who only resemble him in 
 that. I knew him to be impatient of interruption so 
 is your banking-clerk when stopped in the middle of a 
 column of figures. I knew him to be proud so are 
 many who have nothing to be proud of ; and from 
 the first moment that I heard, now twenty years ago, the 
 prelude to Lohengrin, and read a few of his letters on 
 art, I also knew Richard Wagner to be the greatest com- 
 poser and the most impressive art-personality then in 
 the world. 
 
 Wagner's was certainly one of the strongest and most 
 independent natures I ever came across. The ordinary 
 motives which move men had no power with him. He 
 cared neither for money nor for rank, nor for the opin- *" 
 ions of his contemporaries. He has been charged with
 
 178 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 a childish love of display, and it is true that from the 
 simplest and most retiring life he would suddenly pass 
 to the most splendid and imposing scale of living ; as 
 when on one occasion he entered Heidelberg in a car- 
 riage drawn by four horses with outriders. He was fond 
 of beautiful surroundings, and he would dress expen- 
 sively ; but in these peculiarities any one who understood 
 Wagner would easily see that his excitable and artistic 
 temperament found in these contrasts and accessories the 
 stimulus most favorable to his ceaseless and buoyant pro- 
 ductivity, rather than the mere freaks of personal van- 
 ity. 
 
 Although the most intimate friend of the King of 
 Bavaria, he was not a man whom princes could order 
 about or control. I remember very well his refusing to 
 exhibit himself to order in the box of a certain high per- 
 sonage at the Albert Hall when he was in England, 
 although he readily availed himself of the privilege of 
 visiting Her Majesty at Windsor. Wagner never forgot 
 that the Queen and Prince Albert recognized his genius 
 on the occasion of his first visit to England, and his illus- 
 trious patrons were then in a very small minority. 
 
 Wagner was adored by his household. He lived for 
 some time at Lucerne in great retirement he was then 
 working at the Ring. A friend who had at that time 
 frequent access to him has given us some charming 
 Wagnerian side-lights. Nervous and intensely impres- 
 sionable, we are told his sentiments always ran into ex- 
 tremes, but his self-recovery was rapid. He sometimes 
 wounded even his friends by the intense and passionate 
 sincerity of his language ; but he atoned so sweetly for 
 a passing heat of temper, that they loved him only the 
 more. ' ' In Wagner, ' ' said one of his orchestra at 
 Bayreuth, " it is the second movement that is good."
 
 WAGNER'S GENEROSITY. 179 
 
 His life in Switzerland was as regular as it was labo- 
 rious. He rose at six bathed then reclined and read 
 till ten breakfasted worked uninterruptedly from 
 eleven till two dined rested, always with a book in 
 hand drove from four till six worked from six till 
 eight supped, and spent the evening in the midst of his 
 family. 
 
 It was in these evenings that Wagner was most charm- 
 ing. Every cloud was cleared from his brow ; his face 
 seemed radiant with a certain light-hearted goodness 
 which diffused a happy atmosphere around him. He had 
 a kind word for every one, he entered into everything, 
 and his conversation scintillated with brilliancy and 
 humor. His boundless liberality sometimes brought him 
 into pecuniary difficulties ; he could never bear to see 
 any one in want ; he had known too much of it himself. 
 
 His poor relatives took advantage of him. His rustic 
 family connections seemed to rise out of the earth 
 wherever he stood, and claim his assistance or protection. 
 They would come on a visit and forget to leave ; they 
 would drop in at meal-time ; they would use his name, 
 order things of his trades-people and forget to pay 
 travel under his prestige^ and lodge at his expense. 
 
 His heart was larger than his pocket his generosity 
 far exceeded the discretion of those who traded upon it. 
 A French nobleman, Count Gobineau, said of him, 
 " Herr Wagner will never be perfectly happy, for there 
 will always be some one at his elbow whose suffering or 
 distress he will feel bound to share." As a rule the 
 French spoke no good of Wagner nor Wagner of the 
 French. 
 
 I once spent an evening in Paris at Victor Hugo's 
 house. It was not long after the Franco-Prussian War. 
 The talk ran on Wagner. The aged poet at once turned
 
 180 MY MUSICAL MEMOKIES. 
 
 the conversation. Somewhat rashly, perhaps, I ventured 
 to say, " Surely in the great republic of art national or 
 even personal antipathies need not count." Victor 
 Hugo cut me very short. ' ' Monsieur, ' ' he said, " il a 
 dit beaucoup de mal de mon pays il a insulte la 
 France. I cannot hear his music." 
 
 In some things Wagner was as simple and tender as a 
 child so true is it that there is a child-like element in 
 most men of genius. His agility was surprising ; he 
 was fond of climbing the trees in his garden. On such 
 occasions Madame Wagner would say to his friends, " 1 
 beseech you do not look at him, or encourage him : he 
 will only run greater risks !" 
 
 \\Hien he was up early he would go round to the other 
 bedroom doors and wake the sleepers by intoning the 
 Marseillaise " (he was a shocking red republican, this 
 bosom friend of the king) to the accompaniment of what 
 has been called the " devil's tattoo." 
 
 He was very fond of animals, especially dogs ; his 
 favorite dog "Mark" is buried not far from his own 
 grave. The Me'ister singer was arrested for months in 
 consequence of attentions paid to a poor dog he had met 
 wandering sick and masterless. The ungrateful animal 
 bit his hand, and for months Wagner was unable to hold 
 a pen ; but the dog was well cared for. 
 
 Like Liszt, he was a strong opponent of vivisection, 
 and was fond of quoting Faust's saying to scientific doc- 
 tors : " The very dogs wouldn't live in such a world as 
 yours 1" 
 
 When not absolutely absorbed in his work, he was 
 most thoughtful for others, and was always planning for 
 their comfort and happiness ; and, although quick and 
 at times irritable, he could bear suffering calmly. On 
 one occasion a lady remarked that he had been singu-
 
 TOUKOW3KI AXD WAGNER. 181 
 
 larly sweet and amiable all day on a pleasure excursion, 
 at a time when lie was in actual physical suffering him- 
 self. He confessed at the end that he had felt very un- 
 well, but had tried to hide this from those about him for 
 fear of spoiling their enjoyment. 
 
 He was naturally adored by his servants, who stayed 
 with him so long that they became like members of the 
 family. He had an extraordinary power of attracting 
 people to his person. There was- something irresistibly 
 magnetic about that brilliant eye, that noble, penetrating 
 look, that insatiable and unresting vigor of emotion and 
 intellect. 
 
 Liszt, de Billow, Richter, Wilhelmj, and all his staff 
 of artists, were absolutely devoted to him, and gave him 
 years of willing service which no money could have paid 
 for or secured. The talented painter, Paul Toukowski, 
 left his atelier at Naples to come and live at Bayreuth 
 and paint the Parsifal scenery ; and what scenery it 
 is ! What a dream of summer-land is the moor and 
 woodland in the domain of Mori tsal vat ! What a 
 majestic and gorgeous hall, of more than Eastern mag- 
 nificence, is that in which the mystery of the Sangrail is 
 enacted ! What dim forests, what enchanted caves, 
 what massive walls and battlements, what enchanted 
 bowers, what more than tropical bloom and foliage ! It 
 was long before the artist could satisfy Wagner with that 
 magic garden. The master would have the flowers as 
 large as the girls, and he would have the girls exactly 
 like the flowers. It was difficult ; but it is enough to 
 
 O 
 
 say that Wagner willed it, and it was done. 
 
 His influence with the actors was supreme ; never 
 would they have attempted for another what they did 
 for him. The Rhine girls were terrified at the cages in 
 which they had to be swung up and down in the Rhine
 
 182 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 depths, singing all the time. They refused at first to face 
 a situation which appeared more fit for acrobats than for 
 dramatic artists. They would not get into their cages at 
 all, until the master, with tears in his eyes, besought 
 them to try, and then all went easily, and more than 
 well. 
 
 Madame Titiens had scruples at first about the Wag- 
 nerian parts as unsingable, but in her latter days she was 
 quite " fanatisee " about the part of Ortrud, in which 
 she was superb, and she used to declare the "Wagner's 
 roles gave her the fullest and freest scope for her vocali- 
 zation and acting. The singer Schnor, who was identi- 
 fied with the part of Tristran, when he was told on his 
 death-bed of the preparations for the performance of the 
 Niebelungen Ring at Bayreuth, exclaimed it was his 
 last regret " Then, after all, I shall never ging Sieg- 
 fried." 
 
 I confess I came fully under "Wagner's spell I spent 
 a delightful evening at his house in 1876. It was at the 
 close of the first Bayreuth festival. All the corps 
 dramatic were present Richter, the conductor, was chat- 
 ting with Wilhelmj, the leader of the orchestra, when I 
 went up to him and asked him whether he had recruited 
 his strength well at Nuremberg. There a few nights 
 before I had met him in company with Professor Ella, 
 and in the quiet old city of Albert Diirer whither he 
 had escaped for a rest between the continued perform- 
 ances of the Ring we had spent an evening over a good 
 bottle of Rhine wine, amid the fumes of those detestable 
 black cheroots which Liszt was so fond of. 
 
 Then I caught sight of Walter Bache, who introduced 
 me to Liszt ; and presently Richter took me up and pre- 
 sented me to Wagner. 
 
 His face beamed with kindness and geniality ; he
 
 AN" EVENING AT WAGNER'S HOUSE. 133 
 
 spoke French, said lie had been in England long, long 
 ago, and would perhaps come again. He had great 
 doubts whether the English were sufficiently serious in 
 art ever to appreciate his Ring, and seemed pleased when 
 I told him of the great popularity of his music at the 
 Promenade Concerts, and the increasing appreciation of 
 Lohengrin and Tannhauser. "Earlier works," he 
 said, shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 And Materna, the unique Briinnhilde, was there. 
 "Wagner had taken endless trouble in forming her for 
 the Niebelungcn Ring and the great part she was to 
 play ; and master and pupil always entertained the live- 
 liest ad mi ration and affection for each other, which some- 
 times took an amusing and demonstrative form. That 
 night, when Briinnhilde, an immense woman, arrived en 
 yrande toilette, and wearing some of her best jewels, she 
 bore directly down upon Wagner a spare, short, fragile 
 little man. Her enormous bulk seemed to extinguish 
 him for a moment. On reaching him with difficulty in 
 the midst of the glittering crowd she embraced him rapt- 
 urously German fashion with " Ach, Herr Wag- 
 ner !" 
 
 Wagner stood it like a man ; but toward the close of 
 the evening I beheld the Materna bearing down upon 
 him again, and as she neared him he held up both his 
 hands energetically repelling a second attack, " Nein, 
 nein, Frau Materna, das will ich gar nicht," and poor 
 Briinnhilde had to put up with a hand-shake instead. 
 
 I saw him again in England it was on that very 
 evening he declined to go with me to be presented to a 
 Royal Princess at the house of a well-known nobleman. 
 If I have cause to regret that circumstance I have also 
 cause to remember that evening with some satisfaction 
 not only did I hear him read one act of his Parsifal,
 
 184 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 but I received from him a singular token of personal re- 
 gard. I remember Liszt telling me with some pride 
 how he had received the celebrated " Kiss of Beetho- 
 ven " Beethoven was not in the habit, it seems, of em- 
 bracing people. I now recall with a feeling of singular 
 satisfaction the occasion on which Wagner favored me in 
 the same way, with a kiss. 
 
 He advanced toward me as I suddenly entered the 
 room, with " Ach mein lieber Ilerr Haweis, was haben 
 Sie den iiber micli schon geschrieben !" and so saying, 
 taking me by both elbows, he saluted me on both 
 cheeks in the orthodox manner. 
 
 Wagner's friendship with the king of Bavaria had no 
 doubt contributed largely to the realization of all his 
 plans during his own lifetime. The notion of building 
 a special theatre where the orchestra should be out of 
 sight the seats arranged tier above tier, with a single 
 row of boxes and a gallery above them had been long 
 in his mind. 
 
 The king was anxious for the theatre to be in 
 Munich ; but the opposition of the court, on account of 
 Wagner's political opinions, was then too great. Later 
 on the hotel-keepeis offered to build a theatre there on 
 their own account, and to carry out Wagner's plans free 
 of charge as a speculation. 
 
 Wagner declined. He chose Bayreuth. He was 
 beholden to none save the king and his own followers. 
 They had stood by him, rehearsed his fame, produced his 
 works, and they built his theatre ; but every detail was 
 directed by Wagner, and the perfection which the Bay- 
 reuth performances have at last reached is due to the 
 same exhaustive and unremitting personal care. 
 
 It was only natural that the master should yield the 
 baton to a friend like Richter, whose experience, phy-
 
 WAGNER'S CONDUCTING. 185 
 
 eique, and consummate talent would enable him to per- 
 fect the executive part of the work ; but it was my privi- 
 lege in England to see Wagner himself conduct some of 
 his own music at the Albert Hall. Some said he had 
 already lost nerve as a conductor, and, indeed, had 
 never possessed the requisite patience. That may have 
 been to some extent true, but it did not strike me. I 
 went home and wrote the following note, which I see no 
 reason to alter now : 
 
 "Wagner's notion is evidently not to rave, but to 
 command, and to deal with his men as one .who gives 
 them credit for knowing their own business, instead of 
 treating them like a set of raw recruits, who have to be 
 bullied, shouted at, sworn to, and licked into shape 
 from end to end. The most intense power, concentra- 
 tion, and active energy is often the most silent. Look 
 at the silent, irresistible weight of the fly-wheel that 
 drives the machinery of a large manufactory, or the 
 noiseless swing of the steam-hammer, or the intense, but 
 silent, and apparently motionless vigor of the poised 
 eagle, or the rapt calmness of a Moltke, who watches 
 from the hill-side every evolution of the troops inspired 
 by him. Only occasionally does he raise his telescope, 
 pointing his hand, or sending out scouts and subalterns ; 
 and in proportion as all goes well, is fitly inspired, is the 
 embodiment of his will is he calm. So the ' listless ' 
 Wagner sits and orders his band, and they know his 
 mind and obey his look, and heed his smallest gesture, 
 often even quite unperceived by the audience ; and this 
 worries the critics. With the best intentions they can't 
 make it out, who are used to their hop, skip, and a 
 jump, and their one, two, three, and away conductors ! 
 Doubtless ; but the old man wins." 
 
 A French critic has since written : " Wagner plays
 
 186 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 on the orchestra as though it were a gigantic fiddle, with 
 a firmness of touch which never fails him, and sovereign 
 authority before which all are happy in bowing down. 
 To have an idea of so extraordinary a conductor, one 
 must have seen him." I do not therefore imply that 
 Wagner in his last years was fitted to go through the 
 kind of drudgery which Richter willingly undertook, 
 and which culminated in the triumph of 1876 at Bay- 
 reuth. 
 
 The close of Wagner's life was crowned by the two 
 great Olympian-like festivals in 1876 and 1882. The 
 Memorial Festival in 1883 was his requiem ; while the 
 whole of the city was resounding with his name and 
 fame, the great master's body lay at rest in a funereal 
 bower adjoining the l^eue Schloss. The event of 1876 
 was, I suppose, unprecedented in the annals of Modern 
 Art. I have devoted to it a separate notice. It was 
 my privilege to witness the first unfolding of those four 
 : colossal musical dramas of the Niebelung' l s Ring on the 
 Bayreuth stage. People had assembled from all parts of 
 the civilized world ; kings, princes, and nobles mingled 
 in that motley throng. The dramas lasted every day 
 from four till ten, with intervals of an hour between the 
 acts. The whole population lived only in the life of 
 that great cycle of tragedies in which gods, demi-gods, 
 and mortals acted out, with more than earthly intensity, 
 the perennially interesting dramas of human life and pas- 
 sion. 
 
 It was between the festival of 1876 at Bayreuth, and 
 the performance of Parsifal'm 1882, that Wagner came 
 to England to assist at the presentation of the Ring 
 music at the Albert Hall. He was shaken in health, 
 and exceedingly indisposed to take any exertion not 
 directly bearing upon his work which was the new
 
 1ST VENICE. 187 
 
 Parsifal drama. He was not satisfied with his recep- 
 tion at the Alhert Hall. Tie was much courted in 
 society, but avoided anything like public receptions, and 
 was considered over-retiring and reticent by casual ob- 
 servers. 
 
 "Wagner died suddenly on the 13th of February, 1883, 
 at Venice, whither he had come to recruit after the 
 Parsifal performances in 1882, and to prepare for their 
 renewal in the following year. He was cut off in the 
 full vigor of his productive genius. Time had not 
 dimmed his eye, nor shaken his hand, nor closed a 
 single channel of thought or emotion. He sank thus 
 suddenly in the spring of the year 1883, not without 
 some warning, yet enjoying life up to its latest hour. 
 " I will bear no longer the gray clouds and wintry skies 
 of Bayreuth," he had said to his friends in the autumn 
 of 1882. 
 
 A suite of apartments in the Palace Yendramin at 
 Venice had been secured for him, and his children 
 Daniel, Eva, Isolde, and Siegfried (now twelve years 
 old) were already there. Venice was in the greatest ex- 
 citement on his arrival. Italy had been in the strangest 
 way won over to Wagner at Bologna, under the able and 
 enthusiastic baton of a lamented maestro ; indeed, Liszt 
 told me he had never heard Wagner's operas more effec- 
 tively given, except at Bayreuth. 
 
 It was Wagner's desire to be left quiet at Venice, and 
 his wishes were sedulously respected ; but he was never 
 inaccessible, and he was often to be found in the Cafe, 
 surrounded by a group of friends. The first remark of 
 the Venetians who saw that spare, vivid figure, with 
 flashing eye, and who heard the master's eager, eloquent 
 conversation, full of wit and geniality, was, " Why, he 
 is not an old man at all !" It is true, there is something
 
 183 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 of the eternal child an afflatus of divine youth about 
 all great genius. 
 
 Wagner rose in Italy at Venice between five and six, 
 and worked till ten. In Venice he wrote his last art 
 criticisms ; and while the Italian newspapers affirmed 
 that he was already at work upon a drama connected 
 with Buddha and the great Aryan legends, the German 
 prints declared that he had turned his attention toward 
 Greece, and was going to Athens to try and recover on 
 the spot something connected with the ancient Greek 
 music. At the same time he was indefatigable in his 
 efforts to prepare for the repetitions of Parsifal in 1883, 
 at which he intended to be present and which were car- 
 ried out at Bayreuth with such magnificent success 
 July, 1883 in sad memory of his death. 
 
 lie was already suffering from heart-disease, and sat 
 usually the weather being chilly in his fur coat. A 
 glass of wine was always at hand, and when he suffered 
 pain he would sip cognac. 
 
 His rooms, however, before breakfast were sacred, 
 and his wife Cosima scrupulously respected them ; but at 
 ten o'clock she went in to bring him his letters, and after 
 a short private chat the family breakfasted together. 
 "Wagner would then take his hat and go down the marble 
 steps looking out upon the canal, and ask his gondolier 
 about the weather. If too cold to venture out he would 
 stroll forth, often with his wife, and go into Lavenna's, 
 the pastry-cook's, and buy bonbons for the children. 
 
 Between four and six o'clock he might often be seen 
 in the arcades and streets, with all the family, buying 
 little presents for friends, or sipping coffee or the good 
 fresh beer beloved of all true Germans. The military 
 band which played occasionally in the great square had 
 produced a version of the Lohengrin overture in his
 
 HIS AFTERNOON. 189 
 
 honor, but played it in such fashion that poor Wagner 
 was constrained to take refuge in the pastry-cook's shop 
 and stop his ears with both hands. 
 
 On another occasion, however, he went up to the 
 bandmaster, in his great coat and slouched hat, and 
 asked him to play something out of Rossini's Gazza 
 Ladra. The conductor, not recognizing Wagner, an- 
 swered civilly that he had none of the music there, and 
 otherwise could not well derange the programme. On 
 Wagner retiring a musician told the bandmaster who the 
 stranger was. Filled with confusion and regret, the 
 worthy man instantly sent for copies of the Gazza 
 Ladra selection, and played it for two consecutive days. 
 Wagner was much pleased, and, again going up to the 
 band, expressed his thanks, and praised especially the 
 solo cornet, who had much distinguished himself. 
 
 The master dined early in the afternoon, and usually 
 took a short nap afterward, the faithful Betty Burke], a 
 confidential family servant, always being at hand in the 
 next room, knitting quietly. 
 
 At half-past three the gondolier was usually in attend- 
 ance, and in fine weather the Lido, the public gardens, 
 the San Lazzaro, and Giudecca were visitad. 
 
 In the milder autumn days of 1882, Wagner, whose 
 breathing was occasionally oppressed, seemed to inhale 
 new health and vigor out upon the wide lagunes. 
 "Ah!" he would say, drawing a long breath; "no 
 smoke, no dust !" At night his sitting-rooms were a 
 blaze of light with quantities of wax-candles. People 
 used to look up at Byron's quarters when he was in 
 Yenice, and wonder what festival could be going on. 
 The waters of the Grand Canal were all aglow, but it 
 was only Byron, alone with the MSS. of Manfred, Pa- 
 risina, and Don Juan. Wagner's old porter happened
 
 190 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 to he a brother to Byron's old servant, Fido. " There 
 is something like Byron about this great German," he 
 remarked. " What is that ?" they asked. " Why, he 
 has the same marvellous need of \vax-candles !" 
 "Where light is, there is joy," Wagner used to say, 
 quoting the Italian proverb. 
 
 As the evenings drew on, Wagner used to read aloud 
 to his family usually from some dramatic author. He 
 sometimes got so excited that the good people in the 
 house knocked at the door to know if anything ailed the 
 master ? 
 
 When absorbed in thought, he was in the habit of 
 pacing up and down the room, with his hands behind 
 him. He even had pockets made at the back of his 
 coat. Dr. Keppler said this position of the arms al- 
 lowed him to breathe more freely, and eased the diseased 
 action of the heart. 
 
 On November 19th, 1882, Liszt came to see him at 
 Venice. The two old men embraced each other affec- 
 tionately on the marble stairs. They sat long hours 
 together in deep and friendly converse. Joukovski, 
 the artist, who had painted the Parsifal scenery, and 
 for whom the genius of Wagner had an irresistible at- 
 traction, was also there. He painted a remarkable por- 
 trait of Liszt, and a "Sacred Family" of Jesus, 
 Joseph, and Mary. The guardian angels in the air 
 above were all portraits of Wagner's children. 
 
 Liszt was usually up at four o'clock, and both Wagner 
 and Liszt got through a great deal of serious work in 
 those small hours. 
 
 Wagner's personal popularity at Venice was extraor- 
 dinary. In a short time he and every member of his 
 family were known even to the children of the poor. 
 The master was open-handed and sympathetic to all.
 
 STRANGE PRESENTIMENT. 191 
 
 He seemed ever about now with his wife, or with little 
 Eva, his pet daughter, or Siegfried. He mixed with the 
 people, chatted and joked, and was ever ready to relieve 
 the poor. He was worshipped by his gondoliers. " He 
 patted me on the back," said one, " asked me if I w r as 
 tired, and said, * Amico mio, so the Carnival has come 
 to an end. ' : The man repeated the incident every- 
 where, as if it had been the great event of his life. 
 " They say he is greater than a king ; isn't it so ?" 
 (Egli e piu di un re, discono non e 1 vero f) was the com- 
 mon talk in the streets as he passed. 
 
