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diff --git a/11419-8.txt b/11419-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f6d2269 --- /dev/null +++ b/11419-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7570 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume +2, by Rupert Hughes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 + +Author: Rupert Hughes + +Release Date: March 3, 2004 [EBook #11419] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AFFAIRS OF GREAT MUSICIANS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Harry Jones, Sjaani and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +THE LOVE AFFAIRS + +OF + +GREAT MUSICIANS + + +_By_ RUPERT HUGHES + + + +Author of "Contemporary American Composers," "The Musical Guide", etc. + + +_ILLUSTRATED_ + + +VOLUME II. + + + +_1903_ + + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + +I. FRANZ LISZT + +II. RICHARD WAGNER + +III. TSCHAIKOVSKI, THE WOMAN-DREADER + +IV. THE HEART OF A VIOLINIST + +V. AN OMNIBUS CHAPTER + +VI. ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK + +VII. MUSICIANS AS LOVERS + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + +MISS SMITHSON _Frontispiece_ + +FRANZ LISZT + +GEORGE SAND, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY L. COLAMATTA + +PRINCESS CAROLYNE VON SAYN-WITTGENSTEIN AND CHILD + +RICHARD WAGNER + +RICHARD AND COSIMA WAGNER + +RICHARD WAGNER AT BAYREUTH + +DÉSIRÉE ARTÔT + +LOUIS SPOHR + +NICOLO PAGANINI + +HENRIETTA SONTAG + +MADAME MALIBRAN + +GEOFFREY RUDEL + +MARTIN LUTHER AND CATHERINA VON BORA + +MUZIO CLEMENTI + +HECTOR BERLIOZ + +CHARLES GOUNOD + +GIOACCHINO A. ROSSINI + +OLYMPE PELISSIER, AS "JUDITH" IN THE PAINTING BY VERNET + +GIUSEPPE VERDI + +FRANZ SCHUBERT + +ROBERT SCHUMANN + +CLARA WIECK, AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN + +CLARA AND ROBERT SCHUMANN + +CLARA (WIECK) SCHUMANN + + + + + +THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF GREAT MUSICIANS + +VOLUME II. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +FRANZ LISZT + + +"Liszt, or the Art of Running after Women."--NIETSCHE. + + +Liszt's life was so lengthy and so industriously amorous, that it is +possible only to float along over the peaks, to touch only the high +points. Why, his letters to the last of his loves alone make up four +volumes! And yet, for a life so proverbially given over to flirtations +as his, the beginnings were strangely unprophetic. He had reached the +mature age of six before he began to study the piano; compared with +Mozart, he was an old man before he gave his first concert--namely, +nine years. Then the poverty of his parents and the ambition of his +father found assistance in a stipend from Hungarian noblemen, and he +was sent to Vienna to study. When he was eleven years old, after one of +his concerts, Beethoven kissed him. He survived. Then on to Paris and +duchesses and princesses galore. Here he became a proverb of popularity +as "Le petit Litz"--the French inevitably gave some twist to a foreign +name, then as to-day, when two of their favourite painters are +"Wisthler" and "Seargent." + +Liszt's childhood was therefore largely fed upon the embraces and +kisses of rapturous women, even as was the young Mozart's, the +difference being that it became a habit in Liszt's case. Even then he +used to throw money among the gamins, as later he scattered it in how +many directions, with what liberality, and with what princeliness, and +from what a slender purse! + +The father and mother had gone to Paris with him; but soon the mother +went back to Austria--she was a German, the father alone being +Hungarian. With his father the lad remained, and found him a severe and +domineering master. But in 1827 he died, leaving his sixteen-year-old +son alone in Paris. That stalwart self-reliance and sense of honour, +which gave nobility to so much of Liszt's character, now showed itself; +he sold his grand piano to pay the debts his father had left him, and +sent for his mother to come to Paris, where he supported her by giving +piano lessons. Then, as later, he found plenty of pupils, the +difference being that then, as not later, he took pay for his lessons, +though not even then from all. + +Here he was at sixteen, tall and handsome, and with a face +of winsomeness that never lost its spell over womankind. +Sixteen-year-older that he was, he was a man of great fame, and the +grind of acquiring technic was all passed. Moscheles had already said +of him in print: "Franz Liszt's playing surpasses everything yet heard, +in power and the vanquishing of difficulties." Here he was, then, +young, beautiful, famous, a dazzling musician, and Hungarian. What do +you expect? + +It makes small difference what you expect, for the reality was that his +heart was eager for the seclusion of a monastery; his soul pined for +religious excitement only! At fourteen he had begun to rebel against +his nickname, "Le petit Litz." It was with the utmost difficulty that +his father had been able to keep him from making religion his career, +and giving up his already glittering fame. Never in his life did he +cease to thrill with an almost hysterical passion for churchly affairs +and ceremonies. + +At fourteen he had dedicated his first composition to the other sex. It +was a set of "exercises," and the compliment was paid to Lydia Garella, +a quaint little hunchback, whom he used afterward to refer to as his +first love. But it was later, when he was giving lessons to support his +mother, and just turned seventeen, that he drifted into what was really +his first love. The Comte de Saint Criq, then Minister of the Interior, +had an only daughter, the seventeen-year-old Caroline. The young +comtesse' mother gave her into Liszt's charge for musical education. +The young comtesse was, they say, of slender frame and angelic beauty, +and deeply imbued with that religious ardour which, as in Liszt's case, +often modulates as imperceptibly into love, as an organist can +gradually turn a hymn into a jig, or an Italian aria into a hymn. + +The mother was fond of presiding at the music lessons, and of leading +the young teacher to air his views about religion and life, and she +watched with pleasure the gradual development of what was inevitable, a +more than musical sympathy between the daughter and the teacher. But +the romance seemed to win her approval, and when suddenly she saw that +she was soon to die, she made a last request of her husband, that he +should not refuse the young lovers their happiness. He allowed his wife +to die in confidence that the affair met his approval, but without the +faintest intention of permitting so insane a thing as a marriage of his +daughter with an untitled musician. His business affairs, however, kept +him away from home, and from thought upon the subject. After the death +of the mother, the comtesse and the pianist met and wept together; then +resumed their music lessons, reading much between the lines, and far +preferring dreamy duets to difficult solos. + +Liszt had read little but music and religion; the slim, fair comtesse +had read much verse and romance. So she was his teacher in that +literature which would most interest a brace of young lovers. There was +no one at home to note how late he stayed of evenings, and one night he +returned to his own house to find it locked and his mother asleep. +Rather than disturb her, he spent the night on the steps. Another +evening, Franz and Caroline found parting such sweet sorrow, that when +he reached her outer door, he found it locked for the night. He was +compelled to call the porter from those slumbers which only doorkeepers +know, and this man was doorkeeperishly wrathful at having his +beauty-sleep broken; he growled his rage. This is the only time +recorded when Franz Liszt failed to respond to a hint for money. His +head was too high in the clouds, no doubt. The servant, thus suddenly +awakened to the impropriety of affairs, hastened the next morning to +inform the comte that his daughter was studying the music of the +spheres as well as that of the piano, and that her lessons were +prolonged till midnight. + +The next time Franz came to teach, the ghoulish porter gleefully +informed him that his master wished to speak to him. The comte was most +politely firm, and murdered the young love with most suave apologies +for the painful amputation. The difference in rank, it went without +saying, put marriage out of the question, and, therefore, all things +considered, he could not derange monsieur to the giving of more music +lessons,--for the present, at least. + +The young musician took the _coup de grâce_ bravely; without a word he +gave the comte his hand in mute acceptance of his fate, and bowed +himself out. The true bitterness of his loss he sought to hide by +fleeing to the Church. His love had been pure and ardent. It had been +found impossible. His hopes had been put to death; therefore an end to +the world. He bent his burning head low upon the cold steps of Saint +Vincent de Paul, and resolved to renounce the world. He wrote ten years +later, and still with suffering: "A female form chaste and pure as the +alabaster of holy vessels, was the sacrifice I offered with tears to +the God of Christians. Renunciation of all things earthly was the only +theme, the only word of that day." + +Caroline, too, sank under the bitterness of the loss. She fell +dangerously ill, and when she recovered she thought only of the +convent; but her father, who had so easily exiled her lover, knew how +to persuade her to marriage. A few months later she became Madame +d'Artigou; they say she gave her husband no affection, and that her +heart was still, and always, Liszt's; while in his heart she was for +ever niched as the young Madonna of his life. + +For the present the shock of sacrifice threatened his whole career, and +his life and mind as well. Again the monastery beckoned him, and now it +was his mother's turn to oppose the Church in its effort to engulf this +brilliant artist. After a long struggle he yielded to her, but for a +time he was a recluse, and his melancholy gradually wore out his +health; until at length he was given up for a dying man, and obituary +eulogies actually were published. But as Mark Twain wrote of himself: +"The reports of his death were greatly exaggerated." + +When Liszt gave up all hope of entering the Church, he began a restless +orgy of effort for mental diversion; all manner of theories and foibles +allured him. + +As Heine said of him, his mind was "impelled to concern itself with all +the needs of mankind, impelled to poke its nose into every pot where +the good God cooks the future." The theatre offered for a time another +form of dissipation than his religious hysteria. He hated concerts, and +compared himself to a conjurer or a clever trick poodle; he took up +with the Revolution of 1830; Saint-Simonianism enmeshed him; later he +fell under the spell of the Abbé Lamennais. Then Paganini came to Paris +and fascinated and frightened Liszt, as he frightened the world with +his unheard-of fiddling. It was his privilege to drive Liszt back to +the piano with an ambition to rival Paganini; as rival him he did. Next +Berlioz and romanticism fevered his brain, and then in 1831, the +twenty-year-old Liszt and the twenty-one-year-old Chopin struck up +their historic friendship, and the two men glittered and flashed in the +most artistic salons of Paris. It was about this time that the Polish +Countess Plater said, speaking of the genial Ferdinand Hiller and the +two cronies: + +"I would choose Hiller for my friend, Chopin for my husband, Liszt for +my lover." + +There seems to have been a snow-storm of love affairs at this period. +It is impossible even to name the flakes. Gossip of course gathered +into the catalogue every woman whom Liszt saw more than once; but we +need not pay this tribute to malice by mentioning the names of all of +Liszt's hostesses. Among those who may be more definitely suspected of +being made victims by, or victimising, him is the Comtesse Adèle +Laprunarède, afterward Duchess de Fleury. She, of course, was, as De +Beaufort says, "sparkling, witty, young, beautiful." Her home was +lonely and rural; her husband was very old; Liszt, to repeat, was a +musician and Hungarian. The old comte was blind enough to invite him to +spend the winter months at his château. For a whole winter Liszt was +kept there in her castle a prisoner, with fetters of silk. The old +comte seems never to have suspected. When Liszt eventually, like +Tannhäuser, mutineered against the charms of the Venusberg and returned +to Paris, he wrote many letters to the comtesse, in which, as he +himself said, he gained his "first practice in the lofty French style." + +But this intrigue was followed by his appearance in the procession of +George Sand's lovers. Ramann, in his biography, writes of the curious +state of society of the Paris of this Revolutionary period: "Women were +beginning to demand freedom and to experiment with the writing of +perfervid romances, which questioned the very foundation principles of +marriage and made a religion of Affinity." + +George Sand was a chief crusader against the curse of monogamy. She +practiced this anarchy in the guise of religion, as the old crusaders +out-heathened the barbarians, and raided civilisation in the name of +the Cross. George Sand's gospel, summed up briefly by Ramann, is as +follows: + + +"'Love,' says the authoress, 'is Christian compassion concentrated on a +single being. It belongs to the sinner, and not to the just; only for +the former it moves restlessly, passionately, and vehemently. When +thou, O noble and upright man,' she continues, with deceitfully +fantastic warmth, 'when thou feelest a violent passion for a miserable +fallen creature, be reassured that is genuine love; blush not +therefore! so has Christ loved who crucified him.' According to this +view, the love that sins from love must be virtue. One can scarcely be +alarmed then when she says: 'The greater the crime, so much the more +genuine the love which it accomplishes;' or, when Leone Leoni, steeped +in passion and crime, but talented and adorned with manly beauty, +exclaims to his beloved, 'As long as you hope for my amendment you have +never loved my personal self.' It also appears to correspond with this +casuistry of erotic fancy, when the heroes of her tragedies, of +sky-storming earnestness, but adorned with all unnatural qualities, +give themselves up to the latter as to an intoxicating spell, and in +the delirium of self-delusion hold sin for virtue, and the unnatural +for higher truth and beauty. With this creed, experimental love was a +logical sequence, and great constancy was already to be unprogressive +stubbornness. 'All love exhausts itself,' said Sand in 'Lelia'; +'disgust and sadness follow; the union of the woman with the man should +therefore be transitory.'" + +If the putting of preachment into practice is virtue, George Sand was +the most virtuous of all novelists, for the hotel of her large and +roomy heart was for the entertainment of transients only. It was in +1834, when Liszt was twenty-three and Sand thirty, that he was caught +in the vortex swirling around "the fire-eyed child of Berry." Alfred de +Musset introduced Liszt to her, as later Liszt passed her on to +Chopin--or should we say she discarded the poet for the Hungarian, as +later the Hungarian for the Pole? it would be more gallant and quite as +true. Like Chopin, Liszt was at first repelled at the sight of George +Sand. But soon he was entangled in that "caméraderie" which was the +fashionable name for liaison in that time. + +From her the Comtesse de Laprunarède had borrowed him for her +snow-begirt castle, and when he returned to Paris there was another +woman there, awaiting her turn to carry him off. This was the Comtesse +Marie Cathérine Sophie d'Agoult, who was born on Christmas night, in +1805, and therefore was six years older than Liszt, whom she met in +1834. It was not till six years later that the comtesse took up +literature as a diversion, and made herself some little name as an art +critic and writer, choosing, as did George Sand, a masculine and +English pen-name, "Daniel Stern." + +The comtesse had been married in 1827; her marriage settlement was +signed by King Charles the Tenth, the Dauphin, and others of almost +equal rank. The comte was forty-five, she only half his age. He seems +to have been a by no means ideal character, and she found her diversion +in the brilliant society she gathered into her salon. For some time she +seems to have been fascinated by Liszt before she could reach him with +her own fascinations. + + +Indeed she was always the pursuer, and he the pursued. This is the more +strange, since, at least at first, she was extremely handsome. Ramann +has thus pictured her: + +"The Countess d'Agoult was beautiful, very beautiful, a Lorelei: +slender, of lofty bearing, enchantingly graceful and yet dignified in +her movements, her head proudly raised, with an abundance of fair +tresses, which waved over her shoulders like molten gold, a regular, +classic profile, which stood in strange and interesting contrast with +the modern breath of dreaminess and melancholy that was spread over her +countenance; these were the general features which rendered it +impossible to overlook the countess in the salon, the concert-room, or +the opera-house, and these were enhanced by the choicest toilets, the +elegance of which was surpassed by few, even in the salons of the +Faubourg St. Germain. That fantastic dreams were hidden behind the +purity of her profile, and passion, burning passion, under the soft +melancholy of her expression, was known to but a few, at the time that +her connection with the young artist began." + +Her "Souvenirs" justify the accusation of unusual vanity as the +mainspring in her motives, but if it were only her passion for conquest +that made her seek Liszt, she was punished bitterly. In 1834 she +captured him, and the preliminary formalities of flirtation were +hastily overpassed. But once they were embarked on the maelstrom of +passion, they seem to have been of exquisite torment and terror to each +other. Liszt fell into a period of atheism which, to his +constitutionally religious soul, was agony. As for the comtesse, death +entered upon the romance and took away one of her three children. For +awhile she was only a broken-hearted mother, and the intrigue seems to +have had a moment's pause, but only to return. + +Now, however, it had for Liszt something of unfreshness and monotony. +He determined to break loose, and in the spring of 1835 told the +comtesse that he was going to leave her. She, however, would not +consent. He yielding as gracefully as he could, took a lodging in a +quiet part of the city, where his life consisted of music, literature, +and the comtesse, who visited him incessantly. Her love had quite +infatuated her, to take the tone of the time; nowadays we might say +that she found it so serious that she desired to make it honest. The +means she hit upon were such as might strike a foolish woman as an +inspiration. Believing that the long way round was the short way home, +she thought to atone for her past foibles by casting them into sudden +insignificance--to clear the sultry air by a thunder crash. + +When Liszt heard that the comtesse planned to leave her husband, and +even her children, and go into foreign exile with him, he felt that the +comtesse was taking the bit into her teeth with a vengeance, but saw as +he would on the lines, and cry "whoa" as he would, the runaway +comtesse still insisted on running away. + +Liszt called on her mother to interfere; she was run over. He appealed +to her former confessor; his staying hand was shaken loose. He called +on the venerable family notary; the old man was upset by the +roadside--as I shall be also if I do not release this runaway metaphor. + +The comtesse's mother persuaded the daughter to leave Paris for Basle, +hoping that a change of scene would bring a change of mind; Liszt +followed. It seems to me, however, more probable that the mother, +learning that her daughter was determined to leave Paris with Liszt, +went with her in the desperate effort to save appearances. But, however +that may be, we find the comtesse and the mother at one hotel, and +Liszt at another. A few days later, Liszt returned to his hotel to find +his room choked with the comtesse' trunks, and to learn that the mother +had gone back to Paris in despair. The comtesse had, as they say, +"brought her knitting" and come to stay. + +Paris is not easily excited over an intrigue conducted according to the +established codes by which the intriguers bury their heads in the sand, +as a form of pretence that nobody knows that they are billing and +cooing beneath the sand, though of course everybody knows it, and they +know that everybody knows it, except possibly the one other person most +interested. But Paris was dumbfounded that a very prominent and +beautiful comtesse should leave her husband and her children in broad +daylight, and go visiting the most famous pianist in the world. The +pianist was to blame, of course, in the public eye, and the whole +affair was branded as a flagrant case of abduction. But, as we know +now, it was the pianist who was the victim of this Sabine procedure. + +Liszt's actions in this affair seemed, as usual, to be an outrage upon +the ordinary laws of decency, but when the truth was learned, we find, +as the world found--as usual, too late to change its opinion of +him--that he did everything in his power to undo the evil into which +his passion had hurried him, and to set himself right with the usual +standards of society. And, as usual, he failed absolutely, because of +the curious and insane stubbornness of the woman. + +Some years later, even the Comte d'Agoult, as well as the comtesse' +brother, the Comte Flavigny, confessed that Liszt had acted as a man of +honour. The comte had obtained a legal separation from his wife, +retaining their daughter. Liszt now proposed marriage. Both being +Catholics, it was necessary to experience a change of heart and become +Protestants. He exclaimed one day: "_Si nous étions Protestants"_ but +the comtesse crushed this hope with a sharp "_La Comtesse d'Agoult ne +sera jamais Madame Liszt_." + +Liszt bowed to the inevitable, and kept together his many patches of +honour as well as he was permitted. The comtesse had a personal income +of four thousand dollars a year, which was as nothing. According to +Liszt's secretary, during the time of her stay with Liszt, she spent +sixty thousand dollars, the most of which Liszt earned himself by his +concerts. The pianist and the comtesse soon left Basle for Geneva, +where they remained till 1836, with the exception of one journey to +Paris, which Liszt made for a concert. But he returned rather to +literature than to music, as on another occasion did Wagner. + +For five years Liszt and the comtesse travelled about Switzerland and +Italy, he occasionally being convinced that he was seriously in love +with the woman who had been so imperious and unreasonable. A few +conservatives outlawed him, but there were people enough who forgave +him, or approved him, to give him an abundance of society of the +highest and most aristocratic sort. + +In 1836 his old flame, George Sand, visited Liszt and the comtesse. +They toured Switzerland on mules. George Sand has described the +wanderings in her "Lettres d'un Voyageur," where _Franz_ represents +Liszt, _Arabella_, the comtesse, and where one may read a poetic +description of the comtesse' beauty even after being drenched with +rain. Beauty that is water-proof is beauty indeed! + +It is in this book of hers that Sand prints such illuminating epigrams +as these: + +"There are great errors which are nearer the truth than little truths." + +"The most beautiful creations of genius are those which succeed to the +epoch of the passions. The experience of life ought to precede art; art +requires repose, and does not suit with the storms of the heart. The +finest mountains of our globe are extinguished volcanoes." + +"If you wish to arrive at truth, be reconciled to what is contrary; the +white light only results from the union of the coloured rays of the +spectrum." + +"The oyster boasts and says: 'I have never gone astray,' Alas, poor +oyster! thou hast never walked." + +When Liszt had made his concert trip to Paris, the comtesse had awaited +him at Sand's home. Then, after his famous duel with Thalberg--the +weapons being pianos--he joined the group at Nohant, where Chopin and +Sand, and Liszt and D'Agoult, and such guests as they gathered there, +led a life of elaborate entertainment which made Nohant as famous as +another Trianon. Meanwhile, there was going on a duel, the weapons of +which were not pianos, but those invisible stilettos with which two +women conduct a deadly feud, and politely tear each other's eyes out. +George Sand was famous then beyond her present-day esteem, and she was +a woman of vigour almost masculine and of a straightforwardness which +was almost an affectation. She loved to go about in boots and blouse, +and to ride bareback; she smoked cigars, and wrote at night. The +Comtesse d'Agoult was eminently feminine. She would rather have spent +one thousand francs on a gown than on anything else under heaven, +except another gown. She had in her certain literary capabilities, not +very marvellous, to be sure, but strong enough to provoke jealousy of +the overpraised Sand, who had also, incidentally, been on very intimate +terms with the present lover of the comtesse. + +Unhappy is the lover who tries to play peacemaker between two of his +mistresses. This is enough to bring lava from any "extinguished +volcano." Liszt, after almost vain efforts to avoid downright +hair-pulling, decided to take the comtesse away from Nohant. He seems +to have sided with her against Sand, and said afterward: "I did not +care to expose myself to her insolence" (_sottise_). Chopin, however, +took sides with Sand, and it is said that his heart chilled toward +Liszt, who spoke bitterly of this estrangement, but on Chopin's death +wrote a biographical sketch full of affection, and of an admiration +better balanced than the over-flowery style which marks all of Liszt's +writings. + +When the comtesse left Nohant, which Liszt never saw again, they went +to Lyons, where he gave a concert for the benefit of the poor and +working people. For what purposes of benevolence indeed did Liszt not +give concerts! So great and so discriminating and so self-sacrificing +was his charity, that it would almost plead atonement for a million +such unconventionalities as his. He was not content to devote the +proceeds of a single concert to some object of charity, but even gave +money, and whole tours. Besides this concert at Lyons, and various +others, one might mention the concert given for the flood sufferers at +Pesth, and for the poor of his native town, and the concert tour by +which he made Beethoven's monument possible at Bonn. Add to this the +other sums he scattered to poor artists like Wagner from his meagre +purse, and you will see one reason why women, who are more susceptible +and perceptive of such qualities of character, were almost as helpless +to resist Liszt's personality as he theirs. Even when he was "la petit +Litz," he was found holding a street-cleaner's broom while he went to +change a gold piece. And in his later years, his servant always filled +two of his pockets with coin, one with copper, and one with silver; and +the man used to say that when his master came home at night, the copper +mine was usually untouched, but the silver deposit exhausted. + +It was in Lyons that the comtesse began her literary career, by a +French translation of Schubert's "Erl-König." She later obtained a +considerable fame, as I have said, under the name of Daniel Stern. In +the fall of 1837 Liszt and the comtesse went to Italy, where, +especially at Bellaggio, they appear to have been genuinely happy. He +seems to be describing himself when he writes: + +"Yes, my friend, when the ideal form of a woman floats before your +dreaming soul, a woman whose heaven-born charms bear no allurement for +the senses, but only wing the soul to devotion, and if you saw at her +side a youth of sincere and faithful heart, weave these forms into a +moving story of love, and give it the title, 'On the Shores of the Lake +of Como.'" + +To us, who think of Liszt always by his last pictures, presenting him +in his venerable age, it is hard to remember that at this time he was +only twenty-seven. It was at this time, too, that he wrote the only +composition he ever dedicated to the comtesse. In later years, it was +almost the only composition of his that she would praise; it was a +fantasia on the "Huguenots." The two lovers continued their wanderings +through Italy and Austria, he giving concerts for the flood sufferers +and the Beethoven monument and she travelling with him. While in Rome +in 1839, the comtesse had borne him a son, Daniel, having previously +given him two daughters,--Blandine, who married the French statesman, +Emile Olivier, and died in 1862; and Cosinia, the famous wife of +Wagner. All three children had been legitimised immediately upon their +birth. + +Meanwhile, he and the comtesse were drifting apart, in spite of these +three hostages to fortune. It is difficult to justify Liszt's desertion +of the woman, except by slandering her memory, and it is difficult to +save her memory without slandering his. The cause, as explained by +Ramann, is, that she cherished an ambition to be Liszt's Muse, and made +strong demands for the acceptance of her opinions upon his works. We +can easily imagine the situation: A sensitive, fiery composer, who is +incidentally the chief virtuoso of the world, dashes off a gorgeous +composition, and in the first warmth of enthusiasm plays it to his +companion. She, desirous of asserting her importance, listens to it +with that frame of mind which makes it easy to criticise any work of +art ever created--the desire to find fault. Benevolent and sincere as +her intentions may have been, the criticisms of this shallow and +musically untrained woman must have driven Liszt to desperation. + +It is a rare musician that can tolerate the faintest disapproval of +even his poorest work, and frequently a critic lauds to the skies all +of the composer's works except one or two, and then, in order to give +his eulogy an appearance of discrimination and remove the taste of +unadulterated gush, inserts a mild implication that this one or these +two compositions are not the greatest works in existence--that unhappy +critic is practically sure to find that his eulogy has been accepted as +a mere matter of course, and his criticism bitterly resented as a +gratuitous and unwarranted assault upon beautiful creations which his +small skull and hickory-nut heart are unable to grasp. + +Liszt was never especially philosophical under fault-finding, and to +have a fireside critic after him, nagging him day and night, must have +soured all the milk of human kindness in his heart. The comtesse was +stubborn in her views, and her artistic conferences with Liszt +degenerated into violent brawls. The young French poet, De Rocheaud, +"assisted," as the French say, at one of these combats between an +hysterical woman and a thin-skinned musician. The poet believed in +Muses and such things, using as an argument that beautiful fable which +Dante built on the most slender foundations. + +"Think of Dante and Beatrice," exclaimed De Rocheaud. "Think how the +divine poet listened to her words as to revelations. Be thou Dante, and +she Beatrice." "Bah, Dante! bah, Beatrice!" cried Liszt, "the Dantes +create the Beatrices. The genuine die when they are eighteen years +old." + +At length the gipsy spirit moved Liszt to make a long continental tour +to complete the depletions in his purse. He did not care to take the +comtesse and the children with him. With much difficulty he persuaded +her to go to Paris and live with his mother, since she was on bad terms +with her own family. Later he succeeded in reconciling the comtesse +with these, also. After the death of her mother, the comtesse inherited +a fortune, but Liszt continued to support the children. + +The comtesse died of pleurisy in 1876, at the age of seventy-one. How +long these sweethearts of musicians last! + +Thus closes the chapter of Liszt's affairs with the Comtesse d'Agoult. +It had lasted, all things considered, surprisingly long--five years. + +A pleasant note of character was sounded by Liszt, which rings him to +the difficult love affair of Robert Schumann. In one of his letters, +Liszt tells how fond he had been of Schumann and Wieck and his daughter +Clara. Then came the famous struggle between father and suitor for the +possession of the girl. Liszt took Schumann's side, because he thought +he was in the right; he even went so far as to break off all +intercourse with Wieck--who took his revenge by publishing ferocious +criticisms on Liszt's playing. + +In 1845 Liszt wrote a letter of calm, cool friendship to George Sand, +his "Dear George." For years he roved Europe, flitting from ovation to +ovation, from flirtation to flirtation. But he was drifting unwittingly +toward the grand affair of his life. A woman--the woman--was waiting +for him in Russia. Mr. Huneker says of Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult: +"Every one knows that he was as so much dough in her hands." So, in a +more than different way, we shall find him--who had slain his hecatomb +of hearts--helpless in the power of his one great love. Again he is +first compelling, then compelled. + +February 8, 1819, in Monasterzyka in Kiev, Carolyne von Ivanovska was +born. She was the only daughter of a rich Polish nobleman. The parents +soon separated, and the child's life was divided between them. The +father brought her up, as La Mara tells, as if she were a boy. He made +her the companion of his conversations late into the night; and, in +order to make her the more congenial a comrade, he taught her to ride +wild horses and smoke strong cigars. Then the other half of the year, +she was the ward of her "beautiful, lovely, elegant" mother, who doted +on society, and introduced her daughter to the capitals and the salons +of Europe. + +So, says La Mara, "under constantly changing surroundings, now in the +midst of the world, now in the deep solitude, Carolyne von Ivanovska +lived her first years." + +When she was seventeen, her father bought her a husband, the son of the +Field Marshal Fürst Wittgenstein, and on May 7, 1836, she gave her hand +to the Prince Nicolaus von Sayn-Wittgenstein, seven years her senior. +He was at the time a cavalry captain in the Russian army, a handsome, +but intellectually unimpressive man. To quote La Mara again: "From this +marriage the Princess Carolyne gained only one happiness: the birth of +a daughter, the Princess Marie, on whom she centred the glowing love of +her heart." + +While the two fathers-in-law lived, the children-in-law were kept +together; but the old men soon went their way. Then the young wife gave +up attempting to endure the unhappiness of her home, and sought solace +from her loneliness in the full blaze of literary and artistic society. +In February, 1847, Franz Liszt floated in across her horizon, "_auf +Flügeln des Gesanges_." Of course, he gave a concert in Kiev for +charity. Among the contributions, he received a one-hundred-rouble +note--about $75. Liszt desired to thank the good-hearted one in +person--Kismet! + +Even if the princess had not been beautiful, La Mara thinks she would +have overwhelmed Liszt with "her wonderful eloquence and her +unbelievable intellectuality." It was a case of congeniality at +first sight. There were many meetings. The concert affected the +princess deeply (when she died she bequeathed that programme to her +daughter). The day after the concert, she heard a Pater Noster of his +sung in the church. Liszt talked of his plans for compositions. He said +he wished to express in music his impressions of Dante's "Divina +Commedia," with a diorama of scenic effects. To fit out the diorama, it +needed about $15,000. + +The princess, carried away with the idea, offered him the money from +her own purse. The diorama was never built, but it required a great +many conferences, and it seemed appropriate that Liszt should visit her +at her estate, Woronince. He arrived on the tenth birthday of her +little daughter, Marie. This was in February, the same month of their +first meeting. But he could not stay many days, as his concert tour +took him to Constantinople and elsewhere. But in the summer and again +in the autumn they met, and they celebrated together his birthday and +her saint's day. + +She there and then resolved to give up her life to him, and to marry +him as soon as might be. She believed in the autocracy of genius, and +felt that she recognised her mission in the world--to follow and aid +this maker of music. Separation from her husband was tame, but this was +a horrifying breach of conventionality, such another as the Comtesse +d'Agoult had smitten Paris with thirteen years before. But none the +less, in April, 1848, she took her daughter and left Russia, after she +had provided herself, by the sale of a portion of her dowry, with a +sum, as La Mara says, of a million roubles--equal to about $750,000--a +tidy little parcel for an eloping couple. + +For her husband and mother-in-law she left letters--it would seem that +there must have been little else to leave--explaining that she would +never return. At the same time she instituted divorce proceedings, and +announced that she was asking the Church to grant her freedom. Being a +Catholic, it was necessary for her to persuade the Pope himself to +permit her to wed Liszt. In the meanwhile, her husband went to the Czar +and loudly bewailed the loss of his daughter and all his money. The old +story--"My daughter! Oh, my ducats! Oh, my daughter! Oh, my Christian +ducats! Justice! the law! My ducats and my daughter!" + +The princess fled across the Russian border, just at the time of the +Revolution of 1848. At the Austrian boundary Liszt's faithful valet met +her; in Ratibor she found Liszt's friend, the Prince Lichnovski, who +some months after fell a martyr to the revolution. He conducted her to +Liszt. A few days later they visited the prince for two weeks at one of +his castles. The troubles of the revolution and the barricaded streets +drove them from the country to Weimar, where Liszt had been given the +post of Kapellmeister. + +It was this third-rate town that became the birthplace of a new school +of German opera, for years the hub of the musical universe. Here in +Weimar the princess lived thirteen years. She placed herself under the +protection of the Grand Duchess of Weimar, Maria Polovna, the sister of +the Czar and a friend of her childhood. She chose the Altenburg château +for her home. A year later, Liszt, who had found a neighbouring hotel +too remote, took up his home in one of the wings of the château. Here +he spent the most profitable years of his artistic life. His twelve +Symphonic Poems, his Faust and Dante Symphonies, his Hungarian +Rhapsodies, and many other important works, including also literary +compositions, he achieved here. The irritation he had felt at the +superficial meddling, and domineering criticism of his would-be Muse, +the Comtesse d'Agoult, was changed to such a communion as the old Roman +king Numa enjoyed with his inspiring nymph, Egeria. + +During the princess' stay in Weimar, constant pressure was brought upon +her to return to Russia to arrange a settlement of affairs. She feared +returning to that great prison-land, which cannot be easily entered or +left, lest they should forbid her return to Liszt. Even threats to +declare her an exile and confiscate her goods, would not move her. +Eventually the property she had inherited from her father was put in +her daughter's name, by the Czar's order--an arrangement Liszt had long +pleaded for in vain. The husband's feelings were mollified by the +appropriation to him of the seventh part of her property, and the +arrangement of a guardianship for the daughter. + +The prince, being a Protestant, now proceeded to get a divorce, which +he obtained without difficulty. He speedily married a governess in the +household of Prince Souvaroff. None the less, the struggles went on for +the freedom of Princess Carolyne. In 1859 her daughter, Marie, was +married to Prince Constantin zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, aid-de-camp +and later grand steward of the Austrian emperor. Now that the daughter +was safely disposed of, the princess took active steps for her own +freedom. She chose, as a pretext for the dissolution of her marriage, +the statement that she had entered into it unwillingly at her father's +behest. Her Polish relatives were shocked at the idea of divorce, and +brought witnesses to prove that the first years of her marriage were +peaceful and content. But in spite of this the divorce was granted in +Russia, and the Pope gave it his sanction. + +The princess, however, was not satisfied with a merely technical +success. She would consummate her marriage with Liszt in a blaze of +glory and with all the blessings of religion upon it. In the spring of +1860, she had gone to Rome to further her divorce proceedings. Liszt +was to arrive and be married on his fiftieth birthday, the princess +then being forty-two. All went merrily as a marriage bell. It is +generally believed that Liszt's "Festklänge" was written for this +occasion as a splendid orchestral wedding festival of triumph. + +Accordingly, at the proper time, Liszt went to Rome--as he thought. +Really, he was going to Canossa. The priest was bespoken, and the altar +of the church of San Carlo al Corso decorated. On the very eve of the +wedding, when Liszt was with the princess, they were startled to +receive a messenger from the Pope, demanding a postponement of the +marriage, and the delivery for review of the documents upon which the +divorce had been granted. The papers were surrendered, and the +disconsolate princess gave way to a superstitious resignation to fate. + +It seems that the amiable relatives of the princess, chancing to be in +Rome and hearing of the wedding, determined to prevent it at all cost. +Before the Pope they charged her with securing the divorce by perjury. +The princess had friends at court, who could have procured the +satisfactory conclusion of the matter. The Cardinal Hohenlohe offered +his own chapel for the marriage. But the princess was as immovable in +her new determination as she had been in her old. + +She had resisted for thirteen years the efforts of the Russian court to +decoy her back to Russia. For the next fifteen years she resisted +Liszt's ardent wooing to marriage. Even when, on the 10th of March, +1864, her former husband died and gave her that divorce which even Rome +considers sufficient, she would not wed. Her stay of one year in the +Holy City had brought her into the whirlpool of Church society and +Church politics. She turned