 On December 23d, 1882, Wagner conducted his earli-- 
 est symphony at the request of a small circle of friends 
 in celebration of Madame Wagner's birthday. On tak- 
 ing the baton he turned to the musicians and said : 
 
 " This is the last time I shall ever conduct." 
 
 " Why 2" they asked. 
 
 " Because I shall soon die." 
 
 This was not at all his usual mood ; he spoke some- 
 times of living till ninety he said that he could hardly 
 finish the work he had in his mind even then. His 
 doctor knew that his heart disease must one day carry 
 him off, but hoped the end might be delayed for five or 
 six years at least. He was very sanguine himself, but 
 not over-prudent. He took too much tea and coffee and 
 stimulant ; he was deaf to all warnings, and joked on the 
 doctors forbidding their patients to indulge in these 
 things without setting them a good example. But there 
 were moments when his words, spoken lightly, were un- 
 consciously prophetic of the coming end. He had taken 
 the utmost delight in the Carnival of 1883 at Venice, 
 and on the first day of Lent said to his gondolier, " And 
 where is it the fashion to go to-day ?" u To the new ne- 
 cropolis, my gracious master, ' ' replied the man. Arrived
 
 192 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 at the necropolis, Wagner alighted and walked all over 
 the place, admiring the quiet and reposeful niches and 
 the tastefully laid-out lawns and shrubberies. 
 
 "And was my worshipful sir pleased?" asked the 
 gondolier. 
 
 " Yes, uncommonly," replied Wagner ; " and I shall 
 soon find some such quiet spot for my own last resting- 
 place. ' ' 
 
 Indeed, there were mornings when he would go out 
 and return breathless in ten minutes. Once at his bank- 
 er's, and again at the pastry-cook's, he was seized with 
 faintness and put into his gondola. He urgently begged 
 that his family might not be told of this. They had their 
 own misgivings. When alone he had been overheard 
 groaning, and was found sometimes with his hand pressed 
 to his heart ; but he would rally and make light of it, 
 and soon seemed quite well again ; indeed, on the 12th 
 (he died on the 13th) he said he felt better than he 
 had for weeks the breathing was freer and the pulse 
 regular. 
 
 February 13th came black with clouds. The rain 
 poured in torrents. Wagner rose as usual, and an- 
 nounced his wish not to be disturbed till dinner-time, 
 two o'clock. He had much to do much to finish 
 overmuch indeed, and the time was short. 
 
 The master did not feel quite well, and Cosima, his 
 wife, bade Betty, the servant, take her work and not 
 leave the ante-room in case her master should call or 
 ring. 
 
 The faithful creature seemed to have some presenti- 
 ment that all was not right. She listened hour after 
 hour heard the master striding up and down as was his 
 wont. 
 
 Wife Cosima came in from time to time. " The
 
 DEATH. 193 
 
 master works ever," said Betty, " and has not called for 
 anything now he walks to and fro. ' ' 
 
 At one o'clock Wagner rang his bell and asked : " Is 
 the gondola ordered at four o'clock ? Good ; then I 
 will take a plate of soup up here, for I don't feel very 
 well." 
 
 There was nothing unusual about this, for when 
 absorbed in work he would often thus have his light 
 luncheon alone. 
 
 The servant brought in a plate of soup and retired. 
 All seemed quiet for some time. Then suddenly a hur- 
 ried pacing up and down the room was heard. The 
 footsteps ceased a sharp cough, checked. Betty threw 
 down her work, walked on tip-toe to the door, and 
 listened with all her ears. She heard one deep groan ; 
 she stood for a moment divided between a resolve to call 
 Cosima or break through her master's orders and go into 
 his room at once. The suspense was soon over. 
 " Betty !" It was Wagner's voice, very faint. Betty 
 rudied in. Wagner was leaning back on his sofa, his 
 fur coat was half off, his feet rested on a footstool. His 
 face was fearfully changed his features cadaverous and 
 drawn down with pain evidently ; with the utmost diffi- 
 culty he contrived to murmur, but almost inaudibly, 
 " Call my wife and the doctor." Pie never spoke again. 
 
 The terrified Betty rushed off to tell wife Cosima. 
 The instant she saw him she cried, " To the doctor, 
 Betty !" Dr. Keppler was sent for three times ; at last 
 he was found just finishing an operation. Meanwhile 
 Madame Wagner had sat down by her husband. He 
 immediately laid his head on her shoulder, groaning, but 
 speechless ; and she placed her arms about him, and 
 with one hand rubbed his heart, an act which had some- 
 times eased him when in pain. His breathing grew
 
 194 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 softer and lighter, and presently he seemed to subside 
 into a quiet, motionless sleep. She thought it a good 
 sign. 
 
 About half an hour afterward the doctor came. One 
 glance was enough. He found Madame Wagner still 
 holding her husband in both her arms, with his head 
 resting on her shoulder. ' ' He sleeps, ' ' she said and the 
 good doctor, suppressing his emotion with a great effort, 
 did not tell her that it was the sleep of death, and that 
 now for a long time she had been embracing a corpse. 
 
 Dr. Keppler, after feeling for the pulse that was never 
 to beat again, gently took the body of Wagner in both 
 his arms and carried it to his bed. It could not be called 
 his death-bed, for Wagner died as he had lived, working 
 the table before him was strewn with books and 
 MSS., with the ink scarcely dry upon the last page. 
 
 Dr. Keppler then turned to Cosima and said, with irre- 
 pressible emotion, " lie is dead !" The poor wife, who 
 had been so absolutely one in body, soul, and mind with 
 her husband, fell prostrate with a great cry upon his life- 
 less body, nor for some time could any persuasion in- 
 duce her to leave the corpse, which she continued to em- 
 brace. 
 
 But over the intense sorrow of this true-hearted and 
 affectionate German family 1 will draw the veil. The 
 servants all seemed to lose their heads. A vast crowd 
 had by this time assembled outside the palace " Vcn- 
 dramin." The bulletin had flown through Venice, 
 " Richard Wagner is very ill the doctor is at his bed- 
 side." No more than this was known in the town at 
 half -past four. At half -past five Dr. Keppler came 
 down the steps and was greeted with shouts of " The 
 doctor ! the doctor !" In the dead silence which fol- 
 lowed, Dr. Keppler, uncovering his head, said, u Rich-
 
 FUNERAL HOXOliS. 195 
 
 ard Wagner is dead. He died an hour ago from the 
 effects of heart-disease." 
 
 No sooner had Dr. Keppler pronounced the words, 
 " Richard Wagner is dead !" from the steps of the 
 " Yendramin Palace," than the vast throng assembled 
 outside to hear the news dispersed with cries of " Dead ! 
 dead !" and in a short time there was not a cafe in 
 Yenice without the bulletin, " Riccardo Wagner, {I 
 famoso tedesco, il gran Maestro del Vendramin, e 
 morto." It was commonly said that since Garibaldi's 
 death no such sensation had been felt in Yenice. 
 
 The gondolier who had been ordered by Wagner at 
 four o'clock had been in attendance ever since. Poor 
 Luigi heard the news in speechless astonishment and 
 grief ; at last, breaking out in sobs, he exclaimed, 
 " Ah ! to think that only yesterday I rowed him in this 
 gondola the good, noble, great man, who never said an 
 unkind word to any of us, although he was so ill ! 
 Here, here is his name ;" and he held up his ivory- 
 handled walking-stick with the initials " R. W." 
 "And now he must needs die Per Bacco ! Poor 
 dear man ! how many people in this world could have 
 been better spared !" Luigi also took care of a little 
 kitten which had become a pet of Wagner's, having 
 been rescued by him from an untimely end in the canal. 
 " See," he would say, " even this kitten he saved from 
 drowning two months ago knows what it has lost. It 
 will hardly move ; it lies always here in the gondola, 
 just behind where the master used to sit." 
 
 Ill news in these days of telegraphy flies indeed apace. 
 The wires were blocked. In the course of the week no 
 less than five thousand despatches of condolence reached 
 Yeriice, addressed to the Wagner family, from all parts 
 of the civilized world.
 
 196 MY MUSICAL MEMOIIIES. 
 
 Soon after deatli Wagner's body was embalmed by liis 
 devoted medical attendant, Dr. Keppler, and a cast of 
 liis face was taken by Signor Benvenuto. 
 
 The bronze coffin which arrived from Vienna was 
 carried upstairs by Hans Richter, the painter Jonkovsky, 
 Dr. Keppler, Passini, and Ruben ; and the dead master 
 was borne to his funereal gondola by the same devoted 
 friends. The general expressions of sympathy were 
 confined to no class. 
 
 The Italian Government had offered the family a pub- 
 lic ceremony, which was declined ; yet I know not what 
 greater honor could have been paid him than the spon- 
 taneous grief of all Yenice. The high municipal offi- 
 cers, the chief nobles, and an immense throng accom- 
 panied the gondola to the station. The canals were 
 crowded with gondolas draped in crape. 
 
 In all the ports through which the coffin passed the 
 flags floated half-mast high. At every town where 
 there was a stoppage the municipalities sent deputations, 
 and the coffin was strewn with fresh flowers. 
 
 At the head of the bier there was one enormous 
 wreath, sent by the King of Bavaria, "Wagner's close 
 friend, and at Munich the king sent his representative 
 to accompany the funeral cortege to Bayreuth. 
 
 I will not dwell further upon the honors paid by the 
 way, the processions of musical societies, the number- 
 less wreaths, which by the time the coffin reached Bay- 
 reuth amounted to fourteen hundred and filled two large 
 cars. 
 
 On the 17th the bier was received at the station by 
 the inhabitants of Bayreuth en masse. It was a solemn 
 moment when the widow and her children stepped out 
 of their carriage, and all the people silently uncovered 
 their heads.
 
 THE GRAVE. 107 
 
 A brigade of firemen moved in front of the hearse, 
 which was drawn by four black horses. All the gas 
 lamps were lighted along the road, and black pennons 
 streamed from tall poles to right and left. Midway a ;, 
 fresh wreath arrived from the king with a large inscrip- 
 tion, " To the Deathless One" and at the same time 
 the burgomaster laid another one on the coffin in the 
 name of the city of Bayreuth. 
 
 Arrived at Wagner's house, " Vahnfried " only a 
 select company were admitted to the garden the coffin 
 rested for a space at the entrance, but was not taken into 
 the house. 
 
 It r was Madame Wagner's express wish that no 
 speeches or prayers should be made at the grave which 
 had long since been dug, by Wagner's orders, in a re- 
 tired spot of his own garden, surrounded by thick bushes 
 and fir-trees. A simple blessing in the name of the 
 Church was to be given, and the coffin then lowered in 
 silence. 
 
 An immense slab of gray polished granite rested 
 above it, and the vault door was to be opened on one 
 side. Hither was the body now brought by a silent and 
 sorrowing throng of attached friends among them ' 
 Liszt, Billow, Richter, Joukovsky, and many more. 
 On either side walked Wagner's children, and when the 
 coffin was about to be slid into the grave, they mounted 
 on the gray slab above it and knelt down. 
 
 At this moment Wagner's two favorite dogs burst 
 through the thickets, and sprang toward the children to 
 seek their usual caresses they, too, had lost a kind 
 master, but they knew it not. 
 
 Then Herr Caselmann, in the simplest words, com- 
 mitted the departed, and all his family, to the care of 
 Christ, and blessed the assembly and the grave in the
 
 
 198 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 name of the Church. This was all in exact accordance 
 with Madame "Wagner's wishes. A few took a leaf or a 
 flower as it fell from the piled-up heap, and the body 
 was lowered silently into its last resting-place earth to 
 earth dust to dust ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 I visited Bayreuth on the 24th of July, 1883, and at- 
 tended two crowded performances of Wagner's last 
 work, Parsifal. In the morning I went into the beau- 
 tiful gardens of the Neue Schloss. On either side of a 
 lake, upon which float a couple of swans and innumer- 
 able water-lilies, the long park-like avenues of trees are 
 vocal with wild doves, and the robin is heard in the ad- 
 joining thickets. At my approach the sweet song ceases 
 abruptly, and the startled bird flies out, scattering the 
 pale petals of the wild roses upon my path. I follow a 
 stream of people on foot, as they move down the left- 
 hand avenue in the garden of the Neue Schloss, which 
 adjoins Wagner's own grounds. 
 
 Some are going some are coming. Presently I see 
 an opening in the bashes on my left ; the path leads me 
 to a clump of evergreens. I follow it, and come sud- 
 denly on the great composer's grave. All about the 
 green square mound the trees are thick laurel, fir, and 
 yew. The shade falls funereally across the immense 
 gray granite slab ; but over the dark foliage the sky is 
 bright blue, and straight in front of me, above the low 
 bushes, I can see the bow- windows of the dead master's 
 study where I spent with him one delightful evening 
 in 1876. 
 
 I can see, too, the jet of water that he loved playing 
 high above the hedge of evergreen. It lulls me with its 
 sound. " Yahnfried ! Yahnfried !" it seems to mur- 
 mur. It was the word written above the master's house
 
 A VISIT TO WAGNER'S GRAVE. 109 
 
 the word lie most loved the word his tireless spirit //" 
 most believed in. How shall 1 render it? "Dream- 
 life ! dream-life ! Earth's illusion of joy !" 
 
 Great spirit ! thy dream-life here is past, and face 
 to face with truth, " rapt from the fickle and the frail," 
 for thee the illusion has vanished ! Mayest thou also 
 know the fulness of joy in the unbroken and serene ac- 
 ti%~ities of the eternal Reality ! 
 
 I visited the grave twice. There is nothing written , 
 on the granite slab. There were never present less than *' 
 twenty persons, and a constant stream of pilgrims kept 
 coming and going. 
 
 One gentle token of the master's pitiful and tender 
 regard for the faithful dumb animals he so loved lies but 
 a few feet off in the same garden, and not far from his 
 own grave. 
 
 Upon a mossy bank, surrounded with evergreens, is a 
 small marble slab, with this inscription to his favorite 
 dog: 
 
 " Here hes in peace i VahnfriecTs ' faithful watcher 
 and friend the good and beautiful Mark " (der gute, 
 schone Mark) ! 
 
 I returned, too, to Wagner's tomb, plucked a branch 
 of the fir-tree that waved above it, and went back to my 
 room to prepare myself by reading and meditation for 
 the great religious drama which I was to witness at four 
 o'clock in the afternoon "Wagner's latest and highest 
 inspiration the story of the sacred brotherhood, the 
 knights of San Graal Parsifal !
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 PARSIFAL. 
 
 THE blood of God ! mystic symbol of divine life 
 " for the blood is the life thereof." That is the key- 
 note of Parsifal, the Knight of the Sangrail. Wine is 
 the ready symbolical vehicle the material link between 
 the divine and the human life. In the old religions, 
 \ that heightened consciousness, that intensity of feeling 
 produced by stimulant, was thought to be the very en- 
 tering in of the "god" the union of the divine and 
 human spirit ; and in the Eleusinian mysteries, the 
 " sesame " the bread of Demeter, the earth mother, 
 and the " kykeon," or wine of Dionysos the vine god 
 were thus sacramental. 
 
 The passionate desire to approach and mingle with 
 Deity is the one mystic bond common to all religions in 
 all lands. It is the " cry of the human;" it traverses 
 the ages, it exhausts many symbols and transcends all 
 forms. 
 
 To the Christian it is summed up in the " Lord's 
 Supper." 
 
 The mediaeval legend of the Sangrail (real or royal 
 blood) is the most poetic and pathetic form of transub- 
 stantiation ; in it the gross materialism of the Roman 
 Mass almost ceases to be repulsive ; it possesses the true 
 legendary power of attraction and assimilation. 
 
 As the Knights of the Table Round, with their holy 
 vows, provided mediaeval Chivalry with a centre, so did
 
 THE MYSTIC UNION. 201 
 
 the Lord's table, with its Sangrail, provide mediaeval 
 Religion with its central attractive point. And as all 
 marvellous tales of knightly heroism circled round King 
 Arthur's table, so did the great legends embodying the 
 Christian conceptions of sin, punishment, and redemp- 
 tion circle round the Sangrail and the sacrifice of the 
 "Mass." 
 
 In the legends of Parsifal and Lohengrin, the > 
 knightly and religious elements are welded together. 
 This is enough. We need' approach Parsifal with no 
 deep knowledge of the various Sagas made use of by 
 Wagner in his drama. His disciples, while most eager 
 to trace its various elements to their sources, are most 
 emphatic in declaring that the Parsifal drama, so in- K' 
 timately true to the spirit of Roman Catholicism, is 
 nevertheless a new creation. 
 
 Joseph of Arimathea received in a crystal cup the 
 blood of Christ as it flowed from the spear-wound made 
 by the Roman soldier. The cup and the spear were 
 committed to Titurel, who became a holy knight and 
 head of a sacred brotherhood of knights. They dwelt in 
 the Vizigoth Mountains of Southern Spain, where, amidst 
 impenetrable forests, rose the legendary palace of Mont- 
 salvat. Here they guarded the sacred relics, issuing 
 forth at times from their palatial fortress, like Lohen- 
 grin, to fight for innocence and right, and always re- 
 turning to renew their youth and strength by the celes- 
 tial contemplation of the Sangrail, and by occasional 
 participation in the holy feast. 
 
 Time and history count for very little in these narra- 
 tives. It was allowed, however, that Titurel the Chief 
 had grown extremely aged, but it was not allowed that 
 he could die in the presence of the Sangrail. He seemed 
 to have been laid in a kind of trance, resting in an open
 
 202 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 tomb beneath the altar of the Grail ; and whenever the 
 cup was uncovered his voice might be heard joining in 
 the celebration. Meanwhile, Amfortis, his son, reigned 
 in his stead. 
 
 Montsalvat, with its pure, contemplative, but active 
 brotherhood, and its mystic cup, thus stands out as the 
 poetic symbol of all that is highest and best in mediaeval 
 Christianity. 
 
 The note of the wicked world Magic for Devotion 
 Sensuality for Worship breaks in upon our vision, as 
 the scene changes from the Halls of Montsalvat to 
 Klingsor's palace. Klingsor, an impure knight, who 
 has been refused admittance to the order of the " San- 
 grail," enters into a compact with the powers of evil by 
 magic acquires arts of diabolical fascination fills his 
 palace and gardens with enchantments, and wages bitter 
 war against the holy knights, with a view of corrupting 
 them, and ultimately, it may be, of acquiring for him- 
 self the " San grail," in which all power is believed to 
 reside. Many knights have already succumbed to the 
 " insidious arts" of Klingsor ; but the tragical turning 
 point of the Parsifal is that Amfortis, himself the son 
 of Titurel, the official guardian of the Grail, in making 
 war upon the magician, took with him the sacred spear, 
 and lost it to Klingsor. 
 
 It came about in this way. A woman of unearthly 
 loveliness won him in the enchanted bowers, adjoining 
 the evil knight's palace, and Klingsor, seizing the holy 
 spear, thrust it into Amfortis's side, inflicting therewith 
 an incurable wound. The brave knight, Gurnemanz, 
 dragged his master fainting from the garden, his com- 
 panions of the Sangrail covering their retreat. But, re- 
 turned to Montsalvat, the unhappy king awakes only to 
 bewail his sin, the loss of the sacred spear, and the cease-
 
 ORCHESTRAL PRELUDE. 203 
 
 less harrowing smart of an incurable wound. But who 
 is Parsifal ? 
 
 * * # . * * * 
 
 The smell of pine-woods in July ! The long avenue 
 outside the city of Bayreuth, that leads straight up the 
 hill, crowned by the Wagner Theatre, a noble structure 
 architecturally admirable severe, simple, but ex- 
 actly adapted to its purpose. I join the stream of pil- . 
 grims, some in carriages, others on foot. As we ap- 
 proach, a clear blast of trombones and brass from the 
 terrace in front of the grand entrance plays out the 
 Grail " motive." It is the well-known signal there is 
 no time to be lost. I enter at the prescribed door, and 
 find myself close to my appointed place. Every one 
 such is the admirable arrangement seems to do like- 
 wise. In a few minutes about one thousand persons are 
 seated without confusion. The theatre is darkened, the 
 foot-lights are lowered, the prelude begins. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 The waves of sound rise from the shadowy gulf 
 sunken between the audience and the foot-lights. Upon 
 the sound ocean of "wind" the "Take, eat," or 
 "Love-feast" motive floats. Presently the strings 
 pierce through it, the Spear motive follows, and then, 
 full of heavy pain, " Drink ye all of this," followed by 
 the famous Grail motive an old chorale also used by 
 Mendelssohn in the Reformation Symphony. Then 
 comes the noble Faith and Love theme. , 
 
 As I sit in the low light, amklst the silent throng, and 
 listen, I need no interpreter, I am being placed in pos- 
 session of the emotional key-notes of the drama. 
 Every subject is first distinctly enunciated, and then all
 
 204 MY MTSIO'AL MEMORIES. 
 
 are wondrously blended together. There is the pain of 
 sacrifice the mental agony, the bodily torture ; there 
 are the alternate pauses of- Sorrow and respite from sor- 
 row long drawn out, the sharp ache of Sin, the glimpses 
 of unhallowed Joy, the strain of upward Endeavor, the 
 serene peace of Faith and Love, crowned by the blessed 
 Vision of the Grail. 'Tis past. The prelude melts into 
 the opening recitative. 
 
 The eyes have now to play their part. The curtain 
 rises, the story begins. The morning breaks slowly, the 
 gray streaks redden, a lovely summer landscape lies 
 bathed in primrose light. Under the shadow of a noble 
 tree, the aged knight, Gurnemanz, has been resting with 
 two young attendants. From the neighboring halls of 
 Montsalvat the solemn reveille the Grail motive rings 
 out, and all three sink on their knees in prayer. The 
 sun bursts forth in splendor, as the hymn rises to mingle 
 with the voices of universal nature. The waves of 
 sound well up and fill the soul with unspeakable thank- 
 fulness and praise. 
 
 The talk is of Amfortis, the king, and of his incu- 
 rable wound. A wild gallop, a rush of sound, and a 
 weird woman, with streaming hair, springs toward the 
 startled group. She bears a phial, with rare balsam 
 from the Arabian shores. It is for the king's wound. 
 Who is the wild horsewoman ? Kundry strange crea- 
 tion a being doomed to wander, like the Wandering 
 Jew, the wild Huntsman, or Flying Dutchman, always 
 seeking a deliverance she cannot find Kundry, who, 
 in ages gone by met the Saviour on the road to Calvary, 
 and derided him. Some said she was Herodias's 
 daughter. Now filled with remorse, yet weighted with 
 sinful longings, she serves by turns the Knights of the 
 Grail, then falls under the spell of Klingsor, the evil
 
 AMFORTIS APPROACHES. 205 
 
 kniglit sorcerer, and, in the guise of an enchantress, is 
 compelled by him to seduce, if possible, the Knights of 
 the Grail. 
 
 Eternal symbol of the divided allegiance of a woman's 
 soul ! She it was who, under the sensual spell, as an in- 
 carnation of loveliness, overcame Amfortis, and she it 
 is now who, in her ardent quest for salvation, changed 
 and squalid in appearance, serves the Knights of the 
 Grail, and seeks to heal Amfortis's wound ! 
 
 No sooner has she delivered her balsam to the faith- 
 ful Gurnemanz, and thrown herself exhausted upon the 
 grass where she lies gnawing her hair morosely than 
 a change in the sound atmosphere, which never ceases to 
 be generated in the mystic orchestral gulf, presages the 
 approach of Amfortis. 
 
 lie comes, borne on a litter, to his morning bath in 
 the shining lake hard by. Sharp is the pain of the 
 wound weary and hopeless is the king. Through the 
 "Wound-motive comes the sweet woodland music and the 
 breath of the blessed morning, fragrant with flowers and 
 fresh with dew. It is one of those incomparable bursts 
 of woodland notes, full of bird-song* and the happy hum 
 of insect life and rustling of netted branches and waving 
 of long tasselled grass. I know of nothing like it save 
 the forest music in Siegfried. 
 
 The sick king listens, and remembers words of hope 
 and comfort that fell from a heavenly voice, what time 
 the glory of the Grail passed 
 
 " Dnrck mitleid Yv'issend "Wait for my chosen one, 
 
 Der reine Thor, ., , 
 
 Guileless and innocent, 
 Harre sein 
 
 Den icli erkor." Tity-enlightened." 
 
 They hand him the phial of balsam ; and presently,
 
 206 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 while the lovely forest music again breaks forth, the 
 king is carried on to his bath, and Kundry, Gurnemanz, 
 and the two esquires hold the stage. 
 
 As the old knight, who is a complete repertory of 
 facts connected with the Grail tradition, unfolds to the 
 esquires the nature of the king's wound, the sorceries of 
 Klingsor, the hope of deliverance from some unknown 
 " guileless one," a sudden cry breaks up the situation. 
 
 A white swan, pierced by an arrow, flutters dying to 
 the ground. It is the swan beloved of the Grail brother- 
 hood, bird of fair omen, symbol of spotless purity. The 
 slayer is brought in between two knights a stalwart 
 youth, fearless, unabashed, while the death-music of the 
 swan, the slow distilling and stiffening of its life-blood, 
 is marvellously rendered by the orchestra. Conviction 
 of his fault comes over the youth as he listens to the re- 
 proaches of Gurnemanz. He hangs his head, ashamed 
 and penitent, and at last with a sudden passion of 
 remorse snaps his bow, and flings it aside. The swan is 
 borne off, and Parsifal (the "guileless one,"" for he it 
 is), with Gurnemanz and Kundry who rouses herself 
 and surveys Parsifal- with strange, almost savage curios- 
 ity hold the stage. 
 
 In this scene Kundry tells the youth more than he 
 cares to hear about himself : how his father, Gamuret, 
 was a great knight killed in battle ; how his mother, 
 Herzeleide (Heart's Affliction), fearing a like fate for her 
 son, brought him up in the lonely forest ; how he left 
 her to follow a troop of knights that he met one day 
 winding through the forest glade, and being led on and 
 on in pursuit of them, never overtook them and never 
 returned to his mother, Heart's Affliction, who died of 
 grief. At this point the frantic youth seizes Kundry by 
 the throat in an agony of rage and grief, but is held
 
 SUNDRY'S SLEEP. 207 
 
 back by Gurnemanz, till, worn out by the violence of 
 his emotion, he faints away, and is gradually revived by 
 Kundry and Gurnemanz. 
 
 Suddenly Kundry rises with a wild look, like one 
 under a spell. Her mood of service is over. She staggers 
 across the stage she can hardly keep awake. ' ( Sleep, ' ' 
 she mutters, " I must sleep sleep !" and falls down in 
 one of those long trances which apparently lasted for 
 months, or years, and formed the transition periods 
 between her mood of Grail service and the Klingsor 
 slavery into which she must next relapse in spite of her- 
 self. 
 
 And is this the guileless one ? This wild youth who 
 slays the fair swan who knows not his own name nor 
 whence he comes, nor whither he goes, nor what are his 
 destinies ? The old knight eyes him curiously he will 
 put him to the test. This youth had seen the king pass 
 once he had marked his pain. Was he " enlightened by 
 pity ''? Is he the appointed deliverer ? The old knight 
 now invites him to the shrine of the Grail. " What is 
 the Grail ? 13 asks the youth. Truly a guileless, innocent 
 one ! yet a brave and pure knight, since he has known 
 no evil, and so readily repents of a fault committed in 
 ignorance. 
 
 Gurnemanz is strangely drawn to him. lie shall see 
 the Grail, and in the Holy Palace, what time the mystic 
 light streams forth and the assembled knights bow them- 
 selves in prayer, the voice which comforted Amfortis 
 shall speak to his deliverer and bid him arise and heal the 
 
 king. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Gurnemanz and Parsifal have ceased to speak. They 
 stand in the glowing light of the summer-land. The
 
 208 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 tide of music rolls on continuously, but sounds more 
 strange and dreamy. 
 
 *#*##* 
 
 Is it a cloud passing over the sky ? There seems to 
 be a shuddering in the branches the light fades upon 
 yonder s tinny woodlands the foreground darkens apace. 
 The whole scene is moving, but so slowly that it seems 
 to change like a dissolving view. I see the two figures 
 of Gurnemanz and Parsifal moving through the trees 
 they are lost behind yonder rock. They emerge farther 
 off higher up. The air grows very dim ; the orchestra 
 peals louder and louder. I lose the two in the deepen- 
 ing twilight. The forest is changing, the land is wild 
 and mountainous. Huge galleries and arcades, rock- 
 hewn, loom through the dim forest ; but all is growing 
 dark. I listen to the murmurs of the " Grail," the 
 " Spear," the " Pain," the " Love and Faith" motives- 
 hollow murmurs, confused, floating out of the depths of 
 lonely caves. Then I have a feeling of void and dark- 
 ness, and there comes a sighing as of a soul swooning 
 away in a trance, and a vision of waste places and wild 
 caverns ; and then through the confused dream I hear 
 the solemn boom of mighty bells, only muffled. They 
 keep time as to some ghostly march. I strain my eyes 
 into the thick gloom before me. Is it a rock, or forest, 
 or palace ? 
 
 As the light returns slowly, a hall of more than 
 Alhambra-like splendor opens before me. My eyes are 
 riveted on the shining pillars of variegated marble, the 
 tessellated pavements, the vaulted roof glowing with 
 gold and color ; beyond, arcades of agate columns, 
 bathed in a misty moonlight air, and lost in a bewildering 
 perspective of halls and corridors. 
 
 I hoar the falling of distant water in marble fonts ;
 
 THE HOLY GRAIL. 209 
 
 the large bells of Hontsalvat peal louder and louder, and 
 to music of unimaginable stateliness the knights enter in 
 solemn procession, clad in the blue and red robes of the 
 Grail, and take their seats at two semicircular tables 
 which start like arms to the right and left of the holy 
 shrine. Beneath it lies Titurel entranced, and upon it is 
 presently deposited the sacred treasure of the Grail 
 itself. 
 
 As the wounded King Amfortis is borne in, the as- 
 sembled knights, each standing in his place, a golden 
 cup before him, intone the Grail motive, which is 
 taken up by the entering choruses of servitors and 
 esquires bearing the holy relics. 
 
 Gurnemanz is seated among the knights ; Parsifal 
 stands aside and looks on in mute astonishment, "a 
 guileless one." 
 
 As the Holy Grail is set down on the altar before the 
 wounded king, a burst of heavenly music streams from 
 the high dome voices of angels intone the celestial 
 phrases, " Take, eat," and " this is my blood!" and 
 blend them with the "faith and love" motives. As 
 the choruses die away, the voice of the entranced Titurel 
 is heard from beneath the altar calling upon Amfortis, 
 his son, to uncover the Grail that he may find refresh- 
 ment and life in the blessed vision. 
 
 Then follows a terrible struggle in the breast of Am- 
 fortis. //?, sore stricken in sin, yet Guardian of the 
 Grail, guilty among the guiltless, oppressed with pain, 
 bowed down with shame, craving for restoration, 
 overwhelmed with unworthiness, yet chosen to stand and 
 minister before the Lord on behalf of His saints ! 
 Pathetic situation, which must in all times repeat itself 
 in the history of the Church. The unworthiness of the 
 minister affects not the validity of his consecrated acts.
 
 210 MY MUSICAL MEA1OIUES. 
 
 Yet what agony of mind must many a priest have 
 suffered, himself oppressed with sin and doubt, while 
 dispensing the means of grace, and acting as a minister 
 and steward of the mysteries. 
 
 The marvellous piece of self-analysis in which the 
 conscience-stricken king bewails his lot as little admits of 
 description here as the music which embodies his emo- 
 tions. 
 
 At the close of it angel voices seem floating in mid-air, 
 sighing the mystic words : 
 
 " Durch mitleid Wissend " Wait for my chosen one, 
 
 Der reine Thor, Guileless and innocent, 
 
 Harre sein 
 
 Den ich erkor." pit J- enlightened. " 
 
 And immediately afterward the voice of Titurel, like 
 one turning restlessly in his sleep, comes up from his 
 living tomb beneath the altar, ' k Uncover the Grail /" 
 
 With trembling hands the sick king raites himself, 
 and with a great effort staggers toward the shrine the 
 covering is removed he takes the crystal cup he raises 
 it on high the blood is dark the light begins to fade 
 in the hall a mist and dimness come over the scene 
 we seem to be assisting at a shadowy ceremony in a 
 dream the big bells are tolling the heavenly choirs 
 from above the dome, which is now bathed in twilight, 
 are heard : " Drink ye all of this /" Amfortis raises 
 on high the crystal vase the knights fall on their knees 
 in prayer. Suddenly a faint tremor of light quivers in 
 the crystal cup then the blood grows ruby red for a 
 moment. Amfortis waves it to and fro the knights 
 gaze in ecstatic adoration. Titurel's voice gathers 
 strength in his tomb : 
 
 " Celestial rapture ! 
 How stromms the light upon the face of God !"
 
 THE SPIRITUAL IMPRESSION. 211 
 
 The light fades slowly out of the crystal cup the mira- 
 cle is accomplished. The blood again grows dark the 
 light of common day returns to the halls of Montsalvat, 
 and the knights resume their seats, to iind each one his 
 golden goblet filled with wine. 
 
 During the sacred repast which follows, the brother- 
 hood join hands and embrace, singing : 
 
 " Blessed are they that believe ; 
 Blessed are they that love !" 
 
 and the refrain is heard again far up in the heights, re- 
 echoed by the angelic hosts. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I looked round upon the silent audience while these 
 astonishing scenes were passing before me ; the whole 
 assembly was motionless all seemed to be solemnized 
 by the august spectacle seemed almost to share in the 
 devout contemplation and trance-like worship of the 
 holy knights. Every thought of the stage had vanished 
 nothing was further from my own thoughts than play- 
 acting. I was sitting as I should sit at an oratorio, in 
 devout and rapt contemplation. Before my eyes had 
 passed a symbolic vision of prayer and ecstasy, flooding 
 the soul with overpowering thoughts of the divine sacri- 
 fice and the mystery of unfathomable love. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The hall of Montsalvat empties. Gurnemanz strides 
 excitedly up to Parsifal, who stands stupefied with what 
 he has seen 
 
 " Why standest thon silent ? 
 
 Knowest them what thine eyes have seen ?" 
 
 The guileless one shakes his head. " Nothing but a 
 fool," exclaims Gurnemanz, angrily ; and seizing Parsi-
 
 212 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 fal by tlie shoulder, he pushes him roughly out of the 
 hall, with : 
 
 " Bo off ! look after thy geese, 
 And henceforth leave our swans in peace." 
 
 The Grail vision had, then, taught the " guileless 
 one " nothing. He could not see his mission he was 
 as yet unawakened to the deeper life of the spirit ; 
 though blameless and unsullied, he was still the " nat- 
 ural man." Profound truth! that was not first which 
 was spiritual, but that which was natural ; before Parsifal 
 wins a spiritual triumph, he must be spiritually tried ; his 
 inner life must be deepened and developed, else he can 
 never read aright the message of the Grail. 
 
 The life of God in the spirit comes only when the 
 battle for God in the heart has been fought and won. 
 
 Fare forth, thou guileless one ! thou shalt yet add 
 to the simplicity of the dove the wisdom of the ser- 
 pent. Thou art innocent because ignorant ; but thou 
 shalt be weighed anon in the balance and not be found 
 wanting ; and then shalt thou reconquer the holy spear 
 lost in Sin, rewon in Purity and Sacrifice, and be to the 
 frail Amfortis the chosen saviour for whom he waits. 
 ****** 
 
 The foregoing events occupied about an hour and a 
 quarter. When the curtain fell, the vast audience broke 
 up in silence. 
 
 The air outside was cool and balmy. In the distance 
 lay the city of Bayreuth, with the tower of the Alte 
 Schloss and the old church standing up gray against the 
 distant Bavarian hills. All around us lay the pine 
 woods, broken by the lawns and avenues that encircle 
 the theatre and embower it in a secluded world of its own 
 even as the Palace of the Grail was shut off from the
 
 KLINGSOR PRELUDE. 213 
 
 profane world. Here, indeed, is truly the Montsalvat 
 of the modern drama a spot purified and sacred to the 
 highest aims and noblest manifestations of Art. 
 
 In about an hour the Spear motive was the signal 
 blown on the wind instruments outside, and 1 took mj 
 seat for the second act. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 A restless, passion- tossed prelude. The "Grail" 
 subject distorted, the " Spear" motive thrust in discord- 
 ant, the " Faith and Love" theme fluttering like a 
 wounded dove in pain, fierce bursts of passion, wild 
 shocks of uncontrolled misery, mingling with the 
 "carnal joy" music of Klingsor's magic garden and 
 the shuddering might of his alchemy. 
 
 The great magician, Klingsor, is seen alone in his 
 dungeon palace harsh contrast to the gorgeous halls of 
 Montsalvat. Here all is built of the live rock, an im- 
 penetrable fastness, the home of devilish might and 
 terrible spells. 
 
 Klingsor is aware of the coming struggle, and he means 
 to be ready for it. He owns the sacred spear wrested 
 from Amfortis ; he even aspires to win the Grail ; he 
 knows the " guileless one" is on his way to wrest that 
 spear from him. His only hope is in paralyzing the fool 
 by his enchantments as he paralyzed Amfortis, and the 
 same woman will serve his turn. 
 
 " Kundry !" The time is come, the spells are woven 
 blue vapors rise, and in the midst of the "blue vapors 
 the figure of the still sleeping Kundry is seen. She 
 wakes, trembling violently ; she knows she is again 
 under the spell she abhors the spell to do evil, the mis- 
 sion to corrupt. With a shuddering scream she stands
 
 214 31 Y MUSICAL MEM.ORIK3. 
 
 before her tormentor, denying Ms power, loathing to 
 return to her vile mission, yet returning, as with a bitter 
 cry she vanishes from his presence. 
 
 Parsifal has invaded Klingsor's realm ; the evil 
 knights have fled before his prowess, wounded and in 
 disorder. Kundry is commissioned to meet the guileless 
 youth in the enchanted garden and, all other allurements 
 failing, to subdue him by her irresistible fascinations and 
 hand him over to Klingsor. 
 
 Iii a moment the scenery lifts, and a garden of mar- 
 vellous beauty and extent lies before us. The flowers are 
 all of colossal dimensions huge roses hang in tangled 
 festoons, the cactus, the lily, the blue-bell, creepers and 
 orchids of enormous size and dazzling color wave in 
 mid-air, and climb the aromatic trees. 
 
 On a bright hill appears Parsifal, standing bewildered 
 by the light and loveliness around him. Beautiful girls 
 dressed like flowers, and hardly distinguishable from 
 them at first, rush in, bewailing their wounded and dis- 
 abled knights, but, on seeing Parsifal, fall upon their 
 new prey, and surrounding him, sing verse after verse 
 of the loveliest ballet music, while trying to embrace 
 him, and quarrelling with each other for the privilege. 
 
 About that wonderful chorus of flower-girls there was 
 just a suggestive touch of the Rhine maidens' singing. 
 It belonged to the same school of thought and feeling, 
 but was freer, wilder more considerable, and altogether 
 more complex and wonderful in its changes and in the 
 marvellous confusion in which it breaks up. 
 
 The guileless one resists these charmers, and they are 
 just about to leave him in disgust, when the roses lift on 
 one side, and, stretched on a mossy bank overhung with 
 flowers, appears a woman of unearthly loveliness. It is 
 Kundry transformed, and in the marvellous duet which
 
 THE XEW LOVE DUET. AX ANALYSIS. 215 
 
 follows between her and Parsifal, a perfectly new and 
 original type of love duet is struck out an analysis of 
 character, unique in musical drama a combination of 
 sentiment and a situation absolutely novel, which could 
 only have been conceived and carried out by a creative 
 genius of the highest order. 
 
 First, I note that the once spell-bound Kundry is de- 
 voted utterly to her task of winning Parsifal. Into this 
 she throws all the intensity of her wild and desperate 
 nature ; but in turn she is strangely affected by the 
 spiritual atmosphere of the " guileless one " a feeling 
 comes over her in the midst of her witchcraft passion, 
 that he is in some way to be her saviour too ; yet, 
 woman-like, she conceives of her salvation as possible 
 only in union with him. Yet was this the very crime to 
 which Klingsor would drive her for the ruin of Parsifal. 
 Strange confusion of thought, feeling, aspiration, long- 
 ing ! struggle of irreconcilable elements ! How shall 
 she reconcile them ? Her intuition fails her not, and 
 her tact triumphs. She will win by stealing his love 
 through his mother's love. A mother's love is holy ; 
 that love" she tells him of. It can never more be his ; 
 but she will replace it, her passion shall be sanctified by 
 it ; through that passion she has sinned, through it she, 
 too, shall be redeemed. She will work out her own sal- 
 vation by the very spells that are upon her for evil. He 
 is pure he shall make her pure, can she but win him ; 
 both, by the might of such pure love, will surely be 
 delivered from Klingsor the corrupter, the tormentor. 
 Fatuous dream ! How, through corruption, win incor- 
 ruption ? How, through indulgence, win peace and 
 freedom from desire ? It is the old cheat of the senses 
 Satan appears as an angel of light. The thought de- 
 ludes the unhappy Ivundry herself ; she is no longer con-
 
 #10 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 sciously working for Klingsor ; she really believes that 
 this new turn, this bias given to passion, will purify 
 both her and the guileless, pure fool she seeks to 
 subdue. 
 
 Nothing can describe the subtlety of their long inter- 
 view, the surprising turns of sentiment and contrasts of 
 feeling. Throughout this scene Parsifal's instinct is 
 absolutely true and sure. Everything Kundry says 
 about his mother, Herzeleide, he feels ; but every at- 
 tempt to make him accept her instead he resists. Her 
 desperate declamation is splendid. Her heartrending 
 sense of misery and piteous prayer for salvation, her 
 belief that before her is her saviour could she but win 
 him to her will, the choking fury of baffled passion, the 
 steady and subtle encroachments made while Parsifal is 
 lost in a meditative dream, the burning kiss which recalls 
 him to himself, the fine touch by which this kiss, while 
 arousing in him the stormiest feelings, causes a sharp 
 pain, as of Amfortis's own wound, piercing his very 
 heart all this is realistic if you will, but it is realism 
 raised to the sublime. 
 
 Suddenly Parsifal springs up, hurls the -enchantress 
 from him, will forth from Klingsor's realm. She is 
 baffled she knows it ; for a moment she bars his pas- 
 sage, then succumbs ; the might of sensuality which lost 
 Amfortis the sacred spear has been met and defeated 
 by the guileless fool. He has passed from innocence to 
 knowledge in his interview with the flower-girt girls, 
 in his long converse with Kundry, in her insidious em- 
 brace, in her kiss ; but all these are now thrust aside, 
 he steps forth still unconquered, still " guileless," but 
 no more "a fool." The knowledge of good and evil 
 has come, but the struggle is already passed. 
 
 " Yes, sinner, I do offer thee Redemption," he can
 
 KUNDRY BAFFLED. 217 
 
 say to Kundry ; " not in thy way, but in thy Lord 
 Christ's way of sacrifice !" 
 
 But the desperate creature, wild with passion, will 
 listen to no reason ; she shouts aloud to her master, and 
 Klingsor suddenly appears, poising the sacred spear. 
 In another moment he hurls it right across the enchanted 
 garden at Parsifal. It cannot wound the guileless and 
 pure one as it wounded the sinful Amfortis. A mira- 
 cle ! It hangs arrested in air above Parsifal's head ; he 
 seizes it it is the sacred talisman, one touch of which 
 will heal even as it inflicted the king's deadly wound. 
 
 With a mighty cry and the shock as of an earthquake, 
 the castle of Klingsor falls shattered to pieces, the gar- 
 den withers up to a desert, the girls, who have rushed in, 
 lie about among the fading flowers, themselves withered 
 up and dead. Kundry sinks down in a deathly swoon, 
 while Parsifal steps over a ruined wall and disappears, 
 painting her with the words : " Thou alone knowest 
 when we shall meet again !" 
 
 ****** 
 
 The long shadows were stealing over the hills when I 
 came out at the second pause. Those whom I met and 
 conversed with were subdued and awed. What a 
 solemn tragedy of human passion we had been assisting 
 at ! Not a heart there but could interpret that struggle 
 between the flesh and the spirit from its own experiences. 
 Not one but knew the desperately wicked and deceitful 
 temptations that come like enchantresses in the wizard's 
 garden, to plead the cause of the devil in the language 
 of high-flown sentiment or even religious feeling. 
 
 Praise and criticism seemed dumb ; we rather walked 
 and spoke of what we had just witnessed like men con- 
 vinced of judgment, and righteousness, and sin. It was 
 a strange mood in which to come out of a theatre after
 
 218 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 witnessing what would commonly be called an " Opera." 
 I felt more than ever the impossibility of producing 
 the Parsifal in London, at Drury Lane or Covent Gar- 
 den, before a well-dressed company of loungers, who 
 had well dined, and were on their way to balls and sup- 
 pers afterward. 
 
 I would as soon see the Oberammergau play at a 
 music hall. 
 
 No; in Parsifal all is solemn, or all is irreverent. At 
 Bayreuth we came on a pilgrimage ; it cost us time, and 
 trouble, and money ; we were in earnest so were the 
 actors ; the spirit of the great master who had planned 
 every detail seemed still to preside over all ; the actors 
 lived in their parts ; not a thought of self remained ; no 
 one accepted applause or recall ; no one aimed at pro- 
 ducing a personal effect ; the actors were lost in the 
 drama, and it was the drama and not the actors which 
 had impressed and solemnized us. When I came out 
 they asked me who was Amfortis ? I did not know. I 
 said " the wounded king." 
 
 As the instruments played out the Faith and Love 
 motive for us to re-enter, the mellow sunshine broke 
 once more from the cloud-rack over city, and field, and 
 forest, before sinking behind the long low range of the 
 distant hills. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 The opening prelude to the third and last act seems 
 to warn me of the lapse of time. The music is full of 
 pain and restlessness the pain of wretched years of long 
 waiting for a deliverer, whd comes not ; the restlessness 
 and misery of a hope deferred, the weariness of a life 
 without a single joy. The motives, discolored as it were
 
 WAKING OF KUNDRY. 219 
 
 by grief, work up to a distorted version of the Grail 
 subject, which breaks off as with a cry of despair. 
 
 Is the Grail, too, then turned into a mocking spirit to 
 the unhappy Amfortis ? 
 
 Belief comes to us with the lovely scene upon which 
 the curtain rises. Again the wide summer-land lies 
 stretching away over sunlit moor and woodland. In the 
 foreground wave the forest trees, and I hear the ripple 
 of the woodland streams. Invariably throughout the 
 drama, in the midst of all human pain and passion, great 
 nature is there, peaceful, harmonious in all her loveliest 
 moods, a paradise in which dwell souls who make of her 
 their own purgatory. 
 