her voracious intellect toward theology; +and the interests of the Church, as La Mara says, grew in her eyes far +more important than the petty ambitions of art. + +The woman with a mission had changed her mission. Knowing how powerful +was her influence over Liszt, she thought to begin her new work at +home, and it was on Liszt that she practised her first churchly +seductions. + +In his youth it had taken all the power of his father and mother to +keep him out of the Church; small wonder, then, that when, in the +evening fatigue of his life, the woman of his heart beckoned him to the +candle-lighted peace of vespers, he should yield. + +Religion had always been as much an art to him, as art had been a +religion. By papal dispensation Liszt was admitted into Holy Orders on +the 25th of April, 1865, and the Cardinal Hohenlohe, who had not been +granted the privilege of marrying Liszt, was given the privilege of +shaving his head and turning him into a tonsured abbé. + +There was a great sensation in 1868, when Liszt, who had thirty years +before run away from Paris with a comtesse, returned as a saint, and in +full regalia conducted a mass of his own, at Saint Eustache. The critic +and dictionary-maker, Fétis, declared that the whole affair was simply +an advertising scheme of Liszt's. But Liszt was taking himself +seriously. The Pope had called him "My dear Palestrina," and he desired +to reform church music as Palestrina had done. + +The fact that this ecclesiastical passion was brief, does not prove +that it was not sincere; in Liszt's case it would rather prove its +sincerity. And by corollary the fact that it was sincere, rather proved +that it would be brief. + +The artistico-ecclesiastical life, or, as the German puts it so much +more patly, "_das klösterlich-künstlerische Leben_," began to wear upon +him. For a time Liszt remained in Rome, taking a dwelling in the Via +Felice; later, in June of the year 1863, he moved to the Oratorio of +the Madonna del Rosario, where the Pope, Pius IX., visited him to hear +his miraculous music. He saw the princess often, usually dining with +her, and letters fluttered thickly between his home and hers in the +Piazza di Spagna, and later in the Via del Babuino. + +Liszt was never a man for one of your gray existences. He was homesick +for Weimar, and was a constant truant from Rome. But he had duties +enough with his ambition as a composer and conductor, and his cloud of +pupils whom he taught without price. To his excursions we owe four +volumes of letters to the princess. The volumes average over four +hundred pages each of smallish type. They are in French, and have been +all published, the last volume appearing in 1902, under the editorship +of La Mara. Also a publication of the princess' letters has been +announced by her daughter, who wisely believes that in a matter which +has become the gossip of the world, the best defence is the fullest +possible presentation. + +In Liszt's letters there is not much of the grand style he had affected +after his first elopement with De Laprunarède, though there is much +that is hysterical: + +"How it is written above that you should be my Providence and my good +angel here below! I incessantly have recourse to you with prayers, +supplications, and benedictions." + +"My words flow always to you as my prayer mounts to God." + +"Since I must not have the bliss of seeing you again this evening, let +me at least tell you that I will pray with you before I sleep. Our +prayers are united as our souls." (Nov. 4, 1864) + +"Next to my hours in the church the sweetest and dearest are those I +spend with you." (Feb. 18, 1869.) + +"My ancient errors have left me a residue of chagrin that preserves me +from temptation. Be well assured that I tell you the truth and all the +truth." (Nov. 10, 1870.) + +But to attempt a quotation from these letters would be like proffering +a spoonful of brine, and saying, "Here is an idea of the ocean." The +letters are full of minute details of their busy lives and of other +notable people. There is much, of course, about music and travel, and a +vast amount of religious ardour. There is also much expression of the +utmost devotion and loneliness. Years of this life of reunion and +separation went on. + +Writing to the princess on the 21st of June, 1872, he mentions Wagner, +whose marriage to Cosima von Bülow (_nee_ Liszt) scandalised the world +and alienated even Liszt. There are biographers who deny this, but in +this letter to the princess, Liszt encloses Wagner's letter of most +affectionate appeal for reconciliation, and with it his answer, giving +his long-withheld blessing. Describing this reunion with Wagner, Liszt +is moved to say to the princess: + +"God will pardon me for leaning to the side of mercy, imploring his and +abandoning myself entirely to it. As for the world, I am not uneasy as +to its interpretation of that page of what you call 'my biography.' The +only chapter that I have ardently desired to add to it, is missing. May +the good angels keep you, and bring me to you in September." + +Through many others of his letters rings this vain "_leit-motif_" like +the wail of Tristan. But nothing could remove the spell the Church had +cast upon the princess. + +She sank deeper and deeper into seclusion, and during the twenty-seven +years she lived in Rome she left her home in the Via del Babuino only +once for twenty-four hours. She grew more and more immersed in the +Church and its affairs. Gregororius said she fairly "sputtered +spirituality." She began to write, and certain of her essays were +revised by Henri Lasserre, under the name, "Christian Life in Public," +and were widely read, being translated into English and Spanish. Her +chief work was a twenty-four-volume study bearing the thrilling title, +"Interior Causes of the Exterior Weakness of the Church." This +ponderous affair she finished a few days before her death, with hand +already swollen almost beyond the power of holding the pen. + +Here in Rome, as in Russia and at Weimar, where she was, there was a +salon. But she grew wearier and wearier of life, and weaker and weaker, +until she spent months and months in bed, and would rarely cross her +door-sill. To the last she and Liszt were lovers, however remote. And +his letters are rarely more than a few days apart. He continues to sign +himself, even in the final year of his life, "Umilissimo sclavissimo." +His last letter concerned the marriage of his granddaughter Daniela von +Bülow to a man with the ominous sounding name of "Thode." Daniela was +the daughter of Liszt's daughter, Cosima, by her first husband. The +marriage took place at Wagner's home, "Wahnfried," in Bayreuth. + +It was appropriate that Liszt should spend his last years in the +company of this Wagner, for whose success he had been the chief +crusader, as for the success of how many another famous musician, and +for the charitable comfort of how numberless a throng, and in what +countless ways! It was doubly appropriate that his last appearance in +public should be at the performance of "Tristan and Isolde"--that +utmost expression of love that was fiery and lawless and yet worthy of +the peace it yearned for and never found. + +Liszt died on the 31st of July, 1886. His will declared the princess to +be his sole heir and executrix. She outlived him no long time. On the +8th of March, 1887, she died of dropsy of the heart. She was buried in +the German cemetery next to St. Peter's, in Rome. Her grave bore the +legend: + +"Yonder is my hope." At her funeral they played the Requiem, Liszt had +written for the death of the Emperor Maximilian. She had wished that +this music should "sing her soul to rest." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +RICHARD WAGNER + + +Surely, one would say, if love were ever to be the woof of any life, it +must interweave the life of this man Wagner; for he gave to every whim +and fervour of the passion an expression so nearly absolute that we are +driven almost to say: Old as music is, and ancient as love songs are, +music never truly gave full voice to desire in all its throbs until +Richard Wagner created a new orchestra, a new libretto, a new music, a +new harmony, and a new fabric of melody. + +"Tristan and Isolde" seems to be so nearly the last word in dramatised +love that it seems also to be nearly the first word. From the +Vorspiel's opening measures, gaunt and hungry with despair and longing, +to the last measures of the Liebestod, sublime with resignation and +divinely sad with the apotheosis of adoration, this opera sounds every +note of the emotion of man for woman, and woman for man. + +Surely, you would say, the creator of this masterwork must have had a +heart thrilled with mighty passion for womankind; surely he must have +lived a life of strange devotion. + +But how often, how often we must warn ourselves against judging the +creator from his creations, the artist from his art. In his letter to +Liszt, announcing his intention to write this very opera, Wagner said: + +"As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a +monument to the most beautiful of my dreams, in which, from beginning +to end that love shall be thoroughly satiated. I have in my head +'Tristan and Isolde,' the simplest, but fullest, musical conception. +With 'the black flag,' which waves at the end, I shall then cover +myself--to die." + +The truth was that Wagner, as so many another creative genius, spent +his love chiefly upon the beings that he begot within his own heart. +Every genius is more or less a Pygmalion, and his own imagination is +the Aphrodite that gives life to the Galateas that he carves. I have +shown by this time that certain musicians have been most excellent +lovers, and there would be documents enough to prove Wagner another, +but we know it for a fact that his one great passion was for his art. +There is not recorded anywhere, I think, another such idolater of +ideals as Richard Wagner. To his theory of the perfect marriage of +music and poetry, he sacrificed everything,--his heart's blood, his +sensitiveness to criticisms, his extraordinary fondness for luxuries, +his sense of pride, and to these he added human sacrifice,--his wife, +his friends, and any one who stood in his way. He made himself a +pauper, and begged and borrowed every penny he could scrape from every +friend who could be hypnotised into supporting his creeds. As a result, +after years of humiliation such as few men ever did, or ever cared to, +endure, after a battle against the highest and the lowest intellects, +he attained a point of glory which hardly another artist in the world's +history ever reached. He reached such a pinnacle that critics were not +lacking who said that he often threatened to give Art a more important +place in the State than Religion. + +Nothing but the most complete success, and nothing but the most +beneficial revolution could justify such a creed or such a life as +Wagner's. Both were eminently justified. He reaped a superb reward, but +he earned every mite of it. When his days of power and of glory came, +however, he spent them with another woman than the one who had gone +through all his struggles with him; had suffered all that he suffered, +without any aid from hope, without any belief in his personality or his +creeds, supported only on the courage and the dog-like fidelity of a +German _Hausfrau_ to her _Mann_. + +Wagner was as plainly destined for war as any Richard the Third, born +with hair and teeth. For he was born in the midst of the Napoleonic +wars at Leipzig, in 1813, and the dead bodies on the battle-field were +so many that they raised a pestilence, which carried off Wagner's +father when the child was six months old; and also threatened the life +of his elder brother and of the babe himself. His life was one long +truceless war. He once said to Edouard Schuré: "The only time I ever +went to sea, I barely escaped shipwreck. Should I go to America, I am +sure the Atlantic would receive me with a cyclone." + +Wagner's first love was his mother. In fact, Praeger, his Boswell, +said: "I verily believe that he never loved any one else so deeply as +his _liebes Mütterchen_." She must have been a woman of winning +manners, for, though she had seven children, the oldest fourteen, she +got another husband before her first one was a year in his grave; the +second was an actor. Wagner was so fond of his mother that through his +life he never could see a Christmas tree alight without tears. + +There were other loves that busied his heart. He was remarkably fond of +animals, particularly of dogs. He suffered keenly when his parrot Papo +died; he wrote his friend Uhlig: "Ah, if I could say to you what has +died for me in this devoted creature! It matters nothing to me whether +I am laughed at for this." His dog Peps died in his arms, and he wrote +Praeger: "I cried incessantly, and since then have felt bitter pain and +sorrow for the dear friend of the past thirteen years, who has walked +and worked with me." One of Wagner's last plans was to write a book to +be called "A History of My Dogs." Anecdotes galore there are of his +humanity to dogs and cats and other members of our larger family. + +Wagner had also a famous passion for gorgeous colours; his music shows +this. He liked fine stuffs peculiarly, and even in his pauperdom wore +silk next to his skin. When fortune found him, he made a veritable +rainbow of himself with his dressing-gowns, and even with many-coloured +trousers. His stomach was not so fond of luxury, and he was not +addicted to wine or beer, and for long periods drank neither at all. He +injured his health by eating too fast, though this was not, as in +Händel's case, from gluttony, but from absent-minded interest in his +work. Yet there is something strangely human and captivating in the +story that, when he was eight years old, he traded off a volume of +Schiller's poems for a cream puff. + +Wagner's career shows a curious growth away from his early ideas. He +was at first an artistic disciple of Meyerbeer, and not only drew +operatic inspirations from him, but was saved from starving by +Meyerbeer's money and by his letters of introduction; later he came to +abhor Meyerbeer's operas, and to despise the man himself and his ways. +Wagner earned himself numberless powerful enemies by his fierce hatred +for the Jewish race, and by his ferocious attack in an article called +"Judaism in Music." Yet his first flirtation was with a Jewess, and it +was not his fault that he did not marry her. She lived in Leipzig, and +was a friend of his sister. She had the highly racial name of Leah +David, and was a personification of Jewish beauty, with her eyes and +hair of jet and her Oriental features. It has been remarked that all of +Wagner's heroes and heroines fall in love at first sight. + +He began it. His first view of Leah plunged him into a frenzy. "Love +me, love my dog," was an easy task for Wagner, and he was glad of the +privilege of caressing Leah's poodle, and of mauling her piano. He +never could fondle a piano without making it howl. Now Leah had a +cousin, a Dutchman and a pianist. Wagner criticised his execution, and +was invited to do better. The man hardly lived who played the piano +worse than Wagner, and the result of the duel was a foregone defeat. +The last chapter of this romance may be quoted from Praeger: + + +"Wagner lost his temper. Stung in his tenderest feelings before the +Hebrew maiden, with the headlong impetuosity of an unthinking youth, he +replied in such violent, rude language, that a dead silence fell upon +the guests. Then Wagner rushed out of the room, sought his cap, took +leave of Iago, and vowed vengeance. He waited two days, upon which, +having received no communication, he returned to the scene of the +quarrel. To his indignation, he was refused admittance. The next +morning he received a note in the handwriting of the young Jewess. He +opened it feverishly. It was a death-blow. Fraulein Leah was shortly +going to be married to the hated young Dutchman, Herr Meyers, and +henceforth she and Richard were to be strangers. 'It was my first love +sorrow, and I thought I should never forget it, but after all,' said +Wagner, with his wonted audacity, 'I think I cared more for the dog +than for the Jewess.'" + +Wagner entered the university at Leipzig and for a time went the pace of +student dissipations; he has described them in his "Lebenserinnerungen." +He took an early disgust, however, for these forms of amusement and was +thereafter a man, whose chief vices were working and dreaming. + +One of his early creeds was free love; and though he gave up this +theory, his works as a whole are by no means an argument for +domesticity. In fact they are so devout a pleading for the superiority +of passion over all other inspirations, that it is astounding to hear +Wagnerians occasionally complain of modern Italian operas as +immoral--as if any librettos could be immoral in comparison with the +Nibelungen Cycle. + +Wagner's first libretto, "The Wedding" (Die Hochzeit), horrified his +sister so, that he destroyed it at her request. His third, "Das +Liebesverbot," was based on Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure," with +the slight distinction that where Shakespeare's play is a preachment +for virtue, Wagner himself said that his libretto was "the bold +glorification of unchecked sensuality." Years afterward, admirers of +his put the work in rehearsal, but gave it up as too licentious. This +apostle of unrestrained amours found himself most prosaically married +and involved in the most commonplace struggle for daily bread, when he +was only twenty-three. + +In 1833, at the age of twenty, Wagner had taken up music +professionally, and got a position as chorus-master. In 1834, he became +musical director at the theatre in Magdeburg. The company, made up +principally of young enthusiasts, who worked day and night, rehearsed +Wagner's opera, "Das Liebesverbot." The first night there was a crowded +house, but the troupe went all to pieces. The next night was to be +Wagner's benefit. Fifteen minutes before the curtain rose, he found the +audience consisted of his landlady, her husband, and one Polish Jew. A +free fight broke out behind the scenes; the prima donna's husband smote +the second tenor, her lover, and every one joined in; even that small +audience was dismissed. In this company _die erste Liebhaberin_ was +Wilhelmine Planer, one of twelve children of a poor spindle-maker. When +the Magdeburg company went to pieces, Wagner went to Leipzig and +offered the opera to a manager, whose daughter was the chief singer. +The manager said that he could not permit his daughter to appear in +such a work. Eventually, Wagner drifted to Königsberg, where he became +director of the theatre, and where Wilhelmine had found a position. The +two had become engaged in Magdeburg, and they were married at +Königsberg, on November 24, 1836. + +The theatre soon followed the example of that at Magdeburg and went +into bankruptcy. During the honeymoon year, Wagner had composed only +one work, an overture, based on "Rule Britannia." At that time "The Old +Oaken Bucket" had not been written. He then drifted to Riga, where he +became music-director and his wife a singer. Now his relentless +ambition seized him and he determined to consecrate the rest of his +life to glory. His wife found herself consecrated to poverty and the +fanatic ideals of a husband, to whom starvation was only a detail in +the scheme of his life,--a scheme and a life for which she had neither +inclination nor understanding. + +Wilhelmine, or Minna, as she was called, is described as pretty by some +and as of a "pleasing appearance," by others. The painter Pecht called +her very pretty, but blamed her for a sober, unimaginative soul. +Richard Pohl calls her a prosaic domestic woman, who never understood +her husband, and who might have been an impediment to his far-reaching +ideas, if Richard Wagner could have been impeded in his career by +anything. Wagner himself seems to have been genuinely fond of her, +though never, perhaps, deeply in love with her. He called her an +"excellent housewife," who lovingly and faithfully shared much sorrow +and little joy with him. + +The young couple lived at Riga in an expensive suburb, whence it was +said they could reach the theatre only by means of a cab, though +Glasenapp denies this story. Minna brought to her husband not a penny +of dowry, and he brought to her a number of debts, and a hopeless lack +of economy. The first year he tried to get an advance of salary, and +offered to do anything, "except bootblacking and water-carrying, which +latter my chest could not endure at present." Then he decided that fame +and fortune awaited him, as they usually do, just over the horizon. The +only trouble with the horizon, as with to-morrow and the +will-o'-the-wisp, is that it is always just ahead. + +When the Wagners applied for a passport, to leave Riga, they did so in +the face of certain suits for debt. They were told that they could have +the passport as soon as they showed receipts for their bills. That was +too ridiculous a condition to consider, so Minna disguised as a peasant +woman, and a friendly lumberman took her across the border as his wife. +The friends of Wagner took up a purse for him, and by elaborate +manoeuvres got him across the Russian border in disguise. He reached +the seaport of Pillau, found his wife and his dog there, and set sail +in a small boat. + +Thus he embarked for the future, "with a wife, an opera and a half, a +small purse, and a terribly large and terribly voracious Newfoundland +dog." The composer, his wife, and the dog were all three outrageously +seasick. They arrived finally after violent storms in London, where the +chief event was the loss of the dog. When he came back, the three +decided that Paris offered a better chance, so thither they went. +Meyerbeer befriended them with letters of introduction and much +encouragement, on the receipt of which the cautious couple diluted +their few remaining pence in champagne. + +Wagner began to write songs, which he offered to sell for prices +ranging from $2.50 to $4.00; he asked the publisher obligingly to grant +him the latter sum, "as life in Paris is enormously expensive"! + +Wagner was so poor that about the only thing he could afford to keep +was a diary. Here he wrote down alternate accounts of his abject +poverty and of his abnormal hopes. In Villon's time, the wolves used to +come into the streets of Paris at night. They were not all dead by +1840, it would seem, for one of them made his home on Wagner's +door-step. He wrote in his diary that he had invited a sick and +starving German workman to breakfast, and his wife informed him that +there was to be no breakfast, as the last pennies were gone. + +In one of his moments of desperation, he brought himself to the depth +of asking Minna to pawn some of her jewelry. She told him that she had +long ago pawned it all. She faced their distress like a heroine. Wagner +used to weep when he told of her self-denial, and the cheerfulness with +which she, the pretty actress of former days, cooked what meals there +were to cook, and scrubbed what clothes there were to scrub. For +diversion, when they had no money for theatres and the opera, the +genius and his wife and the dog could always take a walk on the +boulevard. + +Wagner could not play any instrument, not even a piano, and so he tried +for a position in the chorus of a cheap theatre; but his voice was not +found good enough for even that. His long sea voyage had given him an +idea for an opera, "The Flying Dutchman." He was driven to sell his +libretto for a hundred dollars to another composer. + +It would not do to follow Wagner's artistic progress in this place; +that is an epic in itself. Finally, however, he managed to get his +"Rienzi" written and accepted in Dresden. He scraped up money enough to +go back to his Fatherland, and to take his wife to the baths at +Teplitz, her health having broken under the strain of poverty. It is at +this period that he closed an autobiographic sketch, with these words: +"In Paris I had no prospects for years to come, so in the spring of +1842 I left there. For the first time, with tears in my eyes, I saw the +Rhine; poor artist that I was, I swore eternal allegiance to my German +Fatherland." + +But his German Fatherland seems to have sworn everything except +allegiance at him. From this moment he emerged into fame, or rather +into notoriety; he thrust his head through the curtain of obscurity, as +if he were a negro at a country fair, and with remarkable enthusiasm +the whole critical fraternity proceeded to hurl every conceivable +missile at him. It was well for him that his skull was hard. + +"Rienzi" made an immediate success. But he was in his thirtieth year +before even this unwelcome success was achieved. It is typical of the +indomitable greatness of the man that even thus late in life, and after +all his trials, he could put away from him success of such a sort, and +turn back into the wilderness of exile and ignominy for years, until he +could find the milk and honey land of art, which only his own +magnificent fanaticism and the unsurpassed friendship of one man, +Liszt, inspired him with the hope of reaching. + +To the woman, Minna Planer, who had cooked his meals, washed his +clothes, and darned his socks, this refusal of prosperity was a final +blow of disenchantment. She had understood him little enough before, +but now she lost track of him altogether. Her feelings were those of +Psyche, when she found that her lover was a god with wings and a mania +for flight. So far as concerned the further marriage of their minds, he +now disappeared for her into the blue empyrean; when she sought to +embrace his soul, she clasped thin air. + +As for Wagner's heroism for his art, has there ever been anything like +it? Some of his operas he did not see performed for years and years. He +saw hardly the hope of winning his crusade this side the grave of +martyrdom. That he believed in presentiments will be understood in his +powerful feeling throughout the composition of "Tannhãuser," that +sudden death would prevent his finishing it. The world knows the value +of these presentiments. Mendelssohn, too, in his letters tells of +receiving on one occasion a letter which he feared to open, so strong +was his feeling that it contained disastrous news. When at length he +found courage to rip the envelope, the news was of the best. If, by +chance, either of these presentiments had proved true, who would have +been satisfied with the explanation of mere coincidence? The value, +however, of Wagner's presentiment lies in the fact that, in spite of +his despairful misgivings, he persevered in his ideals, and, if there +has been never so great a triumph granted a musician, it is perhaps +largely because no other musician so relentlessly worshipped his +artistic ideals or sacrificed to them with such Druidic ruthlessness. + +Carl Maria von Weber paid great heed to his wife's artistic advice, and +called her his "gallery." But there are wives and wives, and however +deeply our humanity may sympathise with poor Minna Planer, our love for +evolution can only rejoice that she was not permitted to tie her +husband down to the narrow-souled ideals of the good-hearted, stupid +little housewife she was. Wagner understood her far better than she +understood him. He sympathised with her even in her resistance to his +career. To the last it made him indignant to hear her spoken of +slightingly. + +Wagner's appeals for money to his friends, who supported him in his +moneyless art, are constantly mingled with tender allusions to Minna. +When he would borrow Liszt's last penny, he usually wanted a large part +of it for Minna. I do not find him convicted of ever using rough +language to her. She was not so patient. Wagner's friend, Roeckel, +wrote to Praeger in reference to the agony Wagner suffered from the +gibes of criticism: + + +"I keep it always from him; Minna is not capable of withholding either +praise or blame from him, although I have tried hard to prove to her +that it deeply affects her husband, whose health is none of the +strongest." + +When he was implicated in the revolution of 1849, and was forced to +flee for his life, he escaped in the disguise of a coachman, and +finally, with Liszt's ever-ready aid, reached Zurich. As soon as he +found himself there, he borrowed further money from Liszt, to send for +Minna, who had remained behind and "suffered a thousand disagreeable +things." + +Wagner had been supporting her parents, and he borrowed sixty-two +thalers more to help them. When Minna did not come immediately, Wagner +wrote an anxious letter of inquiry to a friend. + +Surely, there can be nothing tenderer than his allusion to her in +another letter to Liszt: + +"As soon as I have my wife I shall go to work again joyfully. Restore +me to my art! You shall see that I am attached to no home, but I cling +to this poor, good, faithful woman, for whom I have provided little but +grief, who is serious, solicitous, and without expectation, and who +nevertheless feels eternally chained to this unruly devil that I am. +Restore her to me! Thus will you do me all the good that you could ever +wish me; and see, for this I shall be grateful to you! yes, +grateful!... See that she is made happy and can soon return to me! +which, alas! in our sweet nineteenth-century language, means, send her +as much money as you possibly can! Yes, that is the kind of a man I am! +I can beg, I could steal, to make my wife happy, if only for a short +time. You dear, good Liszt! do see what you can do! Help me! Help me, +dear Liszt!" + +At last she came, and he wrote Heine a letter of rejoicing. But once +with him, she began again her opposition to his high-flying theories. +She wanted him to write a popular French opera for Paris. She was +humiliated at his borrowing for his self-support, and could not see +much glory in his creed: "He who helps me only helps my art through me, +and the sacred cause for which I am fighting." He seemed more than +afraid of her opinion, and wrote to Uhlig: + +"She is really somewhat hectoring in this matter, and I shall no doubt +have a hard tussle with her practical sense if I tell her bluntly that +I do not wish to write an opera for Paris. True, she would shake her +head and accept that decision, too, were it not so closely related to +our means of subsistence; there lies the critical knot, which it will +be painful to cut. Already my wife is ashamed of our presence in +Zurich, and thinks we ought to make everybody believe that we are in +Paris." + +At last, she nagged him into her theory, although he fairly loathed +writing a pot-boiler, and considered it the purest dishonesty. He went +to Paris, but returned, having been able to accomplish nothing. On his +return, he wrote in his "A Communication to My Friends," that a new +hope sprung up within him. His friend Liszt was then directing the +opera at Weimar. + + +"At the close of my last Paris sojourn, when I was ill, unhappy, and in +despair, my eye fell on the score of my 'Lohengrin,' which I had almost +forgotten. A pitiful feeling overcame me that these tones would never +resound from the deathly pale paper; two words I wrote to Liszt, the +answer to which was nothing else than the information that, as far as +the resources of the Weimar Opera permitted, the most elaborate +preparations were being made for the production of 'Lohengrin.'" + +It was in "Lohengrin" that he first put in play his theory of the +marriage of poetry and music, his idea being their complete devotion, +with poetry as the master of the situation. He believed in independent +melodies no more than in strong-minded wives. He lived this artistic +theory in his own domestic relations, and it was not his fault that +Minna, his melody, found it impossible to live in the light upper air +of his poetry. He was so discouraged, however, by this time, by finding +no encouragement at home, and a frenzy of hostility from the +critics,--a frenzy almost incredible at this late day, in spite of the +monumental evidences of it,--that for six years, after the completion +of "Lohengrin," he wrote no music at all. + +He felt that he must first prepare the soil of battle with the critics +in their own element--ink-slinging. On this fact Mr. Finck comments as +follows: + +"Five years,--nay, six years, six of the best years of his life, +immediately following the completion of 'Lohengrin,'--the greatest +dramatic composer the world has ever seen did not write a note! Do you +realise what that means? It means that the world lost two or three +immortal operas, which he might have, and probably would have, written +in these six years had not an unsympathetic world forced him into the +role of an aggressive reformer and revolutionist." + +He received some money, and more fame, and still more enemies as a +result of his powerful literary tilts against Philistinism. Then he +took up the Nibelungen idea, planning to devote three years to the +work; "little dreaming that it would keep him with interruptions for +the next twenty-three years." For the accomplishment of this vast +monument he asked only a humble place to work. He wrote Uhlig: + +"I want a small house, with meadow and a little garden! To work with +zest and joy,--but not for the present generation.... Rest! rest! rest! +Country! country! a cow, a goat, etc. Then--health--happiness--hope! +Else, everything lost. I care no more." + +He found all in Zürich, where he and his wife rowed about the lake, and +accumulated friends. He found special sympathy in the friendship of +Frau Elise Wille, a novelist. Perhaps she was more than a friend, for +one of his letters to her is superscribed "Precious." + +But all the while he suffered much from erysipelas and dyspepsia, and +was occasionally moved with violent despair to the edge of suicide, for +he was exiled from his Fatherland, and he was an outlaw from the world +of music, which he longed to enlarge and beautify. He compared himself +to Beethoven: + +"Strange that my fate should be like Beethoven's! he could not hear his +music because he was deaf.... I cannot hear mine because I am more than +deaf, because I do not live in my time at all, because I move among you +as one who is dead.... Oh, that I should not arise from my bed +to-morrow, awake no more to this loathsome life!" + +Financial troubles and the discouragement of his wife were still among +the most faithful torments. His letters to Liszt are abundant with +alternations of artistic ecstasy and material misery. It is worth +recording that, "my wife has not scolded me once, although yesterday I +had the spleen badly enough." To add to his misery, Minna became +addicted to opium. In 1858 he wrote Liszt: + +"My wife will return in a fortnight, after having finished her cure, +which will have lasted three months. My anxiety about her was terrible, +and for two months I had to expect the news of her death from day to +day. Her health was ruined, especially by the immoderate use of opium, +taken nominally as a remedy for sleeplessness. Latterly the cure she +uses has proved highly beneficial; the great weakness and want of +appetite have disappeared, and the recovery of the chief functions (she +used to perspire continually) and a certain abatement of her incessant +excitement, have become noticeable. The great enlargement of her heart +will be bearable to her if only she keeps perfectly calm and avoids all +excitement to her dying day. A thing of this kind can never be got rid +of entirely. Thus I have to undertake new duties, over which I must try +to forget my own sufferings." + +The young pianist, Tausig, visits him, and he thinks of him as his son, +saying, "My childless marriage is suddenly blest with an interesting +phenomenon." But the young Tausig gives him unlimited cares, and +"devours my biscuits, which my wife doles out grudgingly even to me." +His allusions to Minna are always full of tender solicitude, though it +is evident that she wears upon him. His temper, peculiarly violent at +the slightest opposition, must have been a serious problem under her +open disbelief in his genius and his creeds; and yet he thought he +could not prosper without her. + +In 1860 he is again borrowing money for her, and writing to Liszt: + +"According to a letter; just received, D. thinks it necessary to refuse +me the thousand francs I had asked for, and offers me thirty louis d'or +instead. This puts me in an awkward position. On the one hand I am, as +usual, greatly in want of money, and shall decidedly not be able to +send my wife to Loden for a cure, unless I receive the subvention I had +hoped for." + +These letters to Liszt make a remarkable literature. The two men were +bound together by such artistic sympathy, and Liszt was so much a +soldier for Wagner's crusade, and so ready with financial help, that he +was more than friend or brother. It was, in Wagner's own phrase, "the +gigantic perseverance of his friendship," that endeared him beyond +words to the struggler. Even Minna seems to have been extremely fond of +Liszt--what woman was not? It was to Liszt that she was indebted for +rescue from downright starvation. More than this, Minna's parents were +supported _via_ Liszt, and it somewhat beautifies the otherwise +unbeautiful spectacle of Wagner's splendid mendicancy that, when he +borrowed, it was as much for his wife and her parents as for himself. + +Liszt was not the only friend in need. There was Frau Julie Ritter, who +sent him money from Dresden for several years. + +This brings us to a time of stress when Minna began to suffer from the +fickleness of some one nearer to her than fortune. Wagner began to cast +meaning glances over the garden wall. As Mr. Henderson says: "He was as +inconstant as the wind, a rover, and a faithless husband. His misdoings +amounted to more than peccadilloes." + +It was in Zürich that Wagner gave Minna some other causes for +uneasiness than his habit of being late at meals. Hans Bélart, in his +"Wagner in Zürich," refers to Wagner's flirtation with Emilie Heim, the +wife of a conductor, who lived so near the Wagners that their +kitchen-gardens adjoined. Emilie was a beautiful blonde with a +beautiful voice, and she and Wagner were wont to sing duets together, +as he wrote them; and she was the soloist in a concert he gave. How +much cause Minna may have had for jealousy, we can hardly know, but it +seems certain that she felt she had a sufficiency, and that she made so +much ado about it that Wagner found it advisable to move. In later +years he and Emilie met again. Wagner gave her the pet name of +"Sieglinde," and told her that she should illumine his Walhalla as +Freia, the eternal, blue-eyed, gold-haired goddess of spring. According +to Belart, Minna was the inspiration for Wotan's virtuous but nagging +wife Fricka! + +Frau Wille was another torment to Minna, but Frau Wesendonck was more. +Belart even implies that Minna grew so jealous of the Wesendonck that +she poured out her woes to a dancing-master named Riese, who revered +Meyerbeer. When Minna, who was at least, says Mr. Finck, as well +advanced as the eminent critics of the time, failed to understand the +music of "The Walküre," when indeed she called it "immoral amorous +asininity,"--an opinion for which perhaps the duets with Frau Heim were +partly responsible,--Wagner used to slam on his hat and go for a walk, +while Minna would seek Herr Riese. + +The affair with the Frau Wesendonck is something of mystery, that is, +if Wagner's word is good for anything. She died in 1902, and at her +death Mr. Huneker summed up her affair with Wagner as follows: + +"Mathilde Wesendonck is dead. Who was she? Well, she was Isolde when +Wagner was Tristan down on the beautiful shores of Zurich in the years +of 1858 and 1859. When he was in sore straits and had not where to lay +his head, he went to Zürich, and Mr. Wesendonck rented to him for next +to nothing a little châlet. There he dreamed out the second and third +acts of 'Tristan und Isolde,' and succeeded in deeply interesting Mrs. +Wesendonck in them. There had already been trouble between him and his +patient first wife, Minna, because of his attentions to this woman, and +in 1856 the Wagners were on the point of a separation. Richard wrote to +his friend Praeger in London: 'The devil is loose. I shall leave Zürich +at once and come to you in Paris,' But this time the trouble was +smoothed over. + +"In the summer of 1859 the attachment of Wagner and Mrs. Wesendonck had +reached such a stage that Wesendonck practically kicked the great +composer out of his paradise. In later years, when questioned about it, +Wesendonck admitted that he had forced Wagner to go. In 1865 Wagner +wrote to the injured husband: + +"'The incident that separated me from you about six years ago should be +evaded; it has upset me and my life enough that you recognise me no +longer and that I esteem myself less and less. All this suffering +should have earned your forgiveness, and it would have been beautiful +and noble to have forgiven me; but it is useless to demand the +impossible, and I was in the wrong.' + +"It is thoroughly characteristic of Wagner to regard his sufferings as +so much more important than those of the husband whom he wronged. +Wagner always thought well of himself. But poor Isolde is dead at last. +She must have been very old and very sorry for the past. Let the +orchestra play the 'Liebestod.'" + +Judging from external evidences, there is reason enough to accept such +a theory of the relations of Wagner and this sympathetic, beautiful +woman. In fact, it stretches credulity to the bursting point to accept +any other opinion. And yet, it is only fair to say that Wagner put a +very different construction upon the friendship, and to confess that +stranger things have happened in real life than the purely artistic +wedlock, which Wagner claimed for the intimacy of the two. Mathilde was +a poet, and Wagner set to music some of her verses, notably his +beautiful "Traume." Besides, she was the inspiration of his Isolde, and +she gave him the sympathy Minna denied. + +According to a recently published article in a German review, Wagner +wrote a long letter to his sister Clara, explaining why Minna had left +him, and making himself out to be as thoroughly misunderstood +domestically as he had always been musically. It is a long letter, but +quoteworthy, the italics being mine: + +"MY DEAR CLARA:--I promised you further information regarding the +causes of the decisive step which you now see me taking. I communicate, +therefore, what is necessary to enable you to contradict various pieces +of gossip, to which indeed I am indifferent. + +"What for six years has kept and comforted me, and especially has +strengthened me in remaining by Minna's side, in spite of the enormous +differences in our characters and natures, is the love of that young +lady who, at first and for a long time, timid, doubting, hesitating, +and bashful, finally more determinately and surely grew closer to me. +As there never could be any talk of a union between us, our profound +affection took the sadly melancholy character which keeps aloof all +that is common and base, and recognises its fount of happiness only in +the welfare of the other. From the period of our first acquaintance she +had displayed the most unwearied and most delicate care for me, and in +the most courageous way had obtained from her husband everything that +could lighten my life. + +"He could not, in presence of the undisguised frankness of his wife, do +anything but soon fall into increasing jealousy. Her nobleness now +consisted in this, that she kept her husband informed of the state of +her heart and gradually led him to perfect renunciation of her. By what +sacrifices and struggles this was attained can be easily guessed; what +rendered her success possible, could only be the depth and sublimity of +her affection, devoid of every selfish thought, which gave her the +power to show it to her husband in such a light that he, when she +finally threatened him with her death, had to abstain from her and had +to prove his unshakable love for her only by supporting her in her +cares for me. Finally, he had to retain the mother of his children, and +for their sake--who invincibly separated us--he assumed his position of +renunciation. Thus, while he was devoured by jealousy she again +interested him for me so far that--as you know--_he often supported +me_. Lastly, when it came to providing me with what I wanted--a house +and garden--it was she who by the most unheard-of struggles induced him +to buy a pretty little property near his own. + +"The most wonderful thing is, that I never had a suspicion of these +struggles; her husband, out of love for her, had always to show himself +friendly and unconcerned toward me. Not a dark look must he cast on me, +not a hair ruffled; the heavens must arch over me, clear and cloudless, +soft and smooth must be the path I trod. Such was the unheard-of result +of the glorious love of the purest, noblest woman, and _this love, +which always remained unspoken between us_, was compelled finally to +reveal itself when I composed and gave her 'Tristan,' Then, for the +first time her self-control failed, and she declared to me that now she +must die. + +"Think, dear sister, what this love must have been to me after a life +of toil and suffering, of excitement and sacrifice, such as mine had +been. Yet we at once recognised that a union between us must never be +thought of, so we resigned ourselves, renounced every selfish wish, +suffered and endured--but loved each other. + +"My wife with true woman's instinct seemed to understand what was going +on. She behaved indeed often in a jealous, scornful, contemptuous +manner, yet she tolerated _our mode of life, which otherwise was no +injury to morality_, but looked only to the possibility of knowing each +other at the present moment. Consequently I assumed that Minna would be +sensible and understand that she had nothing to fear really, that a +union between us could not even be thought of, and that therefore +forbearance on her side was the most desirable and the best. Now, +however, I learn that I have perhaps deceived myself on this point; +bits of gossip came to my ear; and she at last so far lost her senses +that _she intercepted a letter from me_ and--opened it. This letter, if +she had been in a position to understand it, would really have soothed +her in the most desirable way, for our resignation was its theme. + +"She dwelt only on the confidential expressions and lost the sense. In +a rage she came to me and compelled me therefore to declare quietly and +decisively how matters stood; namely, that she had brought trouble on +herself by opening such a letter, and that if she could not restrain +herself, we must part. On this point we agreed; I calm, she passionate. +Another day I was sorry for her. I went to her and said: 'Minna, you +are very sick. Compose yourself and let us once more talk about the +matter.' We concluded with the idea of a Cure for her; she seemed to +quiet herself, and the day of her departure for the Cure was +approaching; previously, however, she would speak to Frau Wesendonck I +firmly forbade her to do so. All my efforts were to make Minna +gradually acquainted with the character of my relations to Frau +Wesendonck, in order to convince her that she had no need to fear about +the continuance of our marriage, and that, therefore, she should behave +herself sensibly, thoughtfully, and generously; reject any foolish +revenge and every kind of spying. Ultimately she promised this. Yet she +could not be quiet. She went behind my back and--without comprehending +it herself--insulted the gentle lady most grossly. She said to her: +'Were I like ordinary women, I would go with this letter to your +husband!' And thus _Frau Wesendonck, who was conscious of never having +any secrets from her husband_--a thing which a woman like Minna could +not understand--had nothing to do but at once to inform her husband of +this scene and its cause. + +"Here, then, was an attack, in a rough and vulgar manner, an attack on +_the delicacy and purity of our relations_, and in many ways a change +was necessary. I succeeded only after some time in making it clear to +Frau Wesendonck that, for a nature like that of my wife, relations of +such elevation and unselfishness as those existing between us could +never be made intelligible, for I was struck by _her serious, deep +reproach that I had omitted this, while she had always made her husband +her confidant_. Whoever can comprehend what I have suffered since (it +was then the middle of April) must also comprehend in what state of +mind I am at last, since I must acknowledge that the uninterrupted +endeavours to continue our disturbed relations were absolutely +fruitless. I tended Minna at the Cure for three months with the utmost +care, and in order to quiet her, I, during this period, broke off all +intercourse with our neighbours; in my anxiety for her health I tried +everything in my power to bring her to reason and to hold views +befitting herself and her age. All in vain! She persisted in the most +trivial remarks, she said she was an injured woman, and she had +scarcely been quieted, before the old rage broke out again. Since Minna +returned a month ago, some conclusion had finally to be reached. The +close proximity of the two women was for the future impossible, for +Frau Wesendonck could not forget that her highest sacrifices and +tenderest consideration for me had been met on my side, through my +wife, so rudely and insultingly. _People, too, had begun to talk_. +Enough; the most unheard-of scenes and tormentings of me never ceased, +and out of regard for the one and the other, I was forced finally to +decide to give up the charming asylum which such tender love had +prepared for me. + +"Now I needed quiet and perfect composure, for what I have to surmount +is great. Minna is unable to understand what an unhappy married life we +have led; she imagines the past to have been quite different from what +it was, and if I found consolation, distraction, and forgetfulness in +my art, she verily believes I had no need of them. Enough. I have come +to this resolution with myself: I can no longer bear this everlasting +squabbling and distrustful temper if I have to fulfil my life's task +courageously. Whoever has observed me sufficiently must wonder at my +patience, kindness, even weakness, and if I am condemned by superficial +judges I am quite indifferent to them. But never had Minna such an +opportunity to show herself more worthy of _the dignity (würde) of +being my wife_, than now, when it is necessary for me to keep what is +highest and dearest. It lay in her hands to show whether she really +loved me. But what such genuine love is, she never once conceived, and +her temper carried her away beyond everything. + +"Yet I excused her on account of her sickness, although this sickness +would have taken another and milder character if she herself were other +and milder. The many disagreeable blows of fortune which she +experienced with me--which my inner genius (which unfortunately I could +not impart) easily raised me above, rendered me full of regard for her; +I wished to give her as little pain as possible, for I am very sorry +for her. Only I feel myself constantly incapable of enduring it by her +side; moreover, I can do her no good thereby. I shall become always +unintelligible to her and an object of her suspicion. So--separation! +But in all kindness and love, I do not desire _her disgrace_. I only +wished that she herself in time would see that it is better if we do +not see so much of each other. For the present I hold out to her the +prospect of returning to Germany as soon as the amnesty is proclaimed; +for this reason she will take with her all the furniture and things. I +purpose to make no slips of the tongue and to let everything depend on +my future resolutions. Do you therefore stick to it that _it is only a +temporary separation_. What ever you can do to make her quiet and +reasonable I beg you not to omit. For--as said above--she is +unfortunate; _with a smaller man she would have been happier_. Join +with me in pitying her. I will thank you from my heart for so doing, +dear sister! + +"I shall wait here a bit in Geneva till I can go to Italy, where I +think of passing the winter, presumably in Venice. Already I feel +quickened by being alone and removed from all tormenting surroundings. +It was no use talking of work. As soon as I feel myself in a temper to +go on composing 'Tristan,' I shall regard myself as saved. In fact, I +must do the best for myself; I ask nothing from the world but that it +leave me in quiet for the works which one day will belong to it. So let +it judge me gently! The contents of this letter, dear Clara, you can +confidently use to give any explanations where they may be necessary. +On the whole, however, naturally I would not like to have much said of +the matter. Only very few people will understand what this is about, so +one must know well the persons introduced here. + +"Now, farewell, dear sister. I thank you again from my heart for the +secret question which, as you can see, I answer confidentially. Treat +Minna with forbearance, but make her gradually understand how she now +stands with me. + +"Your brother, + +"RICHARD WAGNER." + +This is Wagner's side of the affair, only recently made public. The +translation is from the _Musical Courier._ Whatever is discarded, there +remains enough to disprove Bélart's statement that Otto Wesendonck only +learned of the affair from informants outside, and, finding Wagner and +Mathilde together, compelled Wagner to leave Zurich immediately. +Besides, even Bélart admits that Wesendonck and his wife continued to +live together for the sake of the children, and that years after, when +he had learned to understand, he renewed his acquaintance with Wagner. + +Amazing as this story is, both with regard to the strange things it +asks us to believe of the man and the woman and the husband, it is +certain that there was a pretty how-d'ye-do in Zurich. Minna became so +jealous that she drove Wagner, usually so tender in his allusions to +her, to use the expression of the ungallant Haydn, saying that, "she +was making a hell out of the home." Her outbursts of temper were so +violent, and her addiction to opium had become so great, that he began +to fear for her death by heart disease, and finally for her sanity. He +wrote of her to his friend Frau Ritter: + +"Her condition of mind became such a torment to herself and her +surroundings, that a radical change of the situation had to be made, +unless we were all willing to wear ourselves out unreasonably.... The +state of her education, and her intellectual capacities, make it +impossible for her to find in me and my endowments the consolation +which she needed so much by way of compensation for the +disagreeableness of our material situation. If this is the source of +great anguish to me, it nevertheless makes me pity her with all my +heart, and it is my most cordial wish that I may some day be able to +afford her lasting consolation in her own way." + +In 1856 she had left him for a time, ostensibly to take a cure. In 1859 +there had been a short reunion, of which Wagner wrote again to Frau +Ritter: + +"This period I have also chosen for a reunion with my poor wife. May +Heaven grant that I shall always feel able to carry out patiently my +firm and cordial determination of treating her in the most considerate +manner. I confess that my relation to this poor woman, who had so many +trials, and is now suffering so much, has always spurred me on to +preserve and develop my moral powers. In all my relations to her I am +guided only by the deepest pity with her condition, and I hope +confidently that it will always arm me with the persistent patience +with which I feel called upon not only to endure the consequences of +her illness, but personally to allay them." + +Then he had gone to Venice to continue work on "Tristan," dreaming +there in loneliness of his Isolde, the Wesendonck, whose husband has +been well likened to King Mark. But Venice being within the sphere of +Saxon influence, he was afraid to remain long, for fear of arrest. In +1860 he was granted a partial amnesty, and went to Frankfort to meet +his wife, who had been taking treatment near Wiesbaden. Minna went with +him to Paris, and was there at the time of the violent riots, which put +an end to "Tannhäuser," and doubtless to Minna's hopes of settling in +the Paris she was so fond of. She began again to vent her indignation +that he would not write for the gallery, and the storm grew fiercer and +fiercer. Wagner had written Liszt in 1861 with renewed hope and renewed +tenderness: + +"For the present I spend all the good humour I can command on my wife. +I flatter her and take care of her as if she were a bride in her +honeymoon. My reward is that I see her thrive; her bad illness is +visibly getting better. She is recovering and will, I hope, become a +little rational in her old age. Just after I had received your 'Dante,' +I wrote to her that we had now got out of Hell; I hope Purgatory will +agree with her; in which case, we shall perhaps, after all, enjoy a +little Paradise." + +But the hope was vain, and a friend of the family who wrote under the +name of the "Idealistin" describes the-- + +"almost daily trouble in the intercourse, increased by the fact that +the absence of children deprived them of the last element of +reconciliation. Nevertheless, Frau Wagner was a good woman, and in the +eyes of the world decidedly the better half and the chief sufferer. I +judged otherwise, and felt the deepest pity for Wagner, for whom love +should have built the bridge by which he might have reached others, +whereas now it was only making the bitter cup of his life bitterer. I +was on good terms with Frau Wagner, who often poured her complaints +into my ears, and I tried to console her, but of course in vain." + +And now Minna, whose housewifely meekness had endured the Wesendonck +tempest and all the other multitudes of trials Wagner went through, +found herself unable to endure his fidelity to his artistic ideals. The +quarrels grew fiercer and fiercer, until finally she left Wagner for +ever, and went back to her people in Dresden, where she spent the rest +of her life. + +Wagner's immortal hope was not even yet dead; as late as 1863 he wrote +to Praeger from St. Petersburg: + +"I would Minna were here with me; we might, in the excitement that now +moves fast around me, grow again the quiescent pair of yore. The whole +thing is annoying. I am not in good spirits: I move about freely, and +see a number of people, but my misery is bitter." + +Minna herself seems to have toyed with the idea of reconciliation, for +she wrote to Praeger, who told Wagner, and received the following +bitter complaint: + +"And so she has written to you? Whose fault was it? How could she have +expected I was to be shackled and fettered as any ordinary cold common +mortal? My inspirations carried me into a sphere where she could not +follow, and then the exuberance of my heated enthusiasm was met by a +cold douche. But still there was no reason for the extreme step; +everything might have been arranged between us, and it would have been +better had it been so. Now there is a dark void, and my misery is +deep." + +A year later, Wagner's regret is not yet dead, and he writes to Frau +Wille: + +"Between me and my wife all might have turned out well! I had simply +spoiled her dreadfully, and yielded to her in everything. She did not +feel that I am a man who cannot live with wings tied down. What did she +know of the divine right of passion, which I announce in the +flame-death of the Walküre who has fallen from the grace of the gods? +With the death-sacrifice of love the Dusk of the Gods (Gõtterdammerung) +sets in." + +And again he bewails his loneliness to Praeger: + +"The commonest domestic details must now be done by me; the purchasing +of kitchen utensils and such kindred matters am I driven to. Ah! poor +Beethoven! now is it forcibly brought home to me what his discomforts +were with his washing-book and engaging of housekeepers, etc., etc. I +who have praised woman more than Frauenlob, have not one for my +companion. The truth is, I have spoiled Minna; too much did I indulge +her, too much did I yield to her; but it were better not to talk upon a +subject which never ceases to vex me." + +Yet he was destined to know wedded happiness some years later. And he +showed that he could make happy a woman who could understand him. As +Mr. Finck comments: + + +"The world is apt to side with the woman in a case like this, +especially if her partner is of the _irritabile genus_, a man of +genius. No doubt, Minna had much to endure, and deserves all our pity; +but that her husband is not to blame in this matter, is shown by the +extremely happy and contented life he led with his second wife, Cosima, +the daughter of Liszt, who _did love_ and understand him." + +It is a proverb that the woman who marries a genius marries misery, but +I think there are instances enough in this book to show that genius has +nothing to do with the case. Wedded happiness is a result of the lucky +meeting of two natures, one or both of which may be accidentally so +constituted as to be happy in the other's society without undue +restlessness. It would be just as easy to prove, by a multitude of +instances, that plumbers or bookkeepers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, +or thieves make poor husbands as to prove the same of musicians, +artists, poets, architects, or geniuses of any kind. + +The truth of the matter is always overlooked: the geniuses are revealed +to the public in an intimacy non-historical characters are not +subjected to. But if you will turn from reading the pages of history, +biography, or memoirs, and take up any newspaper of the day, you will +doubtless be astounded to find how small a percentage of the divorces, +the murders, and other domestic scandals are to be blamed to the +possession of genius, unless, as one might well, you recognise a +special and separate genius for trouble. + +Patience conquers all things, if one lives long enough, and at length +even Wagner's innumerable woes were solved by the appearance of a +veritable _deus ex machina_ let down from heaven. But Wagner was over +fifty when the tardy god arrived. It was in 1864 that he became the +idol and the pet of the young king, Ludwig II. of Bavaria, who sent a +courier ransacking Europe almost in vain for the fugitive, and, at last +finding him, dumbfounded him with fairy promises, presented him with a +villa, and treated him to a splendour few musicians have ever known, +except perhaps Lully, and Farinelli, who became the vocal prime +minister of the truly good king Ferdinand VI. of Spain. Wagner's +relations with Ludwig were of a sort which Mr. Finck euphemises as +"Grecian." This was seemingly not the only instance in his career; but +it brought him furious enmity as soon as he had found friendship. + +Poor Minna never shared with Wagner his period of luxury. But it was of +such magnificence that his envious foes accused him of aiming to +dethrone religion from its throne, and substitute art as the Pope! +Among the attacks made on Wagner at this time was the charge that, +while he was lolling on a silken couch which had cost him $12,000, his +neglected wife was starving to death in Dresden. Minna was honourable +enough to answer this attack with an open letter to those German +newspapers which, in 1866, outjaundiced that yellow journalism for the +invention of which New America has been blamed. + +Minna wrote as follows: + +"The malicious rumours concerning my husband, which have been for some +time published by Vienna and Munich newspapers, oblige me to declare +that I have received from him up to this day an income amply sufficient +for my maintenance. I take this opportunity with the more pleasure as +it enables me to put an end to at least one of the numerous calumnies +launched against my husband." + +A few weeks later, on January 25, 1866, she died at Dresden of heart +disease. She had suffered all the miseries that earn success, without +ever tasting their sweets. To say whether or not she deserved to taste +the sweets would demand a more ruthless and unforgiving verdict upon +one of the two unfortunates than I have the heart to render. The +marriage had been the wedding of a near-sighted woman and a man who +could see hardly anything nearer than the Pleiades. Neither was more to +blame than the other for the fault of eyesight. It was simply a case of +connubial astigmatism. + +While Wagner was living on terms of strange intimacy with the young +king, he was accused of Oriental luxury. The selection of the rainbow +furnishings of his house and of his own dressing-gowns, which made +Joseph's coat mere negligée, was not altogether his own, but showed the +unmistakable guiding hand of a woman. Frau Cosima von Bülow acted as a +sort of secretary to Wagner. She was the daughter of Liszt; her mother +was the Comtesse d'Agoult, who wrote under the name of "Daniel Stern," +and with whom Liszt had lived for a few years. Cosima had married Hans +von Bülow in 1857. + +Von Bülow had in his earlier years been greatly befriended by Liszt and +by Wagner. In 1850, when Von Bülow was about twenty years old, Wagner +and Liszt both had written to his mother, who was then divorced, +begging her to let her son take up music. Like Schumann's mother, she +opposed music as a career, but Von Bülow persisted, and became Liszt's +pupil. Wagner was to Von Bülow a god. It was a pitiful practical joke +that Fate should have directed the god's favour toward the worshipper's +wife. But those ugly old maids, the Fates, have never had a sense of +good form. + +As early as 1864 Wagner had written to Frau Wille, complaining of Von +Bülow's misfortunes, and saying: "Add to this a tragic marriage; a +young woman of extraordinary, quite unprecedented endowment, Liszt's +wonderful image, but of superior intellect." Wagner persuaded the king +to make Von Bülow court pianist, and later court conductor. There are +very pretty accounts of the musical at-homes of the Von Bülows and +Wagner. + +Then Wagner's popularity with the king eventually raised such hostility +that, at the king's request, he left the country to save his life. He +was again an exile. Cosima, with her two children, went with him, and +later Von Bülow came, but he soon had to go to Basle to earn his living +as a piano teacher, and left his family at Lucerne. There exists a +letter from Wagner's cook, telling a friend of how the king came +incognito to visit Wagner, and how the house was upset by the descent +of Cosima and her children. They had come to stay. At Triebschen, near +Lucerne, Wagner lived with the Von Bülow family, and began to know +contentment. + +The relations of Wagner and Cosima rapidly grew intimate enough to +torment even the idolatrous Von Bülow. Riemann says: "Domestic +misunderstandings led, in 1869, to a separation, and Von Bülow left the +city." One of the "domestic misunderstandings" was doubtless the birth +of Siegfried Wagner, June 6, 1869. A speedy divorce and marriage were +imperative. The chief difficulty in the securing of the much desired +divorce was that Cosima must change her religion, or her "religious +profession," to use the more accurate phrase of Mr. Finck, who says +that Wagner in his life with her, had "followed the example of Liszt +and Goethe and other European men of genius, an example the ethics of +which this is not the place to discuss." + +Von Bülow secured his divorce in the fall of 1869. He remarried, in +1882, the actress, Marie Schanzer. Wagner and Cosima were married +August 25, 1870. This was the twenty-fifth birthday of King Ludwig, and +Glasenapp comments glowingly upon the meaning of the marriage: + +"To the artist, who in the first great rumblings of the war of 1870-71, +greeted the dawn of a new era for his people, the same hour proved to +be the beginning of a new chapter. On Thursday, the 25th of August, +1870, in the Protestant Church of Lucerne, in the presence of two +witnesses, one, the lifelong friend of the Wagner family, Hans Richter, +the other, Miss M.v.M., the wedding of Richard Wagner to Cosima, the +divorced wife of Hans von Bülow, was celebrated. + +"There is no other union which Germans ought to deem more holy. None +have ever been entered into with less selfishness, with higher +impersonal sentiments. It united the great homeless one, who had +suffered so much and so long under the heartlessness and unappreciative +neglect of his contemporaries, to a wife, who stood beside the friend +of her father, the ideal of her husband, with cheerful encouragement +_(mit theilnahmvollster Sorge_), until she as well as her husband +realised that she was the one chosen to heal the wounds which the +artist had suffered in his restless wanderings and through numberless +disappointments. The time had arrived when the hand of love prepared +the last and never-to-be-lost home. + +"This knowledge gave the noble-minded woman the courage to sever the +ties, which in early youth had tied her to one of our most eminent +artists, and the best of men; to give up herself to her task, to +consecrate her life to him, to be the helpmeet of the man to whom +through friendship and the inner voice of her heart, and the knowledge +of noble duty, she had already belonged. The world did not hesitate to +malign this holiest act of fidelity. Only the small and the low are +overlooked, the high and the great are ever the victims." + +Just two months before the marriage, Wagner had written to Frau Wille, +who had invited him and his wife-to-be to visit her, an account of his +feelings in the matter, which is beautiful enough and sincere enough to +quote at some length: + +"Certainly we shall come, for you are to be the first to whom we shall +present ourselves as man and wife. To get into this state, great +patience was required; what has been for years inevitable was not to be +brought about until all manner of suffering. Since last I saw you in +Munich, I have not again left my asylum, which, in the meanwhile, has +also become the refuge of her who was destined to prove that I could +well be helped, and that the axiom of many of my friends that I 'could +not be helped' was false! She knew that I could be helped, and she +helped me: she has defied every disapprobation and taken upon herself +every condemnation. She has borne to me a wonderfully beautiful and +vigorous boy, whom I boldly call 'Siegfried': he is now growing, +together with my work, and gives me a new, long life, which at last has +attained a meaning. Thus we get along without the world from which we +had retired entirely. But now listen: you will, I trust, approve of the +sentiment which leads us to postpone our visit until I can introduce to +you the mother of my son as my wedded wife. This will soon be the case, +and before the leaves fall we hope to be in Mariafeld." + +A pleasant view of the new domesticity that had come into Wagner's life +is an elaborate surprise he planned for his wife. He composed with +great secrecy the "Siegfried Idyll," that most royal musical welcome +that ever baby had. Hans Richter collected a band of musical +conspirators and rehearsed the work. On the morning of Cosima's +birthday, the orchestra stealthily collected on the steps of the house, +and with Wagner as conductor, and with Hans Richter as trumpeter, +Cosima's thirtieth birthday was ushered in with benevolent auspices, +the child being then a year old. The Idyll itself, as Mr. Finck says, +"is not merely an orchestral cradle-song; it is the embodiment of love, +paternal and conjugal." + +A new reward for his long and stormy career was the realisation of the +Bayreuth dream--the building with hands of a material castle in Spain. +Besides this opera-house of his own, to be consecrated to his own +works, Wagner was given a home. He and his wife left the villa at +Triebschen, on the lake at Lucerne, with much regret. For there he had +been able to work in perfect seclusion, under the protection and +forethought of the devoted Cosima. His new villa at Bayreuth he called +"Wahnfried," setting over the door a fresco of mythological figures, +symbolising music and tragedy; in whom are portrayed Cosima Wagner, his +final ideal, and Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient, who had been his first +inspiration, and also figures of Wotan and Siegfried; the former being +the portrait of Franz Betz, the singer of the rôle, and the latter +being the child Siegfried Wagner. Beneath the frescoes he put the +words: "Hier wo mein Wähnen Frieden fand, Wahnfried sei dieses Haus von +mir benannt,"--which may be Englished: "Here, where my illusions +respite found, 'Illusion-Respite' let this house by me be crowned." + +In this home, plain in its exterior, but full of richness within, +Wagner lived at ease with his wife and her four children. Von Bülow, +the father of two of them, had found strength to be true to his first +beliefs in Wagner's art crusade, and to continue his friendship with +the man, though delicacy forbade his entering the home, to which he had +regretfully but gracefully resigned his wife, like Ruskin, though not +for the same reasons. Once he broke forth in his dilemma: "If he were +only some one that I could kill, he would have been dead before this." +But he could not interfere with "the great cause," and even Liszt, +after some estrangement, was reconciled to Wagner. + +Here Wagner's existence went tranquilly and busily on for twelve years, +till he was at the threshold of his three-score and ten. And now the +genius, whom we saw but lately juggling with starvation in the slums of +Paris, we find a figure of world-wide fame, with an annual income of +$25,000 and the ability to travel to Italy in a private car. But this +luxury was his last, for his health was on the ebb. And though he took +a suite of twenty-eight rooms in the Palazzo Vendramin, in Venice, with +his wife, his own two children, Siegfried and Eva, aged twelve and +fourteen years, Daniela and Isolde, Cosima's two children by her first +husband, and two teachers, four servants, and many guests, this was but +a splendid sarcophagus; for here Wagner had but less than half a year +to live. Those who would know more of the daily comforts and suffering +of this time, can read it in Perl's book, "Richard Wagner in Venedig." +He suffered constantly more and more from heart trouble and other +torments. One day his servant heard him calling, and, hastening to his +side, found him on a divan writhing in agony; his last words were: +"Call my wife and the doctor." Cosima flew to his aid, but could not +hold back the inevitable. When the doctor came and told her that Wagner +had finished his struggle with the arch-critic, Death, she screamed and +fainted. For twenty-six hours she refused to leave his body or to take +any food, and could be dragged away only when she had fainted from +exhaustion. + +And now, the erstwhile exile, living on the pittances he could wheedle +from his few disciples, died in the fame of the world. Three kings sent +wreaths to his funeral, and the city of Venice twice asked for the +privilege of giving him a final pageant. But Cosima strangely would +have no ceremony at all, and no music. "She feared it would rend her +heart in twain," says Mr. Finck, "so the procession moved along the +canal in solemn silence, broken only by the tolling of the distant +bell." + +The railroad station was guarded as for the funeral of a monarch. The +express-train was not stopped at the border of the three countries +through which it passed. When the coffin was taken to the grave in +Bayreuth, it was followed by the two large dogs that had shared, as so +many of their fellows, the goodness of his large heart. + +As for the widow, she is still living as I write, and still unwearied +in behalf of his glory. In her he had found that ideal of womankind +which he had so much upheld: instant and dauntless obedience to the +behest of the one great love. When he died he was even then at work +upon a glorification of the sex, and the last sentence that ever flowed +from his pen related to a legend of the Buddhists, granting women a +right to the saintliness previously claimed by men alone. + +Once he had written: "Women are the music of life," and of his +"Brünnhilde" he had said: "Never has woman been so glorified as in this +poem." For the reward of this trust in womankind, he had also had the +privilege of saying, "In the hearts of women it has always gone well +with my art." + +And in his grave, where he lay, his head rested upon the long blonde +tresses of Cosima, which he had so admired, and which, with final +sacrifice, and as a last tribute, she had sacrificed to bury with him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +TSCHAIKOVSKI, THE WOMAN-DREADER + + +Had his relations with music been as completely original as his +relations with women, there would be less dispute as to the genius of +this man whom the Germans call a Russian; the Russians, a German. He +was the son of a well-to-do mining and military engineer, who believed +in marriage and made three wives happy--in succession. The young +Tschaikovski was late, like Wagner, in deciding on music, and was +twenty-three before he took up instrumentation. + +He was of a passionate nature, but his temper usually struck inward, +and his friend Kashkin said that he "never began a quarrel or defended +himself when attacked." That is not, I believe, a type to fascinate +women for long, and Tschaikovski's moroseness, which bordered on +morbidness and always hovered on the brink of insanity, made it perhaps +fortunate for at least two women that his negotiations with them ended +as they did. And so he drifted--not such a bachelor as Beethoven, yet +quite as wifeless. Unlike Beethoven, who turned from one disappointing +woman to another, Tschaikovski turned to men. Among his friends was +Nikolai Rubinstein, the brother of the more famous pianist, Anton. + +Now, Nikolai, like Anton, had tried marriage, and, after two years of +quarrels with his wife's relatives and doubtless with her, had forsworn +the other sex. Incidentally he had taught all day and gambled all +night; so the husband was not the only gainer by the separation. +Nikolai and Tschaikovski set up a ménage together for a time. +Tschaikovski, however, had not learned that womankind was not his kind; +so he flirted a little with the beautiful niece of one Tarnovski, for +instance, and with an unknown at a masked ball. But he was chiefly +music-mad and undermined his health by his overwork. + +Then in 1868, his father got after him to marry. As long before as +1859, when he was nineteen, he had suffered from an unrequited love. +Now at the age of twenty-eight he cared nothing for petticoats. He had +written his sister a year ago that he was tired of life, and marriage +did not tempt him; he was, said he, "too lazy to woo, too lazy to +support a family, too lazy to endure the responsibility of a wife and +children." But upon this ennui fell an electric spark--from the old +storage-batteries, woman's eyes. + +There had come to the Moscow opera a Belgian singer, Désirée Artôt, who +was then thirty-three years old, a woman whose pictures make her nearly +beautiful, and who is recorded as a queen of grace and a queen of +dramatic and lyric song. She was witty and magnetic, and Peter +Iljitsch, five years her junior, like another Chopin and another Mary's +lamb, followed her about. + +One day he wrote: "She is a charmer; we are friends." Then _tempo +accelerate_; he copied music for her benefit performance; later he +apologised for not writing his brother--he was all monopolised by the +singer. So he went swirling into the current. He tried to keep away; +they met by accident; she reproached him; he promised to call; then his +inveterate timidity palsied him, till Anton Rubinstein had to drag him +to her rooms by force. + +Eventually they became engaged. Just as in Weber's case, the composer +demanded that the singer give up her career for his, and she and her +mother objected. She did not want to be merely the wife of her husband; +nor he, merely the husband of his wife. He appealed to his father, who +wrote a nobly generous letter, pleading the woman's right to her own +career: a very gospel of artistic equality. + +"You love her: she loves you: and that should settle it, if--Oh, this +wretched if! The beloved Désirée must be altogether noble, since my son +Peter has loved her. He has taste and talent, and would choose a wife +of his own nature. The few years difference in age are of no moment. If +your love is real and substantial, all else is nonsense. She would not +want you to play the servant, and you could compose even if you +travelled with her. + +"I lived with your mother for twenty-one years and all that time loved +with the passion of youth, and respected and adored her as a saint. If +your desired one has the character of your mother, whom you so +resemble, there should be no talk of future coolness and doubt. You +know well that artists have no home; they belong to the whole world. +Why worry whether you live at Moscow or St. Petersburg? She should not +leave the stage, nor should you abandon your career. True, our future +is known only to God, but why should you foresee that you will be +robbed of your career? Be her servant, but an independent servant. Do +you truly love her and for all time? I know your character, my dear +son, but alas, I do not know you, dear sweetheart; I know your +beautiful soul and good heart through him. It might be well for you +both to test your love; not by jealousy--God forbid!