 In yonder aged figure, clad in the Grail pilgrim robe, 
 I discern Gurnemanz ; his hair is white ; he stoops with 
 years ; a rude hut is hard by. Presently a groan arrests 
 his attention, moaning as of a human thing in distress. 
 He clears away some brushwood, and beneath it finds, 
 waking from her long trance, the strange figure of Kun- 
 dry. For how many years she has slept, we know not. 
 Why is she now recalled to life ? She staggers to her 
 feet ; we see that she too is in a pilgrim garb, with a 
 rope girding her dress of coarse brown serge. " Ser- 
 vice ! service !" she mutters, and seizing a pitcher, 
 moves mechanically to fill it at the well, then totters but 
 half awake into the wooden hut. The forest music breaks 
 forth the hum of happy insect life, the song of wild 
 birds. All seems to pass as in a vision ; when suddenly 
 enters a knight clad in black armor from top to toe. 
 
 The two eye him curiously, and Gurnemanz, ap- 
 proaching, bids him lay aside his armor and his weapons. 
 He carries a long spear. In silence the knight unhelms, 
 and sticking the spear into the ground, kneels before 
 it, and remains lost in devotional contemplation. The
 
 220 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 " Spear" and " Grail " motives mingle together in the 
 full tide of orchestral sounds carrying on the emotional 
 undercurrent of the drama. The knight is soon recog- 
 nized by both as the long-lost and discarded Parsifal. 
 
 The "guileless one" has learned wisdom, and dis- 
 covered his mission he knows now that he bears the 
 spear which is to heal the king's grievous wound, and 
 that he himself is appointed his successor. Through 
 long strife and trial and pain he seems to have grown 
 into something of Christ's own likeness. Not all at 
 once, but at last he has found the path. He returns to 
 bear salvation and pardon both to Kundry and the 
 wretched king, Amfortis. 
 
 The full music flows on while Gurnemanz relates how 
 the knights have all grown weak and aged, deprived of 
 the vision and sustenance of the Holy Grail, while the 
 long-entranced Titurel is at last dead. 
 
 At this news Parsifal, overcome with grief, swoons 
 away, and Gurnemanz and Kundry loosen his armor, 
 and sprinkle him with water from the holy spring. 
 Underneath his black suit of mail he appears clad in a 
 long white tunic. 
 
 The grouping here is admirable. Gurnemanx; is in the 
 Templar's red and blue robe. Parsifal in white, his 
 auburn hair parted in front and flowing down in ring- 
 lets on either side, recalls Leonardo's favorite conception 
 of the Saviour's head, and, indeed, from this point 
 Parsifal becomes a kind of symbolic reflection of the 
 Lord Himself. Kundry, subdued and awed, lies weep- 
 ing at his feet ; he lifts his hands to bless her with in- 
 finite pity. She washes his feet, and dries them with 
 the hairs of her head. It is a bold stroke, but the voices 
 of nature, the murmur of the summer woods, come 
 with an infinite healing tenderness and pity, and the act
 
 THE KISS OF PEACE. 221 
 
 is seen to be symbolical of the pure devotion of a sinful 
 creature redeemed from sin. Peace has at last entered 
 into that wild and troubled heart, and restless Kundry, 
 delivered from Klingsor's spell, receives the sprinkling 
 of baptismal water at the hands of Parsifal. 
 
 The great spaces of silence in the dialogue, broken 
 now by a few sentences from Parsifal, now from Gurne- 
 manz, are more eloquent than many words. The tidal 
 music flows on in a ceaseless stream of changing har- 
 monies, returning constantly to the sweet and slumbrous 
 sound of the summer-land, full of teeming life and glow- 
 ing happiness. 
 
 Then Gurnemanz takes up his parable. It is the 
 Blessed Good Friday on which our dear Lord suffered. 
 The Love and Faith phrases are chimed forth, the pain- 
 notes of the Cross agony are sounded and pass, the Grail 
 motive seems to swoon away in descending harmonies, 
 sinking into the woodland voices of universal nature 
 that trespass-pardoned nature that now seems waking to 
 the day of her glory and innocence. 
 
 In that solemn moment Parsifal bends over the sub- 
 dued and humbled Kundry, and kisses her softly on the 
 brow her wild kiss in the garden had kindled in him 
 fierce fire, mingled with the bitter wound-pain ; his is 
 the seal of her eternal pardon and peace. 
 
 In the distance the great bells of Montsalvat are now 
 heard booming solemnly the air darkens, the light 
 fades out, the slow motion of all the scenery recom- 
 mences. Again I hear the wild cave music, strange and 
 hollow sounding the three move on as in a dream, and 
 are soon lost in the deep shadows ; and through all, 
 louder and louder, boom the heavy bells of Montsalvat,
 
 222 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 until the stage brightens, and we find ourselves once 
 more in the vast Alhambra-like hall of the knights. 
 
 For the last time Amfortis is borne in, and the brother- 
 hood of the Grail form the procession bearing the sacred 
 relics, which are deposited before him. 
 
 The king, in great agony and despair, bewails the 
 death of his father and his own backsliding. With fail- 
 ing but desperate energy he harangues the assembled 
 knights, and, tottering forward, beseeches them to free 
 him from his misery and sin-stained life, and thrust their 
 swords deep into his wounded side. At this moment 
 Gurnemanz, accompanied by Parsifal and Knndry, 
 enter. Parsifal steps forward with the sacred spear, 
 now at length to be restored to the knights. He touches 
 the side of Amfortis, the wound is healed, and as he 
 raises the spear on high the point is seen glowing with 
 the crimson glory of the Grail. Then stepping up to 
 the shrine, Parsifal takes the crystal cup, the dark blood 
 glows bright crimson as he holds it on high, and at that 
 moment, while all fall on their knees, and celestial 
 music (" Drink ye all of this ") floats in the upper air, 
 Kimdry falls back dying, her eyes fixed on the blessed 
 Grail. A white dove descends and hovers for a 
 moment, poised in mid-air above the glowing cup. A 
 soft chorus of angels seems to die away in the clouds 
 beyond the golden dome 
 
 " Marvellous mere}' ! 
 Victorious Saviour !" 
 
 Words can add nothing to the completeness of the 
 drama, and no words can give any idea of the splendor 
 and complexity of that sound ocean upon which the 
 drama floats from beginning to end.
 
 A TOUCHING INCIDENT. 223 
 
 The enemies of the Grail are destroyed or subdued, 
 the wound they have inflicted is healed, the prey they 
 claimed is rescued ; the pure and blameless Parsifal 
 becomes the consecrated head of the holy brotherhood, 
 and the beatific vision of God's eternal love and Real 
 Presence is restored to the Knights of the Sangrail. 
 
 * \ * * * * 
 
 When I came out of the theatre at the end of the 
 third and last act, it was ten o'clock. 
 
 The wind was stirring in the fir-trees, the stars 
 gleamed out fitfully through a sky, across which the 
 clouds were hurrying wildly, but the moon rose low and 
 large beyond the shadowy hills, and bathed the misty 
 valleys with a mild and golden radiance as of some 
 celestial dawn. 
 
 When the curtain fell on the last performance of 
 
 lj at Bayreuth, which, on the 30th of July, 1883, 
 brought the celebration month to a close, the enthusiasm 
 of the audience found full vent in applause. The cur- 
 tain was once lifted, but no calls would induce the per- 
 formers to appear a second time or receive any individ- 
 ual homage. This is entirely in accordance with the 
 tone of these exceptional representations. On each oc- 
 casion the only applause permitted was at the end of the 
 drama, and throughout not a single actor answered to a 
 call or received any personal tribute. 
 
 Behind the 'scenes there occurred a touching incident. 
 The banker Gross led Wagner's children up to the as- 
 sembled actors, and in the name of their dead father 
 thanked the assembly for the care and labor of love ex- 
 pended by each and all in producing the last work of the 
 great dead master. Siegfried, Wagner's son, thirteen
 
 224 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 years old, then, in a few simple words, stifled with sobs, 
 thanked the actors personally, and all the children shook 
 \ hands with them. The King of Bavaria charged him- 
 self upon Wagner's death with the education of his son.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NIEBELUNG'S RING. 
 
 /. Wieingold, 
 
 THE heat at Bayreuth (August, 1876) was intense. 
 The Emperor of Germany, who attended some of the 
 performances, expressed his astonishment at the endur- 
 ance of the orchestra, who had to work by a great power 
 of gas sunk in a pit beneath the stage. 
 
 " I should just like," said his Imperial Majesty, " to 
 go down below and see where my Kapellmeister Richter 
 sweats' ' and lie went. 
 
 Notwithstanding the excessively sultry weather, a vast 
 company of Art Pilgrims ascended the hill outside the 
 city, and took their seats in "Wagner's theatre nearly 
 every day for a month. 
 
 Let the reader become with me in imagination one of 
 those pilgrims. If I cannot make the sound of "Wag- 
 ner's music ring in his ears, I will try to make a vision 
 of the first Wagner Festival pass before his eyes. As I 
 contemplate Bayreuth, in that same month of August, 
 1876, I perceive the whole city to be given over to a 
 kind of idolatry of Wagner. The king appears at times 
 to wave incense before him. Liszt, in some degree, 
 shares the homage. "With his venerable white head, he 
 looks like an ancient magician, but with an eye that can 
 still flash fire, and a commanding carriage. The town is 
 hung with wreaths and flags ; in the shops nothing but
 
 226 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Wagner portraits, busts, medals of all sorts and sizes, 
 Wagner's works, Wagner's Life and Genius, and an im- 
 mense German and French literature on the Niebelungen 
 Saga. 
 
 The performance of the JRheingold will live long in 
 my memory, as the extreme realization of weird beauty 
 steeped in atmosphere such as may be in some other 
 planet, flashed with sunset or moonrise. This music is 
 like a land of dreams, into which the spirit breaks at 
 times, and, hurrying back a million of years, discovers, 
 on the surface of far-off seas, or dim caverns, the light 
 that has long since gone out forever. The elemental 
 prelude of deep and slumbrous sound wafts us away 
 from all account of time and space of the present. The 
 vast hall, full of silent human beings, has been touched 
 by the magician's wand. All grows dark, and the dim 
 gray-green depths of the Rhine alone become visible. 
 We strain our eyes into the dimness, and are aware of 
 the deep moving of the Rhine water. The three Rhine 
 daughters grow visible, swimming in midwater, swimming 
 and singing, guardians of the Rheingold. What un- 
 earthly, unhuman, magical snatches of sweetest song ! 
 There is at last realized the creature of legend, the Un- 
 dine at once more and less than human. 
 
 The hideous King of the Undergrounds, or Niebelun- 
 gen, sits watching these lovely water-maidens he courts 
 them in vain. The orchestra weaves on its divine Rhine 
 music, without which we almost feel the scene must 
 vanish. The soft cries and unearthly but musical laugh- 
 ter of the Undines, swimming ceaselessly, begin to give 
 us a strange feeling of limited, monotonous life, point- 
 ing subtilely to the difference between such natures and 
 our own. But they, too, are waiting for something. 
 This dim green water is growing oppressive. We feel
 
 SUBTLE ART. 227 
 
 ourselves immersed in its depths. At first it was a 
 dream scene of exquisite beauty now it is almost a 
 prison in another moment we should struggle to be 
 free ; but suddenly the Rkeingold begins to brighten. 
 A shaft of radiance strikes through the water. The 
 Undines scream with joy. The Underground King, 
 Alberich, blinks with astonishment. Then through the 
 whole depth of the Rhine streams an electric light 
 glowing upon a distant rock dimmed to softest yellow 
 only by the water. " Rheingold ! Rheingold !" a wild 
 shout arises joy of the Rhine daughters ! Haydn has 
 produced the effect of light in the Creation by a great 
 burst of sound, " And there was Light ! !" But, sub- 
 lime as is that one chord on Light, the effect here is far 
 more subtle. "We have been kept in dark water for half 
 an hour. The whole system is made to pine and cry out 
 for light. It comes at last the light of the flashing 
 of the Rheingold ! Every fibre in the body quivers 
 with it. It is as oxygen to the lungs. The eye and 
 whole nervous system drink it in. We could shout 
 like children with the Rhine girls over the joy of the 
 Rheingold ! 
 
 The whole of this water-scene is of indescribable 
 beauty, and without a trace of vulgar pantomimic effect. 
 A lesser man would have made the Rhine water lighter at 
 first. As it is, for some seconds after the curtain rises 
 we can hardly see anything. Slowly the eye discerns 
 the floating women ; but we still follow them chiefly by 
 their voices. Alberich is hardly visible ; the music it- 
 self seems to keep down the light ; but then the dawn 
 of splendor of the Rheingold ! That explains all ; the 
 effect is consummate. Wagner, it is evident, has super- 
 intended every detail and every nuance. I can under- 
 stand now his bursting into tears when the Rhine ladies
 
 228 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 refused to enter the new invisible machines which were 
 to float them about in midwater. 
 
 I will here briefly allude to the plot of the Itlieingold. 
 How Alberich, the King of the Undergrounds, re- 
 nounces the love of the Rhine girls to clutch the gold. 
 How he leaves the Rhine dark, and flies with his treas- 
 ure to his own Underground caverns, there to maltreat 
 his wretched hordes of slaves, and compel them to turn 
 the Rheingold into sumptuous vessels, among them a 
 magic helmet and a Ring whose wearer can change him- 
 self at will into anything. How the gods meanwhile 
 have been bribing the giants with the promise of the 
 beautiful Freia, their sister, to build them their Wal- 
 halla Palace. How the giants on the completion of the 
 palace claim Freia, and only give her up upon the gods 
 extorting the Rheingold from Alberich and his Under- 
 grounds and paying it over to the monstrous architects. 
 How at last the gods, with Freia, go over the Rainbow 
 Bridge into the Walhalla to the sound of heavenly 
 music, while upon the ambrosial air comes from afar 
 the fitful wail of the Rhine Daughters : 
 
 " Kheingold ! 
 
 Clear and pure, 
 Show thy glory in the depths, 
 There alone is Truth and Trust, 
 False and faithless all above, 
 "Who rejoice !" 
 
 All this the reader may possibly be familiar with. To 
 dwell upon each scene is here impossible. I wish to 
 notice the first employment of what I have called the 
 Color Art of the Future. The eye is prepared for the 
 lurid and horrible interior of the Niebelungen Caves, 
 where the scourged slaves ply, amid shrieks, the cease- 
 less hammer by white clouds of steam shot with red
 
 THE RAINBOW SCENE. 229 
 
 light. This is used, with varying intensities, to never- 
 pausing music, simply as a sensuous appeal to the eye, 
 and its effect is a pyschological marvel. All the burden 
 of horror and pain is in the surging, hissing, crimson 
 cloud. It is the terrible bridge over which the spectator 
 passes to the realm Niebelheim, as the gods pass to "VVal- 
 halla over the rainbow. Steam or any other medium, 
 shot with changing color, and perhaps accompanied by 
 music the Color Symphony is still to come ; its raw 
 elements are present in the sunset, as the raw elements 
 of music are in the sounds of nature, and the cries of 
 birds and beasts. "Wagner has perhaps unconsciously 
 flashed the first line of the new Art upon us in the 
 Rheingold. 
 
 Of the spiritual beauty of the "Rainbow scene," 
 which is, pictorially, worthy of Turner, I can hardly 
 speak. Yet even here the fateful curse that hangs over 
 the Rheingold and all who touch it here, in the hour 
 of joy and godlike splendor there is a hint of the final 
 overthrow of the "Walhalla and the " Dusk of the 
 Gods." It is to be seen in the crimson Niebelheim 
 light upon the mighty ramparts and towers a light that 
 gives a sober tinge even to the rainbow. It is to be heard 
 in the haunting cry of the Rhine daughters over their 
 lost treasure, which makes even the happy gods pause 
 on the threshold of "Walhalla. It is felt in the mingled 
 undertones of the orchestra, breaking forth at last into 
 the strong closing bars of the Rheingold. A terrible 
 firmness of purpose, beyond the control even of the gods 
 themselves, is urging forward the course of all things 
 in heaven and earth ; none may go back, none may look 
 behind. The old Anangke or Necessity of the Greeks 
 is at the bottom of all, and seems to say alike to the 
 Rhine daughters, the dwarfs, the giants, and the gods,
 
 230 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 " Go forward ; the end must come ; what will be, will 
 be." 
 
 The Rheingold, lasts for two hours and a half at a 
 stretch, during w T hich time there is no pause in the 
 music ; but there is also no sign of fatigue in the audi- 
 ence, who sit in rapt attention to the close. 
 
 II. Walkure. 
 
 With the Walkure, or Warrior Daughters of God 
 Wotan (Wodin), begin the famous three days to which 
 the Rheingold, described in my last, was the introduc- 
 tion. The God Wotan in his earthly wanderings 
 became the father by a mortal woman of Siegmund and 
 Sieglinde. Upon the interest of one of the Walkure, 
 Briinnhilde, in this couple, and her final sacrifice of 
 Virgin deity in their cause, this next drama in three acts 
 turns. Let us enter the theatre about five o'clock. A 
 fanfare of trumpets outside gives the signal. The 
 lights are lowered. In the twilight the whole assembly 
 seems aware that Wagner and the king are approach- 
 ing. In the royal box I see the two stand for a 
 moment like dark shadows, the king bowing once to 
 the people amid breathless silence, broken only by the 
 woe-burdened chords and unquiet distant thunderings of 
 the orchestra. 
 
 The curtain rises. A wild cabin, into which out of 
 the storm enters Siegmund throws himself, dead with 
 fatigue, before a rude fire, and sleeps. In steals Sieg- 
 linde, his sister, the forced wife of Hunding, a savage 
 hunter. Thus brother and sister, separated from the 
 cradle, meet unknown to each other. We are at once 
 completely outside all conventional moralities in an age 
 and faerie sphere in which human passion has to be con-
 
 SIEGMUND AXU SIEGLINDE. 231 
 
 templated apart from all civilized conditions. We thus 
 follow breathlessly, without shock, the inexorable devel- 
 opment of the various phases of recognition, self-abandon- 
 ment, confession, and ecstasy which follow. The wild 
 music flowing to the wild life of the wandering Siegmund, 
 as he pours it all out to his new friend and protectress, 
 who revives him with a cooling draught, consoles him, 
 and already claims him as her deliverer ; the entrance of 
 Hunding ; the fight between him and Siegmund, wliich 
 is to take place on the morrow ; the sleeping potion ad- 
 ministered to him by Sieglinde ; and the long scene at 
 night, where she steals out all in white, to Siegmund 
 these are graphic and awe-inspiring situations. The 
 moon spreads through the room, and the fire dies, and 
 through the open door are seen the fair, moonlit woods, 
 and all is peace this the reader must imagine for him- 
 self. Nothing more searching in delineation of passion 
 was ever conceived than this scene between lovers about 
 to risk all, with fate overhanging them, and hearts filled 
 alternately with the pain of dread forebodings and an in- 
 extinguishable love. 
 
 As the last spark on the hearth dies, the music becomes 
 flowing and deep, like a broadening river. A strange red 
 light the light of Wotan falls on the giant oak-tree, 
 showing the hilt of a sword plunged in there by a mys- 
 terious stranger. He who could draw it should alone 
 free Sieglinde from her brutal husband. Siegmund rises 
 and draws it, amidst a great burst of triumphant sound. 
 This, on the morrow, should give him victory over the 
 coarse Hunding, for the sword is Wotan's own, hidden 
 there for his son Siegmund. The deep wealth of sound 
 upon which the lovers are now buoyed up as they fall 
 into each other's arms is like the mingling of oceans and 
 rivers and clouds ; and the strong, terrible chords, to
 
 232 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 which the curtain again falls, are as the might of resist- 
 less love, hurrying to its fateful close. 
 
 The second act reveals to us the wild Briinnhilde 
 War Walkiire. With spear in hand she scales the 
 rocks ; the clouds are about her ; sjie shouts to her com- 
 panions, and her voice mingles with the winds. As she 
 mounts each crag her notes rise higher and higher 
 a melody of bewitching, boisterous wildness. How 
 Wotan bids the War Walkiire defend his favorite Sieg- 
 mund in the coming duel with ITunding ; how Fricka, 
 his jealous wife, burns for the death of Siegmund, the 
 mortal bastard ; how the god gives in w r eakly, and bids 
 Briinnhilde destroy him ; how Briinnhilde, a dear, good 
 creature, protests, and goes at last to her mission, clad 
 in mail and scarlet, with a heavy heart must be told in 
 few words. From this moment to the end of the act 
 the excitement, without pause, goes on, changing in 
 form, but ever increasing. Now the flying lovers rush 
 on the rocky stage ; the sound of Hunding's horn, the 
 cry of his dogs, is in their ears ; then all is again 
 ecstasy, until Sieglinde breaks out in a strange scene of 
 passionate remorse at having been the wife of an un- 
 loved man. Her intense love for Siegmund makes her 
 past life seem too vile. But hark ! and the sound of 
 dogs and horns, the rushing of wind and crashing of 
 branches, swells in the orchestra, and Sieglinde faints, 
 and is laid resting on a rock. Then a passage of un- 
 speakable solemnity occurs with the re-entrance of 
 Briinnhilde. She stands before Siegmund come on her 
 fateful errand and the music grows sweet and solemn, 
 with the majestic Wotan " motif ;" she tells the hero 
 that whoever looks on her must shortly die ; that she 
 takes the warrior to Walhalla, but that he must fall in 
 fight. Measured and slow as fate, yet strangely full of
 
 THE FIGHT. 233 
 
 tenderness, is her terrible message. "With knightly calm 
 he listens, and at last, with a burst of love which shakes 
 Briiimhilde's own heart, he declares that he will kill 
 himself and his beloved, but they shall not be divided. 
 The "Walkiire, at last overcome, and faithless to "Wotan's 
 command, promises protection. 
 
 But the orchestra resumes the stormy music ; the 
 battle hour approaches ; clouds hurry restlessly through 
 the sky ; Hunding is close at hand among the high 
 crags yonder. "With a burning kiss the hero leaves Sieg- 
 linde, and hurries to meet the foe. She rises, all is 
 wild, and the air grows stormy and dark around her ; 
 she calls Siegmund wildly, and rushes forward ; but too 
 late, she never sees him alive again. On the topmost 
 rocks we hear, behind the clouds, the warriors shouting 
 and the arms clashing. It is a fearful moment, and the 
 orchestra is taxed to the uttermost. The clouds part 
 for a moment only the bright Briinnhilde is seen floating 
 above her hero, clad in shining steel and crimson. In 
 vain ! Wotan himself appears, and shatters Siegmund' s 
 magic sword with his spear. The hero is slain. The 
 clouds now roll aside ; in terrible red smoke and blinding 
 light, the angry god stands out. At a word Hunding, 
 the coarse hunter, falls dead before him ; but the god 
 turns upon poor Briinnhilde, -and, as the curtain falls, 
 curses her for her disobedience. 
 
 The storm music and the thunder roll away ; and, after 
 a tension probably unexampled in dramatic art, we issue 
 forth into the now cool and darkened air ; eighteen hun- 
 dred people disperse upon the hill and roadside, and dis- 
 cuss for an hour in the temporary cafes their experi- 
 ences. Liszt 1 find with his daughter, Madame "Wag- 
 ner, and other ladies, chatting to a group. The prince 
 and poet of the Romantic School has a long cigar in his
 
 234 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 mouth and a large bock of beer in his hand. People 
 hurry up and are introduced at times he receives all 
 cordially with " Schon ! Schon !" I remember that 
 Wagner was loudly called for at the end of the second 
 act, but did not appear. But, oddly enough, before the 
 last act, when the theatre was half empty, he came on 
 the stage and bowed, and was cheered wildly. 
 
 The last act opens with a scenic effect which it was 
 anticipated would tax any theatre to render adequately. 
 The chorus of the Walkiire on the rocks, half hidden 
 with clouds, as they wait for Briinnhilde, their Amazon 
 sister, unconscious of her catastrophe, is quite unparal- 
 leled in its wild and spontaneous splendor. The cries 
 and shouts are hurled from rock to rock with waving of 
 arms and clashing of spears and shields. The troubled 
 sky is in ceaseless motion, the air is h'lled with boisterous 
 elemental mirth, and the bursting cries of unbridled 
 animal spirits are, somehow, all woven into a kind of 
 chorus, resting upon such an ocean of orchestral sound 
 as has certainly never before been heard or conceived by 
 mortals. Amid thunder and flashes Briinnhilde, drag- 
 ging poor rescued Sieglinde, now suddenly appears on 
 the stage, and what follows must be merely summarized : 
 the despair of Sieglinde ; the devotion of the tender, 
 reckless Briinnhilde inconceivably touching symbol of 
 the devotion which good women are capable of for each 
 other ; the wild recrudescence of joy which seizes Sieg- 
 linde when Briinnhilde hands to her, with fervid song, 
 the fragments of Siegmund's magic sword all that is 
 left of him now, yet enough for vengeance, enough to 
 win the Rheingold from the Giant Fafner, enough for the 
 hero Sieglinde is about to bear. She is then hurried away 
 to safety, and, with the appropriate recurring strains in 
 the orchestra, the God Wotan at last approaches.
 
 THE SLEEP OF THE WALKUBE, 235 
 
 The favorite Walkiire, deprived of her arms, comes 
 forth to learn the doom of her disobedience. Some 
 divine necessity compels her banishment from Walhalla, 
 and infinitely subtle and complex are the music and sen- 
 timent which follow. Briinnhilde has been drawn 
 earthward by human sympathy she will become whole 
 woman by and by, who has thus stooped to human 
 affection but earthly love shall destroy her divinity ; 
 and, meanwhile, parted forever from her sisters and her 
 father, who still love her fondly, she shall sleep amid 
 wild and lonely rocks encircled with fire, waiting for the 
 lover who, dauntless, shall find her and wake her there, 
 and make her his earthly bride. 
 
 The flight of the sister "Walkiire in the storm, with a 
 wild chorus full of despairing screams, is followed by a 
 protracted and inconceivably touching parting between 
 the resigned Briinnhilde and the father, Wotan whose 
 anger has died away as the sunset sky has slowly faded 
 into deeper and deeper gray. Then, to long drawn out 
 and enchanting melody, Briinnhilde's head sinks on her 
 father's breast, and his mind wanders back to the happy 
 time when she, the "War Maiden, his pride, brought new 
 warriors, the boldest and best, to fill the Walhalla courts. 
 The poor Walkiire can but sob that she has loved her 
 father Wotan and Walhalla, and implore him, if she is 
 to become a mortal's bride, to surround her rock with 
 fire, to bar her from all but the bravest. It is now 
 almost dark ; a faint red light lingers on the supple yet 
 lordly form of Briinnhilde. A strange swoon seems to 
 have already seized her ; the god lays her gently pros- 
 trate on the rock, then waves her into her long sleep. 
 Then, retiring suddenly to the back of the stage, he calls 
 for the Fire God, Loge ; a burst of fire breaks out and 
 runs round the stao;e ; in another moment the whole
 
 23G MY MfSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 background Is an immense wall of rose-colored flame, 
 which gradually creeps round the rock. To the most en- 
 chanting and dream-like music of silver bells, harps, and 
 flutes, with an undercurrent of bass strings, the sleep of 
 the Walklire begins ; the god scales the rocks, stands for 
 a moment in the midst of the fire, then passes through 
 it out of sight, as the curtain falls to the silver, peaceful, 
 unearthly cadences, repeated again and again, swelling 
 and falling, and ceasing at last, leaving the heart, after 
 so much fierce storm, at rest. 
 
 ///. Siegfried. 
 
 The grotesque music given to both Mime and Albe- 
 rich, like so much of Wagner's misunderstood recitative, 
 aims, no doubt, at following the inflexions of the hu- 
 man voice as it is affected often by very commonplace 
 moods, as well as by the meaner impulses of arrogance, 
 vexation, anger, and spite. What we lose in musical 
 charm we gain in a certain ingenious sense of reality. I 
 think, the power of Wagner, the solidity of his work, 
 largely turns upon this. He is never afraid of length, 
 of silence, even of dulness, caused by protracted or de- 
 layed action. Like De Balzac, he knew well how to 
 work up slowly and surely to a consummate effect, and 
 Ins effect never hangs fire, nor is it ever liable to an 
 anticlimax, that bane of second-rate artists. 
 
 A cavern rocky somewhere deep in a forest lies 
 before us ; and Mime, the misshapen thing, fit brother 
 of Alberich, the lord of Niebelheim, or fog-land, works 
 away at a forge to make a sword fit for whom ? In he 
 comes, the wild, robust child of the forest reminding 
 me of the first appearance of that other wild, robust 
 creation Parsifal. In he comes, driving a fierce brown
 
 MIME AND SIEGFRIED. 237 
 
 bear bridled in sport. Mime the dwarf shrinks back 
 Mime, who has been foster-father to this Siegfried, son 
 of Sieglinde and Siegnmnd. He has brought him np in 
 ignorance of his parentage, knowing well the dash of 
 Deity in his blood, and knowing also that could the 
 fragments of the magic sword, given up by Sieglinde 
 as her most precious legacy, be somehow welded to- 
 gether again, Siegfried, her son, would be able to wield 
 it with resistless might and slay the dragon Fafner who 
 keeps the gold. 
 
 This accursed gold-heap eternal symbol of ill-gotten 
 wealth and the curse of it forms the magic centre 
 around which all the actors in this cycle of dramas con- 
 sciously or unconsciously move. 
 
 The character-contrast between Mime, the mean, 
 double-dealing, cringing, cowardly creature, who hopes to 
 use the young hero for his purposes, and Siegfried, the 
 free, noble, daring youth, with a presentiment of great 
 destinies before him, is drawn in large outline. There is 
 great distinction of type, great simplicity of conception 
 and straightforwardness of execution ; the master is sure 
 of his touches and lays them on with a free, bold hand. 
 Siegfried throughout revolts against Mime yet Mimo 
 holds secrets which he burns to know. Who were his 
 father and mother ? What means his wild, secluded, 
 lonely life ? lie cannot taste broth -at Mime's hands 
 without disgust ;- he cannot talk with him without quar- 
 iclling ; he can hardly bear the sight of him ; will not 
 believe that Mime is his father at all ; wants a sword 
 that he cannot break ; will have the fragments of the 
 magic sword " Kothung " welded; shatters Mime's 
 welding of them ; proceeds to weld them himself. 
 
 The welding of Jsotlmng, hammer on anvil in the 
 gloomy cavern, with the regular puffing and blowing of
 
 238 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 the rude bellows the protracted song most tuneful, 
 almost conventional in form broken off and resumed, 
 and itself, as it were, welded with every blow into the 
 sword Nothung, produces a very singular and " seiz- 
 ing " effect. The actors appear to be entirely lost in 
 their business the audience have come upon a forge in 
 a very rocky forest cave difficult work is going on, to 
 very long-winded accompaniment, full of varied realist- 
 ic detail. If we want to see the work put through wo 
 must stop ; if not, we may go. But the work cannot be 
 hastened ; the welding of that sword is the turning-point 
 of the drama ; the wielding of it secures the gold, the 
 ring, and the helmet, and the spell of these secures 
 Briinnhilde for Siegfried ; the transfer of these treasures 
 wrecks Briinnhilde and brings on the final catastrophe. 
 The action is delayed, but the welding is thorough, and 
 when with a mighty stroke the anvil is cloven in twain, 
 we know that the young hero is at last fitted with an 
 irresistible weapon, and that the drama has moved 
 through one of its most critical and decisive stages. 
 
 The Dragon's Cave the summer woods the coming 
 together of the various people interested in the gold 
 these are the elements of the next act. There is the 
 Wanderer, the god Wotan in disguise, who originally 
 stole the gold from Alberich, who in his turn had filched 
 it from the Rhine girls, and who now thinks he may get 
 it back somehow from Fafner the giant. Fafner, in the 
 form of a great dragon, lies on it day and night. There 
 is Alberich, the first robber, hovering about the Neid- 
 hole, or cavern, in the hope of getting back the treasure ; 
 there is Mime, who about this time makes sure of the 
 prize in his own mind, as he fancies Siegfried is in his 
 power, and proposes to employ him to kill Fafner.
 
 A SOEEY DEAGON. 239 
 
 Then lie will poison liim with a draught, and clutch both 
 magic sword and treasure. 
 
 All these old-world scamps meet and talk and eye each 
 other, and plot and ask riddles and give hints. Sieg- 
 fried, meanwhile, holds the key of the great enigma 
 stands completely apart alone in his strength, simplici- 
 ty, and might, the holder and wielder of the sword 
 ISothung, with deep scorn in his heart for the pitiful 
 and mean schemers and quacks by whom he is sur- 
 rounded, and with an innate perception, born of com- 
 muning with nature, of the snares they are laying for 
 him. 
 
 The grimness and hideousness of the cavern and the 
 "Worm-dragon seem to resume the spirit of all the un- 
 lovely wickedness and avarice of Siegfried's rivals. The 
 glorious sunshine, the glowing foliage of the woodlands, 
 the song of wild birds, symbolize the spirit while pro- 
 viding a mise-en-scene for the valor, the victory, and the 
 love-musings of the young hero. 
 
 The dragon is no doubt the weak point. I believe 
 Mr. Dannreuther gave three hundred pounds for him in 
 London, and brought him over with the utmost care. 
 His tail, I am told, was worked by one man inside him, 
 and his jaws by another ; but somehow he could not be 
 got to show fight at the right time. lie was a poor 
 beast ; the steam came out of his mouth too late ; his 
 tail stuck half-way on the wag, and he had evidently 
 some difficulty in opening his jaws. He was easily 
 slain, and rolled over conveniently enough, leaving the 
 treasure in the hands of Siegfried. 
 
 Otherwise the weirdness of the whole scene was in- 
 describable. That enchanting summer-land that deli- 
 cious burst of woodland melody that strong contrast 
 between the blazing sheen of emerald and amber-lighted
 
 240 MY MUSICAL ilEMOIUES. 
 
 trees and the gloomy cavern hard by that sudden 
 poetic, trance-like pause, full of wild birds and love 
 dreams, just before the sharp attack on the Dragon, fol- 
 lowed by the repulsive murder of Mime, and the resump- 
 tion of the same bright love dream immediately after- 
 ward : this can never fail to impress the dullest sensibil- 
 ity with its extreme beauty. Vogel's Siegfried, as an 
 impersonation, was on a level with Materna's Briinn- 
 hilde. The music to which the curtain falls on the 
 second act, as Siegfried, wild with anticipation, follows 
 the bird that flies before him singing, and showing him 
 the way to Briinnhilde, who lies on her fire-girt rock 
 waiting for him that ocean of summer woodland music 
 upon which a hero's spirit passes into the consciousness 
 of first love is beyond these halting words. 
 
 The contrasts which follow are dramatically admirable. 
 Old Wotan's gloomy conference with Erda, the mystic 
 partner of his old-world love, in which ho takes stock 
 of the situation; views with mixed feelings the rise and 
 progress of Siegfried, and with feelings still more mixed 
 the decay of his own power and the approaching down- 
 fall of Walhalla ; then his dubious colloquy with Sieg- 
 fried, who suddenly confronts him on his way to the 
 fire-girt rock ; his mingled pride and dignity, together 
 with his growing sense of being powerless to hinder the 
 consummation of Briinnhilde' s union with the upstart 
 demi-semi-god follow, scene after scene, with cumula- 
 tive effect. The striking episode in which Siegfried 
 breaks the old god's spear, when it is thrust between him 
 and the unknown object of his passion ; and finally the 
 terrific ocean of crimson flame through which the hero 
 bursts fearlessly to the side of the sleeping Walkiire 
 truly these be massive and monumental conceptions ! 
 Like great world-types they unroll themselves before us
 
 THE SURRENDER. 241 
 
 in so many magical scenes of unsurpassed, dramatic, and 
 daring grandeur. 
 
 I suppose it will be generally allowed that "Wagner is 
 the greatest master of love duets that ever wedded 
 words to music. The absorbing picture of love and jeal- 
 ousy in Lohengrin, of pure and impure love subtly con- 
 trasted in Tannhauser, passion of love and death in 
 Tristan and Isolde, the unique passages between Parsifal 
 and Kundry passion essentially primeval touched with 
 a certain divine intensity as is tit in demi-gods, like 
 Siegfried and Briinnhilde these are essential manifes- 
 tations of dramatic force and profound intention, beside 
 which even the love passages in Gounod's Faust and, 
 Marguerite seem like mere child's play. 
 
 The moment has arrived. The majestic Briinnhilde 
 wakes with all her divine war-maiden instincts still upon 
 her ; confronts the hero who is to win her, at first with 
 terror ; realizes slowly, painfully, then irresistibly and 
 ecstatically, the might of human passion, and surrenders 
 the old heroism of a crumbling Walhalla, and the 
 dreams of god-like power and independence, at the burn- 
 ing touch of human love. Better that touch of real life 
 than all the flimsy visions of a decaying mythology 
 nobler the sincerity of human feeling, that seizes its ob- 
 ject and concentrates its sympathies, than the vague, 
 restless wanderings of old reprobates like Wotan, or the 
 war-lust of fiery, death-hungry Walkiire such as Briinn- 
 hilde was such as the bride Walkiire will never be 
 again. Hear her 
 
 " O Siegfried ! 
 Lightener world's delight 
 Life on earth 
 And laughing lord, 
 Leave, ah ! leave me !"
 
 242 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 And Siegfried but replies : 
 
 " Awaken, Brlinnhilde ! 
 "Waken, them maid ! 
 Live to me, laugh to me, 
 
 Sweetest delight : 
 Be mine ! be mine !" 
 
 No translation seems to give an adequate vigor or do 
 justice to the strength and passion of the dialogue, 
 which ends in a long paean of triumph as the curtain 
 falls and Siegfried takes his prize. 
 
 Hail, thou sun My Briinnhilde's glow. 
 
 That shinest around me ; Mine, ever mine, 
 
 Hail, thou morn All of her mine 
 
 From out the dark ; And only mine, 
 
 Hail, thou world (Brunnhilde throws herself into Sieg- 
 
 That wakes Brunnhilde. friecCs arms). 
 
 She wakes ! she lives ! Come, life of me ! 
 
 She laughefch back Thou light of love ! 
 
 My splendid star, Thou laughing Death ! 
 
 IV. The Gotterdammcrung. 
 
 v 
 The Niebelung^s Ring closes with the " Dusk of the 
 
 Gods." The truly prodigious way in which all the 
 leading subjects are repeated, inverted, and worked up 
 in the music of this last colossal drama cannot be de- 
 scribed. The Wotan Melody perhaps the finest 
 blown on trumpets outside the theatre, rang out far over 
 hill and dale, and floated like an ominous blast to the 
 town below. At the familiar sound the people flocked 
 to their seats in the theatre. The first melodies of the 
 Rlieingold break from the orchestra, and the Korns or 
 Fates are seen weaving the last of their ropes ; they see 
 as they weave the story of Siegfried and Brunnhilde 
 they see the gods growing old they trace the history of 
 Wotan's earth love they start with horror as they at last
 
 TIIE HOUSE OF HAGEtf. 243 
 
 see the flames rising in a vision round Walhalla. The 
 rope breaks ; the Norns vanish. 
 
 The day dawns to a clear subject worked in skilful 
 counterpoint, and the farewell scene between Briinnhilde 
 and her new mate/ Siegfried, as he parts from her to 
 seek knightly adventures, now absorbs us. Her sorrow 
 at parting is almost drowned by her feeling of pride in 
 him and the thought of glorious war ; and here the 
 Walkiire nature breaks out in her. She would fain fol- 
 low him, but this may not be ; and as she is about to bs 
 left again on her fire-girt rock, she scales one height 
 after another, shouting a wild and ecstatic adieu to the 
 hero, who is heard galloping away to a strange mixture 
 of Rhine music and a peculiar, joyous, scampering sub- 
 ject, which, together with his horn-blast, always heralds 
 his coming and going. 
 
 But the curse of the Gold is upon him, and death, 
 and worse than death, is brewing for him in the house 
 of Hagen, hateful, bastard son of Dwarf Alberich, by a 
 mortal woman. Hagen lives with his brother on Rhine- 
 banks, when Siegfried, as a wandering knight, appears 
 at his halls. Ilagen, Giinther, the brother, and the fair 
 sister, Gutrune, are sitting together. Hagen, the instru- 
 ment of Alberich, is wholly bent on getting back the 
 Rheingold. lie tells Giinther of the sleeping Briinn- 
 hilde, who can be approached by Siegfried only, and in- 
 flames his desire to seize her. At this moment Sieg- 
 fried's horn is heard ; he enters, and the plot thickens. 
 He is soon given a drink which makes him forget every 
 woman he has known before, even poor Briinnhilde. 
 Siegfried, thus bewitched, then proceeds to fall in love 
 with Gutrune, and listens to the tale of Briinnhilde on 
 the flame-girt rock with astonishment, swears friendship 
 to Giinther, and undertakes to assume his friend's shape
 
 244 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 by magic, cross the flames, seize his own Briismliilde, and 
 hand her over to Giinthcr. 
 
 From this moment the horrible plot is harrowing in 
 the extreme. No art, no music, no magic can reconcile 
 us to what follows ; the horror is piled up. The scene 
 changes. Briinnhilde waits on her rock ; hears a horse 
 and Siegfried's horn, but with something jarring and 
 false about it ; but she heeds not that, he returns ! The 
 fire is crossed, a warrior appears on the height. She 
 flies to throw herself into his arms the form of Giin- 
 ther is before her ! How he coolly hands her over to the 
 real Giinther, who is waiting ; her horror and bewil- 
 dering despair ; his callous indifference and complete 
 absence of all memory of her, which she cannot revive 
 in him ; the meeting of the two couples, Briinnhilde and 
 Giinther with Siegfried and his new bride, Gutrune ; 
 the terrible scene between Briinnhilde and Siegfried 
 before the household and retainers of Hagen, in which 
 she declares Gutrune's husband to be hers ; the jealous 
 frenzy of Giinther and the death of Siegfried, which is 
 now plotted and presently carried out by stabbing in the 
 back all this it is impossible here to do more than 
 summarize. 
 
 A brief and exquisite episode between the Rhine- 
 daughters and Siegfried, chiefly a treble trio by the float- 
 ing nymphs, of sustained and enchanting beauty, relieves 
 the pressure of horror we have just been going through 
 from the despair and fury of Briinnhilde, whose wild 
 cries and heart-rending gestures can never be forgotten. 
 Then comes, at last, the beginning of the end. 
 Siegfried, seated with Hagen, Giinther, and warriors, 
 drinks of a cup which restores his memory, and begins 
 to relate his past life ; as lie advances in his narrative, 
 full of wondrous declamation and music, he at length
 
 THE END. 245 
 
 nears the Briinnhilde episode ; snatches of the Walkiire 
 and the fire-sleep music break out ; a strange fervor 
 seizes him ; he tells of the embrace on the rock, and his 
 mind begins to reel with sudden perplexity. But it is 
 enough ! At this point Hagen stabs him in the back. As 
 he dies his thoughts grow clear. Briinnhilde's love re- 
 turns he sees but her, dreams of her in his dying 
 swoon ; although she is not present she, his first, last 
 love, fills his latest consciousness. 
 
 The struggle for the Ring which follows, the suicide 
 of Giinther, the sudden apparition of Briinnhilde, intro- 
 duce the last episode of striking beauty. The scenery 
 from this point becomes indescribable. The moon is 
 full upon the ruffled Rhine-waters ; the tall funeral 
 tapers flash on the steel helms of the retainers ; the body 
 of Siegfried, clad in mail, lies in the middle of the 
 stage ; and the stately form of the Walkiire is isolated 
 by his side, as the crowd falls to right and left. 
 
 While an immense funeral pyre is being built up in 
 the background beside the Rhine-waters, Briinnhilde 
 makes her last reconciliation with Siegfried. As she 
 gazes on his pallid face she reads that dying recognition. 
 She understands, at last, the magic spell that was on 
 him. Her love towers above everything else she 
 stands there the embodiment of the sublime trust in love 
 beyond sight, that believes and lasts out against all ad- 
 verse shocks, and is faithful even unto death. She has 
 known divine might in the halls of Walhalla, she has 
 had the power of the Ring and the power of Gold, and 
 enjoyed all fame of war and victory ; and now, with her 
 latest, breath, comes solemnly forth what is the conclu- 
 sion of the whole drama, " Blessedness, through joy 
 and sorrow, comes to us from Love unquenchable 
 alone !"
 
 246 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 With this she moves in the moonlight toward the 
 Rhine. She draws the Ring of the Rheingold the 
 cause of such grief and manifold pain from the hero's 
 linger, and flings it back into the Rhine, from whence at 
 the commencement it was snatched by Alberich. 
 
 The Walkiire's black war-horse has been brought to 
 her ; she waves high a naming torch, and hurls it upon 
 the bier ; the fire rises in lurid columns. She mounts 
 her steed and leaps into the flames. 
 
 At that moment, in the awful glow of the flaming pyre, 
 the waters, still flashing with moonlight in the back- 
 ground, begin to swell and advance, and the Rhine-daugh- 
 ters, singing the wildest Rhine music, are seen floating to 
 and fro. Beyond, a ruddier light broadens, until the dis- 
 tant sky discloses the courts of the Walhalla in flames. 
 With a crash in the foreground the house of Hagen 
 falls ; and while the mighty conflagration flares up in the 
 distance, the Rhine- waters, to rushing music, advance 
 and submerge the whole of the stage. 
 
 Thus, with a scene of unequalled dramatic splendor, 
 ends the fourth and last immense drama of the Niebe- 
 lung 1 s Ring. This is not the place for fuller criticism of 
 such a work. At the close of it the pent-up enthusiasm 
 of the public rose to a pitch of frenzy. They stood up, 
 and, turning to the royal box, which Wagner had left, 
 shouted to the king, who remained seated and bowed 
 graciously. The plaudits continuing, His Majesty 
 motioned to the stage. The people turned, and in a 
 moment Wagner, dressed in plain black, with his hat in 
 one hand, stepped out from the middle of the curtain, 
 and stood motionless with his gray head uncovered until 
 repeated cries of " Sit down !" " Sit down !" and 
 " Hush !" had calmed the assembly. Wagner then 
 spoke very quietly, and I regret that not hearing him
 
 THE PLOT. 247 
 
 quite distinctly at moments I am unable to render ver- 
 batim a speech -which has doubtless been elsewhere 
 recorded. I understood him to say he had taken many 
 years in preparing this work ; that he had presented a 
 Saga of the Kiebelung in the belief that it dealt with 
 subjects peculiarly congenial to the Germanic races ; 
 that a new and national development of the drama was 
 now within their reach ; he believed that they had been 
 satisfied with what they had listened to, so that it had 
 been to the many assembled there a real Festspiel. 
 He then thanked the king for his support and encour- 
 agement ; and, the curtain being suddenly lifted, all the 
 crowd of musicians and actors who had taken part in the 
 Festival stood ranged, and Wagner, turning round, 
 thanked them in the warmest terms for their devotion 
 and assistance. 
 