--but by time. Wait +and ask each other, 'Do I really love him? Do I truly love her? Will he +(or she) share with me the joys and sorrows of life unto the grave?'" + +Good father, good sage, gallant old man! But neither of the troubled +lovers proved worthy of such golden philosophy. Désirée's travels took +her away. Their parting must have been cold, for in January, 1869, +Tschaikovski wrote his brother a letter, excitedly referring to the +acceptance of his opera, and coldly hinting that his love affair would +probably come to nothing. We remember how calmly Mozart once wrote of +his operatic triumph and how passionately of his love. + +The same month a telegram informed Tschaikovski that his fiancée had +very suddenly become engaged to a singer in her own troupe, the Spanish +baritone, Padilla y Ramos, who was two years younger even than +Tschaikovski. The singers were married at Sèvres, September 15, 1869. + +Tschaikovski, on receiving the first news, seemed "more surprised than +pained." He was still flirting desperately with grand opera. A year +later he heard that Désirée was returning to sing at Moscow. He wrote +pluckily: + +"She is coming here and I cannot avoid meeting her. The woman has cost +me many a bitter hour, and yet I feel myself drawn toward her with such +inexplicable sympathy, that I wait her coming with feverish +impatience." + +At her performance he sat in the pit with his friend Kashkin, who says +he was terribly excited, and kept his opera-glasses fastened on her +always, though he must have been almost blinded by the tears that +streamed down his cheeks. The two did not meet, however, for seven +years, and then unexpectedly. He called at Nikolai Rubinstein's office +in the Conservatory; he was told to wait in the anteroom. After a time, +a lady came out. "Tschaikovski leaped to his feet and turned white. The +woman gave a little cry of alarm, and confusedly fumbled for the door. +Finding it at last, she fled without speaking." + +In 1888 Tschaikovski went to Berlin. There Désirée was the idol of the +court and public. They met now as friends. He and Edvard Grieg called +at her house, and he wrote in his diary: + +"This evening is counted among the most agreeable recollections of my +sojourn in Berlin. The personality and the art of this singer are as +irresistibly bewitching as ever." + +_Requiescat in pace_! She had taught him the pangs of disprised love, +but she had escaped misery, and she seems to have lived happily ever +afterward with a husband who won eminence equal to hers as a singer. As +for Tschaikovski, he had already revenged himself in kind--in worse +kind--upon the sex, which had really attracted him only once. + +In the year 1875 Tschaikovski's nerves had gone to pieces from overwork +and his mode of life. For months he was not allowed to write down a +note. And now, I think some one must have prescribed marriage as a cure +for his ills. There followed that strange affair which was a riddle as +late as the time Miss Newmarch's biography appeared in 1900; a solution +was then hoped from a sealed document left by Kashkin, and not to be +opened till the year 1927. Tschaikovski himself had looked over his own +diary, and had been so terrified at what he read that he destroyed a +great portion of it before his death in 1893. In 1902, however, his +brother Modeste began the publication of a very elaborate and complete +biography, which partially clears the riddle. This is what we learn +from that: + +In 1875 Tschaikovski was a wreck. In 1876 he suddenly wrote his +brother: "I have resolved to marry--the resolve is beyond recall;" and +again: "The result of my thought is the firm resolve to marry with +whomsoever it may be." His photograph at this time has a worn, hunted +look, and he has become addicted to cold baths, of which his new plan +was the coldest of all. + +In May, 1877, his friend Kashkin suspected him of being engaged. In +July, Kashkin was amazed to find him married. Just once Kashkin saw the +couple together. Then Tschaikovski grew very distant to his friends and +eccentric in his manner; a little later he fled to Moscow, and in a few +days came word that he was dangerously ill. Later there were threats of +suicide, but it was all a mystery. + +We know now that late in June, 1877, Tschaikovski announced definitely +to his brother Anatol, that he was engaged to, and would soon marry, +Antonina Ivanovna Miljukova. He said little of the girl, except that +she was not very young and was very poor; she was free from scandal, +however, and she loved him deeply. He hoped the marriage would be +happy; and he asked the father's blessing. The father's letter showed +an enthusiasm the son's lacked. + +Before Anatol could reach Moscow, Tschaikovski was Benedick--July 6, +1877, he being then within three years of forty. The curious details of +the courtship are told by the composer himself in a letter to Frau von +Meek, a wealthy idolatress of his genius, with whom he had one of those +affairs called Platonic, and of whom more later. To her he wrote: + +"One day I received a letter from a girl I had known for some time. I +learned from it that she loved me. The letter was couched in such warm, +frank terms that I concluded to answer it--something I have always +avoided doing in previous cases of this sort. Without rehearsing the +details of this correspondence I must mention that the result of the +letters was that I followed the wish of my future wife and called to +see her. Why did I do this? Now it seems to me that some invisible +power forced me to it. At our meeting I assured her that in return for +her love I could give her nothing but sympathy and gratitude. But later +I reproached myself for the carelessness of my action. If I did not +love her and did not wish to incite her further love for me, why did I +call on her and how could all this end? By the following letter I saw +that I had gone too far; that if I now turned from her suddenly it +would make her unhappy and possibly drive her to a tragic fate. + +"So the weighty alternative posed itself: Either I got my liberty at +the cost of a life, or I married. The latter was my only possible +choice. So one evening I went to see her, declared openly that I could +not love her, but that I would always be her grateful friend; I +described minutely my character, the irritability, the unevenness of my +temperament, my diffidence--finally my financial condition. Then I +asked her if she wished to be my wife. Naturally her answer was 'yes.' +The fearful agonies which I have experienced since that night are not +to be expressed in words. This is only natural. To live for +thirty-seven years in congenital antipathy to marriage, and then +suddenly to be made a bridegroom through the sheer force of +circumstances, without being in the least charmed by the bride--that is +something horrible! In order to get back my senses and accustom myself +to the thought of the future, I decided to go to the country for a +month. This I did. I console myself with the thought that no one can +escape his fate, and my meeting with that girl was fatality. My +conscience is clear. If I marry without loving, it is because +circumstances have forced this upon me. I cannot do otherwise. +Carelessly I surrendered at her first confession of love. I should not +have answered her at all." + +Under such auspices, the marriage took place. It is hard to say whom we +should pity the more, husband or wife; and which we should count the +more insane. That which is technically called a honeymoon lasted a week +in this case. In ten days the husband is writing his fellow-Platonist, +Frau von Meck, that he is uncertain about his happiness, but positive +that he cannot compose. He and his wife pay a little visit to her +mother; then they return "home," only to part. The unwilling bridegroom +must be alone to recuperate. He writes Frau von Meck: + +"I leave in an hour. A few days more of this, and I swear I should have +gone mad." + +In ten days he is strong enough to think of his wife again; in his +solitude he begins work on what he mentions to Frau von Meck as "our +symphony." + +He goes hunting in the woods, while the lonely bride hunts furniture +for their home. By the middle of September, Tschaikovski is brave +enough to return; he is pleased to find a home of his own, with all +clean and neat. For a few days, even a robbery by servants, and the +necessity his wife is under to go to the police-court, do not disturb +him, or, at least, so he writes. But hardly more than a week can he +stand his wife's society. He determines to kill himself, and stands up +to his chin in the ice-cold river, afraid to drown himself, and yet +hoping to catch a fatal pneumonia. + +His old frenzy seized him; insanity beckoned to him again. Alleging +that a telegram had called him to St. Petersburg, he fled from his +home, September 24, 1877. + +His brother met him at the St. Petersburg station, and hardly knew him. +Taken to the nearest hotel, he went into hysterics, and was unconscious +for forty-eight hours. The doctor said travel was necessary. The wife +was provided for, and, leaving her forever, Tschaikovski fled to +foreign countries barely in time to save his sanity. To the last he +absolved the poor wretched woman of any slightest blame for his +behaviour. His brother, in a biography, completely frank up to this +point, now grows reticent, except to release the wife of all blame. So +you must satisfy your curiosity by imagining some abnormal state of +mind, which you will regard cynically or pityingly, as your manner of +mind impels. + +The last touch to this tragedy was the sordid tinge of poverty. The +wretched man alone in Switzerland was without means. Now Frau von Meck, +with great secrecy, offered him an annual income of 6,000 rubles--about +$4,500--purely in payment, she said, of the delight his music had given +her. He accepted a gift so graciously and gracefully made. Tschaikovski +was thenceforth an institution fully endowed. + +Modeste says that without this relief from anxiety Tschaikovski would +have died. He wrote to the benefactress: "Let every note from my pen +henceforth be dedicated to you." + +This was not the first time she had aided him. A strange, notable +woman, she; a true phenomenon--or a phenomena, as one would be tempted +to say who had even less Greek than I or Shakespeare, if such an one +exist. + +Nadeschda Filaretovna, being poor, had married a poor railway engineer; +they lived carefully, and raised eleven children. A railroad investment +brought them a sudden wealth, soaring into the millions. In 1876 she +lost her husband, but all of the children and the riches remained to +keep her busy. She lived in almost complete seclusion. + +Tschaikovski's strenuous music penetrated her solitude and her heart. +The stories of his small income touched her. She planned schemes to +fill his purse, ordering arrangements of music and paying for them +munificently. Yet she would not receive the composer personally, and +when they met in public they did not speak or exchange a glance. + +In Du Maurier's perfect romance, Peter Ibbetson and the Duchess of +Towers lived their hearts out in a dream-world. So Frau von Meck and +Peter Iljitsch lived theirs in a letter-world. + +In 1877, before his marriage, learning of his financial troubles, she +had offered to pay him well for a composition. He had said he could not +conscientiously degrade his art for a price. So she paid his debts to +the extent of three thousand roubles. This he could accept. These +theories of art! + +It was to her that he unburdened in his letters the wild scheme of his +marriage. It was to her that he poured out his soul in endless letters +not yet publishable entire. Their life apart seems to have been +continued to the end. During his last years, after a period of travel, +he lived almost a hermit, dying in 1893, only three years over fifty. +Whatever posterity may do with his music, he has left a life-story of +strange perplexities, in which apparent frenzies of effeminacy and +hysteria, of passionate terror and helplessness at self-control fall in +strange contrast with the temper of his music, which at its gentlest is +masculinely gentle and at its fiercest is virile to the point of the +barbaric. + +I am haunted by the vision of that poor Antonina Ivanovna, helpless to +keep silence in her love, and winning her bridegroom only to find, like +Elsa, that her Lohengrin could not give her his Heart. And almost more +harrowing is the vision of the composer, with womanish generosity, +giving himself to the one that asked, and finding that love cannot +follow the mere placing of a wedding-ring. So he stands in the icy +river, and its gloom and cold are no more bitter than the despair in +his own mad heart. It is Abélard and Héloise without the love of +Abélard or the joy Héloise knew for a while at least. + + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE HEART OF A VIOLINIST + + + "From this did Paganini comb the fierce + Electric sparks, or to tenuity + Pull forth the inmost wailing of the wire?-- + No catgut could swoon out so much of soul!" + + --_Browning, "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_." + + +Many people have based their idea of the moral status of musicians and +the moral effects of music upon a certain work by Tolstoi, who is no +more eminent as a crusader in the fields of real life and real fiction, +than he is incompetent as a critic of art. His novel, "The Kreutzer +Sonata," is musically a hopeless fallacy. And Tolstoi's claim, that +Beethoven must have written it under the inspiration of a too amorous +mood, is pretty well answered by the fact that Beethoven, who was so +liberal of his dedications to women, whenever they had inspired him, +dedicated this work to two different violinists, both men. + +It is said that he first inscribed it to George Augustus Polgreen +Bridgetower, a mulatto violinist, who, being lucky enough to be born in +Europe, was not ostracised from paleface society. This can be only too +well proved by the fact that Beethoven--who spelled the man's name +"Brischdower"--after dedicating the sonata to him, found that the +Africo-European had been his successful rival in one of those +numberless flirtations of his, in which Beethoven always came out +second. Indignant at his dusky rival's success, Beethoven erased his +name from the title-page and substituted that of Rudolphe Kreutzer. The +curious thing about this great piece of music, known to fame as the +"Kreutzer Sonata," is that Beethoven had never seen Kreutzer, and that +Kreutzer never played the sonata. + +I have not discovered whether or no Kreutzer was married; he probably +was, for he died insane. A German composer, Conradin Kreutzer, with +whom he might be confused, had a daughter whom he trained as a singer. +As for Bridgetower, he married and had a daughter. + +But speaking of violinists, what would become of them if there never +had been makers of violins, especially such luthiers as the Amati? Yet +all I know of the Amati is that they formed a dynasty, and doubtless +fell in love on occasion, though how, or when, I do not learn. + +The great Antonio Stradivari, however, began his love-making like David +Copperfield, by falling in love with a woman ten years his senior, when +he was only seventeen. She was Francesca Capra; her husband had been +assassinated three years before, leaving her a child. The boy +Stradivari and the widow were married July 4, 1667, and on December +23d, a daughter named Julia was born. Francesca bore Stradivari six +children. Her second child was a son named after her, Francesco; but +Francesco died in infancy, and the name, in spite of the omen, was +given to the next son, who followed his father's profession, but never +married. The next child was a daughter, who died a spinster; the next +was a son, who became a priest, and the next a son, who died a +bachelor. The failure of all their children to marry does not indicate +a particularly happy home-life, but this is mere speculation. We only +know that Stradivari's first wife died, after a marriage lasting +thirty-four years. + +A year and a half later Stradivari married a girl fifteen years his +junior; Antonia Zambelli was, indeed, born the very year Francesca's +first husband had been assassinated. Antonia bore Stradivari five +children: a daughter, who died at the age of twenty; a son, who died in +infancy; a son, who died at twenty-four; a son, who became a priest and +lasted seventy-seven years, and, finally, a son, Paolo, the only child +of Stradivari that seems to have married, and certainly the only one +who handed down the family name. How happy Antonia was with her +husband, we do not know. "As rich as Stradivari," became a proverb. She +died at the age of seventy-three, and Stradivari survived her less than +one year; this may have been because he was overcome with grief; or +because he was already nearly ninety years of age. + +In the workshop of Stradivari was a fiddle-maker named Andreas +Guarnieri, who had two sons, Pietro and Giuseppe, who had a son named +Pietro, and a more famous cousin named Giuseppe, who was a dissipated +genius, and blasphemously gave himself the nickname, "del Gesù." Of him +there is a pretty fable, that once being sent to prison for debt, he +won over the jailer's daughter, and she brought him stealthily wood and +implements with which he made the so-called "prison fiddles," of whose +curious shape Charles Reade said: "Such is the force of genius that I +believe in our secret hearts we love these impudent fiddles best; they +are so full of chic." As Giuseppe called himself "Gesù," so there was +a member of the famous violin-making family of Guadagnini who was +called "John the Baptist," and of whom I only know that he belonged to +a large family. + +TARTINI + +But to turn from these unsatisfactory violin makers to violin players: +I know nothing of the great Corelli's personal history; his pupil +Geminiani is said to have led a life full of romance. Philidor spent +his years chiefly in the intrigues of chess-playing. The great Tartini, +whom the devil visited in the dream he immortalised in his famous +Sonata del Diavolo, had a checkerboard career. As a young university +student he fell in love with a niece of Cardinal Cornaro, and married +her in secret. Like Romeo, his romance brought him separation and +exile. His parents cast him off; the cardinal made his life unsafe. He +fled from Padua, and took up the violin to save him from starvation. +"And some have greatness thrust upon them." + +One day, as he was playing at the monastery where he was in retirement, +the wind blew aside a curtain just as a fellow townsman was passing. He +took home the news, and by this time resentment had died out so much, +that Tartini and his young wife were permitted to resume their romance. +They went to Venice. Later his ambition for the violin caused them to +separate, but finally they returned to Padua to live. Burney says that +his wife was "of the Xantippe sort." His love story somewhat suggests +that of Desmarets, who also had to flee for his life in consequence of +a secret marriage, and who was twenty-two years appeasing the wrath of +the aristocratic family. + +A contemporary violinist and composer was Benedetto Marcello, whose +melodramatic affair has been described by Crowest and may be quoted +here, with full permission to believe as much of it as you please. + +"Marcello was the victim of a hopeless passion for a beautiful lady, +Leonora Manfrotti, and on the occasion of her marriage to Paolo +Seranzo, a Venetian of high rank, Marcello was unwise enough to send +her a rose and a billet-doux containing words more complimentary to the +lady's beauty than to her taste in the choice of a husband. This +epistle, coming to Seranzo's notice, caused him so violent a fit of +jealousy that he tormented his young wife by supervision and suspicion +to such an extent that she actually sank under his ill-treatment and +died. Her body was laid out in state in the church 'Dei Frari,' and +here Marcello seeing it, learned the ill effects of his rash passion. +He fell into a state of melancholy madness, and at last, having with +the craft and ingenuity of a madman succeeded in stealing the body of +his love, he conveyed it to a ruined crypt in one of the neighbouring +islands, which, bearing the reputation of being haunted, was seldom +visited by any one. Here, watched only by a faithful old nurse, he sat +day and night watching the dead form of Leonora, singing and playing to +it as though by the force of music he would recall her to life. + +"Long ere this, Venice, and indeed Italy, was full of excitement at the +composition of some unknown musician (no other than Marcello). Among +other admirers of this music was Eliade, twin sister of Leonora, and +resembling her so closely that even friends could scarcely distinguish +her. Eliade had even been effected to insensibility by the strain of +the unknown, and hearing one day a gondola pass, in which a voice was +singing one of the songs which was an especial favourite, in such a way +as she had never heard it sung before, she followed and traced the +gondola to the deserted island. A visit to this island resulted in a +meeting with the old nurse, and a few explanations. The ingenious woman +contrived to take advantage of a short absence of Marcello, and, +substituting the living sister for the dead one, awaited the mad +musician. This time, however, his usual invocation was not in vain: as +he called on Leonora to awake, a living image arose from the coffin, +and Marcello, restored to happiness by the delusion, was quite content +with the exchange when he found out that, although the lady was not +Leonora, she was a devoted admirer of his musical skill, and professed +an 'affinity of soul' for him, in which her sister had been wanting. +Their happiness was short-lived, for Marcello died a few years after +their marriage." + +This has a faint resemblance to the romance of "The Quick or the Dead," +with a certain vice-versation. + +LOUIS SPOHR + +To come back to earth: The eminent violinist, Spohr, and his pupil, +Francis Eck, made an extensive concert-tour together, in which they +rivalled each other almost more in their rapid series of amorous +adventures, than in their more legitimate concert work. While in St. +Petersburg, Eck met the daughter of one of the members of the Imperial +Orchestra, and began a flirtation, which she took so seriously that her +father gave him the alternative of matrimony or Siberia. After some +hesitation he chose matrimony. Had he foreseen the sequel, he would +doubtless have greatly preferred Siberia, for his wife was a virago, +and collaborated with his ill-health to guide him to the madhouse. + +Spohr may have profited by Eck's experience, when some years later he +met the beautiful and brilliant Dorette Scheidler; she was eighteen +years old, and played that most becoming instrument, the harp, as well +as the piano and violin. They appeared together in a court concert, and +on the way to her home, in the carriage, he made the not particularly +original proposition: "Shall we thus play together for life?" She, with +hardly more originality, wept her consent upon his shoulder. They were +married without delay, and began a series of very successful +concert-tours. They seem to have been happy together for twenty-six +years, and they reared a large family. Her death in 1832 broke down his +health for several months. But two years later, he then being fifty, he +married the skilful pianist, Marianne Pfeiffer, over twenty years his +junior. They also made a brilliant concert-tour together. + +PAGANINI, THE INFERNAL + +Paganini, as everybody knows, sold his soul to the devil for fame. He +made the best of the gamble, as he usually did when he gambled; for the +poor, innocent Lucifer got only a fourth-rate soul, while Paganini +secured a fame that will not be surpassed while fiddlers fiddle. + +Gambling was not Paganini's only vice. In spite of the fact that he +will always be almost as famous for his multiplex ugliness as for his +skill, women found him fascinating, and kept him busy. When he was only +seventeen, a beautiful dame of Bologna abducted him and held him +prisoner in her country chateau, as once Liszt, his rival in technical +fame, was kept a few months. Can there be any secret technical virtue +in being kidnapped thus? The fair Bolognese kept Paganini captive for +three years in this retreat, where he fed upon scenery, love, and +music. For her sake he practised her favourite instrument, the guitar, +and worked miracles with it as with the violin. At the age of twenty, +Paganini broke the spell and resumed his gipsying, persuading the +public, and not without reason, that he was aided by magic. He lived +for many years with the singer, Antonia Bianchi, who bore him a son, +Achille, whom he legitimised. Antonia was devotion itself, until she +was gradually driven to a jealousy that was almost fiendish, and led to +a separation. Paganini himself tells this story: + +"Antonia was constantly tormented by the most fearful jealousy. One +day, she happened to be behind my chair when I was writing some lines +in the album of a great pianist, and, when she read the few amiable +words I had composed in honour of the artist, to whom the book +belonged, she tore it from my hands, demolished it on the spot. So +fearful was her rage, she would have assassinated me." + +When he died, he left his son a fortune of $400,000. Surely this sum +alone proves the justice of the popular belief that he had sold himself +to the devil, and, knowing it, none can doubt the story Liszt quotes in +one of his essays concerning the G string of Paganini's violin: "It was +the intestine of his wife, whom he had killed with his own hands." +There is no record of the secret marriage, but there is record enough +of the superhuman power of the melodies he drew from that string. + +DE BÉRIOT, SONTAG, AND MALIBRAN + +Among the chief contemporaries of Paganini was De Bériot. When he was +not quite thirty, he found himself in Paris at the time of the deadly +vocal feud between Sontag and Malibran. The rivalry of the two singers +was ended by the influence of music. One night, singing together the +duet from "Semiramide," each was so overcome at the beauty of the +other's voice and art, that they embraced and became friends. + +De Bériot had an equally strange experience with the two women. He fell +madly in love with Sontag, slight, blue-eyed and blonde as she was, and +then only twenty-five. But De Bériot paid his court in vain, because at +this time Sontag was engaged to the young diplomat, Count Rossi; as it +would have hurt his influence to be engaged to the child of strolling +players, the engagement was kept secret, until the count could persuade +the King of Prussia to grant her a patent of nobility. When they were +married, she gave up the stage, and travelled from court to court with +her husband, singing only for charity. As her brother said: "Rossi made +my sister happy, in the best sense of the word. To the day of their +death they loved each other as on their wedding-day." + +But political troubles ruined the count's fortunes, and it seemed +necessary for the countess to return to the stage. Now again the court +wished to separate diplomacy from the drama played on the open stage. +Rossi was told that he might retain his ambassadorship if he would +formally separate from his wife, at least until she could again leave +the stage. But Rossi believed that it was his turn to make a sacrifice, +and could not bear a separation; so he resigned, and travelled with his +wife. They came to America, and in Mexico the cholera ended her +beautiful life at the age of forty-nine. + +It was into this ideal romance that De Beriot had wandered unwittingly +in 1830. It was fortunate that he could not prevail against the noble +Count Rossi, even though his failure caused him pain. It almost cost +him his health, and he suffered so obviously that his friends were +alarmed. Among those endeavouring to console him was Madame Malibran, +whom people, who like exclusive superlatives, have been pleased to +select as the greatest singer in the history of music. Like Sontag, she +was the child of stage people, and, indeed, had made her first +appearance at the age of five. + +In 1826 she, and that wonderful assembly, the Garcia family, had found +themselves in New York, where an old French merchant, supposed to be +rich, married her. It is certain that Malibran married the old merchant +for his money--a thing so common that one cannot stop to express +indignation. The horrible thing is that, as it turned out, the old man +had also an eye to the weather. He had hoped to stave off bankruptcy by +marrying the prosperous singer. He succeeded in getting neither her +money nor her heart, for she left him within a year and returned to +Paris. + +Here, then, we find her again, with her rival Sontag out of the way, +and Sontag's lover to console. She furnished him with contrast enough, +for she differed from Sontag in these respects, that she was only +twenty-two, she was a contralto, dark and Spanish, and was known to be +married. Her consolation of De Bériot was complete. They lived together +the rest of her life, touring in concerts occasionally, with enormous +financial success, she creating an immortal name as an operatic singer, +and he as a violinist. In 1831 they built a palatial home in the +suburbs of Brussels, where they spent the time when they were not +travelling. She bore him a son and a daughter, the latter dying in +infancy. + +Meanwhile, she was trying to divorce her husband, who was now living in +Paris. The freedom was a long while coming, and it was 1836 before the +Gordian knot was cut. On March 26th of the same year, she and De Bériot +were married. The very next month, in London, she was thrown from a +horse and more severely injured than she realised. As soon as she +could, she resumed her concerts; brain-fever attacked her. She died at +the age of twenty-eight. + +Two hours after her death, De Bériot hastened away to make sure of the +possession of the wealth this young woman had already heaped up. He did +not wait for the funeral, and all Europe was scandalised. But it is +claimed in his defence that he had been devoted to her, and during her +illness had never left her side, and that his mercenary haste was due +to his fear that a moment's delay might give Monsieur Malibran a chance +to claim her property, and thus rob the child she had borne De Bériot +of his inheritance. Those who know the peculiar attitude the French law +takes toward the property of a wife, can understand the difficulty of +the situation. + +In any case, the child was saved from poverty or from the necessity of +professionalism in later life, though he was a distinguished pianist. +As for De Bériot, after the success of his mission he returned to the +country home and remained in seclusion, not playing again in public for +one year. Two years later he married Fräulein Huber, the daughter of a +Vienna magistrate and the adopted ward of a prince. De Bériot travelled +little after this, and lived to be sixty-eight years old. He died in +blindness that had been creeping on him for the last eighteen years of +his life. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AN OMNIBUS CHAPTER + + +"Passions are like dogs: the big ones need more food than the little +ones."--HENRY T. FINCK, "_Romantic Love and Personal Beauty_." + + +There is both temptation and material enough for as many musical love +stories, as there are novels in the handwriting of Sir Walter Scott, +but this being a limited work, the covers already begin to bulge and +creak, and it will be necessary to crowd into one swift mail-coach such +other composers as we can hardly afford to leave behind. + +In some cases, this summary treatment is all the easier because little +or nothing is known of their love affairs, while in others it will be +purely a case of regretful omission. It is the chief difficulty and the +chief regret, whom and what to omit. There are composers whom to +neglect argues oneself ignorant, yet who composed no love affair of +immortal charm. There are composers of whom few ever heard, whose +_magnum opus_ was some romance that still makes the heart-strings +tingle by the acoustic law of sympathetic vibration. For example, there +are two old crusading troubadours. + +CERTAIN TROUBADOURS + +You never heard, perhaps, of Geoffrey Rudel, who "died for the charms +of an imaginary mistress." He fell in love with the Countess of +Tripoli, never having seen her. He loved the very fame of her beauty. +He set sail for the East, and endured the agonies of travel of those +days. Whether anticipation was better than realisation, we cannot know +to-day, having no portrait of the countess; but at least anticipation +was more fatal, for it wrought him into such a fever, that when at last +Tripoli was reached, he was carried ashore dying. The countess had +heard of his pilgrimage, and had hastened to greet him, only to be +permitted to clasp his hand and to hear him gasp, with his last breath: +"Having seen thee, I die satisfied." + +There is a distressing ambiguity about the troubadour's last words. + +And so there was the other troubadour, the Châtelain Regnault de Coucy. +His mistress was a married woman, whom he left to go to the Third +Crusade. In the inveterate siege of Acre, he was mortally wounded +before those odious Paynim walls; but, with his dying breath, he begged +that his heart be taken from his breast and sent home to her who had +owned it. The stupid messenger, arriving at home, betrayed to the +husband what it was he had been charged to deliver, and the husband +chose a most mediæval revenge: he had the heart of the troubadour +cooked and placed before his wife. When she had eaten, he told her what +sweetmeat it was she had so relished. Thereafter, she starved herself +to death. The same story is told of the troubadour Guillem de +Cabestanh; but it is good enough to repeat. + +There was another old troubadour, Pierre Vidal, of whom an ancient +biographer wrote that he "sang better than any man in the world, and +was one of the most foolish men who ever lived, for he believed +everything to be just as it pleased him and as he would have it be." +But the biographer contradicted his own beautiful portrait by telling +how poor Pierre sang once too well to a married woman, whose husband +took him, jailed him, and pierced his linnet tongue. + +MARTIN LUTHER + +If we cannot omit these troubadours, how can we overlook Martin Luther, +whose musical attainments the skeptics are wont to minimise, as others +deny his claim to that magnificent ejaculation: "Who loves not wine, +women, and song remains a fool his whole life long." No one claims that +Luther wrote his own compositions, but that he dictated them to trained +musicians who wrote down, and then wrote up such melodies as he played +upon the flute. But whatsoever may be the truth of his position as a +composer, no one can deny him either a passion for music or a domestic +romance. The runaway monk told the truth, when he said: "I married a +runaway nun." + +When he was forty-one, with his connivance, a number of nuns fled, or +were abducted, from a convent. One of them, Catherina von Bora, found +an asylum in Luther's own home. After looking about for a good husband +for her, at the end of a year he married her himself. She was then +twenty-six years old. The married life of the jovial reformer was +happy; but when he died, he left her so poor that she was obliged to +take in boarders, until she met her death by the same means that had +brought her marriage,--a runaway. + +BRITISHERS + +The earlier English composers have not been without their heart +interests. We have already pried into Purcell's romance. Old John Bull, +at the age of forty-four, could give up his professorship to marry +"Elizabeth Walker, of the Strand, maiden, being about twenty-four, +daughter of ---- Walker, citizen of London, deceased, she attending +upon the Right Honourable Lady Marchioness of Winchester." Four years +later, he became the chief of the prince's music, with the splendid +salary of £40 a year. + +Sir William Sterndale loved a Mary Wood, and wrote an overture called +"Marie des Bois," and after this atrocious pun, married the poor girl +in 1844, and they lived happily ever after, or at least for thirty +years after. + +Those other oldsters, Blow, Byrd, and Playford, were married men; and +Arne, the composer of "Rule Britannia," married, at the age of +twenty-six, Cecilia Young, an eminent singer in Händel's company, and +the daughter of an organist. She continued to sing, and he to write +music for her. At the age of sixty-eight he died, singing a hallelujah. +Whether she echoed his sentiments we are not told, but she lived +seventeen years longer. + +Balfe married a German singer, Rosen, who afterward sang in some of his +operas. + +One of the few other British composers who attained distinction was +John Field, who, like Balfe, was Dublin-born. He was the inventor of +Chopin's Nocturne. The story is told that he had a pupil from whom he +could not collect his bills. Finally in sheer despair he proposed, and, +when she accepted him, found his only revenge in telling everybody he +met that he had only married her to escape the necessity of giving her +further lessons, which she would never pay for. The story seems to be, +however, neither true nor well-found, for in spite of his awkwardness +and the hard life he led at the hands of his teacher Clementi, who made +him serve as a combined salesman of pianos and a concert virtuoso, he +was said to have married a Russian lady of rank and wealth. She was +really a Frenchwoman named Charpentier whom he had met in Moscow. She +was a professional pianist, and bore him a son; then she left him, and +changed her name, as did even the son. He was one of the many composers +who should have been kept in a cage. + +CLEMENTI, HUMMEL, STEIBELT + +As for Clementi, he was chiefly notable for his miserly qualities, by +which he rendered miserable three successive wives. + +The pianist Hummel, whom I always place with Clementi in a sort of +musical Dunciad, is credited with having won a courtship duel against +Beethoven, in which Clementi as the winner--or was it the +loser?--married the woman. + +Another rival of Beethoven's in public esteem was Daniel Steibelt, +forgotten as a virtuoso, but not to be forgotten for his splendid vices +which range from kleptomania up, or down as you wish. He married a +young and beautiful woman, who doubtless deserved her fate, since we +are told that she was a wonderful performer on the tambourine. He +succeeded to the post of Boieldieu, the eminent opera composer, who +began life under poor matrimonial auspices, seeing that his mother was +a milliner, from whom his father managed to escape by means of an easy +divorce law issued by the French Revolutionists. + +BOIELDIEU AND GRÉTRY + +The father married again, but with what success, I do not know. But at +any rate, his son followed his example and married Clotilde Mafleuray, +a dancer, who made him as unhappy as possible. It was said that he was +so wretched that he took to flight secretly; but it is known that his +departure was mentioned in a theatrical journal in good season. None +the less, though the flight may not have been surreptitious, it may +well be credited to domestic misery. He buried himself in Russia for +eight years, which may be placed in music's column of loss. Returning +to Paris then, he found a clear field for the great success that +followed. Soon after, in 1811, he formed an attachment with a woman who +bore him a son in 1816. Her tenderness to the composer is highly +praised; she must have given him devotion indeed, for he married her in +1827, eleven years after the birth of their son, who became also a +worthy composer. At the age of fifty-four, consumption and the +bankruptcy of the Opéra Comique, and the expulsion of the king who had +pensioned him, broke down his health. He lived five years longer. + +All I know of the domestic affairs of the great French opera-writer +Grétry is that he left three daughters, one of whom, Lucille, had a +one-act opera successfully produced when she was only thirteen years +old, and who was precocious enough to make an unhappy marriage and end +it in death by the time she was twenty-three. + +HÉROLD AND BIZET + +The Frenchman Hérold, son of a good musician, made ballet-music +artistic while he paced the dance of death with consumption, and died +in his forty-second year, a month after his masterpiece, "Le Pré aux +Clercs," had been produced and had wrung from him the wail: "I am going +too soon; I was just beginning to understand the stage." He had married +Adele Élise Rollet four years before, and she had borne him three +children, the eldest of whom became a Senator; the next, a daughter, +married well, and the third, a promising musician, died of his father's +disease at twenty. + +Bizet, like Hérold, died soon after his masterpiece was done. Three +months after "Carmen's" first equivocal success, Bizet was dead, not of +a broken heart, as legend tells, but of heart-disease. Six years before +he had married Geneviève, the daughter of his teacher, the composer +Halévy. In his letters to Lacombe he frequently mentions her, saying in +May, 1872: "J'attends un _baby_ dans deux ou trois semaines." His wife, +he said, was "marvellously well," and a happy result was expected--and +achieved, for in 1874 he sends Lacombe the greetings "des Bizet, père, +mère, et enfant." He began an oratorio with the suggestive name of +"Sainte Geneviève," which his death interrupted. His widow told Gounod +that Bizet had been so devoted that there was not a moment of their six +years' life she would not gladly live over again. + +César Franck married and left a son. At his funeral Chabrier said, "His +family, his pupils, his immortal art: violà all his life!" But Auber, +though too timid to marry or even to conduct his own works, was brave +enough to earn the name of a "devotee of Venus." + +THE PASSIONS OF BERLIOZ + +Some of the most eminent musicians were strictly literary men, to whom +music was an avocation. + +Thus Robert Schumann was an editor, who whiled away his leisure writing +music that almost no one approved or played for many years. Richard +Wagner was well on in life before his compositions brought him as much +money as his writing. Hector Berlioz was a prominent critic, whose +excursions into music brought him unmitigated abuse and ridicule. The +list might be multiplied. + +The tempestuous Berlioz was in love at twelve. The girl was eighteen; +her name was Estelle, and he called her "the hamadryad of St. Eynard." +Years later she had grown vague in his memory, and he could only say, +"I have forgot the colour of her hair; it was black I think. But +whenever I remember her I see a vision of great brilliant eyes and of +pink shoes." When he was fifty-seven years old, he found her again and +his old love revived. But before that time there was much life to live. +And he lived it at a _tempo presto con fuoco_. + +He went to Paris, which was a cyclone of conflict for him. At the age +of twenty-seven he won the Prix de Rome and went for three years to +Italy, not without the amorous adventures suitable to that sky. + +Returning to Paris, he found the city in a spasm of enthusiasm over +Shakespeare, especially over the Irish actress Smithson, whom he had +worshipped from afar, before he had gone to Rome, thinking that he only +worshipped Shakespeare through the prophetess. The remembrance of her +had inspired him to write his "Lelio" in Italy. When he was again in +Paris, he gave a concert, played the kettle-drums for his own symphony, +and through a friend managed to secure the attendance of Miss Smithson. +She recognised in him the stranger who had dogged her steps in the +years before. The poet Heine was at the concert, and his description of +the scene is as follows: + +"It was thus I saw him for the first time, and thus he will always +remain in my memory. It was at the Conservatoire de Musique when a big +symphony of his was given, a bizarre nocturne, only here and there +relieved by the gleam of a woman's dress, sentimentally white, +fluttering to and fro--or by a flash of irony, sulphur yellow. My +neighbour in my box pointed out to me the composer, who was sitting at +the extremity of the hall in the corner of the orchestra playing the +kettle-drums. + +"'Do you see that stout English woman in the proscenium? That is Miss +Smithson; for nearly three years Berlioz has been madly in love with +her, and it is this passion that we have to thank for the wild symphony +we are listening to to-day.' + +"Every time that her look met his, he struck his kettle-drum like a +maniac." + +Then he married the plump enchantress and knew a brief happiness. But +he gradually woke to the fact that the dowry she brought him was mainly +ill-luck, bad temper, and a monument of debts which she acquired by a +new series of Shakespeare performances under her own management. By +this time Paris had forgotten the barbarian Shakespeare and ridiculed +the former queen of the stage. Then Madame Berlioz fell from a carriage +and broke her leg. This took her permanently from the stage, where she +was no longer a success. A few managerial ventures brought her a +handsome bankruptcy. Berlioz gave benefit concerts and wrote fiendishly +for the papers to pay her debts, and always provided for her. But there +was no more happiness for the two, though there was a child. I have +said that Miss Smithson brought Berlioz a dowry of bad luck and bad +temper. The worldly goods with which Berlioz had her endowed, were no +better. He had begun the marriage with "300 francs borrowed from a +friend and a new quarrel with my parents." He also contributed a temper +which is one of the most brilliant in history. + +A few years after the birth of their child, his wife grew jealous, and +accused him of loving elsewhere. He reasoned that he might as well have +the game, if he must have the blame, and thereafter a travelling +companion attended him when he surreptitiously eloped with his music, +and his clothes. In his "Mémoires," he paints a dismal picture of his +wife's ill health, her jealous outbreaks, the final separation, and her +eventual death. Then he married again. "I was compelled to do so," is +his suggestive explanation. His new experiment was hardly more +successful; but in eight years his wife was dead. + +He found some consolation for his manifold troubles in Liszt's Princess +Sayn-Wittgenstein, and wrote her many letters which La Mara published +under the title of "The Apotheosis of Friendship." + +Then at Lyons he met again Her of the pink slippers, now Madame +Fournier, and a widow. He was fifty-seven and she still six years his +elder. He grew ferociously sentimental over her, and almost fainted +when he shook her hand. He tried to reconstruct from the victim of +three-and-sixty years the pink-slippered hamadryad who had haunted him +all his life. He wrote of the meeting: + +"I recognised the divine stateliness of her step; but oh, heavens, how +changed she was! her complexion faded, her hair gray. And yet at the +sight of her my heart did not feel one moment's indecision; my whole +soul went out to its idol as though she were still in her dazzling +loveliness. Balzac, nay, Shakespeare himself, the great painter of the +passions, never dreamt of such a thing." [For that reason the +novelty-mad Berlioz tried it. He wrote to her:] "I have loved you. I +still love you. I shall always love you. I have but one