 So ended the first great Wagner Festival, held at 
 Bayreuth in 18TG. 
 
 * * -* * # * 
 
 As some people seem to have considerable difficulty in 
 mastering the plot of the Niebelung 1 s Ring, I venture to 
 offer a rough skeleton account of it, which may profit- 
 ably be studied before or after witnessing the four 
 dramas. 
 
 I. 
 
 RHEINGOLD. 
 
 SCENE I. The sun irradiating the depths of the river, becomes in 
 the myth mythos, I ought to say a concrete treasure Rheingold. 
 It has marvellous properties, and if stolen and forged into a ring, 
 guides its owner to all the hidden gold-mines of the earth. But he 
 who owns the gold must renounce love. Three Rhine girls guard the 
 gold. Alberich, King of the Undergrounds, a hideous dwarf, makes 
 love to the Underwater girls of the Rhine, is rejected, renounces love,
 
 Z40 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 but clutches the gold, and makes off with it to Niebelheim fog-land 
 his underground caves. 
 
 SCENE II. Wotan, King of Gods, tired of love, has employed giants 
 to build him a majestic palace, and offered them Freia, Goddess of 
 Love, as payment. The other gods refuse to part with Freia -when 
 the palace is done, and Wotan has nothing left which the giants will 
 take instead. The clever fire-god Loge hears of the Rhine gold, now 
 in Alberich's possession. Offers it to the giants. Offer accepted, 
 and Loge and Wotan go off to steal it. 
 
 SCENE III. Loge and Wotan enter Niebelheim. Alberich displays 
 the gold ; also a cap, which enables the wearer to assume any form. 
 At Loge's suggestion, he becomes u toad, just for fun ; is captured, 
 and the ring and all his wealth passes over to Wotan, but not before 
 the ring is cursed by Alberich, and destined henceforth to bring 
 misery and disaster to its owner. 
 
 SCENE IV. The gold and fatal ring are got rid of to the giants, who 
 take the whole in payment ; Freia, who gives youth and joy to the 
 gods, is released, and the gods walk processionally into their new 
 palace, over a beautiful rainbow bridge. Curtain falls. 
 
 II. 
 WALKCEE. 
 
 SCENE I. Opens as Siegmund, a son of earth-woman by god Wotan, 
 staggers into a log hut, breathless, and falls prostrate with fatigue. 
 Flying from his enemies, he has found shelter but where ? In 
 Hunding's hut. Enter Sieglinde, daughter of earth-woman by god 
 Wotan ; brother and sister, unknown to each other, converse. 
 Hunding enters, and all three converse. The situation dawns on 
 them, and Hunding, respecting his guest, recognizes his foe, and 
 summons him to mortal combat on the morrow. That night, in a 
 stolen interview, Sieglinde and Siegmund arrange matters ; a magic 
 sword left sticking in a big tree by Wotan, is claimed by Siegmund 
 and drawn forth, that being the only provision made by the god for 
 his gallant offspring. The lovers escape together. 
 
 SCENE II. Father Wotan parleys with the war-maidens anent the 
 coming duel of Siegmund with Hunding. Father Wotan parleys 
 with his wife Fricka on the same subject. Fricka is mad for the 
 death of the irregular son Siegmund. Wotan, with bleeding heart, 
 at last yields, and Walkiire Briinnhilde has commission to get him 
 well slain in the fight. Warlike, but tender, Briinnhilde appears to
 
 SIEGFRIED. 249 
 
 Sieginund, and tells him of his fate, but is melted at the spectacle of 
 the despairing lovers, and goes over in disobedience to their cause, 
 protects the hero in the duel, but is foiled by Wotan, who comes in 
 as a most detestable deus ex machina, and gets his own son killed 
 after all. Briinnhilde takes care of poor Sieglinde, about to become 
 the mother of Siegfried, and gives her the fragments of the magic 
 sword, only shattered by the might of Wotan. Briinnhilde, for her 
 disobedience, loses her divinity, and is laid to sleep on a fire-encom- 
 passed rock. Having stooped to love, she is now handed over to the 
 love of a mortal, only the lover must be brave, and will have to go 
 through the tire and claim her, which brings us to the threshold of 
 the third drama, Siegfried. 
 
 in. 
 
 SlEGFBIED. 
 
 SCENE I. Sieglinde has died giving birth to Siegfried. Mime 
 (Alberich's deformed brother), who lives in a wood, has sheltered her, 
 and, knowing of the secret of the hero she has given birth to, his 
 deini-godhood, and the invincible sword he is to wield, the fragments 
 of which are in Mime's possession, the shrewd dwarf brings him up 
 with care, and intends to make him by and by slay Fafner, the giant, 
 who, in the disgiiise of a dragon, keeps the gold stolen for the giants 
 by the gods from Alberich. The first scene concludes with the suc- 
 cessful mending of the broken sword by the combined efforts of 
 Siegfried, now grown to manhood, and his foster-father, Mime. 
 
 SCENE II. All parties interested are now found lurking about the 
 hole where Fafner watches the gold. The old scapegrace of a god 
 Wotan comes prowling about, partly curious to see his grandson, 
 Siegfried, who is to wield the magic sword partly with his eye on 
 the gold. Alberich turns up at the hole watching the main chance, 
 and ready to clutch at his lost treasure. Mime makes sure of it when 
 Siegfried has killed the dragon. He means to bring him a sleep- 
 drink, slay him, and get the gold. Presently the dragon is slain. 
 Mime offers the drink ; Seigfried sees through him, and slays him too. 
 Having by chance put his finger, stained with dragon's blood, to his 
 lips, he suddenly understands the cry of the birds in the branches. 
 One bird sings out loud and clear, and tells of the maid who lies, fire- 
 surrounded, en a rock. Siegfried follows the magic bird, who is to 
 lead him to Briinnhilde. 
 
 SCENE III. On his way he meets Wotan, who opposes his spear, to 
 test his descendant's prowess and power. Siegfried breaks it with
 
 250 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 his magic sword, and with it scatters the might of \Valhalla. He 
 reaches the fire-rock, bursts through the flames, and claims Briinn- 
 hilde as his bride. 
 
 IV. 
 
 GOTTEEDAMMEBUNG. 
 
 Siegfried having left Briinnhilde in search of knightly adventures, 
 comes to the Khine castle of Hagen. There ho is drugged with a magic 
 potion by Hagen' s daughter, Gutrune, who wants to marry him. 
 Said potion causes him to forget his love for Briinnhilde and fall in 
 love with Gutrune. He now promises to go with her brother, 
 Giinther, and capture Briinnhilde on her fire-surrounded rock and 
 hand her over to Giinther. Arrives with him, seizes Briinnhilde, and 
 hands her over. The frightful situation is then worked out in 
 Hagen's castle by the Rhine. Siegfried appears as Gutrune's lover, 
 Giinther as Brunnhilde's ; they all four meet. Briinnhilde is 
 puzzled, and falls into despair at not being recognized by Siegfried, 
 who is under a spell. In his lifetime the harrowing mystery is never 
 solved, but before his assassination by Hagen he partially recovers 
 his memory. While reciting the story of his life he is suddenly 
 stabbed. Briinnhilde then comes on the scene to find him dead ; 
 but the truth that he has been bewitched dawns upon her. She pro- 
 claims him tender and true in death. They heap up logs ; he is 
 hoisted on to the pile, but not before Briinnhilde Las taken the fatal 
 ring from the hero's finger, and cast it back into the Khine. Tha 
 Rhine-girls appear on the surface singing. The air darkens, the 
 flames rise. Brunnhilde's war-horse is led out for the last time, horse 
 and Walkiire leap into the flames. The Rhine swells up to the foot- 
 lights, washing over everything, and extinguishing the funeral pile ; 
 and the house of Hagen pillars, doors, and lintel falls into ruin.
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 LISZT. 
 
 THE greatest phenomenal players of their age have 
 undoubtedly been Liszt and Pagan ini. They were 
 great not merely because they could play better than 
 others, but because they created what they played. It is 
 quite possible to maintain that Rubinstein and Billow 
 play quite as well as Liszt, or that Ernst and Joachim 
 are as good as Paganini ; but it is nevertheless an absur- 
 dity and impertinence to argue the point. They were 
 not the first they came afterward. A man who takes 
 gold out of a mine may be as good as the man who dis- 
 covered the mine, but he is not that man. He does ex- 
 cellent work, but he was not the first on the ground he 
 came afterward. 
 
 A thing once discovered cannot bo rediscovered, and 
 an aureole shines round the head of the pioneer to which 
 no subsequent traveller may lay claim.. But quite apait 
 from what is new and original in their respective contri- 
 butions to Art, it is doubtful whether two such extraor- 
 dinary personalities as those of Paganini and Liszt have 
 ever appeared in the world of virtuosity. In some respects 
 Liszt is even more extraordinary than Paganini ; for, in 
 the first place, he electrified a world still under the spell 
 of the weird Italian's Cremona ; and, in the second 
 place, his demands have achieved for the piano what no 
 demands of Paganini ever could for the violin a pro- 
 found modification and re-creation of the instrument to
 
 252 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 enable him to realize his prodigious feats of sonority and 
 execution. The modifications introduced by violin re- 
 pairers strengthening bars, ribs, gluing cracks, etc. 
 are trifling compared to the changes which separate the 
 pianoforte of 1820 from that of 1880. Paganini is the 
 creator of the modern violin school ; but Liszt has not 
 only created the modern pianoforte school, but in some 
 sort the modern pianoforte. 
 
 Great heart, great brain, daring originality, electric 
 organization, iron nerve, and a soul vibrating to sound 
 like an yEolian harp to the wind there you have the 
 personality, phenomenal and unique, of Franz Liszt. 
 
 Who has not heard of Liszt ? Who has heard Liszt ? 
 I suppose to most of us he is personally a great tradition 
 and nothing more ; his compositions, indeed, form the 
 chief pieces de resistance of our annual crop of piano- 
 forte recitals ; but the man and his playing are alike un- 
 known. He has already become historical during his 
 lifetime. Only by a happy chance can I reckon myself 
 among the few who have lately heard Liszt play. 
 j' I happened to be staying in Rome, and Liszt kindly 
 invited me over to the Villa d'Este twice. 
 
 There at Tivoli, alone with him, he conversed with 
 me of the times long gone by of Mendelssohn, of Paga- 
 nini, of Chopin. 
 
 There in the warm light of an Italian autumn, subdued 
 by the dark-red curtains that hung in his study, with an 
 old-world silence around us, he sat at his piano once 
 more ; and as he played to me the clock of time went 
 back, and Chopin entered with his pale, refined face, his 
 slight aristocratic iigure ; Heine sat restlessly in a dark 
 corner ; Madame Sand reclined in the deep window- 
 niche overlooking the desolate Campagna, with Rome in 
 the distance ; De Lammenais stood at the foot of the
 
 1811 THE COMET YEAR. 253 
 
 piano a delicate, jet sinewy and mobile frame with 
 his noble, eager face all aglow, his eloquent tongue 
 silent, listening to the inspiration of another believer in 
 another evangeliurn the evangelinm of the emotions, 
 the Gospel of Art. 
 
 Shadows all of you, yet to me for an hour, in the 
 deep solitude of the great Cardinal's palace alone with 
 Liszt, more real than the men and women of our lesser / 
 day. 
 
 One thousand eight hundred and eleven was the year 
 of the great comet a year which, we are told, re-echoed 
 with the sounds of the lyre and the sword, and an- 
 nounced so many pioneering spirits of the future. 
 
 In 1811 was Franz Liszt born. He had the hot Hun- 
 garian blood of his father, the fervid German spirit of 
 his mother, and he inherited the lofty independence, 
 with none of the class prejudices, of the old Hungarian 
 nobility from which he sprang. 
 
 Liszt's father, Adam, earned a modest livelihood as 
 agent and accountant in the house of Count Esterhazy. 
 In that great musical family inseparably associated with 
 the names of Haydn and Schubert, Adam Liszt had fre- 
 quent opportunities of meeting distinguished musicians. 
 The Prince's private band had risen to public fame 
 under the instruction of the venerable Haydn himself. 
 The Liszts, father and son, often went to Eisenstadt, 
 where the count lived ; there they nibbed elbows with 
 Cherubini and Hummel, a pupil of Mozart. 
 
 Franz took to music from his earliest childhood. 
 When about five years old, he was asked what he would 
 like to do. " Learn the piano," said the little fellow. 
 Soon afterward his father asked him what he would like 
 to be ; the child pointed to a print of Beethoven hang- 
 ing on the wall, and said, " Like him." Long before
 
 254 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 his feet could reach the pedals or his fingers stretch an 
 octave, the boy spent all his spare time strumming, 
 making what he called " clangs," chords, and modula- 
 tions. He mastered scales and exercises without diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 But there was a certain intensity in all he did which 
 seemed to wear him out. He was attacked with fever, 
 but would hardly be persuaded to lie down until com- 
 pletely exhausted ; then he lay and prayed aloud to God 
 to make him well, and vowed that on his recovery he 
 would only make hymns and play music which pleased 
 God and his parents. The strong lines of his character 
 early asserted themselves religious ardor, open sincer- 
 ity, a certain nobleness of soul that scorned a lie and gen- 
 erously confessed to a fault, quick affections, ready sym- 
 pathies, a mind singularly without prejudices or an- 
 tipathies, except in music. Liszt's musical antipathies 
 are matters of world- wide notoriety his hatred of 
 11 Conservatorium " dogma, his contempt for the musi- 
 cal doctrinaire, his aversion to the shallow and frivolous, 
 his abhorrence of mere sensationalism. 
 
 The boy's decided bent soon banished all thought of 
 anything but a musical vocation, but the res angustm 
 domi stood in the way. How was he to be taught ? 
 how was he to be heard ? how to earn money ? That 
 personal fascination, from which no one who has ever 
 come in contact with Liszt has quite escaped, helped 
 him thus early. When eight years old, he played before 
 Count Esterhazy in the presence of six noblemen, 
 among them Counts Amadee, Apponyi, and Szapary 
 eternal honor to their names ! They at once subscribed 
 for him an annuity of six hundred gulden for six years. 
 This was to help the little prodigy to a musical educa- 
 tion.
 
 MAXY MASTERS. 255 
 
 His parents felt the whole importance of the crisis. 
 If the boy was to prosper, the father's present retired 
 life with a fixed income must be changed for an unset- 
 tled wandering and precarious existence. " When the 
 six years are over, and your hopes prove vain, what will 
 become of us ?' ' said his mother, who heard, with tears 
 in her eyes, that father was going to give up the agency 
 and settle down wherever the boy might need instruc- 
 tion, protection, and a home. "Mother," said the im- 
 petuous child, " what God wills !" and he added, pro- 
 phetically enough, " God will help me to repay you for 
 all your anxieties and for what you do forme." And 
 with what results he labored in this faith, years after- 
 ward in Paris, we shall see. 
 
 The agency was thrown up ; the humble family, 
 mother, father, son, went out alone from the little Hun- 
 garian village into an unknown and untried world, 
 simply trusting to the genius, the will, the word of an 
 obscure child of eight: "1 will be a musician, aud 
 nothing else !" 
 
 As the child knelt at his farewell mass in the little 
 village church of Raiding, many wept, others shook 
 their heads, but some even then seemed to have a pre- 
 sentiment of his future greatness, and said, " That boy 
 will one day come back in a glass coach." This modest 
 symbol represented to them the idea of boundless wealth. 
 
 Hummel would only teach for a golden louis a lesson, 
 and then picked his pupils ; but at Vienna the father 
 and son fell in with Czerny, Beethoven's pupil, and the 
 famous Salieri, now seventy years old. Czerny at once 
 took to Liszt, but refused to take anything for his in- 
 struction. Salieri was also fascinated, and instructed 
 him in harmony ; and fortunate it was that Liszt began 
 his course under two such strict mentors.
 
 256 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 He soon began to resent Czerny's method, thought 
 lie knew better and needed not those dry studies of 
 dementi and that irksome fingering by rule ; he could 
 finger everything in half-a-dozen different ways. There 
 was a moment when it seemed that master and pupil 
 would have to part ; but timely concessions to genius 
 paved the way to dutiful submission, and years after- 
 ward the great master dedicated to the rigid discipli- 
 narian of his boyhood his Vingt-quatre Grandes fitudes 
 in affectionate remembrance. 
 
 Young talent often splits upon the rock of self-suffi- 
 ciency. Many a clever artist has failed because in the 
 pride of youthful facility he has declined the method and 
 drudgery of a correct technique. 
 
 Such a light as Liszt's could not be long hid ; all 
 Vienna in 1822 was talking of the wonderful boy. 
 " Est deus in nobis," wrote the papers rather profanely. 
 The "little Hercules," the "young giant," the boy 
 "virtuoso from the clouds," were among the epithets 
 coined to celebrate. his marvellous rendering of Hummers 
 " Concerto in A " and a free " Fantasia " of his own. 
 
 The Vienna Concert Hall was crowded to hear him ; 
 and the other illustrious artists then as indeed they 
 have been ever since forced to do wherever Liszt ap- 
 peared effaced themselves with as good a grace as they 
 could. 
 
 It is a remarkable tribute to the generous nature as 
 well as to the consummate ability of Liszt, that, while 
 opposing partisans have fought bitterly over him Thal- 
 bergites, Herzites, Mendelssohnites versus Lisztites yet 
 few of the great artists who have, one after another, had 
 to yield to him in popularity have denied to him their 
 admiration, while most of them have given him their 
 friendship.
 
 BEETHOVEX AND LISZT. 257 
 
 Liszt early wooed and early won Vienna. He spoke 
 ever of his dear Viennese and their " resounding city." 
 
 When I saw Liszt at Tivoli in 1880, I remember his 
 saying to me, " J'ai reeu le celebre baiser de Beetho- 
 ven." I found that Beethoven's secretary, Schindler, 
 wrote, in 1823, to Beethoven : " You will be present at 
 little Liszt's concert, will you not ? It will encourage 
 the boy. Promise me that you will go." And Beetho- 
 ven went. When the " little Liszt " stepped on to 
 the platform, he saw Beethoven in the front row ; it 
 nerved instead of staggering him he played with 
 an abandon and inspiration which defied criticism. 
 Amidst the storm of applause which followed, Beethoven 
 was observed to step up on the platform, take the young 
 virtuoso in his arms, and salute him, as Liszt assured me, 
 ' ; on both cheeks." This was an event not to be lightly 
 forgotten, and hardly after fifty-seven years to be alluded 
 to without a certain awe ; indeed, Lizst's voice quite 
 betrayed his sense of the seriousness of the occasion as 
 he repeated, with a certain conscious pride and gravity, 
 " Oui, j'ai regu le baiser de Beethoven." 
 
 A concert tour on his way to Paris brought him be- 
 fore the critical public of Stuttgardt and Munich. Hum- 
 mel, an old man, and Moscheles, then in his prime, 
 heard him, and declared that his playing was equal to 
 theirs. But Liszt was bent upon completing his studies 
 in the celebrated school of the French capital, and at the 
 feet of the old musical dictator Cherubini. 
 
 The Erards, who were destined to owe so much to 
 Liszt, and to whom Liszt throughout his career has owed 
 so much, at once provided him with a magnificent 
 piano ; but Cherubini put in force a certain by-law of 
 the Conservatoire excluding foreigners, and excluded 
 Franz Liszt.
 
 258 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 This was a bitter pill to the eager student. He hardly 
 knew how little he required such patronage. In a very 
 short time " le petit Liszt" was the great Paris sensation. 
 The old noblesse tried to spoil him with flattery, the 
 Duchess de Berri drugged him with bonbons, the Duke 
 of Orleans called him the "little Mozart." He gave 
 private concerts at which Herz, Moscheles, Lafont, and 
 De Beriot assisted. Rossini would sit by his side at the 
 piano and applaud. He was a "miracle." The com- 
 pany never tired of extolling his "verve, fougue et 
 originalite," while the ladies, who petted and caressed 
 him after each performance, were delighted at his simple 
 and graceful carriage, the elegance of his language, and 
 the perfect breeding and propriety of his demeanor. 
 
 He was only twelve when he played for the first time 
 at the Italian Opera, and one of those singular incidents 
 which remind one of Paganini's triumphs occurred. 
 
 At the close of a bravura cadenza the band forgot to 
 come in, so absorbed were the musicians in watching the 
 young prodigy. Their failure was worth a dozen suc- 
 cesses to Liszt. The ball of the marvellous was fairly 
 set rolling. 
 
 Gall, the inventor of phrenology, took a cast of the 
 little Liszt's skull ; Talma, the tragedian, embraced him 
 publicly with effusion ; and the misanthropic Marquis de 
 Noailles became his mentor, and initiated him into the 
 art of painting. 
 
 In 1824 Liszt, then thirteen years old, came with his 
 father to England ; his mother returned to Austria. 
 
 He went down to "Windsor to see George IV., who 
 was delighted with him, and Liszt, speaking of him 
 to me, said : "I was very young at the time, but I 
 remember the king very well a fine, pompous-looking 
 gentleman."
 
 A CHANGE. 259 
 
 In London lie met dementi, whose exercises lie had 
 so objected to, Cipriani Potter, Cramer, also of exercise 
 celebrity, Kalkbrenner, Ideate, then a fashionable pianist, 
 once a great favorite of George III., and whom I 
 remember about thirty years ago in extreme old age at 
 Brighton. He described to me the poor old king's de- 
 light at hearing him play some simple English melodies. 
 " I assure you, Mr. ISTeate," said George III., " I have 
 had more pleasure in hearing you play those simple airs 
 than in all the variations and tricks your fine players, 
 affect." 
 
 George IY. went to Drury Lane on purpose to hear 
 the boy, and commanded an encore. Liszt was also 
 heard in the theatre at Manchester, and in several private 
 houses. 
 
 On his return to France people noticed a change in 
 him. He was now fourteen, grave, serious, often pre- 
 occupied, already a little tired of praise, and excessively 
 tired of being called " le petit Liszt." His vision began 
 to take a wider sweep. The relation between art and 
 religion exercised him. His mind was naturally devout. 
 Thomas a Kempis was his constant companion. " Rejoice 
 in nothing but a good deed;" "Through labor to 
 rest, through combat to victory ; " " The glory which 
 men give and take is transitory" these and like 
 phrases were already deeply engraven on the fleshly 
 tablets of his heart. Amidst all his glowing triumphs he 
 was developing a curious disinclination to appear in 
 public ; be seemed to yearn for solitude and meditation. 
 
 In 1827 he now again hurried to England for a short 
 time, but his father's sudden illness drove them to Bou- 
 logne, where, in his forty-seventh year, died Adam Liszt, 
 leaving the young Franz for the first time in his life, at 
 the early age of sixteen, unprotected and alone.
 
 2GO MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Rousing liimself from the bodily prostration and torpor 
 of grief into which he had been thrown by the death of 
 his father, Franz, with admirable energy and that high 
 sense of honor which has always distinguished him, 
 began to set his house in order. He called in all his 
 debts, sold his magnificent grand Erard, and left Boulogne 
 for Paris with a heavy heart and a light pocket, but not 
 owing a sou. 
 
 He sent for his mother, and for the next twelve years, 
 1828-1840, the two lived together, chiefly in Paris. 
 There, as a child, he had been a nine-days' wonder, but 
 the solidity of his reputation was now destined to go 
 hand in hand with his stormy and interrupted mental and 
 moral development. 
 
 Such a plant could not come to maturity all at once. 
 No drawing-room or concert-room success satisfied a 
 heart for which the world of human emotion seemed 
 too small, and an intellect piercing with intuitive intelli- 
 gence into the " clear -obscure " depths of religion and 
 philosophy. 
 
 But Franz was young, and Franz was poor, and his 
 mother had to be supported. She was his first care. 
 Systematically, he labored to put by a sum which would 
 assure her of a competency, and often with his tender, 
 genial smile he would remind her of his own childish 
 words, " God will help me to repay you for all that you 
 have done for me." Still he labored often wofully 
 against the grain. 
 
 "Poverty," he writes, "that old mediator between 
 man and evil, tore me from my solitude devoted to med- 
 itation, and placed me before a public on whom not 
 only my own but rny own mother's existence depended. 
 Young and overstrained, I suffered painfully under the 
 contact with external things which my vocation as a
 
 A FEMALE FORM. 201 
 
 musician brought with it, and which wounded me all 
 the more intensely that my heart at this time was filled 
 entirely with the mystical feelings of love and re- 
 ligion." 
 
 Of course the gifted young pianist's connection grew 
 rapidly. He got his twenty francs a lesson at the best 
 houses ; he was naturally a welcome guest, and from the 
 first seemed to have the run of high Parisian society. 
 His life was feverish, his activity irregular, his health 
 far from strong ; but the vulgar temptations of the gay 
 capital seemed to have little attraction for his noble 
 nature. His heart remained unspoiled. He was most 
 generous to those who could not afford to pay for his 
 lessons, most pitiful to the poor, most dutiful and affec- 
 tionate to his mother. Coming home late from some grand 
 entertainment, he would sit outside on the staircase till 
 morning sooner than awaken, or perhaps alarm, her by 
 letting himself in. But in losing his father he seemed to 
 have lost certain method and order. His meals were 
 irregular, so were his lessons ; more so were the hours 
 devoted to sleep. 
 
 At this time he was hardly twenty ; we are not sur- 
 prised anon to hear in his own words of "a female form 
 chaste and pure as the alabaster of holy vessel ; ' ' but 
 he adds : " Such was the sacrifice which I offered with 
 tears to the God of Christians ! " 
 
 I will explain. 
 
 Mdlle. Caroline St. Cricq was just seventeen, lithe, 
 slender, and of "angelic" beauty, and a complexion 
 like a lily flushed with roses, lt impressionable to beauty, 
 to the world, to religion, to God." The Countess, her 
 mother, appears to have been a charming woman, very 
 partial to Liszt, whom she engaged to instruct Mademoi- 
 selle in music.
 
 262 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Tlie lessons were not by time, but by inclination. The 
 young man's eloquence, varied knowledge, ardent love 
 of literature, and flashing genius won both the mother 
 and daughter. Not one of them seemed to suspect the 
 whirlpool of grief and death to which they were hurrying. 
 The countess fell ill and died, but not before she had 
 recommended Liszt to the Count St. Cricq as a possible 
 suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle. 
 
 The haughty diplomat St. Cricq at once put his foot 
 down. The funeral over, Liszt's movements were 
 watched. They Avere innocent enough. lie was already 
 an enfant de la maison, but one night he lingered reading 
 aloud some favorite author to Mademoiselle a little too 
 late. He was reported by the servants, and received his 
 polite dismissal as music master. 
 
 In an interview with the count his own pride was 
 deeply wounded. " Difference of rank ! " said the count. 
 That was quite enough for Liszt. He rose, pale as death, 
 with quivering lip, but uttered not a word. 
 
 As a man of honor he had but one course. He and 
 Caroline parted forever. She contracted later an uncon- 
 genial marriage ; he seems to have turned with intense 
 ardor to religion. His good mother used to complain to 
 those who came to inquire for him that he was all day 
 long in church, and had ceased to occupy himself, as he 
 should, with music. 
 
 Love, grief, religion, all struggling together for victory 
 in that young and fervid spirit, at last seemed fairly to 
 exhaust him. His old haunts knew him not ; his pupils 
 were neglected ; he saw no friends ; shut himself up in 
 his room ; and at last would only see his mother at meals. 
 He never appeared in the streets, and not unnaturally 
 ended by falling dangerously ill. 
 
 It was during this period of severe sickness that Paris
 
 REVOLUTION AND RESURRECTION. 263 
 
 was one morning startled with a newspaper announce- 
 ment which was worded as follows : 
 
 "DEATH of YOUNG LISZT. 
 
 " Young Liszt died at Paris the event is painful at 
 an age when most children are at school. He had con- 
 quered the public," etc. 
 
 So wrote the iStoile. In fact, he was seriously ill. 
 M. vonLenz, Beethoven's biographer, went to visit him. 
 lie was lying pale, haggard, and apathetic ; could hardly 
 be roused to converse except occasionally when music 
 cropped up. Then his eye brightened for a moment like 
 the " flashing of a dagger in the sun." 
 
 In 1830 the Eevolution burst on Paris. This, it seems, 
 was needed to arouse Liszt. The inner life was suddenly 
 to be exchanged for the outer. Self was to be merged in 
 the larger interests, some of them delusions, which now 
 began to pose again under the cunning watchwords of 
 " Liberte, ^galite, Fraternite." Generous souls saw in 
 the quarrel of Charles X. with his people the hope of a 
 new national life. They proposed to exchange the old 
 and effete "Divine right" for the legitimate " sover- 
 eignty of the people." " C'est le canon qui 1'a gueri !" 
 his mother used to say. Liszt was hardly restrained by 
 her tears and entreaties from rushing to the barricades. 
 The cure threatened to be worse than the disease. The 
 heroic deeds of the "great week" inflamed him, and 
 he shouted with the rest for the silver-haired General 
 Lafayette, "genius of the liberties of two worlds." 
 
 The republican enthusiasm, so happily restrained from 
 action out of affection for his dependent mother, found 
 a more wholesome vent in a vigorous return to his 
 neglected art. Just as he was busy revolving great battle 
 symphonies, his whole artistic nature received a decisive 
 and startling impulse from the sudden apparition of
 
 204 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 Paganini in Paris. Preceded by revolution and cholera, 
 this weird man had come upon the bright city that had 
 sinned and suffered so much, and found her shaken and 
 demoralized, but still seething with a strange ferment 
 of new life in which Saint-Siinonianism, communism, and 
 scepticism, side by side with fanaticism, piety, and ro- 
 mance, struggled to make confusion worse confounded. 
 Into the depths of what has been called the Romantic 
 movement of 1830-40 it is not my purpose here to enter. 
 There was war alike with the artificial humdrum of the 
 old French world and the still more artificial revival of 
 the classical world of Greece and Rome. 
 
 The human spirit was at length to be liberated ; no 
 one, it was held, need believe anything that did not 
 happen to commend itself to his fancy or passion. As 
 Heine put it : " The great God, it appeared, was not at 
 all the being in whom our grandmothers had trusted ; he 
 was, in fact, none other than you yourself." No one 
 need be bound by the morals of an effete civilization. 
 In Love the world of sentiment alone must decide our 
 actions. Every one must be true to nature. All men 
 were brothers, and women should have equal and inde- 
 pendent rights. The social contract, most free and va- 
 riable, must be substituted for marriage, community of 
 goods for hereditary possessions, philosophy for law, and 
 romance for religion. The beautiful and pregnant seeds 
 of truth that lay imbedded in the teeming soil of this 
 great movement have since fully germinated ; its extrav- 
 agances have already, to a great extent, been outgrown. 
 
 In spite of theories disastrous to political and social 
 order, the genius of Madame Sand, Victor Hugo, and 
 A. de Musset, sceptic and sensualist as he was, have 
 rescued the movement from the despair of raw material- 
 ism, and produced works of immortal beauty.
 
 PAGANINI AND THE AGE. 265 
 
 They helped the European spirit to recover its inde- 
 pendence, they reacted against the levelling tyranny of the 
 first Napoleon, and were largely instrumental in under- 
 mining the third Napoleon's throne of gilded lead. 
 Stained with license and full of waywardness, it was, 
 nevertheless, an age of great and strong feelings an age 
 volcanic, vivid, electric. Such an age eagerly welcomed 
 the magicians who set the language of emotion free, and 
 gave to music its myriad wings and million voices. 
 
 Paganini appeared. The violin was no more the violin. 
 A new transcendent technique made it the absolute 
 minister of an emancipated and fantastic will. The 
 extraordinary power exercised by the Italian violinist 
 throughout Europe was quickened by the electric air 
 which he breathed. The times were ripe. He stood 
 before kings and people as the very emotional embodi- 
 ment of the Zeitgeist. He was the emanicipated demon 
 of the epoch, with power to wield the sceptre of sound, 
 and marshal in strange and frenzied legions the troubled 
 spirits of the time. 
 
 When Liszt heard Paganini, it seemed to him to be 
 the message for which he had been waiting. From him 
 he doubtless received that passion for ''transcendent 
 execution," that absolute perfection of technique, which 
 enabled him to create the modern pianoforte school, and 
 win for Erard and Broadwood what Paganini won for 
 Stradivarius and Joseph Guarnerius. His transcriptions 
 of Paganini's studies, the arpeggio, the fioritm*e, the 
 prodigious attaque and elan that took audiences by storm, 
 the meetings of extremes which abolished the spaces on 
 the pianoforte key-board by making the hands ubiquitous 
 these and other "developments" were doubtless in- 
 spired by the prodigious feats of Paganini. 
 
 Liszt now suddenly retired from the concert-room.
 
 266 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 He was no longer heard in public ; lie seemed disinclined, 
 except in the presence of his intimates, to exhibit his 
 wondrous talent ; but he retired to perfect himself, to 
 work up and work out the new impulses which he had 
 received from Paganini. 
 
 He thus early laid deep the foundations of his unique 
 virtuosity ; and when he reappeared in public, he seemed 
 to mount at once to that solitary pinnacle of fame and 
 surpassing excellence to which the greatest pianists then 
 and ever since have looked up in admiring and de- 
 spairing wonder. Tausig said, " We are all blockheads by 
 the side of Liszt." Rubinstein has often declared Liszt's 
 perfection of art and wealth of resource to be simply 
 unrivalled. 
 
 For a short time in his absence at Paris, it was thought 
 that Thalberg would prove a formidable opponent. But 
 Liszt had only to reappear, and Thalberg himself was 
 forced to join in the general applause. When between 
 the various schools there was war, it was carried on by 
 the partisans of the great men. Although they freely 
 criticised one another, nothing is more remarkable than 
 the kindly personal feeling which obtained between Liszt 
 and his natural enemies, the great pianists of the age, 
 Moscheles, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Thalberg. 
 
 There were no doubt cabals, and at one time in Paris 
 he met with much detraction ; but he seemed to move in 
 a region of lofty courtesy in which squabbling for prece- 
 dence was out of place ; and his generosity of heart and 
 genial recognition of others' talent disarmed criticism and 
 silenced malice. 
 
 With the outburst of the Revolution, with the appear- 
 ance of Paganini, came also to Liszt a violent reaction 
 against the current religious ideas and the whole of the 
 Catholic teaching. Reading had opened his eyes ; the
 
 LISZT AND DE LAMEXXAIS. 2GT 
 
 Catholic system seemed to him not only inadequate, but 
 false. He required a freer atmosphere, one rather more 
 interpretative of human facts and human nature ; he 
 thought he found it in the doctrines of the Saint-Si- 
 monians. The " Nouveau Christianisme, " by far the best 
 of St. Simon's lucubrations, seemed to show that the 
 Church had misrepresented and outraged the religion of 
 Christ. It failed to take due account of art and science, 
 had no sympathy with progress, refused altogether to 
 assimilate the Zeitgeist, and had evidently ceased to lead 
 the thinkers or purify the masses. 
 
 About this time Liszt came across the eloquent and 
 gifted Abbe de Lamennais. This man it was who, more 
 than any other, saved Liszt from drifting into the pre- 
 vailing whirlpool of atheism. The heterodox Abbe, who 
 himself had broken with the retrograde religion of Home, 
 re-formulated his system, and discovered for him what 
 at that time he most craved for a link between his relig- 
 ion and his art. 
 
 /* " Art," said De Lamennais, "is in man what creative 
 power is in God." Art is the embodiment of eternal 
 ' types. Xature suggests a beauty she never completely 
 realizes. Only in tlte soul of man is the supernal beauty 
 , mirrored as it exists in the mind of God. Art is the soul's 
 j formula for the expression of its inner life. " Art, there- 
 fore, is an expression of God ; her works are an infinite 
 manifold reflection of Him." 
 
 ^The mission of art to reveal the secrets of the inner 
 life, to lift the souls of others into high communion with 
 itself, to express its joy in possession, its hope of attain- 
 ment, its insatiable and divine longings, its dreams of the 
 infinite these seemed to Liszt high functions, enriching, 
 fertilizing, and consoling all life, and leading the spirit 
 forth into that weird border land of the emotions, where
 
 2G8 MY MUSICAL MEMOIIIES. 
 
 voices come to it from the Unseen, and radiant flashes 
 from behind the Veil. 
 
 It was toward the close of 1831 that Liszt met Chopin 
 in Paris. From the first, these two men, so different, 
 became fast friends. Chopin's delicate, retiring soul 
 found a singular delight in Liszt's strong and imposing 
 personality. Liszt's exquisite perception enabled him 
 perfectly to live in the strange dreamland of Chopin's 
 fancies, while his own vigor inspired Chopin with nerve 
 to conceive those mighty Polonaises that he could never 
 properly play himself, and which he so gladly committed 
 to the keeping of his prodigious friend. Liszt undertook 
 the task of interpreting Chopin to the mixed crowds 
 which he revelled in subduing, but from which his 
 fastidious and delicately-strung friend shrank with some- 
 thing like aversion. 
 
 From Chopin, Liszt and all the world after him got 
 that tempo rubato, that playing with the duration of notes 
 without breaking the time, and those arabesque ornaments 
 which are woven like fine embroidery all about the pages 
 of Chopin's nocturnes, and which lift what in others are 
 mere casual flourishes into the dignity of interpretative 
 phrases and poetic commentaries on the text. 
 
 People were fond of comparing the two young men 
 who so often appeared in the same salons together Liszt 
 with his finely-shaped, long, oval head and profile 
 (Tivoire, set proudly on his shoulders, his stiff hair of 
 dark blonde thrown back from the forehead without a 
 parting, and cut in a straight line, his aplomb, his magnifi- 
 cent and courtly bearing, his ready tongue, his flashing 
 wit and fine irony, his genial bonhomie and irresistibly 
 winning smile ; and Chopin, also with dark blonde hair, 
 but soft as silk, parted on one side, to use Liszt's own 
 words, " an angel of fair countenance with brown eyes,
 
 THE MUSIC OF THE FUTUKE. 269 
 
 from which intellect beamed rather than burned, a gentle, 
 refined smile, slightly aquiline nose, a delicious, clear, 
 almost diaphonous complexion, all bearing witness to the 
 harmony of a soul which required no commentary beyond 
 itself." 
 
 Nothing can be more generous or more true than 
 Liszt's recognition of Chopin's independent support. 
 "To our endeavors," he says, "to our struggles, just 
 then so much needing certainty, he lent us the support 
 of a calm, unshakable conviction, equally armed against 
 apathy and cajolery." There was only one picture on the 
 walls of Chopin's room ; it hung just above his piano. 
 It was a head of Liszt. 
 
 The over-intensity of Liszt's powerful nature may have 
 occasionally led him into extravagances of virtuosity, 
 wliicli laid him open to some just criticism. Robert 
 Schumann observed acutely : "It appears as if the sight 
 of Chopin brought him again to his senses." 
 
 It is no part of my present scheme to describe the 
 battle which romanticism in music waged against the 
 prevalent conventionalities. We known the general out- 
 come of the struggle culminating, after the most pro- 
 digious artistic convulsions, in the musical supremacy of 
 Richard Wagner, who certainly marks firmly and broadly 
 enough the greatest stride in musical development made 
 since Beethoven. 
 
 That Hector Berlioz emancipated the orchestra from 
 all previous trammels, and dealt with sound at first-hand 
 as the elemental and expressional breath of the soul ; that 
 he was thus the immediate precursor of Wagner, who 
 said with more modesty than truth, " I have invented 
 nothing," this is now r admitted. That Schumann was 
 afraid of the excesses into which the romantic musicians
 
 270 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 threatened to plunge, and, having started well and cheered 
 them on, showed some tendency to relapse into old form 
 at the moment when his ingenious and passionate soul 
 sank into final and premature gloom that has been 
 whispered. That Mendelssohn was over-wedded to 
 classical tradition and a certain passion for neatness and 
 precision which prevented him from sounding the heights 
 and depths of the revolutionary epoch in the midst of 
 which he moved, and by which his sunny spirit was so 
 little affected this I am now able to see. That Spohr was 
 too doctrinaire and mannered, Meyerbeer a great deal too 
 fond of melodrama and sensation for its own sake ; that 
 Rossini and Anber, exclusively bent on amusing the pub- 
 lic, were scarcely enough hommes serieux to influence the 
 deeper development of harmony, or effect any revolution 
 in musical form most musicians \vill allow. And that 
 Liszt by his unique virtuosity has made it difficult for 
 the world to accept him in any other capacity, is the 
 constant grievance paraded by his admirers. From all 
 which reflections it may be inferred that many workers 
 have contributed to the wealth, resource, and emanci- 
 pation of modern music from those trammels which 
 sought to confine its spirit or limit its freedom. Through 
 past form, it has at length learned to use instead of being 
 used by form. The modern orchestra has won the unity 
 and spontaneity of an independent living organism. Like 
 the body, it is a complex mechanism, but it is to the 
 mind of the composer as the human body is to the soul. 
 It has grown so perfect an instrument, and deals with so 
 perfectly mastered an art, that a prelude like Lohengrin 
 or the opening of Parsifal sounds like the actual expres- 
 sion of the inner moods of the spirit rendered outwardly 
 with automatic unconscious fidelity. The rule, the tech-
 
 LISZT AND THE BEGGARS. 271 
 
 are lost, hidden, forgotten, because completely 
 efficacious, and subordinated to the free movements of 
 the composer's spirit. 
 
 To this latest triumph of the musical art three men 
 since Beethoven have mainly contributed ; their names 
 are certainly Hector Berlioz, Wagner, and Liszt. 
 
 The darling of the aristocracy, accustomed from his 
 earliest youth to mix freely with the haute noblesse .oi 
 Germany and France, Liszt was a republican at heart. 
 He felt acutely for the miseries of the people, and he was 
 always a great player for the masses. " When I play," 
 he once said, " I always play for the people in the top 
 gallery, so that those who can pay but five groschen for 
 their seats may also get something for their money." 
 He was ever foremost in alleviating the sufferings of 
 the poor, the sick, and the helpless. He seems, in- 
 deed, to have been unable to pass a beggar, and the 
 beggars soon found that out ; they would even intrude 
 upon his privacy and waylay him in his garden. 
 
 Once, when at the height of his popularity in Paris, a 
 friend found him holding a crossing-sweeper's broom at 
 the corner of the street. ' ' The fact is, " said Liszt simply, 
 "I had no small change for the boy, so I told him to 
 change me five francs, and he asked me to hold his broom 
 for him till he returned." I forgot to ask Liszt whether 
 the lad ever came back. 
 
 I was walking with him one day in the private gardens 
 of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli when some little ruffians, 
 who had clambered over the wall, rushed up to him with 
 a few trumpery weeds, which they termed " bouquets." 
 The benevolent Maestro took the gift good-humoredly, 
 and, fumbling in his pocket, produced several small coins, 
 which he gave to the urchins, turning to me apologet- 
 ically : "They expect it, you know. In fact," he
 
 272 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 added, with a little shrug, " whenever I appear they do 
 expect it. " His gifts were not always small. He could 
 command large sums of money at a moment's notice. 
 The proceeds of many a splendid concert went to manu- 
 facturing committees, widows, orphans, sick and blind. 
 He founded pensions and provided funds for poor mu- 
 sicians ; he set up monuments to great artists. A pe- 
 cuniary difficulty arising about Beethoven's statue at 
 Bonn, Liszt immediately guaranteed the whole sum. In 
 the great commercial crisis of 1834 at Lyons Liszt gave 
 concerts for the artisans out of work ; and in Hungary, 
 not long after, when the overflow of the Danube rendered 
 hundreds homeless, Liszt was again to the fore with his 
 brilliant performances for charity. 
 
 All through his life he was an ardent pamphleteer, 
 and he fought not only for the poor, but in the high- 
 est interests of his art, and above all for the dignity 
 of his own class. In this he was supported by such 
 musical royalties as Mendelssohn, Rossini, Paganini, 
 and Lablache. "We have heard how in past days the 
 musicians were not expected to mix with the company, 
 a rope being laid down on the carpet, showing the 
 boundary line between the sacred and profane in social 
 rank. 
 
 On one occasion Lablache, entering the music saloon 
 at a certain great house, observed the usual rope laid 
 clown in front of him when he came on to sing in a duet. 
 He quietly stooped down and tossed it aside. It was never 
 replaced, and the offensive practice dropped out of Lon- 
 don society from that day. 
 
 Liszt refused to play at the court of Queen Isabella in 
 Spain because the court etiquette forbade the intro- 
 duction of musicians to royalty. In his opinion even 
 crowned heads owed a certain deference and homage to
 
 LISZT CZAE NICHOLAS LOUIS PHILIPPE. 273 
 
 the sovereignties of art, and he determined it should be 
 paid. 
 
 He met Czar Nicholas I. , who had very little notion 
 of the respect due to any one but himself, with an angry 
 look and a defiant word ; he tossed Frederick William 
 IV.'s diamonds into the side scenes ; and broke a lance 
 with Louis Philippe, which cost him a decoration. 
 
 He never forgave that thrifty king for abolishing 
 certain musical pensions and otherwise snubbing art. He 
 refused on every occasion to play at the Tuileries. One 
 day the king and his suite paid a " private view" visit 
 to a pianoforte exhibition of Erard's. Liszt happened to 
 be in the room, and was trying a piano just as His Majesty 
 entered. The king advanced genially toward him and 
 began a conversation ; but Liszt merely bowed with a 
 polished but icy reserve. 
 
 " Do you still remember," said the king, "-that you 
 played at my house when you were but a boy and I Duke 
 of Orleans ? Much has changed since then." 
 
 "Yes, Sire," replied Liszt dryly, "but not for the 
 better." 
 
 The king showed his royal appreciation of the repartee 
 by striking the great musician's name off the list of those 
 who were about to receive the cross of the Legion of 
 Honor. 
 
 The idol of Parisian drawing-rooms at a most sus- 
 ceptible age, with his convictions profoundly shaken in 
 Catholicism and Church discipline, surrounded by wits 
 and philosophers who Avere equally sceptical about mar- 
 riage and the very foundations of society as then consti- 
 tuted, Liszt's views of life not unnaturally underwent a 
 considerable change. 
 