aim left in the +world, that of obtaining your affection." + +But it was not alone her physical self that had grown old; her +heart-beat, too, was _andante_. She consented to exchange letters; her +pen could correspond with him, but not her passion. She wrote him: "You +have a very young heart. I am quite old. Then, sir, I am six years your +elder, and at my age I must know how to deny myself new friendships." +So Berlioz went his way. His disapproval of Liszt and Wagner alienated +the friendship of even the princess, and his stormy career ended at the +age of sixty-six. + +GOUNOD + +Charles Gounod wrote as amorous music as ever troubled a human heart. +Like Liszt he was a religious mystic, and Vernon Blackburn has said +that the women who used to attend Gounod's concerts of sacred music +"used to look upon them as a sort of religious orgy." + +The details of Gounod's picturesque affairs have been denied us. And +the translator of his "Mémoires" regrets that he not only kept silence +on these points, but seems to have destroyed all the documents. His +"Mémoires" are disappointing in every way. Even his references to his +marriage are about as thrilling as a page from a blue book. His account +of his love and his wedding are on this ground really worth quoting, as +a curiosity of literature, it being observed how little he has to say +of romance, how much of his relatives-in-law. + +"_Ulysse_ was produced the 18th of June, 1852. I had just married a few +days before, a daughter of Zimmerman the celebrated professor of the +piano at the Conservatory, and to whom is due the fine school from +which have come Prudent, Marmontel, Goria, Lefébure-Wély, Ravina, +Bizet, and many others. I became by this alliance the brother-in-law of +the young painter Edouard Dubufe, who was already most ably carrying +his father's name, the heritage and reputation which his own son +Guilliaume Dubufe, promises brilliantly to maintain." + +Even to his friend, Lefuel he wrote: + +"I am going to be married the next month to Mlle. Anna Zimmerman. We +are all perfectly satisfied with this union which seems to offer the +most reliable assurances of lasting happiness. The family is excellent +and I have the good luck to be loved by all its members." + +He mentions briefly in later pages that his father-in-law died a year +after his marriage, and that two years later he lost his sister-in-law, +to whom he gives several lines of a cordial praise, which he singularly +denies his wife, though he states that a year after the marriage she +bore him a girl child, who died at birth, and that four years later she +bore him a son. On the afternoon of this day he was to conduct a very +important concert; when he returned, he found himself a father. He is +here generous enough to say: "On the morning of the day when my son was +born, my brave wife had the force to conceal from me her sufferings." + +When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, Gounod took refuge in London, +and there wrote his "Gallia." The soprano rôle was taken by a certain +Georgina Thomas, who had married Captain Weldon of the 18th Hussars. When +she met Gounod, she was some thirty-three years old, having been born in +1837. She took up professional singing for the sake of charity, and +Gounod and she became romantically attached. She helped him train his +choir, established an orphanage at her residence for poor children with +musical inclinations, and published songs by Gounod and others, +including herself, the proceeds going to the aid of her orphanage. At +this time she claimed to have acquired the ownership of certain works +of his. Gounod thought, he said, that he had found in her "an apostle +of his art and a fanatic for his works," but he also found that her +charity had an excellent business foundation, for, when their love +affair came to an end, she claimed her property in his compositions. + +He refused to acknowledge her right, and when she clung to his +"Polyeucte," he rewrote it from memory. She sued him for damages, and +the English courts ordered him to pay to his former hostess $50,000. +But he evaded payment by staying in France. Mrs. Weldon was also a +composer, and she had edited in 1875 Gounod's autobiography and certain +of his essays with a preface by herself. The lawsuit as usual exposed +to public curiosity many things both would have preferred to keep +secret, and was a pitiful finish generally to what promised to be a +most congenial alliance. The love affair began like a novel and ended +like a cash-book. + +DIVERS ITALIANS + +As for the Italians, we know that Paesiello, who was a famous intriguer +against his musical rivals, was a devoted husband whose wife was an +invalid and who died soon after her death. Cherubini married +Mademoiselle Cécile Turette, when he was thirty-five, and the marriage +was not a success. He left a son and two daughters. Spontini, one of +whose best operas was based on the life of that much mis-married +enthusiast for divorce, John Milton, took to wife a member of the Érard +family. In the outer world Spontini was famous for his despotism, his +jealousy, his bad temper, and his excessive vanity. None of these +qualities as a rule add much to home comfort, and yet, it is said that +he lived happily with his wife. We may feel sure that some of the bad +light thrown on his character is due purely to the jealousy of rivals, +when we consider his domestic content, his ardent interest in the +welfare of Mozart's widow and children, and the great efforts he made +to secure subscriptions for the widow's biography of Mozart. + +Furthermore, Spontini in his later years, when deafness saddened his +lot, deserted the halls of fame and the palaces of royalty, where he +had been prominent, and retired with his wife to the little Italian +village where he had been born of the peasantry. And there he spent +years founding schools and doing other works for the public good. He +died there in the arms of his wife, at the age of seventy-five; having +had no children, he willed his property to the poor of his native +village. + +It is strange how much wrong we do to the geniuses of the second rate, +when they happen to be rivals of those whom we have voted geniuses of +the first rate; for the Piccinnis and the Salieris and the Spontinis, +who chance to fight earnestly against Glucks, Mozarts, and others, +often show in their lives qualities of the utmost sweetness and +sincerity, equalling that of their more successful rivals in the +struggle for existence. + +For instance, there is Salieri, who was accused of poisoning Mozart, a +monstrous slander, which Salieri bitterly regretted and answered by +befriending Mozart's son and securing him his first appointment. When +Salieri was young and left an orphan, he was befriended by a man, who +later died, leaving his children in some distress. Salieri took care of +the family and educated the two daughters as opera singers. His +generosity was shown in numberless ways, and if by mishap he did not +especially approve of Mozart, he was on most cordial terms with Haydn +and Beethoven. He gave lessons and money to poor musicians; he loved +nature piously; was exuberant; was devoted to pastry and sugar-plums, +but cared nothing for wine. All I know of his married life is that when +he was fifty-five he lost his son, and two years later his wife, and he +was never the same thereafter. It is a shame to slander him as men do. + +THE GRAND ROSSINI + +One of the most remarkably successful men of his century was Rossini, +son of a village inspector of slaughter-houses, and a baker's daughter. +Once, while the husband was in jail on account of his political +sympathies, the mother became a burlesque singer, and when the father +was released, he joined the troupe as a horn-player. Rossini was left +in the care of a pork-butcher, on whom he used to play practical jokes. +He always took life easily, this Rossini. At the age of sixteen he was +already a successful composer, and had begun that dazzling career which +mingled superhuman laziness with inhuman zeal. Among his first +acquaintances were the Mombelli family, of whom he said in a letter +that the girls were "ferociously virtuous." + +In 1815, he then being twenty-three, he first met the successful prima +donna Isabella Colbran, who was then thirty years old and had been +singing for fourteen years on the stage. She was still beautiful, +though her voice had begun to show signs of wear. Rossini seems to have +fallen in love with her art and herself, and he wrote ten roles for +her. It was she who persuaded him away from comic to tragic opera. The +political changes of the period soon changed her from public favourite +to a public dislike, and Rossini, disgusted with his countrymen, +married her and left Italy. It was said that he married her for her +money, because she was his elder and was already on the wane in public +favour, and yet owned a villa and $25,000 a year income. However that +may be, it was a brilliant match for the son of the slaughter-house +inspector, and the wedding took place in the palace of a cardinal, the +Archbishop of Bologna. As one poet wrote, in stilted Latin: + +"A remarkable man weds a remarkable woman. Who can doubt that their +progeny will be remarkable?" + +It might have been, for all we know, had there been any progeny, but +there was not. It is pleasant to note that Rossini's ancient parents +were at the wedding. Then the couple went to Vienna, where Carpani +wrote of Colbran's voice: "The Graces seemed to have watered with +nectar each of her syllables. Her acting is notable and dignified, as +becomes her important and majestic beauty." + +In 1824 they were called to London. Here they were on terms of great +intimacy with the king. In this one season the two made $35,000. +Rossini complained that the singer was paid at a far higher rate than +the composer; besides, she sang excruciatingly off the key and had +nothing left but her intellectual charms. From England Rossini went to +equal glory to France. At the early age of forty-three, he took a +solemn vow to write no more music, a vow he kept almost literally. In +1845, his wife, then being sixty years of age, died. Two years later he +married Olympe Pelissier, who had been his mistress in Paris and had +posed for Vernet's "Judith." Rossini was a great voluptuary, and was +prouder of his art in cooking macaroni than of anything else he could +do. But much should be forgiven him in return for his brilliant wit and +the heroism with which he kept his vow, however regrettable the vow. + +BELLINI + +Of Bellini, that great treasurer for the hand-organists, a story has +been told as his first romance. According to this, when he was a +conservatory student at Naples, he called upon a fellow student and +took up a pair of opera glasses, proceeding to take that interest in +the neighbours that one is prone to take with a telescope. On the +balcony of the opposite house he saw a beautiful girl; the +opera-glasses seemed to bring her very near, but not near enough to +reach. So, after much elaborate management he became her teacher of +singing, and managed to teach her at least to love him. But the family +growing suspicious that Bellini was instructing her in certain elective +studies outside the regular musical curriculum, his school was closed. + +Then a little opera of his had some success, and he asked for her hand. +His proposal was received with Neapolitan ice, and the lovers were +separated, to their deep gloom. When he was twenty-four, another opera +of his made a great local triumph, and he applied again, only to be +told that "the daughter of Judge Fumaroli will never be allowed to +marry a poor cymbal player." Later his success grew beyond the bounds +of Italy, and now the composer of "La Sonnambula" and "Norma" was +worthy of the daughter of even a judge; so the parents, it is said, +reminded him that he could now have the honour of marrying into their +family. But he was by this time calm enough to reply that he was wedded +to his art. + +This conclusion of the romance reminds one of Handel--a thing which +Bellini very rarely does. He died when he was only thirty-three years +of age, and at that age Handel had not written a single one of the +oratorios by which he is remembered. In fact, he did not begin until he +was fifty-five with the success which made him immortal. It was the +irony of fate that Bellini should have died so young, while a brother +of his who was a fourth-rate church composer lived for eighty-two +years. + +VERDI'S MISERERE + +The virtues of senescence are seen in the case of Verdi, who did some +of his greatest work at the age when most musicians are ready for the +old ladies' home. His first love affair has been the subject of an +opera, like Stradella's. In fact it has much of the garish misery of +the Punchinello story. Verdi was very poor as a child, and was educated +by a charitable institution. He was greatly befriended by his teacher, +Barezzi, in whose house he lived, and like Robert Schumann, he showed +his gratitude by falling in love with the daughter; Margarita was her +name. But Barezzi interpreted the rôle of father-in-law in a manner +unlike that of Wieck, and to the youth to whom he had given not only +instruction, but funds for his study and board and lodging while in +Milan, he gave also his daughter, when the time came in 1836, Verdi +being then twenty-three years old. Two years later, the composer left +his home town of Busseto with one wife, two children, and three or four +MSS. He settled in Milan. He was a long time getting his first opera +produced, and it was not until 1839 that it made its little success, +and he was engaged to write three more. He chose a comic libretto for +the first, and then troubles began not to rain but to pour upon him. +But let Verdi tell his own story: + +"I lived at that time in a small and modest apartment in the +neighbourhood of the Porta Ticinese, and I had my little family with +me, that is to say my young wife and our two little children. I had +hardly begun my work when I fell seriously ill of a throat complaint, +which compelled me to keep my bed for a long time. I was beginning to +be convalescent, when I remembered that the rent, for which I wanted +fifty ecus, would become due in a few days. At that time if such a sum +was of importance to me, it was no very serious matter; but my painful +illness had not allowed me to provide it in time, and the state of +communications with Busseto (in those days the post only went twice a +week) did not leave me the opportunity of writing to my excellent +father-in-law Barezzi to enable him to send the necessary funds. I +wished, whatever trouble it might give to me, to pay my lodging on the +day fixed, and although much annoyed at being obliged to have recourse +to a third person, I nevertheless decided to beg the engineer Pasetti +to ask Merelli on my behalf for the fifty ecus which I wanted, either +in the form of an advance under the conditions of my contract, or by +way of loan for eight or ten days, that is to say the time necessary +for writing to Busseto and receiving the said sum. + +"It is useless to relate here how it came about that Merelli, without +any fault on his part, did not advance me the fifty ecus in question. +Nevertheless, I was much distressed at letting the rent day of the +lodgings go by. My wife then, seeing my annoyance, took a few articles +of jewelry which she possessed, and succeeded, I know not how, in +getting together the sum necessary, and brought it to me. I was deeply +touched at this proof of affection, and promised myself to return them +all to her, which, happily, I was able to do with little difficulty, +thanks to my agreement. + +"But now began for me the greatest misfortunes. My 'bambino' fell ill +at the beginning of April, the doctors were unable to discover the +cause of his ailment, and the poor little thing, fading away, expired +in the arms of his mother, who was beside herself with despair. That +was not all. A few days after my little daughter fell ill in turn, and +her complaint also terminated fatally. But this even was not all. Early +in June my young companion herself was attacked by acute brain fever, +and on the 19th of June, 1840, a third coffin was carried from my +house. + +"I was alone!--alone! In the space of about two months, three loved +ones had disappeared for ever. I had no longer a family. And, in the +midst of this terrible anguish, to avoid breaking the engagement I had +contracted, I was compelled to write and finish a comic opera! + +"'Un Giorno di Regno' did not succeed. A share of the want of success +certainly belongs to the music, but part must also be attributed to the +performance. My soul, rent by the misfortunes which had overwhelmed me, +my spirit, soured by the failure of the opera, I persuaded myself that +I should no longer find consolation in art, and formed the resolution +to compose no more! I even wrote to the engineer Pasetti (who since the +fiasco of 'Un Giorno di Regno' had shown no signs of life) to beg him +to obtain from Merelli the cancelling of my contract." + +This story is sad enough, Heaven knows, without the melodramatic frills +that have been put upon it. You will read in certain sketches, and even +Mr. Elbert Hubbard has enambered the fable in one of his "Little +Journeys," that Verdi's wife was ill during the performance of the +opera, that the first act was a great success, and he ran home to tell +her. The second act was also successful, and he ran home again, not +noting that his wife was dying of starvation. The third act, and he was +hissed off the stage, and flew home, only to find his wife dead. The +chief objection to the story is the fact that his wife died on the 19th +of June, 1840, and the opera was not produced until the 5th of +September that same year. But it is tragic enough that he should have +been compelled to write a comic opera under the anguish that he felt at +the loss of his two children and his wife, and that his reward should +have been even then a dismal fiasco. + +He was dissuaded from his vow to write no more, and it was in a driving +snow-storm that his friend Merelli decoyed him to a field, in which so +much fame was awaiting him. + +This Merelli had first become interested in Verdi from overhearing the +singer Signora Strepponi praising Verdi's first opera. This was before +the failure of the comic opera and the annihilation of Verdi's family. + +When Merelli had at length decoyed Verdi back to composition, his next +work, "Nabucco," was a decided success, the principal part being taken +by this same Strepponi. She had made her début seven years before, and +was a singer of dramatic fire and vocal splendour, we are told. Her +enthusiasm for Verdi's work not only fastened the claim of operatic art +upon him, but won his interest in her charms also, and Verdi and she +were soon joined in an alliance, which after some years was legalised +and churched. She shortly after left the stage without waiting to "lag +superfluous" there. Thenceforward she shared with Verdi that life of +quiet retirement from the world in which he played the patriarch and +the farmer, breeding horses and watching the harmonies of nature with +almost more enthusiasm than the progress of his art. + +So much for the Italian opera composers. How do the Germans compare? + +VARIOUS GERMANS + +The old composer Hasse, like Rossini, being himself the most popular +composer of the day, married one of the most popular singers of her +time, and scored a double triumph with her. This was the famous +Faustina. + +Mendelssohn's friend, Carl Zelter, was a busy lover, as his +autobiography makes plain. One of his flirtations was with an artistic +Jewess, with whom he quarrelled and from whom he parted, because they +could not agree upon the art of suicide as outlined in Goethe's then +new work, "The Sorrows of Werther." + +Albert Lortzing was married before he was twenty, and lived busily as +singer, composer, and instrumentalist, travelling here and there with a +family that increased along with his debts. It was not till after his +death, and then by a public subscription, that his family knew the end +of worry. + +Similarly the public came to the aid of Robert Franz, before his death, +thanks to Liszt and others. For Franz, who had married the song +composer, Marie Hinrichs, lost his hearing and drifted to the brink of +despair before a series of concerts rescued him from starvation. + +Heinrich Marschner was married three times, his latter two wives being +vocalists. Thalberg married a daughter of the great singer Lablache; +she was the widow of the painter Boucher, whose exquisite confections +every one knows. They had a daughter, who was a singer of great gifts. + +Meyerbeer in 1825 lost his father, whom he loved to the depth of his +large heart. At the father's death-bed he renewed an old love with his +cousin, Minna Mosson, and they were betrothed. Niggli says she was "as +sweet as she was fair." Two years later he married her. She bore him +five children, of whom three, with the wife, survived him and inherited +his great fortune. + +Josef Strauss, son of a saloon-keeper, married Anna Streim, daughter of +an innkeeper. After she had borne him five children, they were divorced +on the ground of incompatibility. How many children did they want for +compatibility's sake? Their son Johann married Jetty Treffy in 1863; +she was a favourite public singer, and her ambition raised him out of a +mere dance-hall existence to the waltz-making for the world. When she +died he paid her the exquisite compliment of choosing another singer, +before the year was over, for the next waltz. Her name was Angelica +Dittrich. + +Joachim Raff fell in love with an actress named Doris Genast, and +followed her to Wiesbaden in 1856; he married her three years later, +and she bore him a daughter. + +The Russian Glinka was sent travelling in search of health. He liked +Italian women much and many, but it was in Berlin that he made his +declarations to a Jewish contralto, for whose voice he wrote six +studies. But he married Maria Pétrovna Ivanof, who was young, pretty, +quarrelsome, and extravagant. She brought along also a dramatic +mother-in-law, and he set out again for his health. His wife married +again, and the scandal of the whole affair preyed on him so that he +went to Paris and sought diversion recklessly along the boulevards. + +His countryman, Anton Rubinstein, married Vera Tschekonanof in 1865. +She accompanied him on his first tour, but after that, not. + +The Bohemian composer Smetana married his pupil, Katharine Kolar; he +was another of those whose happiness deafness ruined. He was +immortalised in a composition as harrowing as any of Poe's stories, or +as Huneker's "The Lord's Prayer in B," the torment of one high note +that rang in his head unceasingly, until it drove him mad. + +FRANZ SCHUBERT + +Among the beautiful figures, whom the critical historian tries to drive +back into that limbo, where an imaginary Homer flirts with a fabulous +Pocahontas, we are asked to place the alleged one love of Schubert's +life. Few composers have been so overweighted with poverty or so gifted +with loneliness as Franz Schubert. His joy was spasmodic and short, but +his sorrow was persistent and deep. + +He, who sang so many love songs, could hardly be said to have been in +any sense a lover. Once he wrote of himself as a man so wrecked in +health, that he was one "to whom the happiness of proffered love and +friendship is but anguish; whose enthusiasm for the beautiful threatens +to vanish altogether." Of his music he wrote, that the world seemed to +like only that which was the product of his sufferings, and of his +songs he exclaimed: "For many years I sang my Lieder. If I would fain +sing of love, it turned to pain; or if I would sing of pain, it turned +to love. Thus I was torn between love and sorrow." + +He had a few flirtations, and one or two strong friendships, but the +thought of marriage seems to have entered his mind only to be rejected. +In his diary he wrote: + +"Happy is he who finds a true friend; happier still is he who finds in +his wife a true friend. To the free man at this time, marriage is a +frightful thought: he confounds it either with melancholy or low +sensuality." One of his first affairs of the heart was with Theresa +Grob, who sang in his works, and for whom he wrote various songs and +other compositions. But he also wrote for her brother, and besides, she +married a baker. Anna Milder, who had been a lady's maid, but became a +famous singer and married a rich jeweller and quarrelled with Beethoven +and with Spontini, was a sort of muse to Schubert, sang his songs in +public, and gave him much advice. + +Mary Pachler was a friend of Beethoven's, and after his death seems to +have turned her friendship to Schubert, with great happiness to him. + +But the legendary romance of Schubert's life occurred when he was +twenty-one, and a music teacher to Carolina Esterházy. He first fell in +love with her maid, it is said, and based his "Divertissement à +l'Hongroise" on Hungarian melodies he heard her singing at her work. +There is no disguising the fact that Schubert, prince of musicians, was +personally a hopeless little pleb. He wrote his friend Schober in 1818 +of the Esterházy visit: "The cook is a pleasant fellow; the housemaid +is very pretty and often pays me a visit; the butler is my rival." +Mozart also ate with the servants in the Archbishop's household, though +it ground him deep. + +But Schubert was too homely even for a housemaid, so in despair he +turned to the young countess and loved her--they say, till death. Once, +she jokingly demanded why he had never dedicated anything to her, and +the legend says he cried: "Why should I, when everything I write is +yours?" + +The purveyors of this legend disagree as to the age of the young +countess; some say she was seventeen, and some that she was eleven, +while those who disbelieve the story altogether say that she was only +seven years old. But now you have heard the story, and you may take it +or leave it. There is some explanation for the belief that Schubert did +not dare to love or declare his love, and some reason to believe that +his reticence was wise and may have saved him worse pangs, in the fact +that he was only one inch more than five feet high, and yet fat and +awkward; stoop-shouldered, wild-haired, small-nosed, big-spectacled, +thick-lipped, and of a complexion which has been called pasty to the +point of tallowness. Haydn, however, almost as unpromising, was a great +slayer of women. But Schubert either did not care, or did not dare. + +He reminds one of Brahms, a genial giant, who was deeply devoted in a +filial way to Clara Schumann after the death of Schumann, but who never +married, and of whom I find no recorded romance. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK + + +"I am not satisfied with any man who despises music. For music is a +gift of God. It will drive away the devil and makes people cheerful. +Occupied with it, man forgets all anger, unchastity, pride, and other +vices. Next to theology, I give music the next place and highest +praise."--MARTIN LUTHER. + + +By a little violence to chronology, I am putting last of all the story +of Schumann's love-life, because it marks the highest point of musical +amour. + +If music have any effect at all upon character, especially upon the +amorous development and activity of character, that effect ought to be +discoverable--if discoverable it is--with double distinctness where two +musicians have fallen in love with each other, and with each other's +music. There are many instances where both the lovers were musically +inclined, but in practically every case, save in one, there has been a +great disparity between their abilities. + +The whimsical Fates, however, decided to make one trial of the +experiment of bringing two musicians of the first class into a sphere +of mutual influence and affection. The result was so beautiful, so +nearly ideal, that--needless to say--it has not been repeated. But +while the experiment has not been duplicated, the story well merits a +repetition, especially in view of the fact that the woman's side of the +romance has only recently been given to the public in Litzmann's +biography, only half of which has been published in German and none in +English. + +There can surely be no dispute that Robert Schumann was one of the most +original and individual of composers, and one of the broadest and +deepest-minded musicians in the history of the art. Nor can there be +any doubt that Clara Wieck was one of the richest dowered musicians who +ever shed glory upon her sex. Henry T. Finck was, perhaps, right, when +he called her "the most gifted woman that has ever chosen music as a +profession." + +Robert Schumann showed his determined eccentricity before he was born, +for surely no child ever selected more unconventional parents. Would +you believe it? It was the mother who opposed the boy's taking up music +as a career! the father who wished him to follow his natural bent! and +it was the father who died while Schumann was young, leaving him to +struggle for years against his mother's will! + +Not that Frau Schumann was anything but a lovable and a most beloved +mother. Robert's letters to her show a remarkable affection even for a +son. Indeed, as Reissmann says in his biography: + +"As in most cases, Robert's youthful years belonged almost wholly to +his mother, and indeed her influence chiefly developed that pure +fervour of feeling to which his whole life bore witness; this, however, +soon estranged him from the busy world and was the prime factor in that +profound melancholy which often overcame him almost to suicide." + +Frau Schumann wished Robert to study law, and sent him to the +University at Leipzig for that purpose and later to Heidelberg. He was +not the least interested in his legal studies, but loved to play the +piano, and write letters, and dream of literature, to idolise Jean Paul +Richter and to indulge a most commendable passion for good cigars. He +was not dilatory at love, and went through a varied apprenticeship +before his heart seemed ready for the fierce test it was put to in his +grand passion. + +In 1827, he being then seventeen years old, we find him writing to a +schoolfellow a letter of magnificent melancholy; the tone of its +allusions to a certain young woman reminds one of Chopin's early love +letters. How sophomoric and seventeen-year-oldish they sound! + +"Oh, friend! were I but a smile, how would I flit about her eyes! ... +were I but joy, how gently would I throb in all her pulses! yea, might +I be but a tear, I would weep with her, and then, if she smiled again, +how gladly would I die on her eyelash, and gladly, gladly, be no more." + +"My past life lies before me like a vast, vast evening landscape, over +which faintly quivers a rosy kiss from the setting sun." + +He bewails two dissipated ideals. One, named "Liddy," "a narrow-minded +soul, a simple maiden from innocent Eutopia; she cannot grasp an idea." +And yet she was very beautiful, and if she were "petrified," every +critic would pronounce her perfection. The boy sighs with that +well-known senility of seventeen: + +"I think I loved her, but I knew only the outward form in which the +roseate tinted fancy of youth often embodies its inmost longings. So I +have no longer a sweetheart, but am creating for myself other ideals, +and have in this respect also broken with the world." + +Again he looks back upon his absorbing passion for a glorious girl +called "Nanni," but that blaze is now "only a quietly burning sacred +flame of pure divine friendship and reverence." + +A month after this serene resignation he goes to Dresden, and finds his +heart full of longing for this very "Nanni." He roves the streets +looking under every veil that flutters by him in the street, in the +hope that he might see her features; he remembers again "all the hours +which I dreamed away so joyfully, so blissfully in her arms and her +love." He did not see her, but later, to his amazement, he stumbles +upon the supposedly finished sweetheart "Liddy." She is bristling with +"explanations upon explanations." She begs him to go up a steep mountain +alone with her. He goes "from politeness, perhaps also for the sake of +adventure." But they are both dumb and tremulous and they reach the peak +just at sunset. Schumann describes that sunset more gaudily than ever +chromo was painted. But at any rate it moved him to seize Liddy's hand +and exclaim, somewhat mal-à-propos: "Liddy, such is our life." + +He plucked a rose and was about to give it to her when a flash of +lightning and a cloud of thunder woke him from his dreams; he tore the +rose to pieces, and they returned home in silence. + +In 1828, at Augsburg, he cast his affectionate eyes upon Clara von +Kurer, the daughter of a chemist; but found her already engaged. It was +now that he entered the University at Leipzig to study law. The wife of +Professor Carus charmed him by her singing and inspired various songs. +At her house he met the noted piano teacher, Friedrich Wieck, and thus +began an acquaintance of strange vicissitude and strange power for +torment and delight. + +Wieck, who was then forty-three, chiefly lived in the career of his +wonder-child, a pianist, Clara Josephine Wieck. She had been born at +Leipzig on September 13, 1819, and was only nine years old, and nine +years younger than Schumann, when they met. She made a sensational +début in concert the same year. And, child as she was, she excited at +once the keenest and most affectionate admiration in Schumann. He did +not guess then how deeply she was doomed to affect him, but while she +was growing up his heart seemed merely to loaf about till she was ready +for it. + +For a time he became Wieck's pupil, hoping secretly to be a pianist, +not a lawyer. He dreamed already of storming America with his +virtuosity. + +In 1829, while travelling, he wrote his mother, "I found it frightfully +hard to leave Leipzig at the last. A girl's soul, beautiful, happy, and +pure, had enslaved mine." But this soul was not Clara's. A few months +later, he made a tour through Italy, and wrote of meeting "a beautiful +English girl, who seemed to have fallen in love, not so much with +myself as my piano playing, for all English women love with the head--I +mean they love Brutuses, or Lord Byrons, or Mozart and Raphaels." +Surely one of the most remarkable statements ever made, and +appropriately demolished by the very instances brought to substantiate +it, for, to the best of my knowledge, Mozart, Brutus, and Raphael had +affairs with other than English women; and so did, for the matter of +that, Lord Byron. + +A week later Schumann wrote from Venice, whither he had apparently +followed the English beauty: + +"Alas, my heart is heavy ... she gave me a spray of cypress when we +parted.... She was an English girl, very proud, and kind, and loving, +and hating ... hard but so soft when I was playing--accursed +reminiscences!" + +The wound was not mortal. A little later, and he was showing almost as +much enthusiasm in his reference to his cigars. "Oh, those cigars!" We +find him smoking one at five A.M., on July 30th, at Heidelberg. He had +risen early to write, "the most important letter I have ever written," +pleading ardently with his mother to let him be a musician. She decided +to leave the decision concerning her son's future to Wieck, who, +knowing Schumann's attainments and promise, voted for music. Schumann, +wild with delight and ambition, fled from Heidelberg and the law. He +went to Mainz on a steamer with many English men and women, and he +writes his mother, "If ever I marry, it will be an English girl." He +did not know what was awaiting him in the home of Wieck, whose house he +entered as pupil and lodger, almost as a son. + +Here he worked like a fiend at his theory and practice. He suffered +from occasional attacks of the most violent melancholy, obsessions of +inky gloom, which kept returning upon him at long intervals. But when +he threw off the spell, he was himself again, and could write to his +mother of still new amours: + +"I have filled my cup to the brim by falling in love the day before +yesterday. The gods grant that my ideal may have a fortune of 50,000." + +In 1830 he flirted with the beautiful Anita Abegg; her name suggested +to him a theme for his Opus I, published in 1831, and based upon the +notes A-B-E-G-G. He apologised to his family for not dedicating his +first work to them, but explained that it was not good enough. It is +published with an inscription to "Pauline, Comtesse d'Abegg," a +disguise which puzzled his family, until he explained that he himself +was the "father" of the "Countess" d'Abegg. + +It was two years before he confessed another flirtation. In 1833, he +went to Frankfort to hear Paganini, and there it was a case of "pretty +girl at the willow-bush--staring match through opera-glasses--champagne." +The next year he was torn between two admirations. One, the daughter of +the German-born American consul at Liepzig,--her name was Emily List; +she was sixteen, and he described her "as a thoroughly English girl, with +black sparkling eyes, black hair, and firm step; and full of intellect, +and dignity, and life." + +The other was Ernestine von Fricken, daughter--by adoption, though this +he did not know--of a rich Bohemian baron. Of her he wrote: + +"She has a delightfully pure, child-like mind, is delicate and +thoughtful, deeply attached to me and everything artistic, and +uncommonly musical--in short just such a one as I might wish to have +for a wife; and I will whisper it in your ear, my good mother, if the +Future were to ask me whom I should choose, I would answer +unhesitatingly, 'This one,' But that is all in the dim distance; and +even now I renounce the prospect of a more intimate relationship, +although, I dare say, I should find it easy enough." + +Ernestine, like Robert, was a pupil and boarder at the home of the +Wiecks. She and Robert had acted as godparents to one of Wieck's +children, possibly Clara's half-sister, Marie, also in later years a +prominent pianist and teacher. + +The affair with Ernestine grew more serious. In 1834 he wrote a letter +of somewhat formal and timid devotion to her. A little later, with fine +diplomacy, he also wrote a fatherly letter to her supposed father, +praising some of the baron's compositions with certain reservations, +and adding, as a _coup de grâce_, the statement that he himself was +writing some variations on a theme of the baron's own. + +The same month Ernestine and Robert became engaged. He was deeply, +joyously fond of her, and he poured out his soul to her friend, who was +also a distinguished musician, Henrietta Voigt. To her he wrote of +Ernestine: + +"Ernestine has written to me in great delight. She has sounded her +father by means of her mother; and he gives her to me! Henrietta, he +gives her to me! do you understand that? And yet I am so wretched; it +seems as though I feared to accept this jewel, lest it should be in +unworthy hands. If you ask me to put a name to my grief I cannot do it. +I think it is grief itself; but alas, it may be love itself, and mere +longing for Ernestine. I really cannot stand it any longer, so I have +written to her to arrange a meeting one of these days. If you should +ever feel thoroughly happy, then think of two souls who have placed all +that is most sacred to them in your keeping, and whose future happiness +is inseparably bound up with your own." + +This Madame Voigt, who died at the age of thirty-one, once said that on +a beautiful summer evening, she and Schumann, after playing various +music, had rowed out in a boat, and, shipping the oars, had sat side by +side in complete silence--that deathlike silence which so often +enveloped Schumann even in the circles of his friends at the taverns. +When they returned after a mute hour, Schumann pressed her hand and +exclaimed, "Today we have understood each other perfectly." + +It was under Ernestine's inspiration, which Schumann called "a perfect +godsend," that he fashioned the various jewels that make up the music +of his "Carnéval," using for his theme the name of Ernestine's +birthplace, "Asch," which he could spell in music in two ways: +A-ES-C-H, or AS-C-H, for ES is the German name for E flat, while AS is +our A flat and H our B natural. He was also pleased to note that the +letters S-C-H-A were in his own name. + +While all this flirtation and loving and getting betrothed was going on +in the home of Wieck, there was another member of the same household, +another pupil of the same teacher, who was not deriving so much delight +from the arrangement. Through it all, a great-eyed, great-hearted, +greatly suffering little girl of fifteen was learning, for the first +time, sorrow. This was Clara Wieck, who was already electrifying the +most serious critics and captivating the most cultured audiences by the +maturity of her art, already winning an encore with a Bach fugue,--an +unheard-of miracle. As Wieck wrote in the diary, which he and his +daughter kept together, "This marked a new era in piano music." At the +age of twelve, she played with absolute mastery the most difficult +music ever written. + +But her public triumph made her only half-glad, for she was watching at +home the triumph of another girl over the youth she loved. Can't you +see her now in her lonely room, reeling off from under her fleet +fingers the dazzling arpeggios, while the tears gather in her eyes and +fall upon her hands? + +Four years later she could write to Schumann: + +"I must tell you what a silly child I was then. When Ernestine came to +us I said, 'Just wait till you learn to know Schumann, he is my +favorite of all my acquaintances,' But she did not care to know you, +since she said she knew a gentleman in Asch, whom she liked much +better. That made me mad; but it was not long before she began to like +you better and it soon went so far that every time you came I had to +call her. I was glad to do this since I was pleased that she liked you. +But you talked more and more with her and cut me short; that hurt me a +good deal; but I consoled myself by saying it was only natural since +you were with me all the time; and, besides, Ernestine was more +grown-up than I. Still queer feelings filled my heart, so young it was, +and so warmly it beat even then. When we went walking you talked to +Ernestine and poked fun at me. Father shipped me off to Dresden on that +account, where I again grew hopeful, and I said to myself, 'How pretty +it would be if he were only your husband,'" + +From Dresden, Clara wrote to "Lieber Herr Schumann," a quizzical letter +advising him to drink "less Bavarian beer; not to turn night into day; +to let your girl friends know that you think of them; to compose +industriously, and to write more in your paper, since the readers wish +it." + +Schumann, unconsciously to himself, had given Clara reason enough to +persuade a child of her years that he loved her more than he did, or +more than he thought he did. He thought he was interested only in the +marvellous child-artist. He found in the musical newspaper which he +edited an opportunity to promulgate his high opinion of her. It is +needless to say that the praises he lavished in print, would be no more +cordial than those he bestowed on her in the privacy of the home. For +he and she seemed to be as son and daughter to old Wieck, who was also +greatly interested in the critical ideals of Schumann, and joined him +zealously in the organisation and conducting of the _Neue Zeitschrift +für Musik_. This, Schumann made the most wonderfully catholic and +prophetic critical organ that ever existed for art; and in the editing +of it he approved himself to posterity as a musical critic never +approached for discriminating the good from the bad; for daring to +discover and to acclaim new genius without fear, or without waiting for +death to close the lifelong catalogue or to serve as a guide for an +estimate. For some time Wieck joined hands and pen with Schumann in +this great cause, till gradually his fears for the career of the +jealously guarded Clara caused a widening rift between the old man and +the young. + +Clara was to Schumann first a brilliant young sister, for whom he +prophesied such a career as that of Schubert, Paganini, and Chopin, and +for whom he cherished an affectionate concern. Yet as early as 1832, +when she was only thirteen, and he twenty-two, he could write to his +"Dear honoured Clara," "I often think of you, not as a brother of his +sister, or merely in friendship, but rather as a pilgrim thinking of a +distant shrine." He began to dedicate compositions to her, and he took +her opinion seriously. His Opus 5, written in 1833, was based on a +theme by Clara, and, according to Reissman, showed a feeling of +"reverence for her genius rather than of love." + +He began also to publish most enthusiastic criticisms of her concerts, +calling her "the wonder-child," and "the first German artist," one who +"already stands on the topmost peak of our time." He even printed +verses upon her genius. In a letter to Wieck, in 1833, he says, "It is +easy to write to you, but I do not feel equal to write to Clara." She +was still, however, the child to him; the child whom he used to +frighten with his gruesome ghost-stories, especially of his +"Doppelgänger," a name, Clara afterwards took to herself. Child as she +was, he watched her with something of fascination, and wrote his +mother: + +"Clara is as fond of me as ever, and is just as she used to be of old, +wild and enthusiastic, skipping and running about like a child, and +saying the most intensely thoughtful things. It is a pleasure to see +how her gifts of mind and heart keep developing faster and faster, and, +as it were, leaf by leaf. The other day, as we were walking back from +Cannovitz (we go for a two or three hours' tramp almost every day), I +heard her say to herself: 'Oh, how happy I am! how happy!' Who would +not love to hear that? On this same road there are a great many useless +stones lying about in the middle of the footpath. Now, when I am +talking, I often look more up than down, so she always walks behind me +and gently pulls my coat at every stone to prevent my falling; meantime +she stumbles over them herself." + +What an allegory of womanly devotion is here! + +Gradually Schumann let himself write to Clara a whit more like a lover +than a brother, with an occasional "Longingly yours." He begged her to +keep mental trysts with him, and, acknowledging a composition she had +dedicated to him, he hinted: + +"If you were present, I would press your hand even without your +father's leave. Then I might express a hope that the union of our names +on the title-page might foreshadow the union of our ideas in the +future. A poor fellow like myself cannot offer you more than that.... +Today a year ago we drove to Schleusig, how sorry I am that I spoiled +your pleasure on that occasion." + +Of this last, we can only imagine some too ardent compliment, or +perhaps some subjection to one of his dense melancholies. In the very +midst of his short infatuation with Ernestine von Fricken, he is still +corresponding with Clara. Their tone is very cordial, and, knowing the +sequel, it is hard not to read into them perhaps more than Schumann +meant. The letters could hardly have seemed to him to be love letters, +since he writes to Clara that he has been considering the publication +of their correspondence in his "Zeitschrift," though he was probably +not serious at this, seeing that he also plans to fill a balloon with +his unwritten thoughts and send it to her, "properly addressed with a +favourable wind." + +"I long to catch butterflies to be my messengers to you. I thought of +getting my letters posted in Paris, so as to arouse your curiosity and +make you believe that I was there. In short a great many quaint notions +came to my head and have only just been dispersed by a postilion's +horn; the fact is, dear Clara, that the postilion has much the same +effect upon me as the most excellent champagne." + +Here is perhaps the secret of much of his correspondence; the pure +delight of letting his "fingers chase the pen, and the pen chase the +ink." The aroma of the ink-bottle has run away with how many brains. + +He wants to send her "perfect bales of letters," he prefers to write +her at the piano, especially in the chords of the ninth and the +thirteenth. He paints her a pleasant portrait of herself in a letter +which, he says, is written like a little sonata, "namely, a chattering +part, a laughing part, and a talking part." + +Clara seemed from his first sight of her to exercise over him a curious +mingling of profound admiration and of teasing amusement. He portrays +her vividly to herself in such words as these: + +"Your letter was yourself all over. You stood before me laughing and +talking; rushing from fun to earnest as usual, diplomatically playing +with your veil. In short, the letter was Clara herself, her double." + +All these expressions of tenderness and fascinations were ground enough +for the child Clara to build Spanish hopes upon, but in the very same +letter Schumann could refer to that torment of Clara's soul, Ernestine, +and speak of her as "your old companion in joy and sorrow, that bright +star which we can never appreciate enough." + +A change, however, seems to have come over Ernestine. Clara found her +taciturn and mistrustful, and when the Baron von Fricken came for her, +Wieck himself wrote in the diary, "We have not missed her; for the last +six weeks she has been a stranger in our house; she had lost completely +her lovable and frank disposition." He compares her to a plant, which +only prospers under attention, but withers and dies when left to +itself. He concludes, "The sun shone too sharply upon her, _i.e._, +Herr Schumann." + +But the sun seemed to withdraw from the flower it had scorched. During +her absence, Ernestine wrote to Schumann many letters, chiefly +remarkable for their poor style and their worse grammar. To a man of +the exquisite sensibility of Schumann, and one who took literature so +earnestly, this must have been a constant torture. It humiliated his +own love, and greatly undermined the romance, which crumpled absolutely +when he learned that she was not the baron's own daughter, but only an +adopted child, and of an illegitimate birth at that. He had not learned +these facts from her; indeed she had practised elaborate deceptions +upon him. But the breaking of the engagement--a step almost as serious +as divorce in the Germany of that day--he seems to have conducted with +his characteristic gentleness and tact; for Ernestine did not cease to +be his friend and Clara's. Later, when he was accused of having severed +the ties with Ernestine, he wrote: + +"You say something harsh, when you say that I broke the engagement with +Ernestine. That is not true; it was ended in proper form with both +sides agreeing. But concerning this whole black page of my life, I +might tell you a deep secret of a heavy psychic disturbance that had +befallen me earlier. It would take a long time, however, and it +includes the years from the summer of 1833 on. But you shall learn of +it sometime, and you will have the key to all my actions and my +peculiar manner." + +That explanation, however, does not seem to be extant; all we can know +is that Ernestine and he parted as friends, and that six years later he +dedicated to her a volume of songs (Opus 13). Three years after the +separation she married, to become Frau von Zedtwitz; but her husband +did not live long, nor did she survive him many years. + +Aside from the disillusionment that had taken the glamour from +Ernestine, Schumann had been slowly coming more and more under the +spell of Clara Wieck. The affair with Ernestine seemed to have been +only a transient modulation, and his heart like a sonata returned to +its home in the original key of "carissima Clara, Clara carissima." +Clara, who had found small satisfaction in her fame out-of-doors, since +she was defeated in her love in her home, had the joy of seeing the +gradual growth in Schumann's heart of a tenderness that kept increasing +almost to idolatry. Her increasing beauty was partly to blame for it, +but chiefly it was the nobility yet exuberant joy of her soul, and her +absolute sympathy with his ideals in music, criticism, literature, and +life. + +To both of them, art was always a religion; there was no philistinism +or charlatanism in the soul or the career of either. At this time, when +Schumann found it difficult to get any attention paid to his +compositions, Clara, from childhood, was able both to conquer their +difficulties and to express their deep meanings. While Schumann was +earning his living and a wide reputation by publishing the praises of +other composers, by burrowing in all the obscure meaning of new +geniuses, and revealing their messages to the world, his own great +works were lying ignored and uncomprehended and seemingly forgotten. At +this time he found a young girl of brilliant fame, honoured by Chopin, +Liszt, by Goethe, by the king, by the public; and yet devoted to the +soul and the art of the fellow pupil of her father. Even before he +broke his engagement with Ernestine, he found Clara's charms +irresistible. + +Chopin came to Leipzig in 1834, and in Schumann's diary after his name +stands the entry: "Clara's eyes and her love." And later, "The first +kiss in November." + +It was on the 25th. He had been calling on Clara, and when it came time +to go home, she carried a lamp to light him down the steps. He could +keep his secret no longer from himself or from her; he declared his +love then and there. But she reminded him of Ernestine, and, with that +trivial perjury to which lovers are always apt, he informed her that +Ernestine was already engaged to some one else. There was no further +resistance, but nearly a serious accident. The kiss that set their +hearts afire came near working the same effect upon the house. As Clara +wrote afterward: + +"When you gave me that first kiss, then I felt myself near swooning. +Before my eyes it grew black!... The lamp I brought to light you, I +could hardly hold." + +Schumann writes a few days later in his diary: "Mit Ernestine +gebrochen." Schumann consoled himself later by saying that he did +Ernestine no wrong, for it would have been a greater and more terrible +misery had they married. "Earlier or later my old love and attachment +for you would have awakened again, and then what misery!... Ernestine +knew right well that she had first driven you out of my heart, that I +loved you before I knew Ernestine." + +Ernestine herself wrote him often. + +"I always believed that you could love Clara alone, and still believe +it." + +In January, 1836, the engagement with Ernestine was formally broken. +Shortly after this, Robert's mother died. He was compelled to leave +Leipzig in dismal gloom. He said to Clara simply, "Bleib mir treu," and +she nodded her head a little, very sadly. How she kept her word! Two +nights later he wrote: + +"While waiting for the coach at Zwickau, + +"10 P.M., Feb. 13, 1836. + +"Sleep has been weighing on my eyes. I have been waiting two hours for +the express coach. The roads are so bad that perhaps we shall not get +away till two o'clock. How you stand before me, my beloved Clara; ah, +so near you seem to me that I could almost seize you. Once I could put +everything daintily in words, telling how strongly I liked any one, but +now I cannot any more. And if you do not know, I cannot tell you. But +love me well; do you hear? ... I demand much since I give much. To-day +I have been excited by various feelings; the opening of mother's will; +hearing all about her death, etc. But your radiant image gleams through +all the darkness and helps me to bear everything better.... All I can +tell you now is, that the future is much more assured. Still I cannot +fold my hands in my lap. I must accomplish much to obtain that which +you see when by chance you walk past the mirror. In the meantime you +also remain an artist and not a Countess Rossi. You will help me; work +with me; and endure joy and sorrow with me. + +"At Leipzig my first care shall be to put my worldly affairs in order. +I am quite clear about my heart. Perhaps your father will not refuse if +I ask him for his blessing. Of course there is much to be thought of +and arranged. But I put great trust in our guardian angel. Fate always +intended us for one another. I have known that a long time, but my +hopes were never strong enough to tell you and get your answer before. + +"What I write to-day briefly and incompletely, I will later explain to +you, for probably you cannot read me at all. But simply realise, that I +love you quite unspeakably. The room is getting dark. Passengers near +me are going to sleep. It is sleeting and snowing outside. But I will +squeeze myself right into a corner, bury my face in the cushions, and +think only of you. Farewell, my Clara. + +"Your ROBERT." + +Close upon this letter, which must have been answered with no +hesitation and no inferiority of passion, came the summons to battle +for the prize. Wieck, who had been a cordial father, declined with +undue enthusiasm the rôle of father-in-law. He had viewed with hope +Robert's entrance into the career of music, had advised the mother to +let him make it his life; then the youth ruined his chances of earning +large moneys as a concert performer by practising until his right hand +was permanently injured and the third finger useless. As early as 1831 +Wieck is quoted as objecting to Schumann's habits, and saying that, if +he had no money at all, he might turn out well; for Schumann, while +never rich, never knew poverty. But their friendship continued cordial +and intimate, and Wieck went into partnership with him in the _Neue +Zeitschrift für Musik_; he was a member of the famous Davids-bündler, +that mystical brotherhood of art, wherein Clara is alluded to as +"Chiara," perhaps also as "Zilia." None the less, or perhaps all the +more, Wieck objected to seeing his famous and all-conquering child +marry herself away to the dreamer and eccentric. + +Wieck's own domestic affairs had not flowed too smoothly; he had +married the daughter of Cantor Tromlitz, who was the mother of Clara +and four other children, but the marriage, though begun in love, was +unhappy, and after six years was ended in divorce. Clara remained with +her father, while her mother married a music-teacher named Bargiel, and +bore him a son, Waldemar, well known as a composer and a good friend +and disciple of Robert Schumann. Wieck had married again, in 1828, +Clementine Fechner, by whom he had a daughter, Marie, who also attained +some prominence as pianist and teacher. + +On February 13, 1836, we have seen Schumann write his love to Clara. +The number of the day, the stormy night, and the remembrance of his +mother's death were all appropriate omens. Wieck stormed about Clara's +head with rebuke and accusations, and threatened like another Capulet, +till he scared the seventeen-year-old girl into giving him Schumann's +letters. Then he threatened to shoot Schumann if she did not promise +never to speak to him again. She made the promise, and the manner in +which she did not keep it adds the necessary human touch to this most +beautiful of true love stories. Schumann was never underhanded by +choice, or at all, except a little on occasion in this love affair; so +now he called at once upon his old teacher, friend and colleague. + +The interview must have been brief and stormy, for, on the 1st of +March, 1836, Schumann writes to August Kahlert, a stranger but a fellow +musical journalist, at Breslau, where Clara had gone: + +"I am not going to give you anything musical to spell out today, and, +without beating about the bush, will come to the point at once. I have +a particular favour to ask you. It is this: Will you not devote a few +moments of your life to acting as messenger between two parted souls? +At any rate, do not betray them. Give me your word that you will not! + +"Clara Wieck loves, and is loved in return. You will soon find that out +from her gentle, almost supernatural ways and doings. For the present +don't ask me the name of the other one. The happy ones, however, acted, +met, talked, and exchanged their vows, without the father's knowledge. +He has found them out, wants to take violent measures, and forbids any +sort of intercourse on pain of death. Well, it has all happened before, +thousands of times. But the worst of it is that she has gone away. The +latest news came from Dresden. But we know nothing for certain, though +I suspect, indeed I am nearly convinced, that they are at Breslau. +Wieck is sure to call upon you at once, and will invite you to come and +hear Clara play. Now, this is my ardent request, that you should let me +know all about Clara as quickly as possible,--I mean as to the state of +mind, the life she leads, in fact any news you can obtain. All that I +have told you is a sacred trust, and don't mention this letter to +either the old man or anybody else. + +"If Wieck speaks of me, it will probably not be in very flattering +terms. Don't let that put you out. You will learn to know him. He is a +man of honour, but a rattle-brain (_Er ist ein Ehrenmann, aber ein +Rappelkopf_). I may further remark that it will be an easy thing for +you to obtain Clara's confidence and favour, as I (who am more than +partial to the lovers), have often told her that I correspond with you. +She will be happy to see you, and to give you a look. Give me your +hand, unknown one; I believe your disposition to be so noble that it +will not disappoint me. Write soon. A heart, a life depends upon it--my +own--. For it is I, myself, for whom I have been pleading." + +Kahlert met Clara, but she was embarrassed and mistrustful of the +stranger's discretion. The next day Schumann wrote to his sister-in-law +Theresa still with a little hope: "Clara is at Breslau. My stars are +curiously placed. God grant it may all end happily." + +In April, Clara and her father returned to Leipzig, but the lovers, now +reunited in the same town, were further removed than ever. Clara's +promise compelled her to treat Schumann as a stranger on the casual +meetings that happened to the torment rather than the liking of both. +The nagging uncertainty, the simulating of indifference, a stolen +glance, or a hasty clasp of the hand, in which one or the other seemed +not to express warmth enough, caused a certain impatience which Wieck +and his wife were eager enough to turn into mistrust. + +Schumann's compositions no longer frequented Clara's programmes. He was +driven elsewhere for society, and when the taverns and the boisterous +humour of his friends wearied him, he turned again to Frau Voigt. In +March he had written to his sister: + +"I am in a critical position; to extricate myself I must be calm and +clear-sighted; it has come to this, either I can never speak to her +again, or she must be mine." + +By November such an estrangement had come between the lovers that he +could write his sister-in-law: + +"Clara loves me as dearly as ever, but I am resigned. I am often at the +Voigts." + +Since February of the year 1836, they had not spoken or exchanged any +letters. He never heard her beloved music, except at two concerts, or +when at night he would stand outside of her house and listen in secret +loneliness. In May he dedicated to her his Sonata in F Sharp Minor. It +was, as he expressed it: "One long cry of my heart for you, in which a +theme of yours appears in all possible forms." His Opus 6, dated the +same year, was his wonderfully emotional group, "The Davidsbündlertänze." +The opening number is based upon a theme by Clara Wieck, and in certain +of the chords written in syncopation, I always feel that I hear him +calling aloud, "Clara! Clara!" + +His hope that this musical appeal might bring her to him was in vain, +and he began to doubt her faith. He passed through one of those +terrific crises of melancholia which at long intervals threatened his +reason. On the eve of the New Year, he wrote to his sister-in-law: + +"Oh, continue to love me--sometimes I am seized with mortal anguish, +and then I have no one but you who really seem to hold me in your arms +and to protect me. Farewell." + +To Clara, at a later time, he described this trial of his hope: + +"I had given up and then the old anguish broke out anew--then I wrung +my hands--then I often prayed at night to God: 'Only let me live +through this one torment without going mad.' I thought once to find +your engagement announced in the paper--that bowed my neck to the dust +till I cried aloud. Then I wished to heal myself by forcing myself to +love a woman who already had me half in her net." + +Love by act of Parliament, or by individual resolve, has never been +accomplished; and Schumann's efforts were foredoomed. In the meanwhile, +the Wiecks tried the same treatment upon Clara, whose singing-teacher, +Carl Banck, had been deceived by her friendship into thinking that he +could persuade her to love him. His ambition suited eminently the +family politics of Father Wieck. He made his first mistake by +slandering Schumann, not knowing the A B C of a woman's heart. For a +lover slandered is twice recommended. As Clara wrote later: "I was +astounded at his black heart. He wanted to betray you, and he only +insulted me." + +One of the attempts to undermine Schumann was the effort to poison +Clara's mind against him; because when a piano Concerto of hers was +played (Opus 7), Schumann did not review it in his paper, but left it +to a friend of his named Becker. In the next number Schumann wrote an +enthusiastic criticism upon a Concerto by Sterndale Bennett. The +attempt failed, however, and Schumann's letter is in existence in which +he had asked Becker to review the Concerto, because, in view of the +publicity given to the estrangement with the Wiecks, praise from him +would be in poor taste. + +Soon Clara at a public concert in Leipzig dared to put upon the +programme the F Sharp Minor Sonata, in which Schumann had given voice +to his heart's cry ("_Herzensschrei nach der Geliebten_"). Schumann's +name did not appear on the programme, but it was credited to two of his +pen-names, Eusebius and Florestan. Now, as Litzman notes, the answer to +that outcry came back to him over the head of the audience. Clara knew +he would be there, and that he would understand. Her fingers seemed to +be giving expression not only to his own yearning, but to her answer +and her like desire. It was a bold effort to declare her love before +the world, and, as she wrote him later: "Do you not realise that I +played it since I knew no other way to express my innermost feelings at +all. Secretly, I did not dare express them, though I did it openly. Do +you imagine that my heart did not tremble?" + +The musical message renewed in Schumann's heart a hope and +determination that had been dying slowly for two years. His friend +Becker came to Leipzig, and took up the cause of the lovers with great +enthusiasm. He carried letters to and fro with equal diplomacy and +delight. He appeared in time to play a leading role in a drama Schumann +was preparing. Wieck's enmity to Schumann had been somewhat mitigated +after two years of meeting no opposition. Schumann was encouraged to +hope that, if he wrote a letter to Wieck on Clara's birthday, September +13, 1837, it might find the old bear in a congenial mood. He had +written to Clara the very morning after the concert at daybreak, +saying: "I write this in the very light of Aurora. Would it be that +only one more daybreak should separate us." He tells her of his plan, +asking only one word of approval. Clara, overcome with emotion when +Becker brought her the first letter she had received in so long a time +from Schumann, was so delighted at the inspiration that she wrote: + +"Only a simple 'Ja' do you ask. Such a tiny little word ... so weighty +though ... could a heart, as full of unspeakable love as mine not speak +this tiny little word with the whole soul? I do it and my soul whispers +it for ever. The grief of my heart, the many tears, could I but +describe them ... oh, no! Your plan seems to me risky, but a loving +heart fears no obstacles. Therefore once more I say _yes_! Could God +turn my eighteenth birthday into a day of mourning? Oh, no! that were +far too gruesome. Ah, I have long felt 'it must be,' and nothing in the +world shall make me waver, and I will convince my father that a +youthful heart can also be steadfast. Very hastily, + +"Your CLARA." + +And now, letters began to fly as thickly as swallows at evening. She +found a better messenger than Becker, in her faithful maid, "Nanny," +whom she recommended to complete confidence: "So Nanny can serve as a +pen to me." At last the lovers met clandestinely by appointment, as +Clara returned from a visit to Emily List. Both were so agitated that +Clara almost fainted, and Schumann was formal and cold. She wrote +later: + +"The moon shone so beautifully on your face when you lifted your hat +and passed your hand across your forehead; I had the sweetest feeling +that I ever had; I had found my love again." + +It was in this time of frenzied enthusiasm, of alternate hope and +despondency, that Schumann wrote the seventh of his "Davidsbündlertänze." +The birthday came, and with it the letter went to Wieck: + +"It is so simple what I have to say to you--and yet the right words +fail me constantly. A trembling hand will not let the pen run +quietly.... To-day is Clara's birthday,--the day when the dearest being +in the world, for you as for me, first saw the light of the world." + +He tells how through all the obstacles that had met their way he had +deeply loved her and she him. + +"Ask her eyes whether I have told the truth. Eighteen months long have +you tested me. If you have found me worthy, true and manly, then seal +this union of souls; it lacks nothing of the highest bliss, except the +parental blessing. An awful moment it is until I learn your decision, +awful as the pause between lightning and thunder in the tempest, where +man does not know whether it will give destruction or benediction. Be +again a friend to one of your oldest friends, and to the best of +children be the best of fathers." + +With this letter he enclosed one to Wieck's wife: "In your hands, dear +lady, I lay our future happiness, and in your heart--no stepmotherly +heart, I am sure." + +The letter made a sensation in the Wieck home. Clara's father spoke no +word to her about it. He and his wife locked themselves up in a room to +answer it. Clara wept alone all the long birthday. Her father asked her +why she was so unhappy, and when she told him the truth, he showed her +Schumann's letter, and said: "I did not want you to read it, but, since +you are so unreasonable, read." Clara was too proud, and would not. +Schumann wrote to Becker concerning Wieck's answer, saying: + +"Wieck's answer was so confused, and he declined and accepted so +vaguely, that now I really don't know what to do. Not at all. He was +not able to make any valid objections; but as I said before, one could +make nothing of his letter. I have not spoken to C. yet; her strength +is my only hope." + +To Clara he wrote that an interview he had with her father was +frightful. "This iciness, ill-will, such confusion, such +contradictions. He has a new way to wound; he drives his knife to the +hilt into my heart. What next then, my dear Clara, what next? Your +father himself said to me the fearful words: 'Nothing shall shake me.' +Fear everything from him, he will compel you by force if he cannot by +trickery. _Fürchten Sie Alles_!" Wieck consented to permit them to meet +publicly and with a third person, but not alone, and to correspond only +when Clara was travelling. His reasons were his ambition for her, her +youth. But Schumann knew better: + +"There is nothing in this, believe me; he will throw you to the first +comer who has gold and title enough. His highest ambition then is +concert giving and travelling. Further than that he lets your heart +bleed, destroys my strength in the midst of my ambition to do beautiful +things in the world. Besides he laughs at all your tears.... Ah! how my +head swims. I could laugh at death's own agony!" + +His only hope was now her steadfastness. Her message promised him that, +and warned him also to be true, or else "you will have broken a heart +that loves but once." + +It is only now, strange to say, that they began to use the "Du," that +second person singular of intimacy which all languages keep except the +English, which has banished its "thee and thou" to cold and formal +usages. + +It was typical of Clara's attitude throughout this whole long struggle +that she was always as true to her father's wishes as could humanly be +expected. She obeyed him always, until he became unreasonable and a +tyrant beyond even the endurance of a German daughter. So now, though +Robert begged her to write him secretly, she refused with tears. But, +fortunately for them both, she did not long remain in the town where +they were separated like prisoners in neighbouring cells. She could +soon write him from other cities. As for Schumann, he determined to +make the most of the new hope, and to establish himself socially and +financially in a position which Wieck could not assail. + +Gradually, with that same justice which made him able to criticise +appreciatively the music of men who wrote in another style than his, he +was able to feel an understanding for the position of even his +tormentor Wieck. + +"Now we have only to obtain the affection and confidence of your +father, to whom I should so love to give that name, to whom I owe so +many of the joys of my life, so much good advice, and some sorrow as +well--and whom I should like to make so happy in his old days, that he +might say: 'What good children!' If he understood me better he would +have saved me many worries and would never have written me a letter +which made me two years older. Well, it is all over and forgiven now; +he is your father, and has brought you up to be everything that is +noble; he would like to weigh your future happiness as in a pair of +scales, and wishes to see you just as happy and well-protected as you +have always been under his fatherly care. I cannot argue with him." + +Schumann works with new fury at his compositions, and plans ever larger +and larger works; but through all his music there reigns the influence +of Clara in a way unequalled, or at least never equally confessed by +any other musician. He writes her that the Davidsbündlertänze were +written in happiness and are full of "bridal thoughts, suggested by the +most delicious excitement that I have ever remembered." Of his "Ende +vom Lied" he says: + +"When I was composing it, I must confess that I thought: 'Well, the end +of it all will be a jolly wedding,' but towards the end, my sorrow +about you came over me again, so that wedding and funeral bells are +ringing together." + +He plans how they shall write music together when they are married, and +says: + +"When you are standing by me as I sit at the piano, then we shall both +cry like children--I know I shall be quite overcome. Then you must not +watch me too closely when I am composing; that would drive me to +desperation; and for my part, I promise you, too, only very seldom to +listen at your door. Well, we shall lead a life of poetry and blossoms, +and we shall play and compose together like angels, and bring gladness +to mankind." + +He would have "a pretty cottage not far from town--you at my side--to +work--to live with me blissful and calm" (_selig und still_). And when +she wishes to tour: "We'll pack our diamonds together and go live in +Paris." + +He writes her, complaining that her father called him phlegmatic, and +said that he had written nothing in the _Zeitschrift_ for six weeks. He +insists that he is leading a very serious life: + +"I am a young man of twenty-eight with a very active mind, and an +artist, to boot; yet for eight years I have not been out of Saxony, and +have been sitting still, saving my money without a thought of spending +it on amusement or horses, and quietly going my own way as usual. And +do you mean to say that all my industry and simplicity, and all that I +have done are quite lost upon your father?" + +Sometimes the strain under which the two lovers lived caused a little +rift within the lute. Poor Clara, forced to defend Robert against her +father's contempt, and her father against Robert's indignation, +preserved her double and contradictory dignity with remarkable skill, +with a fidelity to both that makes her in the last degree both +admirable and lovable. When she advised patience or postponement, the +impatient Robert saw her father's hand moving the pen, and complained; +but in his next letter he was sure to return to his attitude of +tenderness for her in her difficulties, and determination to yield +everything to circumstances except the final possession of the woman of +his heart. + +Musicians seem to be naturally good writers of letters. In the first +place, those whose fingers grow tired of playing notes or writing them, +seem to find recreation in the reeling off of letters. They have +acquired an instinctive sense of form, and an instinct for smoothing +over its rough edges, and modulating from one mood into another. +Besides, music is so thoroughly an expression of mood, and a good +letter has so necessarily a unity of mood, that musicians, _ex +officio_, tend to write correspondence that is literary without trying +to be so, sincere without stupidity. But in the volumes and volumes of +musicians' letters, which it has been my fortune to read, I have never +found any others which were so ardent and yet so earnest, so throbbing +with longing and yet so full of honesty, so eloquent and so dramatic +with the very highest forms of eloquence and romance as those of Robert +Schumann and Clara Wieck. + +The woes of the two lovers were as different as possible, though +equally balanced; and the honourableness of their undertaking was +equally high. + +Clara was torn betwixt filial piety toward a father who could be ursine +to a miserable degree, and a lover who was not only eating his heart +out in loneliness, but who needed her personality to complete his +creative powers in music. While Schumann had no such problem to meet, +he lacked Clara's elastic and buoyant nature, and it must never be +forgotten that when he was sad, he was dismal to the point of absolute +madness. He would sit for hours in the company of hilarious +tavern-friends, and speak never a word. + +Clara at length gave up her attempt to keep from writing to Schumann, +in the face of her father's actions; for in spite of the promises he +had given them, he could break out in such speeches as this: "If Clara +marries Schumann, I will say it even on my death-bed, she is not worthy +of being my daughter." + +Now began that clandestine correspondence which seems to have +implicated and inculpated half the musicians of Europe. There were +almost numberless go-betweens who carried letters for the lovers, or +received them in different towns. There were zealous messengers ranging +from the Russian Prince Reuss-Köstriz, through all grades of society, +down to the devoted housemaid "Nanny." Chopin, and Mendelssohn, and +many another musician, were touched by the fidelity of the lovers, and +Liszt in one of his letters describes how he had broken off +acquaintance with his old friend Wieck, because of indignation at his +treatment of Schumann and Clara. + +Schumann's works were now beginning to attract a little attention, +though not much, and even Clara was impelled to beg him to write her +something more in the concert style that the public would understand. +But while the musician Schumann was not arriving at understanding, the +critic Schumann was already famous for the swiftness of his discoveries +and the bravery of his proclamations of genius. As for Clara, though +already in her eighteenth year, she was one of the most famous pianists +in the world, and favourably compared, in many respects, especially in +point of poetical interpretation, with Liszt, Thalberg, Chopin, and +Europe's brilliantest virtuosos. But Schumann had delighted her heart +by writing: "I love you not because you are a great artist; no, I love +you because you are so good." That praise, she wrote him, had rejoiced +her infinitely, and that praise any one who knows her life can echo +with Schumann. + +Such fame the love-affair of the Schumanns had gained that to the +musical world it was like following a serial romance in instalments. +Doctor Weber in Trieste offered to give Schumann ten thousand +thalers--an offer which could not of course be accepted. At Easter, +1838, Schumann received one thousand thalers (about $760) from his +brothers Eduard and Carl. + +But the lovers had agreed to wait two years--until Easter, 1840, before +they should marry--and the two years were long and wearisome in the +prospect and in the endurance. As Clara wrote: + +"My sole wish is--I wish it every morning--that I could sleep two +years; could over-sleep all the thousand tears that shall yet flow. +Foolish wish! I am sometimes such a silly child. Do you remember that +two years ago on Christmas Eve you gave me white pearls and mother said +then: 'Pearls mean tears'? She was right, they followed only too soon." + +Schumann busied himself in so many ways that again for a little while +he somewhat melted Wieck's wrath, and Clara hoped that some day he +could again be received at home as a friend. She was made the court +pianist at this time, and it was a quaint whimsy of fate that, in +connection with the award, Schumann was asked to give her father a +"character." It need hardly be said that he gave him extra measure of +praise. + +Clara's new dignity stirred Schumann to hunt some honour for himself. +Robert decided, that while he was content "to die an artist, it would +please a certain girl to see 'Dr.' before his name." He was willing to +become either a doctor of philosophy or of music. He began at once to +set both of these schemes to work. + +Now old Wieck returned to his congenial state of wrath. He declared +that Clara was far too extravagant ever to live on Schumann's earnings, +though she insisted that Schumann was assured of one thousand thalers a +year, and she could earn an equal sum with one concert a winter in +Dresden, where prices were so high. But just then the prosperity of +Schumann's paper began to slough off. It occurred to the lovers that +they would prefer to live in Vienna, and that the _Zeitschrift_ could +prosper there. There were endless difficulties, a censorship to pacify, +and many commercial schemes to arrange, but nothing must be left +untried. The scheme was put under way. Meanwhile, as usual, the Wiecks +were trying on their part; to separate the lovers. Schumann was accused +of infidelity to her, and he admitted that a Mrs. Laidlaw seemed to be +in love with him, but not he with her. They attacked his character, and +accused him of being too fond of Bavarian beer. On this charge, he +answered with dignity: + +"Pooh!