 He had no doubt frankly and sincerely imbibed Mme. 
 Sand's early philosophy, and his witty saying, which
 
 274 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 reminds me of something of the kind in Rasselas, that 
 * ' whether a man marries or not, he will sooner or later 
 be sure to repent it, ' ' belongs to this period. HIB re- 
 lations with Mine. Sand have been much misrepresented. 
 lie was far more attracted by her genius than by her 
 person, and although for long years he entertained for 
 her feelings of admiration and esteem, she never exer- 
 cised over him the despotic influence which drove poor 
 Chopin to despair. 
 
 Of the misguided countess who threw herself upon 
 his protection, and whom he treated with the utmost 
 consideration and forbearance for several years, I shall 
 not have much to say ; but it must be remembered that 
 he was considerably her junior, that he did his best to 
 prevent her from taking the rash course which separated 
 her from her family and made her his travelling com- 
 panion, and that years afterward her own husband, as 
 well as her brother, when affairs came to be arranged and 
 the whole facts of the case were canvassed in a conseil 
 de famille at Paris, confessed of their own accord that 
 throughout Liszt had acted " like a man of honor." 
 
 It was during his years of travel with the Countess 
 d'Agoult in Italy and Germany that Liszt composed the 
 great bulk of his celebrated transcriptions of songs and 
 operatic pieces, as well as the renowned Etudes d* Exe- 
 cution Transcendante. 
 
 Liszt's attempt to preserve his incognito in Italy con- 
 spicuously failed. lie entered Ricordi' s music-shop at 
 Milan, and, sitting down at a grand piano, began to im- 
 provise. " 'Tis Liszt or the devil ! " he heard Ricordi 
 whisper to a clerk, and in another moment the great 
 Italian entrepreneur had welcomed the Hungarian vir- 
 tuoso and placed his villa, his box at the opera, his car- 
 riage and horses at his disposal. Of course Ricordi very
 
 LISZT'S CHALLENGE TO MILAX. 275 
 
 soon organized a concert, in which the Milanese were 
 invited to judge the " pianist of the future," as he was 
 then styled. The Milanese were better pleased with Liszt 
 than was Liszt with the Milanese. He could not make 
 them take to Beethoven. They even kicked at certain 
 favorite studies of his own, but he won them by his 
 marvellous improvisations on fragments of their darling 
 Rossini, and afterward wrote a smart article in the Paris 
 Gazette JHusicale, expressing his dissatisfaction with the 
 frivolity of Italian musical culture, quoting in scorn a 
 voice from the pit which greeted one of his own ' ' Prel- 
 udes Etudes" it was the word "etude" at which the 
 pit stuck ' ' Yengo al teatro per divertirmi e non per 
 studiare," a sentiment which I think I have heard re- 
 peated in more northern latitudes. 
 
 Of course Liszt's free criticism got back to Milan. 
 Milan was furious. Liszt was at Yenice. The papers 
 denounced him. Everybody proposed to fight duels with 
 him. He was told that he could not play the piano, and 
 they handed him over to the devil. Liszt wrote pacifying 
 letters in the Milanese papers, but the uproar only in- 
 creased. What would happen if he ever dared to show 
 himself in Milan again, no one dared to speculate. He 
 was a monstrous ingrate ; he had insulted every one down 
 to the decorators and chorographers of La Scala, and 
 he must be chastised summarily for his insolent pre- 
 sumption. 
 
 When the disturbance was at its height, Liszt wrote to 
 the Milanese journals to say that he dech'ned a paper war ; 
 that he had never intended to insult the Milanese ; that 
 he would arrive shortly in Milan and hold himself in 
 readiness to receive all aggrieved persons, and give them 
 every explanation and satisfaction they might require. 
 
 On a hot summer's day he drove quietly through Milan
 
 276 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 in an open carriage, and, taking up his abode at a fashion- 
 able hotel, awaited the arrival of the belligerents. But as 
 not one of them turned up or made the least sign, Liszt 
 went back to Yenice. 
 
 When, however, in fulfilment of a promise, he re- 
 turned in September, he met with a characteristic snub, 
 for his concert was poorly attended, and then only by the 
 upper classes. He had mortally wounded the people. 
 He did not consider Mercadante and Bellini so great as 
 Beethoven, and he said so. This was indeed a crime, 
 and proved clearly that he could not play the piano ! 
 
 Toward the year 1840 the relations between Liszt and 
 the Countess d'Agoult had become rather strained. The 
 inevitable dissolution which awaits such alliances was 
 evidently at hand. For a brief period on the shores of 
 the Lake of Como the cup of his happiness had indeed 
 seemed full ; but es war ein Traum. ' ' When the ideal 
 form of a woman," so he wrote to a friend, " floats before 
 your entranced soul a woman whose heaven-born charms 
 bear no allurements for the senses, but only wing the 
 soul to devotion if you see at her side a youth sincere 
 and faithful in heart, weave these forms into a moving 
 story of love, and gi^e it the title, On the Shores of the 
 Lake of Como, ' ' 
 
 He wrote, we may be sure, as he then felt. He was 
 sometimes mistaken, but he was always perfectly open, 
 upright, and sincere. 
 
 A little daughter was born to him at Bellaggio, on the 
 shores of that enchanted lake. He called her Cosima in 
 memory of Como. She became afterward the wife of 
 Yon Billow, then the wife and widow of liichard 
 AVagner.' 
 
 But in 1840 the change came. The countess and her 
 children went off to Paris, and the roving spirit of the
 
 BEETHOVEN'S STATUE. 277 
 
 great musician, after being absorbed for some time in 
 composition, found its restless rest in a new series of 
 triumphs. After passing through Florence, Bologna, 
 and Rome, he went to Bonn, then to Vienna, and entered 
 upon the last great phase of his career as a virtuoso, which 
 lasted from 1840 to between 1850-60. 
 
 In 1842 Liszt visited Weimar, Berlin, and then went 
 to Paris. He was meditating a tour in Russia. Pressing 
 invitations reached him from St. Petersburg and Moscow. 
 The most fabulous accounts of his virtuosity had raised 
 expectation to its highest pitch. He was as legendary 
 even among the common people as Paganini. 
 
 His first concert at St. Petersburg realized the then 
 unheard-of sum of 2000. The roads were crowded 
 to see him pass, and the corridors and approaches to the 
 Grand Opera blocked to catch a glimpse of him. 
 
 The same scenes were repeated at Moscow, where he 
 gave six concerts without exhausting the popular ex- 
 citement. 
 
 On his return to Weimar he accepted the post of 
 Kapellmeister to the Grand Duke. It provided him 
 with that settled abode, and above all with an orchestra, 
 which he now felt so indispensable to meet liis growing 
 passion for orchestral composition. But the time of rest 
 had not yet come. 
 
 In 1844 and 1845 he was received in Spain and Por- 
 tugal with incredible enthusiasm, after which he returned 
 to Bonn to assist at the inauguration of Beethoven's statue. 
 With boundless liberality he had subscribed more money 
 than all the princes and people of Germany put together 
 to make the statue worthy of the occasion and the 
 occasion worthy of the statue. 
 
 The golden river which poured into him from all the 
 capitals of Europe now freely found a new vent in bound-
 
 278 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 less generosity. Hospitals, poor and needy, patriotic cele- 
 brations, the dignity and interests of art, were all sub- 
 sidized from his private purse. 
 
 His transcendent virtuosity was only equalled by his 
 splendid munificence ; but he found what others have 
 so often experienced that great personal gifts and 
 prodigious eclat cannot possibly escape the poison of 
 envy and detraction. He was attacked by calumny, his 
 very gifts denied and ridiculed, his munificence ascribed 
 to vainglory, and his charity to pride and ostentation ; 
 yet none will ever know the extent of his private char- 
 ities, and no one who knows anything of Liszt can be 
 ignorant of the simple, unaffected goodness of heart which 
 prompts them. Still he was wounded by ingratitude and 
 abuse. It seemed to check and paralyze for the moment 
 his generous nature. 
 
 Fetis saw him at Coblenz soon after the Bonn festival, 
 at which he had expended such vast sums. lie was sitting 
 alone, dejected and out of health. He said he was sick 
 of everything, tired of life, and nearly mined. But that 
 mood never lasted long with Liszt ; he soon arose and 
 shook himself like a lion. His detractors slunk away 
 into their holes, and he walked forth victorious to refill 
 his empty purse and reap new laurels. His career was 
 interrupted by the stormy events of 1848. He settled 
 down for a time at "Weimar, and it was then that he began 
 to take that warm interest in Richard Wagner which 
 ended in the closest and most enduring of friendships. 
 
 He labored incessantly to get a hearing for the 
 Lohengrin and TannJiduser. He forced Wagner's 
 compositions on the band, on the Grand Duke ; he 
 breasted public opposition and fought nobly for the 
 eccentric and obscure person who was chiefly known as 
 a political outlaw and an inventor of extravagant com-
 
 LISZT AT SEVENTY-TWO. 279 
 
 positions wliicli it was impossible to play or sing, and 
 odiously unpleasant to listen to. 
 
 But years of faithful service, mainly the service and 
 immense prestige and authority of Liszt, procured Wag- 
 ner a hearing, and paved the way for his glorious triumphs 
 at Bayreuth in 1876, 1882, and 1883. 
 
 At the age of seventy-two Liszt retained the wit and 
 vivacity of forty. He passed from Weimar to Rome', to 
 Pesth, to Berlin, to Vienna, but objected to crossing the 
 sea, and told me that he would never again visit England. 
 Latterly he seldom touched the piano, but loved to be 
 surrounded by young aspirants to fame. To them he was 
 prodigal of hints, and ever ready to lavish all sorts of 
 kindness upon people who were sympathique, to him. 
 
 At unexpected moments, in the presence of some timid 
 young girl overpowered with the honor of an intro- 
 duction, or alone with a friend when old days were spoken 
 of, would Liszt sit down for a few minutes and recall a 
 phrase of Chopin or a quaint passage from Scarlatti, and 
 then, forgetting himself, wander on until a flash of the 
 old fire came back to his eyes as he struck a few grand 
 octaves, and then, just as you were lost in contemplation 
 of that noble head with its grand profile and its cascade 
 of white hair, and those hands that still seemed to be the 
 absolutely unconscious and effortless ministers of his fitful 
 and despotic will, the master would turn away break 
 off, like one suddenly blase, in the middle of a bar, with 
 " Come, let us take a little walk ; it will be cool under 
 the trees ;" and he would have been a bold man who 
 ventured in that moment to allude to the piano or music. 
 
 I saw Liszt but six times, and then only between the 
 years 1876 and 1881. I have heard him play upon two 
 occasions only, then he played certain pieces of Chopin 
 at my request and a new composition by himself. I have
 
 280 MY MUSICAL MEMORIES. 
 
 heard Mme. Schumann, Biilow, Rubinstein, Menter, and 
 Essipoff, but I can understand that saying of Tausig, 
 himself one of the greatest masters of technique whom 
 Germany has ever produced : " No mortal can measure 
 himself with Liszt. He dwells alone upon a solitary 
 height." 
 
 THE END.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ACCOMPANISTS, 36. 
 
 ALBERT, Prince, 173. 
 
 ALPS. 144. 
 
 AESCHYLUS, 150, 153. 
 
 AMADEE, Count, 254. 
 
 AMATI, 97. 
 
 APPONYEE, Count, 254. 
 
 AMSTERDAM, 64. 
 
 ART, Gospel of, 253 ; nature of, 267 ; 
 
 power of, 148 : study of. 151 ; unity 
 
 of, 144, 154. 
 ATHENS, 151. 
 AUBKR, 160, 167, 270. 
 ACDITORY nerve, 67. 
 
 B. 
 
 BALLADS, 57. 
 BALZAC, 236. 
 
 BAVARIA, King of, 178, 184, 196, 246. 
 BAYREUTII, 164, 184, 225. 
 BEETHOVEN, 141, 144, 146, 153, 157, 159 
 
 eeq., 163, 184, 253, 255, 257, 269, 271, 
 
 275. 
 
 BEGGARS, 271. 
 BENNETT, Sterndale, 42. 
 BERGONZI violin, 25. 
 BERLIOZ, 163, 269, 271. 
 BIRDS, Paganini silencing, 118. 
 BLINDNESS, Deafness and, 49. 
 BLOOD of Christ. 200 seq. 
 BOWING, violin, 24, 139. 
 BRIDGE, violin, 46, 92. 
 BRIGHTON, 27. 
 
 BRODIE, Sir Benjamin, M.D., 26. 
 BROWNING, 157. 
 
 BULOW, Hans von, 174, 181, 251, 276. 
 BULWER, 160. 
 BYKON, 157, 163, 189. 
 
 C. 
 
 CALCAGNO, Catherine, 111. 
 CAMBRIDGE Musical Society, 41. 
 CANTABILK-PLAYING, 24. 
 CARNIVAL de Venise, 23, 140. 
 CATHOLICISM, 143, 266. 
 CHERUBINI, 253, 257. 
 CHOPIN, 59, 159, 163, 252, 266, 268, 274. 
 CHORUS, Greek, 152. 
 CHURCH, taking orders in, 47. 
 COLERIDGE, 30. 
 COLOR art of the future, 228. 
 COMET, the great, 253. 
 
 COMO, Lake, 276. 
 CONCERTS, private, 54. 
 CONDUCTORS, musical, 185. 
 CONSERVATORIUM, 254, i67. 
 COSIMA, wife of Wagner, 174, 276. 
 CREMONA, 85, 97. 
 CZEHNY, 255. 
 
 D. 
 
 D'AGOULT. Countess, 274. 
 
 DANNREUTHER. 157, 239. 
 
 DEAFNESS and blindness, 49. 
 
 DE BERIOT, 21, 258. 
 
 Du LAMMENAIS, 163, 252, 267. 
 
 DE MUSSET, Alfred. 163, 204. 
 
 DE PERKYNS, Mrs.,' 54, 
 
 DEVONPORT, 17. 
 
 DEVRIENT. Madame SchrCder, 159. 
 
 DRAMA, 148 seq. 
 
 E. 
 
 EAR, musical. 52. 
 EGOTISM. Wagner's, 177. 
 ELIZA, Princess, 112, 125. 
 EMOTION, ill-regulated, 74 seq. ; in the 
 
 abstract, 80; parallel trains of, 77; 
 
 power of music over, 65 seq. 
 ENGLAND, 164. 
 ERARD, 257. 
 ERNST, 15 seq., 251. 
 ESTERHAZY. Count, 253 seq. 
 EURIPIDES, 150. 
 EXHIBITION of 1851. 8. 
 EXILE, Wagner's, 172. 
 EXPRESSION, 147. 
 
 F. 
 
 FARRINGFORD, 29. 
 FEKRARA, 114. 
 
 FETIS, Monsieur, 133, 136, 278. 
 FIKSOLE, 116. 
 
 FlNGEK-BOAlSD?, 12. 
 
 FINGERS, exercising the, 19, 28. 
 FLORENCE, 116. 
 FLTING Dutchman, 107 seq. 
 FRESHWATER, 29. 
 
 G. 
 
 GARDXER. Mr , of Leicester, 138. 
 GEORGK III., 259. 
 GEORGE IV.. 258 req. 
 GERMANY. Empeior of, 225. 
 GKYER, Louis, 145.
 
 282 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 GLUCK, 156. 
 GOETHE, 146, 157, 159. 
 G6TTERDAMMEHUNG, 242, 250. 
 GOUNOD. 241. 
 GRAIL, the Holy, 200 seq. 
 GREEK drama, 150. 
 GREEKS, music of the, 75. 
 GRINDERS, 23. 
 'GUARNERIUS, Andrew, 98. 
 GUARNERIUS, Joseph, 102 seq. 
 GUARNERIUS violins, 110. 
 GUHR, I'rof., 139. 
 GUITAR, 111, 119. 
 
 II. 
 
 HARMONICS, 40, 139. 
 
 HARP, 16 
 
 HAYDN, 45. 227, 253 
 
 HEALER, musical, 72. 
 
 HEINE, 264. 
 
 HELMIIOLTZ, 52. 
 
 HERZ, 258. 
 
 HERZITES, 256. 
 
 HUGO, Victor, 163. 179, 264. 
 
 HUMMEL, 253. 2.>5, 257. 
 
 HUNGARIAN Airs, 14. 
 
 I. 
 
 IPFLAND, 146. 
 IMAGINATION, 148. 
 IN MEMORIAM, Tennyson's, 80. 
 INSPIRATION, musical, S8 
 INTERVALS on violins, 12, 53. 
 ISABELLA, Queen, 272. 
 ITALY, 64. 
 
 J. 
 
 JAELL, 20. 
 JOACHIM, 137, 251. 
 
 K. 
 
 KEPPLER, Dr., 193. 
 KEMPIS, Thomas a, 259. 
 KEUMESS. feast of the, 64. 
 KOTZKBUE, 146. 
 KREUTZER'S Exercises, 28. 
 
 L. 
 
 LABLACHE, 272. 
 LACORDAIRE, 1H3. 
 LAFAYETTE, 2(3. 
 LAPONT, 126, 258. 
 LAPINSKI, 18 
 LAPRINSKI, 127. 
 LAST Kose of Summer, 82. 
 LEGEND, 160 i=cq. 
 LIED ohne WOrte, 77. 
 LIGHT, 227. 
 LISZT, 14, 17, 163. 174, 180, 181, 181, 190, 
 
 225, 233. 251 stq. 
 LISZTITES, 256. 
 LOCATELLI, 112. 
 
 LOHENGRIN, 160, 171. 177, 241, 270. 
 Louis PHILIPPE, 2i3. 
 LOVE, 123. 245. 261. 
 LOVE Duets, 241. 
 
 M. 
 
 MAGDEBURG. 160, lf>4. 
 
 MARK, Wanner' s dog, 180, 199. 
 
 MATKRNA, 183. 
 
 MAZZINI, 163. 
 
 MEHUL, 160. 
 
 MEISTERSINGER, 175, 180. 
 
 MENDELSSOHN, 9, 29, 61, 157, 163, 165, 
 266, 270. 272. 
 
 MENDELSSOJINITES, 256. 
 
 MESSIERISM, 1 17 
 
 MESSIAH, Oratorio of, 81. 
 
 METTERNICH, 128 
 
 MEYERBEER, 159, 164 seq , 270. 
 
 MIDSUMMER Night's Dream, 10. 
 
 MILAN, 275. 
 
 MONTSALVAT, 181, 203. 
 
 MOSCHELES, 257 ecq , 266. 
 
 MOZART, 45, 142, 159, 2o3. 
 
 MUNICH, 181. 
 
 MUSICAL Healer. 72. 
 
 Music, an ear for, 40 ; as a restorative, 
 71 seq ; conversation and, 55 ; defecM 
 in the art of, 148 ; discipline of thu 
 emotions by. 74 s> q. ; for the masscn, 
 81 seq.; future of, 70, 209; in largo 
 halls, 67 seq.; national impressions 
 from, 61 ; of the Greeks, 75 ; power of 
 over emotion, 05. 
 
 N. 
 
 NAPOLEON, 265. 
 NEATE, 259. 
 NECESSITY, 229. 
 NKUE Sch'oss, 198. 
 NICHOLAS I., Czar, 273. 
 
 NlEBELHEIM, 229. 
 
 NIEBELUMG'S King, 178, 186, 225 seq., 
 
 247 seq. 
 NOVELS, 27. 
 
 O. 
 
 OPERA, 155. 
 ORCHESTRA, 270. 
 ORCHESTRAL work, 26. 
 OURY, 20. 
 
 P. 
 PAGAKINT, 15. 21 seq., 41, 105 seq., 251, 
 
 263, 265, 272. 
 PAGANINI, Theresa, 128. 
 PAINTING, 148. 
 PARIS, 136. 
 
 PAKSIFAL, 175, 181, 200 seq., 270. 
 PIANO, 251. 
 
 POETRY, 28, 148, 154 Beq. 
 POTTER, Cipriani, 174. 
 PUBLIC singers aiid players, 67. 
 
 ft 
 
 REVOLUTION, 162 seq.. 233. 
 RUEINGOLD 225 bcq., 245. 
 RHINK girls, 226. 
 RICHTER, 181, 184. 
 RICORDI, 274. 
 RIENZI, 1GO seq., 169. 
 RIGA, 164. 
 RODK'S Air in G, 24, 42.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 283 
 
 ROLLA, 108. 
 
 ROMANTICISM, 163, 264, 269. 
 
 ROSSINI, 126, 164, 189, 258, 270, 272, 275. 
 
 RUBINSTEIN, 17, 163, 261, 20li. 
 
 RULE Britannia, 164. 
 
 S. 
 ST. CRICQ, Caroline. 261. 
 
 ST. SlMONIANISM,267. 
 
 SALIEBI, 255. 
 
 SAND, Madame, 163, 252, 264, 273. 
 
 SANGRAIL, legend of, 200. 
 
 SCHILLER. 146, 157, 159. 
 
 SCHLESINGKR, 166. 
 
 SCHNOB, 182. 
 
 SCHUBERT, 59, 159, 253. 
 
 SCHUMANN, 157, 163, 269. 
 
 SCULPTURE, 148. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, 146, 149, 153, 159. 
 
 SHELLEY, 163. 
 
 SIEGFRIED, 236 seq , 249. 
 
 SIMPLICITY, 58. 
 
 SIVORI, 16. 
 
 SOLITUDE, 28. 
 
 SONG without word?, 77. 
 
 SOPHOCLES, 150, 153. 
 
 SOUND-FILTERING, C9. 
 
 SOUND-POST, 46, 88. 
 
 SPOHR, 159, 171, 270. 
 
 SPONTINI, 160. 
 
 STRADIVARIUS, 98 seq. 
 
 STBADIVARUH violins, 25, 93, KO. 
 
 STRINGS, violin, 94 ; breaking, 114 ; 
 
 plucking, 140. 
 SWINBURNE, 157. 
 SZAFARY, Count, 254. 
 
 T. 
 
 TANNHAUSEB, 170, 241. 
 
 TARISIO, 6. 
 
 TAUSIG, 266. 280. 
 
 TEACHING, 19. 
 
 TECHNIQUE, 256, 270, 280. 
 
 TENNYSON, 29, 157, 163 ; visit to, 31 
 
 eeq. 
 
 TENNYSON, Mrs., 31 seq. 
 THALBERG, 2(56. 
 THALBERGITES, 256. 
 THUNDER-STOKM, 68. 
 TITIENS, Madame, 182. 
 TOUKOWSKI, Paul, 181. 
 TRANCE, 9. 
 TRINITY College, 39. 
 T HIST AN and Iseult, 160, 175, 241. 
 TUNING tho violin, 139. 
 
 V. 
 
 VARNISH, 91. 
 
 VENICE, 187, 190. 
 
 VENUA. 43. 
 
 VICTORIA, Queen, 173. 
 
 VIOL, 95. 
 
 VIOLIN-COLLECTING, 7. 
 
 VIOLIN, the, anntomy of, f>7; grace of, 
 
 96 ; holding, 23 ; learning to play, 11 ; 
 
 material of, 91 ; power of, 96 ; varnish 
 
 of, 91. 
 
 W. 
 WAGNER, 114 seq., 225, 246, 269, 271, 
 
 278 
 
 WALKURE, 230. 248. 
 WEBER, 159 seq 
 WEDDING March, 9. 
 WHEWELI., 39. 
 WILIIELMJ. 174, 181. 
 WILLIAM IV.. of Germany, 273. 
 WORDSWOUTII, 30. 
 WOT AN, 230.
 
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