--I should not be worth being spoken to, if a man trusted by so +good and noble a girl as you, should not be a respectable man and not +control himself in everything. Let this simple word put you at ease for +ever." + +Failing here, Wieck presented another candidate for Clara's heart, a +Doctor D----, who met the same fate as Banck. There were further hopes +that she would find some one in Paris or London, whither she was bound; +but she wrote Schumann that if the whole aristocracy of both places +fell at her feet, she would let them lie there and turn to the simple +artist, the dear, noble man, and lay her heart at his feet. ("Alle +Lords von London und alle Cavaliere von Paris, könnten mir zu Füssen +liegen," etc.) Clara was also tormented by the persistent suit of Louis +Rackerman, of Bremen, who could not see how vain was his quest. + +One rainy night, Schumann stood a half-hour before her house and heard +her play. And he wrote her: "Did you not feel that I was there?" He +could even see his ring glitter on her finger. Another day Clara saw +him taking his coffee with his sister-in-law, and she repeated his +query: "Did you not feel that I was there?" + +Old Wieck stooped to everything, and even told Clara that he had +written to Ernestine to demand a statement that she fully released +Schumann from his former engagement to her--it being remembered that +among Germans a betrothal always used to be almost as difficult a bond +to sever as a marriage tie. This drove Clara to resolve a great +resolve, and she wrote Schumann: + +"Twice has my father in his letters underlined the words: 'Never will I +give my consent.' What I had feared has come true. I must act without +my father's consent and without my father's blessing." + +An elopement was seriously considered. It was planned that Clara was to +go to Schumann's sister-in-law. At this time also another friend +offered Schumann one thousand thalers (about $760) and he said: "Ask of +me what you will, I will do everything for you and Clara." But this +crisis did not arrive, though the two were kept under espionage. Even +now in November, 1838, a new and merely nagging attempt was made to +postpone the marriage till the latter part of 1840, but Clara wrote +that she would be with Robert on Easter, 1840, without fail. Then he +went to Vienna to establish his journal there, and from there he sent a +bundle of thirty short poems written in her praise. While he was in +Vienna, her father shipped her off to Paris, so sure now of cleaving +their hearts asunder that he sent her alone without even an elderly +woman for a companion. He little knew that he was putting her to the +test she had never yet undergone: that of living far from him and +depending solely upon herself. It is a curious coincidence that one of +her best friends in Paris was the same American girl, Emily List, who +had once been Ernestine's rival for Robert's heart. + +The French people did not please Clara and she feared to go on to +London alone. She dreamed only of hurrying back to Leipzig and Schumann +and a home with him; in her letters the famous pianist seriously +discusses learning to cook. + +Unhappy as she was in Paris, Robert was unhappier in Vienna, for the +_Zeitschrift_ made no success, and he was driven to the bitter +humiliation of taking it back to Leipzig in 1839. His brother died at +this time also, and their sympathies had been so close that the shock +was very heavy. Everything seemed to be going wrong. He could not even +find consolation in his music. At this gloomy moment Clara hoped to win +over her father by a last concession. She wrote from Paris that it +would be well to postpone the marriage a few months longer than they +had first intended, and Emily List wrote a long letter advocating the +same and explaining how much it grieved Clara to ask this. She advised +Robert to take up the book business of his brother, who had succeeded +his father's prosperous trade. Even while Clara's tear-stained appeal +was going to him, another letter of his crossed hers. It was full of +joy and told her how well they would get along on their united +resources. He gave them in detail and it is interesting to pry into the +personal affairs of so great a musician. He wrote: "Am I not an expert +accountant? and can't we once in a while drink champagne?" + +Clara's letter provoked in Schumann a wild outcry of disappointment, +that after all these years he should accept as his dole only further +procrastination. He wrote her that his family were beginning to say +that if she loved him she would ask no further delay. Clara's letter +seems to have been only her last tribute to her father, for, at +Schumann's first protest, she hastened to write that she could endure +anything, except his doubt; that she would be with him on Easter, 1840, +come what would. This cheered him mightily, and he wrote that, while he +was still unable to compose, owing to his loneliness, a beautiful +future was awaiting him. He described his dreams of the life of art and +love they should lead, composing and making all manner of beautiful +music. + +"Once I call you mine, you shall hear plenty of new things, for I think +you will encourage me; and hearing more of my compositions will be +enough to cheer me up. And we will publish some things under our two +names, so that posterity may regard us as one heart and one soul, and +may not know which is yours and which is mine. How happy I am! From +your Romanze I again see plainly that we are to be man and wife. Every +one of your thoughts comes out of my soul, just as I owe all my music +to you." + +Now he sent for her decision a formidable document, an appeal to the +court, to compel the father's consent. Clara wrote her father an +ultimatum on the subject, and received a long letter in reply, in which +he consented to the marriage under such terms that they were better off +before. For his consent was to be made on the following six +stipulations: 1. That Robert and Clara, so long as Wieck lived, should +not make their residence in Saxony; but that Schumann must none the +less make as much money in the new home as his _Zeitschrift_ brought +him in Leipzig. 2. That Wieck should control Clara's property for five +years, paying her, during that time, five per cent. 3. That Schumann +should make out a sworn statement of his income which he had given +Wieck in Leipzig in September, 1837, and turn it over to Wieck's +lawyer. 4. That Schumann should not communicate with him verbally or by +letter, until he himself expressed the wish. 5. That Clara should +renounce all claims as to her inheritance. 6. That the marriage should +take place September 29, 1839. + +This insolent and mercenary protocol drove Clara to bay. She wrote her +father from the depths of grief, and declared to him finally that she +would wed Schumann on the 24th of June. Schumann wrote a short note to +the old man, telling him that if he did not hear in eight days, silence +would be taken as the last refusal. The answer was simply a letter from +Frau Wieck, acknowledging Schumann's "impertinent letter," and saying +that Wieck would not hold any communication with him. + +Then the lawsuit began. On the 16th of July he made his appeal and +wrote to Clara that she must be personally present in six or seven +weeks. She had written him a letter of great cheer and sent him from +Paris a portrait she had had painted and a cigar case she had made with +her own hands. + +On her way home Clara stopped at Berlin, where her own mother lived as +the wife of Bargiel. + +Clara's life under her father's guardianship had gradually drifted +almost out of the ken of her own mother. Her stepmother had done +everything possible to make her life miserable, spying upon her and +making it impossible to be alone long enough to write Schumann a +letter. Now, in her loneliness, Clara turned to the woman whose flesh +she was; and she found there an immediate and passionate support. + +From Wieck and the Wieck family, Clara had received while in Paris not +one penny of money and not a single trinket. They always wrote her: +"You have your own money." This grieved her deeply, and her father's +sending her to Paris without a chaperon of any kind and writing her +never a word of tenderness but only and always reproaches, had orphaned +her indeed. Her heart was doubly ripe for a little mothering, and Frau +Bargiel seized the moment. She wrote letters of greatest warmth and +sweetness to her child in Paris, and to Schumann she wrote an +invitation to come to Berlin. He accepted and spent several pleasant +days. Frau Bargiel wrote Clara how she had delighted in the talent and +person of Schumann, and Robert wrote her how fine a mother she had. On +the 14th of August, Clara and her friend Henrietta Reissman left Paris. + +Meanwhile Schumann had sunk into another awesome abyss of melancholia. +The humiliation of having to go to law for his wife, and airing the +family scandal in public, crushed him to the dust. He wrote his friend +Becker: "I hardly think I shall live to hear the decision of the +court." As soon as Clara left Paris he hastened toward her and met her +at Altenburg. It was a blissful reunion after a year of separation, and +they went together to Berlin, where they knew the bliss of sitting once +more at the piano together, playing Bach fugues. She found his genius +still what it was,--"_er fantasiert himmlisch_"--but his health was in +such serious condition that she was greatly frightened. + +Now her father proceeded to destroy every claim he may ever have had on +her sympathy by his ferocity toward a daughter who had been so patient +and so gentle toward him. He not only neglected her in Paris, except to +write her merciless letters, but when she returned and he saw himself +confronted with the lawsuit for her liberty, he offered a revision of +his terms, which was in itself worse than the original. Clara describes +the new offer: + +"I must surrender the 2,000 thalers (about $1,500) which I have saved +from seven years' concerts, and give it to my brothers. + +"He would give back my effects and instruments, but I must later pay +1,000 thalers and give this also to my brothers. + +"Robert must transfer to me 8,000 thalers of his capital, the interest +of which shall come to me, also the capital, in case of a +separation--What a hideous thought! Robert has 12,000 thalers, and +shall he give his wife two-thirds?" + +Robert had already given her four hundred thalers in bonds. The new +terms being rejected, Wieck put everything possible in the way of a +speedy termination of the lawsuit. He made it impossible for Clara to +get back to Paris, as she wished, to earn more money before the +marriage. He demanded that she should postpone her wedding and take a +concert tour for three months with him for a consideration of six +thousand thalers. Clara declined the arrangement. + +One day she sent her maid to the house of her father, and asked him for +her winter cloak. He gave this answer to the maid: "Who then is this +Mam'selle Wieck? I know two Fräulein Wieck only; they are my two little +daughters here. I know no other!" As Litzmann says: "With so shrill a +dissonance ended Clara's stay at Leipzig." He compares this exile of +the daughter by the father to the story of King Lear and Cordelia. But +it was the blind and tyrannical old Lear of the first act, driving from +his home his most loving child. On October 3d, Clara went back to +Berlin to her mother. Her father moved heaven and earth to make Clara +suspect Schumann's fidelity, and he gave the love affair as unpleasant +a notoriety as possible. For an instance of senile spite: Clara had +always been given a Behrens piano for her concerts in Berlin. Wieck +wrote to a friend to go to Behrens, and warn him that he must not lend +Clara his pianos, because she was used to the hard English action, and +would ruin any others! He wrote that he hoped the honour of the King of +Prussia would prevent his disobedient daughter from appearing in public +concerts in Berlin. It need hardly be said that Clara was neither +forbidden her piano nor her concerts; indeed, the king appeared in +person at her concert and applauded the runaway vigorously. By a +curious chance at the end of her _pièce de résistance_, a string broke +on the piano; but as a correspondent of Schumann's paper wrote, it came +"just at the end, like a cry of victory." After this, Wieck wrote to +Behrens protesting against his lending a hand to "a demoralised girl +without shame." Clara learned that such of her letters as had gone +through the Wieck home were opened, and she received an anonymous +letter which she knew must have been dictated by her father. Her +suspicions were later proved. The worst of the affair was the +diabolical malice that led Wieck to have the letter put into her hand +just before her chief Berlin concert. + +Next, he announced that his reason for not granting his consent was +that Schumann was a drunkard. Robert found witnesses enough to be +sponsors for his high respectability, but the accusation was a +staggering blow in the midst of the deep melancholia into which the +endless struggle and the recent death of Henrietta Voigt had plunged +him. Clara had the rare agony of seeing him weep. It was now the turn +of the strong Clara to break down, and only with the doctor's aid she +continued her concerts. Her father's effort to undermine her good name +extended to the publication of a lithographed account of his side of +the story. But while certain old friends snubbed her, the lies that +were told against her met their truest answer in the integrity of her +whole career, and in the purity and honour of her life. This her own +father was the first and the last ever to slander. + +It is noteworthy, in view of the lightness of so many of the love +affairs of the musicians, such as the case of Liszt, who twice eloped +with married women and discussed the formality of divorce afterward, +that through the long and ardent and greatly tormented love story of +the Schumanns there never appears a line in any of their multitudinous +letters which shows or hints the faintest dream of any procedure but +the most upright. Always they encouraged each other with ringing +beautiful changes on the one theme of their lives: Be true to me as I +am true to you. Despair not. + +The lawsuit dragged on and on. Wieck exhausted all the devices of +postponement in which the law is so fertile. Schumann found himself the +victim of a pamphlet of direct assault and downright libel, but all +these things were only obstacles to exercise fidelity. The lovers felt +that no power on earth could cut them apart. They began to dream of +their marriage as more certain than the dawn. Schumann writes to +Clara--"_Mein Herzensbrautmädchen_"--that he wishes her to study and +prepare for his exclusive hearing a whole concert of music, the bride's +concert. She responds that he too must prepare for her music of his +own, for a bridegroom's concert. He writes and begs her to compose some +music and dedicate it to him; he implores her not to ignore her genius. +She writes that she cannot find inspiration; that he is the family's +genius for original work. Always they mingled music with love. + +The composer Hiller gave a notable dinner to Liszt, who, after toasting +Mendelssohn, toasted Schumann, "and spoke of me in such beautiful +French and such tender words, that I turned blood-red." January 31, +1840, Schumann had taken up his plan to gain himself a doctor's degree +to match Clara's titles. He had asked a friend to appeal to the +University of Jena to give him an honorary degree, or set him an +examination to pass; for his qualifications he mentioned modestly: + +"My sphere of action as editor on a high-class paper, which has now +existed for seven years; my position as composer and the fact of my +having really worked hard, both as editor and musician." + +He began an essay on Shakespeare's relation to music, but without +waiting for this the University of Jena granted him his doctorate on +February 24, 1840, a bit of speed which must have been marvellously +refreshing to this poor victim of so much delay. + +The very day the degree was granted, he had decided to take legal steps +for libel against the attack of Wieck's, which had been printed in +pamphlet form and distributed. Toward Wieck he is still pitiful, "The +wretched man is torturing himself; let it be his punishment." The libel +suit was not prosecuted and his anger vanished in the rapture of being +made a doctor of philosophy in flattering terms. As he confesses: + +"Of course the first I did was to send a copy to the north for my +betrothed; who is exactly like a child and will dance at being engaged +to a doctor." + +In May he went to Berlin and visited Clara's mother for a fortnight; +here he had two weeks' bliss listening to Mendelssohn's singing to +Clara's accompaniment some of the manifold songs that were suddenly +beginning to bubble up from Schumann's heart. It was to his happiness +that he credited this lyric outburst, for he had hitherto written only +instrumental music. + +"While I was composing them I was quite lost in thoughts of you. If I +were not engaged to such a girl, I could not write such music." + +Songs came with a rush from his soul, and he exclaims: + +"I have been composing so much that it really seems quite uncanny at +times. I cannot help it, and should like to sing myself to death like a +nightingale." + +He begged Clara to come to him and drag him away from his music. Yet +all he wished was to be "where I can have a piano and be near you." + +On July 4, 1840, he made her a present of a grand piano as a surprise, +taking her out for a long walk until the piano could be placed in her +rooms and hers taken to his. + +It will not be possible to tell here in detail the story of the process +of law, or its many postponements or disappointments. Long ago they had +set their hearts upon marrying on Easter Day, 1840; they had determined +not to permit their father to drive them past this date. But they went +meekly enough under the yoke of the law and passed many a month until +it seemed to the litigants that the condition of waiting for a decision +was to be their permanent manner of life. But suddenly, as Litzmann +says, "there stood Happiness, long besought, on the stoop, and knocked +with tender fingers on the door." + +On the 7th of July, 1840, Clara was told the good news that the father +had withdrawn the evidence upon which he based his opposition. The case +was not ended, but the lovers immediately began to hunt for a place to +live. On the sixteenth of July they found a little, but cosy, lodging +on the Insel Strasse. Grief had not yet finally done with them, +however, for Clara must write in her journal: + +"I have not for my wedding what the simplest girl in town has, a +trousseau." + +On the 1st of August the case reached a stage where the father had but +ten days more to make his final appeal. Worn out and lacking in further +weapons of any kind, he let the occasion pass, and rested on the +decision of the court. Clara went for one last concert tour as Clara +Wieck. + +On the 12th of August, the super-deliberate court handed down its +awesome verdict. It was a verdict of reward for the lovers. Since Wieck +had withdrawn his evidence, the verdict was strongly worded in favour +of the lovers. Schumann wrote Clara, "On this day, Clara, three years +ago, I proposed for your hand." + +There was no delay in crying the banns, and the lovers went about as in +a dream of rapture. + +On September the 12th, between ten and eleven o'clock of a Saturday, at +Schoenefeld, a village near Leipzig, they were married by an old school +friend of Schumann's. On the 13th, a Sunday, and Clara's birthday--her +twenty-first--she was the wife of the man who had for four years made +her possession his chief ambition, and who had loved her better than he +knew, long years before that. + +Thus the lovers gained only one day by their lawsuit, for Clara was now +of age. But who could estimate the value of the struggle in +strengthening and deepening their love for each other and their +worthiness for each other? It is the struggle for existence and the +battle with resistance that bring about the evolution of strength in +the physical world, and in the mental. Can we not say the same of the +sentimental? + +Would it not be a great pity if there were never such a gymnasium as +parental resistance for lovers to exercise their hearts in? Shall we +not, then, thank old Wieck for his fine lessons in psychical +culture? His daughter Marie, by the way, Clara's half-sister, has only +this year (1903) published a defence of the old man in answer to the +first volume of Litzmann's new biography. + +On Clara's marriage-day she wrote in her diary a little triumph song of +joy. The wedding had been very simple and-- + +"There was a little dancing. Though no hilarity reigned, still in every +face there was an inner content; it was a beautiful day, and the sun +himself, who had been hidden for many days, poured his mild beams upon +us in the morning as we went to the wedding, as if he would bless our +union. There was nothing disturbing on this day, and so let it be +inscribed in this book as the most beautiful and the most important day +of my life. A period in my existence has now closed. I have endured +very many sorrows in my young years, but also many joys which I shall +never forget. Now begins a new life, a beautiful life, that life which +one loves more than anything, even than self; but heavy +responsibilities also rest upon me, and Heaven grant me strength to +fulfil them truly and as a good wife. Heaven has always stood by me and +will not cease now. I have always had a great belief in God, and shall +always keep it." + +As for the old Wieck, his bitterness must have been almost suicidal. He +did not forgive his daughter even after the birth of her first child, +on September 1, 1841, the year also of Schumann's first symphony. It +was only after a second child was born, in April, 1843, that Schumann +could write to a friend: + +"There has been a reconciliation between Clara and old Wieck, which I +am glad of for Clara's sake. He has been trying to make it up with me +too, but the man can have no feelings or he could not attempt such a +thing. So you can see the sky is clearing. I am glad for Clara's sake." + +But the cherishing of such a grudge even with such foundation was not +like Schumann, and a year later, from Petersburg, where he had +accompanied Clara on a triumphal tour and where they had the most +cordial recognition from the Czar and Czarina, he addressed old Wieck +as "Dear Father," and described to him with contagious pride the +immense success of his wife. A little later he reminded him that "It is +the tenth birthday Of our _Zeitschrift_, I dare say you remember." And +yet again he writes to him as "Dear Papa," adding "best love to your +wife and children, till we all meet again happily." And so ended the +feud between the two men. + +The romance of Robert and Clara did not end at the little village +church, but rather they seemed to issue thence into a very Eden of love +and art commingled. The gush of song from his heart continued, he +dedicated to her his "Myrthen" and collaborated with her in the twelve +songs called "Love's Springtime." As Spitta, his biographer, writes: + +"As far as anything human can be imagined, the marriage was perfectly +happy. Besides their genius both husband and wife had simple domestic +tastes and were strong enough to bear the admiration of the world, +without becoming egotistical. They lived for one another and for their +children. He created and wrote for his wife, and in accordance with +their temperament; while she looked upon it as her highest privilege to +give to the world the most perfect interpretation of his works, or at +least to stand as mediatrix between him and his audience, and to ward +off all disturbing or injurious impressions from his sensitive soul, +which day by day became more irritable. Now that he found perfect +contentment in his domestic relations, he withdrew from his intercourse +with others and devoted himself exclusively to his family and work. The +deep joy of his married life, produced the direct result of a mighty +advance in his artistic progress. Schumann's most beautiful works in +the larger forms date almost entirely from the years 1841-5." + +He went with her on many of her tours. They even planned an American +trip. Once they were received with a public banquet; these two whom +Reissman calls "the marvellous couple." In his letters there are +always loving allusions to "my Clara," and though he could not himself +play because of his lame finger, she was to him his "right hand." Once +in referring to a prospective concert he even wrote, "We shall play" +such and such numbers. + +In 1853 he and Clara went to the Netherlands, where he found his music +well known and himself highly honoured, though they say that the King +of Holland, after praising Clara's playing, turned to Robert and said: +"Are you also musical?" But then one does not expect much from a king. +The musicians knew Schumann's work, and he rejoiced at finding friends +of his art in a far-away country. "But," says Reissman, "this was +destined to be his last happiness." + +For the dread affliction which throws a spell of horror across his life +and his wife's devotion, did not long delay in seizing upon him after +his marriage. As early as 1833, the ferocious onslaughts of melancholia +had affected him at long intervals. In 1845, on the doctor's advice, he +moved to Dresden. His trouble seems to have been "an abnormal formation +of irregular masses of bone in the brain." He was afraid to live above +the ground floor, or to go high in any building, lest he throw himself +from the window in a sudden attack. He was subject to moods of long, +and one might almost say violent, silence. In 1845 he described it as +"a mysterious complaint which, when the doctor tries to take hold of +it, disappears. I dare say better times are coming, and when I look +upon my wife and children, I have joy enough." + +Later he wrote to Mendelssohn, that he preferred staying at home, even +when his wife went out. + +"Wherever there is fun and enjoyment, I must still keep out of the way; +the only thing to be done is hope ... hope ... and I will!" + +His wife was still "a gift from above," and his allusions to her were +affectionate to the utmost. In 1846, and again in the summer of 1847, +he suffered a violent melancholia. In these periods he experienced an +inability to remember his own music long enough to write it down. He +saw but few friends, among them the charming widow of Von Weber, +Ferdinand Hiller, Mendelssohn, Joachim, and a few others. Wagner wrote +some articles for Schumann's journal and was highly thought of at +first, but Schumann soon lost sympathy with him; the final sign of the +break-up of his wonderful appreciation of other men's music. + +His life was more and more his home, and that more and more a voluntary +prison. In 1853 he presented his wife on her birthday with a grand +piano, and several new compositions. He took great delight in his +family, and could even compose amid the hilarity and noise of his +children. Concerning children he had written in 1845 to Mendelssohn, +whose wife had presented him with a second child, "We are looking +forward to a similar event, and I always tell my wife, 'one cannot have +enough.' It is the greatest blessing we have on earth." + +Clara bore him eight children, and at her concerts there was usually a +nurse with a babe in arms waiting for her in the wings. Schumann wrote +three sonatas for his three daughters, and other compositions for them. +His famous "Kinderscenen" were, however, composed before his marriage. + +It was in 1853 that his old enthusiasm for new composers broke forth in +his ardent welcome to Brahms (who was then twenty years old), who +became a devoted friend and was of much comfort to Frau Schumann after +Schumann's death. This was not far off, but before life went, he must +suffer a death in life. + +Worst of all in that final disintegration of his great soul was the +interest he took in the atrocious frauds of spiritualism. He was even +duped into believing in the cheap swindle of table-tipping. The bliss +of Robert Browning's home was broken up in this same form, of +all-encompassing credulity, only it was Mrs. Browning who was the +spiritualist in this case and resisted Browning's sanity in the matter. + +Schumann fancied that he heard spirit voices rebuking and praising him, +and he rose once in the night to write down a theme given him by the +ghosts of Schubert and Mendelssohn, on which he afterward wrote +variations which were never finished and were the last pathetic +exercise of his magnificent mind. + +He was also distracted by hearing one eternal note ringing in his +ears--the same horror that drove the composer Smetana mad, after he had +embodied the nightmare in one of his compositions. Clara herself in +later life was long distressed by hearing a continual pattern of +"sequences" in her head, and Bizet's early death was a release from two +notes that dinned his ears interminably. + +Schumann's eccentricities became a proverb. Alice Mangold Diehl tells +of meeting Robert and Clara, and finding him peevish and her a model of +meekness and patience. Poor Schumann realised his failings and his own +danger, and often suggested retirement to an asylum. But the idea was +too ghastly to endure. + +On February 27, 1854, after an especial attack of the bewilderment and +helpless terror that thrilled him, he stole away unobserved, and leaped +from a bridge into the Rhine. He was saved by boatmen and taken home. +He recovered, but it was now thought best that he should be placed +under restraint, and he passed his last two years in a private asylum, +near Bonn. Periods of complete sanity, when he received his friends and +wrote to them, alternated with periods of absolute despair. Under the +weight of his affliction, his soul, like Giles Corey's body in the +Salem witchcraft times, was gradually crushed to death, and at the age +of forty-six he died. Clara, who had been away on a concert tour to +earn much-needed funds, hastened back from London just in time to give +him her own arms as his resting-place in his last agony. + +After his funeral she and her children went to Berlin to live with +her mother. She found it necessary to travel as a performer and +to teach until 1882, when her health forbade her touring longer. +She had shown herself a woman worth fighting for, even as +Schumann fought for her, and she had given him not only the greatest +ambition and the greatest solace his life had known, but she had been +also the perfect helpmeet to his art. + +Schumann's music was not an easy music for the world to learn, and it +is to Clara Wieck's eternal honour, that she not only inspired Schumann +to write this music, and gave him her support under the long +discouragement of its neglect and the temptations to be untrue to his +best ideals; but that she travelled through Europe and promulgated his +art, until with her own power of intellect and persuasion she had +coaxed and compelled the world to understand its right value, and his +great messages. + +She never married again, but devoted her long widowhood to his memory +personally as well as artistically. She edited his works and published +his letters in 1885, with a preface, saying that her desire was to make +him known for himself as well as he was loved and honoured in his +artistic importance. As she had written in 1871, "the purity of his +life, his noble aspirations, the excellence of his heart, can never be +fully known except through the communication of his family and +friends." + +In return for her devotion he never made genius an excuse for +infidelity or selfishness. It seems actually and beautifully true, as +Reissman says, that "Schumann's devotions were as chaste and devout as +those of the soul of a pure woman." + +Such a love, such a courtship, and such a wedlock as that of Robert and +Clara Schumann ennoble not only the art and history of music, but those +as well of humanity. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MUSICIANS AS LOVERS + + +"Et le cortège chantait quelque chose de triste des oh! et des +ah!"--ZOLA, _L'Assommoir_. + + +And now at the end of all this gossip, to see if it has served any +purpose, and if the multitude of experiences totals up into any +definite result: + +Of course, as you were just going to say, he said, "If music be the +food of love." But then you must not fail to remember that in another +play he hedged by saying, "Much virtue in an 'if.'" For music is not +the food of love, any more than oatmeal or watermelons. And yet in a +sense, music is a love-food--in the sense I mean, that there is +love-nourishment in tubes of paint, which can perpetuate your beauty, +my fair readeress; or in ink-bottles all ebon with Portuguese sonnets +and erotic rondeaux; or in tubs of plaster of Paris, or in +bargain-counterfuls of dress goods to add the last word to a woman's +beauty. In such a sense, indeed, there is _materia amorofica_ in music, +for with music one can--or at least one did--show forth the very rhythm +of Tristanic desire, and another portrayed in unexpurgated harmonies +the garden-mood of Faust and Marguerite. + +But as there are in those same tubes of oozy paint horrific visions +like Franz Stuck's "War," or portraits of plutocrats by Bonnat, and as +there are in ink-bottles sad potencies of tailors' bills and scathing +reviews of this very book, so it is possible under the name of music to +write fugues and five-finger exercises, and yet more settings of +"Hiawatha," or "_Du bist wie eine Blume_" + +Now, there is only one thing easier than a generalisation, and that is +a generalisation in the opposite direction. You can prove anything by +statistics, if you can only choose your statistics and stop when you +want to. But statistics are like automobiles. Sometimes if you hitch +yourself up with a statistic, you meet the fate of the farmer who put +his fool head in the yoke with a skittish steer. + +There was a time when I could have written you an essay on the moral +effect of music, and been convinced, if not convincing. A little later, +I could have done no worse with a thesis to the effect that music is an +immoral influence. But that time is gone now, after a time spent in +gathering material from everywhichway for this book on musicians' love +affairs. For, to repeat, with a few statistics you can prove anything; +with a complete array you can usually prove nothing, or its next-door +neighbour. + +The way to test any food is to observe its effects on those addicted to +it. To study the true workings of music, then, you would not count the +pulse of one of those "Oh-I'm-passionately-fond-of-music" maidens who +talk all through even dance-music. Nor would you take for your test one +of those laymen who are fond of this tune or that, because it reminds +them of the first time they heard it--"that night when Sally Perkins +sang it while I was out in the moonlit piazza hugging Kitty Gray, now +Mrs. van Van,--or was it Bessie Brown? who buried her husband two years +ago next Sunday." + +These are people to whom music is as much a rarity as Nesselrode to a +newsboy. + +The true place, surely, to test the effect of music is in the souls of +the people who live in it, breathe it, steep themselves in it, play +it,--and what is worse,--work it. + +To the great musicians themselves, then, we have turned. What could +have been better for the purpose than to have made them parade before +us in historic mardi-gras? wearing their hearts on their sleeves, or in +their letters, their music, their lives, as they trooped forth +endlessly from the tomes of Burney, Hawkins, Fétis, Grove, Riemann, and +from their biographies and memoirs innumerable? + +A motley crew they have formed, and you perhaps have been able to find +a unity, if not of purpose, at least of result, in the music they have +made, and the music that has made them. Let them pass again, only this +time as soldiers go by at a review--the second time at the +double-quick. Here they come--watch them well. + +Leading the rout are those stately or capering figures, who, from being +the great virtuosi of their time, were finally idolised into gods in +the Golden Age, when musical critics had no columns to perpetuate their +iconoclasms in. + +Mark him with the stately stride--Apollo, smiting his lyre with a +majesty hardly supported by the seven small notes he could get out of +it. The gossips said he loved Daphne, and madly withal, but she took to +a tree.--No, let the gods pass as they will. It is with men we deal, +not gods. + +Note especially the cluster of those wonderful musickers, who, at the +end of the Middle Age, went from Flanders and thereabouts, into Italy +and all around Europe, weaving their Flemish counterpoint like a net +all over the world of music. They seem all to have been marrying men, +some of them super-romantical, others as stodgily domestic and workaday +as any village blacksmith. There is Marc Houtermann, called the Prince +of Musicians. He lived at Brussels, and died there aged forty, and the +same year he was followed to his grave by his musically named Joanna +Gavadia, who knew music well, and who, let us still hope, died of a +broken heart. Cipriano de Rore, De Croes, and Jacques Buus were all +married men, and begot hostages to fortune. Philippe de Monte may or +may not have married; we only know that a pupil of his wrote him a +Latin poem forty-six lines long, and we can only trust that he did not +marry her. + +Orlando di Lasso, "one of the morning stars of modern times," whose +music was so beautiful that once at Munich a thunder-storm was +miraculously hushed at the first note of one of his motets, lived a +love-life much like Schumann's, save that he seems to have had no +hard-hearted parents to strengthen and purify his resolve. The only +court he went to, to win her, was the court at Munich, where his Regina +was a maid of honour. She bore him six children, and they lived +ideally, it seems. But his health gave way now and then before his hard +work, and finally, when he had reached his threescore and ten, his wife +came home to find him gone mad, and unable even to recognise her, who +had been at his side for thirty years. She guarded him tenderly, and +strove hard to cheer his last days, but melancholy surrendered him only +to death. + +Adrien Willaert had a wife, and loved her long and well, and wrote many +wills, in which he grew more and more affectionate toward his helpmeet, +yet strangely he never mentioned his daughter, who was herself a +composer, and had perhaps a romance of her own, down there in Juliet's +country where her Flemish father took her. + +How otherwise is the domestic life of Jacques de Wert, whose wife +conspired against him heinously, and put his very life in danger! When +he was well rid of this baggage, he fell into an intrigue with a lady +of the court of Ferrara. Her name was Tarquinia Molza, and she was a +poetess, but her relatives frowned upon the alliance of her poetry and +his music, and forced her to go back to her mother at Mantua, where she +outlived De Wert some twenty-seven years. + +His is such a life as one would take to prove the unsettling effects of +music; yet what shall we say then of Josse Boutmy, who lived +ninety-nine years and raised twelve children, spending the greater part +of his life with his faithful spouse in one long struggle against +poverty, one eternal drudgery for the pence necessary to educate his +family? Shall we not say that he was as truly influenced by music as +Jacques de Wert? + +De Wert had gone to Italy as a boy, and you might be after blaming +those soft Italian skies for his amorous troubles. But then you'll +encounter such a life as that of Palestrina spent altogether in Italy. +He married young. Her name was Lucrezia, and their life seems to have +been one of ideal devotion. She bore him four sons, and stood by him in +all his troubles, brightening the twilight of poverty, adorning that +high noon of his glory, when the Pope himself turned to Palestrina, and +implored him to reform and rescue the whole music of the Church from +its corruptions. It was well that Lucrezia could offer him solace, for +unwittingly she had once brought him his direst distress. When he was +recovered and well, a better post was offered him, and things ran +smoothly till, twenty-five years later, Lucrezia died, leaving him +broken-hearted with only one worthless son to embitter the last +fourteen years of his widowed life. His most poignantly impressive +motets seem to have been written under the anguish of Lucrezia's death. +The finest of them is his setting of the words: + + "By the River of Babylon we have set us down and wept, + Remembering Thee, oh, Zion; + Upon the willows we have hung our harps," + +which, as E.H. Pember says, "may well have represented to himself, the +heart-broken composer, mourning by the banks of the Tiber, for the lost +wife whom he had loved so long." + +Close upon so noble a life, artistic and personal, comes the career of +Georges de la Hèle, who, being a priest, gave up his lucrative benefice +to wed the woman he wished. + +And yet again with disconcerting effect comes the story of Ambrosio de +Cotes, who was a gambler and a drunkard, who kept a mistress, and was +rebuked publicly for howling indecent refrains to the tunes in church. +Which of these is fairly typical as a musician? + +Then comes the most notable man in all English music, Harry Purcell, +who wrote the best love-songs that ever melted the reserve of his race. +He must have been a good husband, and his married life a happy one, +seeing how ardent his wife was for his memory, and how she celebrated +him in a memorial volume, as the Orpheus of Great Britain, and how +eager she was that the two sons that survived out of their six +children, should be trained to music. + +And speaking of types, what shall we say of this cloud of witnesses, +bearing the most honoured name in music, the name of Bach? + +There were more than twenty-five Bachs, who made themselves names as +makers of harmony, and they earned themselves almost as great names as +family makers; all except Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who was as lacking +in virtue as he was abundant in virtuosity. He was notoriously immoral, +and yet the greatest organist of his time, as his father had been +before him; and it was this father, Johann Sebastian Bach, who by his +life and preëminence in music, offers the biggest obstacle to any +theory about the immoral influences of the art. For surely, if he, who +is generally called the greatest of musicians, led a life of hardly +equalled domesticity, it will not be easy to claim that music has an +unsettling effect upon society. And yet there are his great rivals, +Handel and Beethoven, whose careers are in the remotest possible +contrast. + +It is neither here nor there, that "Father" Bach left little money and +many children when he died, and that the sons seized upon his MSS. and +drifted away to other cities, leaving the mother and three daughters to +live upon the charity of the town. It is unfortunate to have to include +among the ungrateful children the stepson, Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, +who seems otherwise to have been a pleasant enough fellow, a fair +family man, and a great composer. He first too much eclipsed his +father's fame, and has since been too much eclipsed thereby. He had +family troubles, too, and left a wife and children to mourn him. So +much for the Bachs. + +A family of almost equal fame was the group of violin makers of +Cremona, the Stradivari. The founder of the house, Antonio, began his +life romantically enough. When he was a youngster of seventeen or +eighteen, he fell in love with Francesca Capra, a widow of a man who +had been assassinated. She was nine or ten years older than Stradivari, +and they were married on July 4, 1667. In the following December the first +of their six children was born. Two of his sons took up their father's +trade. Both of them died bachelors, and the third son became a priest. + +At the age of fifty-eight Francesca died. After a year of widowerhood, +he wedded again; this time, a woman fourteen or fifteen years younger +than he. She bore him five children, and he outlived her less than a +year. His descendants dwelt for generations, flourishing on his fame, +at Cremona. + +The Amati were also a numerous family of luthiers, as were the +Guarnieri, but I have not been able to poke into their private affairs, +though he who called himself "Jesus," was addicted to imprisonment, and +is said to have made violins out of bits of wood brought him by the +jailer's daughter. She sold the fiddles to buy him luxuries. + +But now, lest we should too firmly believe that music exerts an amorous +and domestic effect, we are confronted with the ponderous majesty of +one of the proudest spirits that ever strode the creaking earth, Georg +Friedrich Händel, who was born the very same year as the much-married +Bach, but led a life as opposite as North Pole from South. The first +snub he dealt to Cupid, was when he was eighteen, and sought the post +of organist held by the famous old Buxtehude, who had married years +before the daughter of an organist to whose post he aspired, and had +left behind him a daughter thirty-four years old as an incumbrance upon +his successor. Händel could have got the job, if he would have had the +girl. But she was almost twice his age, and he left her for another +musician to marry in. Then he went to Italy, and was pursued in vain +under those bewitching skies by no belated German spinster, but by a +beautiful and attractive Italienne. Her, he also spurned. When he was +in England, he seems to have come very near falling in love with two +different women. The mother of the first objected to him as a mere +fiddler. After she died, the father invited him into the family, only +to be told that the invitation was too late. The other woman, a lady of +high degree, offered herself as a substitute for his career, only to be +declined with thanks and possibly with a formal statement that +"rejection implied no lack of merit." Seeing that these things happened +in the eighteenth century, I need not add that both women were romantic +enough to go into a decline, and die beautifully. + +Whatever food music may have been to Händel's greatness, there was +another food that rivalled it in his esteem; and that food was the +symphonic poetry of the cook. For Händel was almost equally famous both +as a composer and a digester. In this he was rivalled by the father of +French opera, Lully, who was a gourmand, in spite of the fact that he +spent his early life as a kitchen boy. He led his wife a miserable +existence on account of his hot temper, his brutality, and his excesses +in solid and liquid food. After him came Rameau, who, like Stradivari, +fell in love with a widow while he was still in his teens and she well +out of hers. He did not wed, however, until he was forty-three, and +then he wed an eighteen-year-old girl, who was, they say, a very good +woman, and who did her best to make her husband very happy. But he was +taciturn, and rarely spoke even to his own family, and spent on them +almost less money than words. Another opera composer of the time was +Reinhard Keiser. He married a woman who, with her wealth and her voice, +rescued his operatic ventures from bankruptcy. These make a rather +sordid and unromantic group. + +But again there stalks forth, to confound all our theories, the superb +figure of Gluck, who fell in love but once, and then for all time, with +Maria Anna Pergin, who loved him, and whose mother approved of him, but +whose purse-proud father despised him for a musician. The lovers +accepted the rebuff as a temporary sorrow only, and Providence, like a +playright, removed the stern parent in the next act. Gluck flew back +from Italy to Vienna to his betrothed, "with whom to his death he dwelt +in happiest wedlock." She went with him on his triumphal tours, and +spent her wealth in charities. They had no children of their own, but +adopted a niece. The devoted wife used to play his accompaniment as he +sang his own music, and when he died he took especial pains that she +should be his sole and exclusive heir, even leaving it to her pleasure +whether or not his brothers and sisters should have anything at all. + +Plainly we should be thinking that music has a purifying, ennobling, +and substantial effect upon society, if only Gluck's friend and +partisan, the successful composer and immortal writer, Jean Jacques +Rousseau, would not intrude upon the picture with his faun-like +paganisms and magnificently shameless "Confessions." + +Jostling elbows with him comes Gluck's chiefest rival, Piccinni, one of +the most beautiful characters in history, a man who could wage a mortal +combat in art, without bitterness toward his bitter rivals. He could, +when Gluck died, strive to organise a memorial festival in his honour, +and when his other rival, Sacchini, was taken from the arena by death, +he could deliver the funeral eulogy. This Sacchini, by the bye, was a +reckless voluptuary, who seems never to have married. + +Piccinni was the very beau ideal of a father and a husband. He and his +wife, who was a singer of exquisite skill and a teacher of ability, +gave little home concerts, which were events. They and their many +children went through more vicissitudes than have fallen to the lot of +many musicians; but always they loved one another and their art, and +there always remains that picture which the Prince of Brunswick +stumbled upon, when he knocked at Piccinni's door, and found him +rocking the cradle of one of his children, while another tugged at his +coat in boisterous fun, and the mother beamed her enjoyment. + +Hardly less ideal, though far more picturesque and dramatic, was the +romance of Mozart. + +This goldenhearted genius was a composer at an age when many children +have not commenced to learn their ABC's; he was a virtuoso before the +time when most boys can be trusted with a blunt knife. Kissed and +fondled by great beauties, from the age of five, it is small wonder +that Mozart began to improvise upon the oldest theme in the world +precociously. His first recorded love affair is found in his letters at +the age of thirteen. He loved with the same radiant enthusiasm that he +gave to his music, and while some of his flirtations were of the utmost +frivolity, such as his hilarious courtship of his pretty cousin, the +"Bäsle," he was capable of the completest altruism, and could turn +aside from the aristocracy to lavish his idolatry upon the +fifteen-year-old daughter of a poor music copyist, whose wife took in +boarders. For this girl, Aloysia Weber, he wanted to give up his own +career as a concert pianist; he wanted to give up the conquest he had +planned of Paris, and devote himself to the training of her voice, to +writing operas for her exploitation, and to journeying in Italy for the +production of these operas and the promulgation of her talents. Yet +after breaking his heart, as he supposed, for the gifted and fickle +woman who became a successful prima donna,--after losing her, he did +that most impossible thing which could never happen in real fiction, +and sought his consolation in the arms and in the heart of Aloysia's +younger sister, who was not especially pretty, and was only modestly +musical. But her name was Constanze, and she lived up to it. + +Constanze could always read to him, and tell him stories as he liked to +have her do while he composed, and she could cut up his meat for him +lest in his absent-mindedness he carve off one of his valuable fingers. +And when she was ill, as she frequently was, there could be no gentler +nurse than he. Besides, when winter was upon them, it was no winter of +discontent, for if the fire gave out and the fuel could not be +afforded, could they not always waltz together? + +Twice Mozart must make concert tours for money, and twice he came home +poorer than he went, but at least he left the world some of the +gentlest and most hearty love-letters in its literature. When he was at +home, Vienna was busy with anecdotes of his devotion. He was indeed so +good a husband that Constanze could not even withhold forgiveness for +certain occasions when he strayed from the narrow path of absolute +fidelity; for she knew that his heart had its home with her. When he +died, supposedly of malignant typhus, she tried to catch his disease +and die with him, and her health broke so completely that she could not +attend his funeral; and when she was recovered enough to visit the +cemetery, she could not discover, what no man has since found out, in +just what three-deep pauper's grave Mozart was buried. + +All in all, in spite of certain ficklenesses in which this immortal +musician has been surpassed by lovers of all walks of life, from +blacksmiths to bishops, music has created one of tenderest, most honest +of all romances. + +But then there was a man whose life encompassed Mozart's, as a long +brace encompasses a stave of music. For Joseph Haydn was born +twenty-four years before Mozart, and died eighteen years after him. And +this man's love affairs were of altogether different fabric. + +While Mozart died in his poverty at thirty-five, Haydn, dying at +seventy-seven, was worried over the endowment he should leave to a +discarded mistress, whose name, strangely enough, was also Aloysia. And +Haydn, more than strangely enough, had begun his life the same way by +proposing to an older sister, and marrying a younger; but with results +how unlike! + +Haydn also found his inamorata in the home of a poor man who had been +kind to him. His wife, however, led him a dog's life. The only interest +she seemed to have in his music was to keep him writing numbers for the +priests, who clustered around her, eating Haydn out of house and home. +Frau Haydn was a shrew, and he finally gave up trying to live at home, +seeking his consolation at court with a young and beautiful Neapolitan +singer, who was unhappily married to a poor fiddler, named Polzelli. +The two lovers made little secret of their hope that one or both of +their ill-favoured spouses would pass away. But they both declined to +"die by request," as Artemus Ward has it. + +After a time the lovers drifted apart, until finally Aloysia married +again, though to the last she held Haydn to an agreement he had made +years before, to marry no other woman, and to leave her a pension. +Meanwhile, in London, Haydn was having a quaint alliance, _sub rosa_, +with a widow. Her letters to him, as doubtless his to her, were full of +gentle idolatry. She had been writing these to him while he had been +writing ardent letters of yearning to Polzelli. Altogether Haydn does +not shine as the beau ideal of single-hearted fidelity. + +Was it from him that Beethoven caught his own fickleness along with so +much of his musical manner? Beethoven had one of the busiest hearts in +history. + +We cannot say that he might not have been a marrying man if disease and +deafness had not harrowed his volcanic soul, and made his life so +largely one of tempestuous tragedy, in which he wandered through the +world, and found it as homeless and as bleak as did the Wandering Jew, +whose quarrels with Fate were no more fierce, more majestic, nor more +vain than Beethoven's. Among the multitudinous agonies that throng his +letters and rave through his music, are many cries of wild longing for +a homelife in a woman's heart. + +But these "diminished sevenths" of unrest and yearning are often +resolved in a cold minor of resignation or of cynicism in which he +claims to be willing, and at times even glad, to pass his life alone. +We are not justified, then, in taking Beethoven as a man of domestic +inclinations. The most confirmed bachelors have their moments of doubt, +and Beethoven had every qualification for driving a wife even madder +than he himself could be on occasions. His most intimate and unswerving +friends were the victims of spasms of suspicious hatred and +maltreatment that surely no wife worth having could ever have endured +through the honeymoon. + +And yet in his love-letters there is a notable absence of jealousy or +whim, and we can only accept his life as we find it, and regard him as +a great genius who rushed from love to love, and never tarried for +wedlock. As to the quality of those love affairs,--we meet a conflict +of authority; some of his friends recording him as a wonder of +chastity, and others treating him as a never-tiring flirt. + +Among the thirty or more women who accepted his attentions, he could +easily have found a wife, had he been at heart a marrying man. He has +perpetuated in his dedications all these flames, and it was in the +furnace of these flames that much of his music was forged. But how +shall we blame or praise music for its effect upon Beethoven's heart, +in the face of the antipodal life of such a fellow bachelor as Händel? +And to these two bachelors there belongs a third great bachelor of +music, Schubert, who is said never to have loved a woman. Even the +paltry anecdote or two of his hopeless love for a very young countess +is dismissed by the cautious as a fable. Schubert was a pauper to the +_n_th degree. But he found his joy in the hilarity of the Vienna cafés +with boisterous friends, working up a maximum enthusiasm on a minimum +of food, living a life of much art and equal beer. He seems never to +have truly cared for women, nor to have been cared for by them. + +There are all sorts of bachelorhoods, and there is a wide distinction +between the womanless splendour of Händel's life at court, and the +unilluminated garret of Schubert's obscurity. There is a difference +also in the busy, promiscuous courtship of Beethoven, who dedicated +thirty-nine compositions to thirty-six women, and that of Chopin, who, +though he could conduct three flirtations of an evening, seems to have +loved but thrice, and to have planned marriage but once. + +Chopin, only half-Polish, and finding his true home in Paris, had been +loved by the tiny musicienne, hardly so big as her name, Leopoldine +Blahetka, but his first true love was for the raving beauty, Constantia +Gladkovska, whom he mourned for in prose as highly coloured as his +nocturnes, wishing that after his death his ashes might be strewn under +her feet. She married elsewhere. The Polish Maria Wodzinska was his +next flame, and he wished to marry her, but he, who had the salons of +Paris at his princely behest, could not hold this nineteen-year-old +girl. Then he fell into the embrace of George Sand, that mysterious +sphinx who clasped him to her commodious heart, and held him as with +claws, though little he cared to escape; and yet, her claws drew blood, +and at length it was the sphinx herself who struggled for release from +the embrace of the fretful genius, whom consumption was claiming with +her own clammy arms. Every one knows all there is to know about the +Chopin-Sand affair, all and a great deal more, but who could draw from +it any inference as to the effect of music? + +Sand was attracted to Chopin by his art. With her as nurse, his genius +accomplished much of its greatest, and it held her enthralled for a +time. To Chopin, music was both a medicine and a disease, torment and +solace. But that he would have lived his life differently in any way +had he been a painter, a poet, an architect, a man of affairs, or an +idler, with the same effeminate nature, the same elegance of manner, +the same disease, the same women about him, I can find no reason to +believe. Is it not the man and the environment rather than the music +that makes such a life what it is? + +There is another brilliant consumptive, Carl Maria von Weber, a member +of a long line of musicians. At seventeen he had formed "a tender +connection with a lady of position," whom he lost sight of later and +forgot in the race with fast young noblemen, whose dissipation he +rivalled. A mad entanglement with a singer ruined him in purse, and +almost in career. His frivolities ended in an arrest and punishment +which sobered him with the abruptness of a plunge into a stream of ice. +But his gaiety was as irrepressible as Chopin's melancholy, and he gave +Germany some of its most cheerful music. His heart was restless, and +still at the age of twenty-seven he was writhing in an infatuation for +a worthless ballet-girl. Then his affection for a singer and soubrette, +Caroline Brandt, steadied him. After a long period of effort to +establish a firm position they married, and the soubrette became a +"Haus-frau." He was thirty-one, however, before this point was reached, +and the honeymoon consisted of a concert tour. + +The glory of his later life fought against the gloom of his disease, +but the ferocious rake had made, as the proverb has it, an ideal +husband and father. His letters to his wife are full of ardour. It was +a tour through England that exhausted Chopin's last strength, and it +was Weber's fate to die alone in London in the midst of eager +preparations and vast hunger to reach his home. He was not quite forty +when he died, and his life had been two lives, one of unchecked +libertinism, and the other all integrity of purpose. But it was in the +latter half that he wrote his best music. + +The domestic and home-establishing influences of music might be pleaded +even more strongly from the life of Mendelssohn. A more musical home +than that in which Mendelssohn grew up, could hardly exist, nor one in +which family life reached a higher level of comfort and delight. Like +Mozart, Mendelssohn was especially devoted to his sister. Her death +indeed grieved him so deeply, that he died shortly after. A man of the +utmost cheer and wholesomeness, revelling in dancing, swimming, riding, +sketching, and billiards; he was idolised in the circle around him, +though his life was not without its enmities. He had many slight +flirtations, but seems to have been even engaged but once, to Cécile +Jeanrenaud, whom he married. His home life was a repetition of that +ideal circle in his father's house. A busier life or a more pleasantly +respectable can hardly be found in the history of men, nor yet a more +truly musical. + +A life of similar brilliance and similar musical immersion was that of +Liszt, whose domestic career was nevertheless as different as possible. +A soul of greater generosity, and more zealous altruism in many +respects, it would be hard to find, and yet his relations to women +were, in the conventional view, a colossal and multifarious scandal. +Have we any more right to blame his domestic outrages to the music that +was in him, than to the almost equally intense religious ardour that +fought for him, leading him again and again to seek to enter a +monastery, and finally actually to take orders? Abélard was a +sufficiently tempestuous and irregular lover, yet he was a priest, and +not a musician. Can we then blame harmony and melody for the +humming-bird "amours" of the Abbe Liszt,--for the many women he made +material love to from his early youth,--for the very dubious honesty of +his bearing toward the Comtesse d'Agoult and the Princess Wittgenstein, +with whom he debated the formalities of marriage without hesitating +over the actualities? + +There is a strange cluster of domestic infelicities centring about +Liszt. The Comtesse d'Agoult loved him so ardently that she braved the +world for him, driving even her complacent husband to divorce her; but +even then, though they lived together, Liszt did not marry her. He even +brought George Sand, the ex-mistress of so many men, including Liszt +himself, to live at the house with the comtesse, who had borne him +three children out of wedlock. One of these children became the wife of +Hans von Bülow, who was driven to divorce her that she might marry his +teacher, Richard Wagner, whose first wife had endured twenty-five years +of his irregularities in everything, except poverty, and who separated +from him during the last five years of her life. + +Shall we blame all this to music, and if so, shall we say that music +has atoned sufficiently in the devotion of Wagner and his second wife +to each other, and their lofty theories of art? And in any case, how +shall we explain the influence of music in the life of Wagner's rival +for supremacy, Johannes Brahms, a confirmed bachelor; or his other +contemporary, Tschaikovski, who, after a normal love affair with a +singer, Desirée Artôt, who jilted him, eventually married a girl by +whom he seemed to have been deeply loved, without feeling any return? +He claimed to have explained to the enamoured girl that he would marry +her if she wished, but that he could not love her. On these terms she +accepted him, and the bridegroom endured all the agonies of heart +ordinarily ascribed to bartered brides. A burlesque honeymoon of a week +was soon followed by a separation. Tschaikovski regarded his wife with +a horror bordering on insanity, finding what little consolation life +had for him in the devotion of a widow, who furnished him liberally +with funds and admiration, with an affection which, for lack of better +information, we can only call, for lack of a better word, Platonic. + +There are other musicians whose private affairs I need not repeat here, +and yet others' that I have not poked into. There is no lack of curious +entanglements, especially in the matter of the men and women who have +played upon the human voice, but we have surely collected enough +material for forming a judgment, especially when we have turned an +additional glance upon the life of one other composer. + +Now, the influence of music might be modified beyond recognition by the +fact that one of the lovers might not be musical; but surely, when both +man and woman are professional musicians, there can be no doubt of the +governing power of music. In recent musical history there is one +eminent composer who married a woman also prominent in music. In fact, +Clara Wieck has been called the most eminent woman who ever took up +music as a profession. It would be hard to deny Robert Schumann a place +among the major gods of creative art. Every one knows how he began to +love Clara, and she him, when he was first leaving his teens and she +entering her fame as an eleven-year-old prodigy. Their fidelity through +the storm and stress of their courtship, their lifelong sympathy and +collaboration in conserving a humanly perfect home, and in achieving a +dual immortality, both as lovers and as musicians--these certainly +indicate music as a solidifying and enriching force in society. + +And now, finally, in the procession that has filed past you, you have +seen almost every imaginable form of love and lover, of husband and +Lothario, or woman-hater. There have been cool-blooded bachelors like +Händel, Schubert, and Brahms; there have been passionate pilgrims like +Chopin, Beethoven, and Liszt, who loved many women, and married none. +There have been the home-keeping breeders of children, and contentment, +such as Willaert, Orlando di Lasso, Palestrina, the Bachs, Gluck, +Piccinni, Weber, Mendelssohn, and Schumann; and Bizet, whose wife said +after his death, that there was not a moment of their six years' +honeymoon she could regret or would not re-live. There have been the +unhappily wed, who, through the fault of themselves, or their wives, +found and made misery at home, and sought nepenthe elsewhere, such as +Haydn, Berlioz, and Tschaikovski. There have been married lives of +mixed nature, neither failure nor success, such as the careers of +Lully, Rameau, Stradivari, and Wagner. + +If any one lives who could extract from this medley a theory as to the +effect of music upon the human heart,--a theory that will satisfy +himself alone, to say nothing of the world in general,--he is welcome +to his conclusion. To me it is a chaos wherethrough I cannot pretend to +trace any thread of unity. I can only fall back upon this agnosticism: +if any man argue to the effect, that music has a moral influence on +life, I will hurl at his head some of the most brilliant rascals in +domestic chronicle; and equally, if any man will deny that music has a +moral effect, I will barricade his path with some of the most beautiful +lives that have ever bloomed upon earth. It is, after all, a matter of +time, tide, and temperament. If a man of amorous nature happens to lead +a life of much leisure, his idle mind will turn one way; and if the +tide of opportunity concur, he will be dissipated, whether he be +composer, clergyman, business man, bravo, soldier, sailor, carpenter, +king, plumber, poet, pope, or peasant. + +The long and the short of it is, perhaps, that music, being a universal +art, like a universal watch-key, will set going the complicated cogs +and springs of every soul and yet not regulate or assure its rhythm. +Music stimulates and satisfies the mind in any of its whims, and you +can tune it to a softly chanted prayer, or to a dance orgy; to a hymn +of exultation, or a tinkling serenade; a kindergarten song, to the +bloodthirst of armies; to voluptuous desires that cannot or dare not be +worded, or to raptures distilled of every human dross; to cynical +raillery, or the very throb of a young lover's heart; to the hilarity +of a drinking song, or the midnight elegies of ineffable despair. How +is such an art as this to compel, or to deny anything or anybody? + +Musicians, then, are only ordinary clay, who happened to make music, +instead of other things of more or less beauty or value. They are +every-day puppets of circumstance and of inner and outer environment, +who might have been happier, and might have been unhappier, with the +women they wed or did not wed, had those women died younger, or lived +longer--or with other women, or with none at all. + +THE END. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + +_Of Books Consulted and Cited in This Work_ + + + * * * * * + +BAINI (GIUSEPPE). + +Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di G. Pierluigi da +Palestrina. 2 vols. Rome, 1828. + +BEAUFORT (RAPHAEL LEDOS DE). + +Franz Lizst. The Story of his Life. Boston, 1887. + +BEETHOVEN'S LETTERS. See Nohl. + +BÉLART (HANS). + +Richard Wagner in Zürich (1849-1859). 2 vols. Leipzig. 1901. + +BELLAIGNE (CAMILLE). + +Portraits and Silhouettes of Musicians. Translated by Ellen Orr. 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His Life and Works. Translated by Florence P. Hall. 2 +vols. Boston, 1892. + +KARAJAN (TH.G. VON). + +J. Haydn in London. Vienna, 1861. + +KARASOWSKI (MORITZ). + +Frederic Chopin, His Life, Letters, and Works. Translated by Emily +Hill. 2 vols. London, 1879. + +KARLOWICZ. See _Revue Musicale_. + +KASHKIN (N.). + +Reminiscences of Peter Iljitsch Tschaikovski. Moscow, 1897. + +KOBBÉ (GUSTAVE). + +Wagner's Life and Works. New York, 1890. + +KREHBIEL (HENRY EDWARD). + +Music and Manners in the Classical Period. New York, 1898. + +LAHEE (HENRY C.) + +Famous Singers of To-day and Yesterday. Boston, 1898. + +LA MARA (Pseudonym of MARIE LIPSIUS). + +Franz Liszt's Briefe. Bände. Leipzig, 1893-1899. + +LA MARA (Pseudonym of MARIE LIPSIUS). + +Letters of Franz Liszt. Collected and edited by "La Mara." Translated +by Constance Bache. 2 vols. London, 1894. + +LENZ (W. VON). + +The Great Piano Virtuosos of Our Time from Personal Acquaintance. +Translated by M.R. Baker. 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Paris, 1807. + +MOERIKE (EDWARD). + +Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag. (A novel.) Stuttgart, 1856. + +MOZART'S LETTERS. See Nohl. + +NEWMARCH (ROSA). + +Tschaikovski. London, 1880. + +NIECKS (FREDERICK). + +Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician. 2 vols. London, 1888. + +NIGGLI (A.). + +Robert Schumann. Sein Leben und Seine Werke. For this and other +biographies see Waldersee. + +NISSEN (GEORG NIKOLAUS VON). + +Biographie W.A. Mozart's. Nach dessen Tode herausgegeben von Constanze, +Witwe von Nissen, früher Witwe Mozart. Leipzig, 1828. + +NlEMTSCHEK (FRANZ). + +Leben des K.K. Kapellmeister's Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. Prag, 1798. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Beethoven's Letters. Translated by Lady Wallace. 2 vols. London, 1867. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Beethoven Depicted by His Contemporaries. Translated by E. Hill. +London. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Life of Wagner. Translated by Geo. P. Upton. Chicago, 1892. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Life of Haydn. Translated by Geo. P. Upton. Chicago, 1883. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Musiker-Briefe. Translated by Lady Wallace, 2d ed. London, 1867. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +The Letters of W.A. Mozart. Translated by Lady Wallace. 2 vols. New +York, 1866. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Neue Briefe Beethovens. Stuttgart, 1867. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Ludwig Beethoven. Reminiscences of the Artistic and Home Life of the +Artist. Translated by A. Wood. London (undated). + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Life of Liszt. Translated by G.P. Upton. Chicago. + +NOHL (LUDWIG). + +Life of Mozart. Translated by G.J. Taylor. + +NORTH (ROGER). + +Memoirs of Musick. Edited by E.F. Rimbault. Extra illustrated. London, +1846. + +NOTTEBOHM (GUSTAV). + +Mozartiana. Leipzig, 1880. + +PERL (HENRY). + +Richard Wagner in Venedig. Augsburg, 1883. + +POHL (C.F.). + +Mozart und Haydn in London. 2 vols. in 1. Vienna, 1867. + +POHL (C.F.). + +Joseph Haydn. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1828. + +POLKO (ELISE). + +Musical Sketches. Translated by Fanny Fuller. 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London +(undated). + +RODET (EDOUARD). + +Lully, homme d'affairs, propriétaire et musicien, Paris, 1891. + +ROUSSEAU (JEAN JACQUES). + +Les Confessions. + +RUBINSTEIN (ANTON). + +Autobiography, 1829-1889. Translated by A. Delano. London. + +RUNCIMAN (JOHN F). + +Old Scores and New Readings. London, 1899. + +"SAND, GEORGE" (Pseudonym of AURORE DUDEVANT). + +Histoire de ma Vie. Paris. + +SATTLER (HEINRICH). + +Mozart. Erinnerungen an sein Leben und Wirken nebst Bemerkungen uber +dessen Bedeutung für die Tonkunst. Lagenfalza, 1856. + +SCHINDLER (A). + +Life of Beethoven. Edited by Moscheles. 1841. Translated by H. Dowing. +London. + +SCHMID (ANTON). + +Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, dessen Leben und +tonkünstlerisches Wirken. Leipzig, 1854. + +SCHMIDT (LEOPOLD). + +Joseph Haydn. Berlin, 1898. + +SCHOELCHER (V.). + +The Life of Handel. New York, 1875. + +SCHUMANN (ROBERT). + +Music and Musicians. Essays and Criticisms. Translated by Fanny R. +Ritter. 1st and 2d series. London, 1877-1880. + +SCHUMANN (ROBERT). + +Early Letters. Published by his wife in 1885. Translated by May +Herbert. London, 1888. + +SCHUMANN (ROBERT). + +The Life of Robt. Schumann, told in his Letters. Translated by May +Herbert. London. + +SCHURÉ (EDOUARD). + +Souvenirs sur Richard Wagner. Paris, 1900. + +SPITTA (PHILIPP). + +J.S. Bach. Translated by Clara Bell, and J.A. Fuller Maitland. 3 vols. +London, 1884. + +SPOHR (Louis). + +Autobiography. Translated from the German. London. + +STRATTON (STEPHEN S.) + +Mendelssohn. London, 1901. + +TAYLOR (SEDLEY). The Life of J.S. Bach. Cambridge, + +1897. + +TENGER (MARIAM). + +Recollections of Countess Theresa Brunswick (Beethoven's "Unsterbliche +Geliebte"). Translated by G. Russell. London, 1898. + +TOWNSEND (PAULINE D.). + +Joseph Haydn. New York, 1884. + +TSCHAIKOVSKI (MODESTE). + +Das Leben Peter Iljitsch Tschaikovski. Translated into German by P. +Juon. Leipzig, 1902-3. + +ULUIBUISHEV, or ULIBISCHEFF (ALEXANDER). + +Mozart's Leben und Werke. 4 vols. Stuttgart, 1859. + +UPTON (GEORGE P.). + +Woman in Music. Chicago, 1849. + +VAN DAM. + +Great Amours. 2 vols. New York. + +VAN DER STRAETEN (EDMOND). + +La Musique aux Pays-Bas avant le XIXe siècle. 8 vols. Brussels, +1867-88. + +VAN DER STRAETEN (EDMOND). + +Les Ménéstrels aux Pays-Bas du 13e-18e siècle. Brussels, 1878. + +WAGNER. + +Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt. Translated into English by Francis +Hueffer. New York, 1889. + +WALDERSEE (PAUL GRAF VON). + +Sammlung Musikalischer Vorträge. 5 vols. Leipzig, 1879-1884. + +WALDERSEE (PAUL GRAF VON). + +Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina, und die gesammte Ausgabe seiner Werke. +1884. + +WASIELEWSKI (W.J. VON). + +Life of Robert Schumann. Translated by A.L. Alger. Boston, 1871. + +WEBER (BARON MAX MARIA VON). + +Carl Maria von Weber. The Life of an Artist. Translated by J.P. +Simpson. 2 vols. London, 1865. + +WILLEBY (CHARLES FRANCOIS). + +Frederick Chopin. London, 1892. + +WURZBACH. + +Mozart-Buch. Wien, 1869. + + + + +INDEX + + +Abélard, Pierre +Adonis +Æsculapius +Agoult, Comte d' +Agoult, Marie Sophie, Comtesse d' +Amati, family of violin-makers +Anfossi, Pasquale +Anhalt-Köthen, Prince of +Anne, Queen +Aphrodite +Apollo +Arco, Count +Arion +Arne, Dr. Thomas +Arnim, Bettina Brentano von +Artignon, D' +Artot, Desirée +Auber, D.F.E. +Aurnhammer +Austen, Jane + +Bacchylides +Bach, Johann Ambrosius +Bach, Johann Christoph +Bach, Johann Michael +Bach, Johann Sebastian +Bach, Karl Philip Emmanuel +Bach, Maria Barbara +Bach, Regina +Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann +Baillot, Pierre M.F. +Baini, Abbate Giuseppe +Balfe, Michael William +Banck, Carl +Baranius, Henrietta +Barcinska, Isabella +Barezzi, Margarita +Bargiel, Madame, mother of Clara Wieck +Bargiel, Woldemar +Barisani, Doctor +Barré, Leonardo +Bartalozzi, Madame +Beard, John +Beatrice (Portinari), Dante's muse +Becker, Konstantin J. +Beethoven, Ludwig von +Behrens, S. +Belart, Hans +Belderbusch, Count von +Bellington, Mrs. +Bellini, Vincenzo +Belonda, Fräulein von +Bennett, Sterndale +Berenclow +Bériot, Charles Auguste de +Berlioz, Hector +Berlioz, Madame +Betz, Franz +Beyle, Marie Henri +Bianchi, Antonia +Bizet, Georges +Blackburn, Vernon +Blahetka, Leopoldine +Blow, John +Boëtius, Anicius +Böhler, Christine +Boieldieu, Francois A. +Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas +Bonnet, J. +Bononcini, Giovanni M. +Bora, Catherina von +Boswell, James +Bourdelot +Boutmy, Josse _or_ Jodocus +Boutmy, Laurent +Brahms, Johannes +Brandt, Carolina +Bray, Mrs +Brebos, Gilles +Brebos, Jean +Brenner, Genofeva von +Breunig, Eleanora von +Breunig, Stephan von +Bridgetower, George Augustus Polgreen +Broschi, Carlo _(see_ Farinelli) +Browne, Countess von +Browning, Robert and Elizabeth +Brunetti, Theresa +Brunswick, Charlotte, Countess von +Brunswick, Therese von +Brutus, Marcus Junius +Bull, Dr. John +Bülow, Cosima von _(see also_ Wagner) +Bülow, Daniela von +Bülow, Hans von +Bülow, Isolde von +Buononcini _(see_ Bononcini) +Burney, Charles +Buus, Jacques +Buxtehude, Dietrich +Byrd, William +Byron, Lord + +Cabestanh, Guillem de +Caccini, Francesca +Calina +Cannabich, Rosa +Capra, Francesca +Carlyle, Thomas +Carpani, G +Carus, Professor +Czetwertynska, Ludvika, Duchess +Charles X., King +Charpentier, Madame +Chaucer, Geoffrey +Cherubini, M.L.Z.C.S. +Chopin, Frederick +Chopin, Louise, his sister +Chrysander, Fr. +Cimarosa, Domenico +Clementi, Muzio +Cleopatra +Closset, Doctor +Colbran, Isabella +_Copperfield, David_ +_Cordelia_ +Corelli, Marie +Corey, Giles +Cornaro, Cardinal +Cornelius, Peter von +Coronis, nymph +Cotes, Ambrosio de +Couçy, Chatelain Regnault de +Couwenhoven, Adrien +Coxe, Dr. William +Cristofori, B. +Croes, H.J. de +Crowest, F.W. +Cummings, W.H. +Cupid +Custine, Countess de +Cuzzoni, Francesca + +Dante +Daphne +David +David, Leah +Delmotte +Delorme, Marian +Desmarets, Henri +Desprès, Josquin +Devrient, Wilhelmine Schroeder +Dickens, Charles +Diderot, Denis +Diehl, Alice Mangold +Dies, Albert K. +Droszdick, Baron von +Dubufe, Edward +Dubufe, Guillaume +"Duchess," The +Dudevant, Aurore (_see_ Sand, George) +Du Maurier, George +_Dunciad_ + +Eck, Francis +Egeria, nymph +"Eliot, George" +Érard, The family +Erdödy, Countess Marie +Ertmann, Baroness +Espinosa, Juana de +Esterhazy, Prince +Esterhazy, Carolina +Estrades, Abbé d' + +Farinelli (properly Carlo Broschi) +Faustina (_see_ Hasse) +Fechner, Clementine +Ferdinand VII. of Spain +Ferrabosco, Domenico +Fétis, Fr. J. +Field, John +Filaretovna, Nadeschda +Finck, Henry T. +Flavigny, Comte +Fleury, Duchesse de, +Flotow, Fr. von +Fontana +Fortini +Fournier, Madame +Franci, Luigi +Franck, César +Franz, Robert +Fricken, Ernestine von +Fumaroli, Judge +Fumetti, Maria Anna +Fürstenau, A.B. + +Galatea +Galilei, Galileo +Gallenberg, Count +Garella, Lydia +Gastoldi, Doctor +Gautier, Theophile +Gavadia, Joanna +Geminiani, Francesco +Genast, Doris +Genzinger, Maria Anna Sabina von +Giannatasio +Giannatasio, Fanny del Rio +Ginguené, Pierre Louis +Giorgione, Giorgio +Gladovska, Constantia +Glasenapp, Karl Fr. +Gleichenstein, I. +Gleichenstein, Mathilde, Baroness +Glinka, Michail Ivanovitch +Gluck, Christoph Willibald, Ritter von +Goethe, Johann Wolfgang +Gounod, Charles +Grabowski, Joseph +Gregorius +Grieg, Edvard +Griesinger, G.A. +Grétry, André E.M. +Grétry, Lucille +Grimm, Baron +Grob, Theresa +Grove, Sir George +Guabaelaraoen, Madalena +Guadagnini, J.B. +Guarnieri, Andreas, Pietro, and Giuseppe +Gublitz +Guicciardi, Giulietta + +Halévy, Geneviève +Hamilton, Lady Emma +Händel, Georg Friedrich +Hanmann, Fräulein von +Haslinger, Tobias +Hasse, J.A. and Faustina +Hawkins, Sir John +Haydn, Joseph +Heim, Emilie +Heine, Heinrich +Helen of Troy +Héloise, Abbess +Henderson, W.J. +Hensel, Fanny +Herbert, Lady Henrietta +Hérold, L.J.F. +Herschel, Fr. Wm. +Hiller, Ferdinand +Hinrichs, Marie _(see_ Franz) +Hodges, Mrs. +Hoesick, Ferdinand +Hofdämmel +Hohenlohe, Cardinal +Honrath, Jeannette d' +Hortensia +Houtermann, Marc +Howard, Lady Elizabeth +Hubbard, Elbert +Huber, Fräulein +Hueffer, Francis +Hugo, Victor and Madame +Hummel, J.N. +Humphries, Pelham +Huneker, James +Hunter, Mrs. John + +_Ibbetson, Peter_ +Irisi +Ivanof, Maria Petrovna +Ivanovska, Carolina von + +Jahn, Otto +James, Henry +Jeanrenaud, Cécile Sophie Charlotte +Jeanrenaud, Madame +Jennings, Catherine +Joachim, Josef +Jonah +Julius III., Pope + +Kablert, August +Karajan, T.G., Ritter von +Karasovski, M. +Karlovics +Kashkin, N. +Kayser, Hofrath von +Keats, John +Keglevitch, Babette, Countess von +Keiser, Reinhard +Keiserin, Mile +Keller +Keller, Anna +Kind, J.F. +Kinsky, Countess von +Klopstock, Fr. G. +Koch, Barbara +Köchel, Ludwig +Koerner, Th. +Koler, Katharina +Koschak, Frau Marie L. Pachler +Krause, Justice Counsellor +Krehbiel, Henry Edward +Kreisler, Reinhard +Kreutzer, Conradin +Kreutzer, Rudolphe +Kurer, Clara von + +Lablache, Madame (widow of Boucher) +Lacombe, Paul +"La Mara," (_see_ Bibliography) +Laidlaw, Mrs. +Lambert, Madeline +Lamennais, Abbé +Lampi, painter +Lang, Margarethe +Lang, Peppi +Lange, +Laprunarède, Adele, Countess de +Lassus, Ferdinand de +Lassus, Orland di +Lattre, Roland de (_see_ Lassus) +_Lear, King_ +Lefébure-Wély, Louis J.A. +Leitgeb, Madame +_Lelia_ +_Leoni, Leone_ +_Leporello,_ +Lichnovsky, Prince Carl +Lichnovsky, Countess +Lichtenstein, Princess +Lichtenstein, Karl A. von +"Liddy" +Lincoln, Abraham +List, Emily +Liszt, Blandine +Liszt, Daniel +Liszt, Franz +Litzmann, Berthold +_Lorelei_ +Lortzing, Albert +Lucifer +Ludvig, King of Bavaria +Lully, Jean Baptiste de +Luther, Martin + +Mafleuray, Clotilda +Mainwaring, Doctor +Malfatti, Thérèse von +Malibran, Maria Felicita +Malibran, New York merchant +Manfrotti, Eliade +Manfrotti, Leonora +Marcello, Benedetto +Marcellus, Pope +Marie Antoinette, Queen +_Mark, King_ +Marlborough, The Duchess of +Marmontel, Antoine Fr. +Marschner, Heinrich +Mattheson, Johann +Matuszinski +Maupin, Mile, de +Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria +Maximilian, Emperor +Maximilienne, Princess +Mary, Queen of Scots +Meck, Frau von +Medici family +Medici, Lorenzo dei +Mendelssohn, Carl +Mendelssohn, Felix Bartholdy +Mendelssohn, Marie +Mendelssohn, Paul +Mercury +Merelli +Mermann, Doctor +Meyerbeer, Giacomo +Meyers +Michelangelo +Milder, Anna +Miljukova, Antonina Ivanovna +Milton, John +Molière +Molza, Tarquinia +Mombelli, family +Monteverde, Claudio +Montpensier, Mlle. de +Moretto, Count de +Moriolles, Countess Alexandra +Moscheles, Ignaz +Mosson, Minna +Mozart, Anna or "Nannerl" +Mozart, Carl +Mozart, Leopold +Mozart, Marianne +Mozart, Wolfgang +Müller, Elise +Musset, Alfred de + +"Nanni" +"Nanny" +Negri, Christine +Neimtschek +Nelson, Horatio, Admiral +Newmarch, Rosa +Newton, Sir Isaac +Niecks, Frederick +Nietzsche, Friedrich +Nissen, George Nicolaus von +Nohl, Louis (or Ludvig) +Nossig, Alfred + +Odeschalchi, Princess +Olivier, Emile +Orpheus + +Pachler, Marie +Paderewski +Padilla y Ramos +Paër, Ferdinando +Paesiello, Giovanni +Paganini, Achille +Palestrina, Angelo +Palestrina, Doralice +Palestrina, Giovanni Pier Luigi +Palestrina, Igino +Palestrina, Lucrezia +Palestrina, Rodolfo +Palestrina, Silla +Pan +Pasetti +Paul IV., Pope +Pecht, painter +Pelissier, Olympe +Pember, E.H. +Pergin, Joseph +Pergin, Marie Anna +Pergolesi, G.B. +Peri, Jacopo +Perl, Henry +Pepys, Samuel +Peyermann, Frau +Pfeiffer, Marianne +Philidor, Fr., Andre Danican +Piccinni, Madame +Piccinni, Nicola +Pitoni, G.O. +Pius IX., Pope +Planer, Wilhelmine or Minna +Plater, Countess +Plato +Playford, John +Poe, Edgar Allen +Pohl, Louis +Pohl, Richard +Poliziano, Angelo +Polko, Elise +Polovna, Marie, Grand Duchess of Weimar +Polzelli, Anton +Polzelli, Luigia +Potocka, Countess +Praeger, Fd. C. Wm. +Prometheus +Prudent, Emile +Psyche +Purcell, Edw. +Purcell, Frances +Purcell, Henry +Purcell, Mary Peters +Pygmalion + +Rackerman, Louis +Raff, Joachim +Ramann, Lina +Rameau, Jean Philippe +Rameau, Marie Louisa Mangot +Raphael, painter +Ravina, Jean Henri +Reade, Charles +Reinken, Johann Adam +Reissman, August +Reissman, Henrietta +Reynolds, Sir Joshua +Ricci or Rizzio, David +Richard III. +Richardson, Samuel +Richter, Hans +Richter, Jean Paul +Riemann, Hugo +Ries, Ferdinand +Riese, dancing master +Rinucini, Ottavio +Ritter, Julie +Rocheaud, De +Rochis +Rockstro, Wm. S. +Roeckel, Elizabeth, wife of Hummel +Roeckel, Joseph L. +Rollet, Adèle Elise +_Romeo_ +Rore, Ciprien de +Rossi, Count +Rossi, Countess (_see_ Sontag) +Rossini, Gioacchino A. +Roth +Rousseau, Jean Jacques +Rubinstein, Anton +Rubinstein, Nikolai +Rudel, Geoffrey +Rue, Pierre de la +Runciman, John F. +Ruskin, John + +Sacchini, Antonio M.G. +Salieri, Antonio +"Sand, George" +Sarti, Giuseppe +Saul +Savoy, Duchess of +Sayn-Wittgenstein (_see_ Wittgenstein) +Scarlatti, Alessandro +Scarlatti, Domenico +Schanzer, Marie +Schauroth, Delphine von +Scheffer, Ary +Scheidler, Dorette +Schieferdecker, J.C. +Schiller, Friedrich +Schillingfurst-Hohenlohe, Prince Constantin +Schindler, Anton +Schmidt, Anton +Schober, Franz von +Schoelcher, Victor +Schopenhauer, Arthur +Schroeter, Corona +Schroeter, Johann Samuel +Schroeter, Mrs. R. +Schubert, Franz +Schumann, Clara (_see also_ Wieck) +Schumann, Robert +Schuré, Edouard +Scott, Sir Walter +Sebald, Amalia +Senesino (rightly Francesco Bernardi) +Seranzo, Paolo +Seyfried, Ignaz X. von +Shakespeare +Sibilla, Vicenza (_see_ Piccinni) +Slovaki, Julius +Smetana, Friedrich +Smith, J.C. +Smithson, Miss +Socrates +Sontag, Henrietta +Souvaroff, Prince +Spaun, Baron +Spitta, Aug. Ph. +Spohr, Louis +Spontini, Gasparo L.P. +St. Criq, Caroline +Steibelt, Daniel +Stendahl, De (pen name of Beyle) +"Stern, Daniel" +Sterndale, Sir William +Stradella, Alessandro +Stradivari, Antonio +Stradivari, Francesco +Stradivari, Paolo +Stratton, S.S. +Strauss, D.F. +Strauss, Johann +Strauss, Josef +Streite, postmaster +Strepponi, Signora +Stuck, Franz +Swedenborg, Emanuel +Swift, Jonathan +Syrinx, nymph + +_Tannhäuser_ +Tausig, Karl +Tenger, Miriam +Tesi, Vittoria +Thalberg, Sigismund +Thayer, Alexander W. +The de +Thomas, Georgina +Tolstoi, Leo +_Towers, Duchess of_ +Townsend, Pauline D. +Treffy, Jetty +Tripoli, Countess of +Tromlitz, Johann G. +Tschaikovski, Anatol +Tschaikovski, Modeste +Tschaikovski, Peter Iljitsch +Tschekonanof, Vera +Turette, Cécile +"Twain, Mark" + +Uhlig, Theodor +Upton, George P. + +Vandam +Van der Straeten, Edmond +Van Quickelberg +Venus +Verdi, Giuseppe +Verocai +Vidal, Pierre +Vigitill, Elise +Villars, Marquis de +Villon, François +Vogler, Abbé +Voigt, Henrietta + +Wagner, Eva +Wagner, Richard +Wagner, Siegfried +Waldegrave, Earl of +Walker, Elizabeth +Wallace, Lady Grace +"Ward, Artemus" +Weber, Aloysia +Weber, Carl Maria von (_see_ Mozart) +Weber, Constanze +Weber, Doctor +Weber, Franz Anton von +Weber, Josepha +Weber, Madame, mother of Constanze W. +Weber, Max Maria, Baron von +Weber, Sophia +Weckinger, Regina +Wert, Jacques de +Wegeler, Dr. Franz G. +Weimar, Grand Duke of +Weldon, Captain and Mrs +Wendling, Fräulein +Wesendonck, Mathilde +Wesendonck, Otto +Westerhold, Fraulein +Wickerslot, Ana +Wieck, Carl +Wieck, Clara (_see also_ Schumann) +Wieck, Edouard +Wieck, Friedrich +Wieck, Marie +Wildeck, Christian +Wildeck, Magdalena +Willaert, Adrien +Willaert, Catherine +Willaert, Susanna +Wille, Frau Elise +William, Duke of Bavaria +Winchester, Lady Marchioness +Wittgenstein, Princess Caroline +Wittgenstein, Princess Marie +Wittgenstein, Prince Nicolaus Sayn +Wittgenstein, Prince Fürst +Wodzinska, Maria +Wodzinski, Count +Wolf-Metternich, Countess von +Wood, Mary +_Wotan_ +Wülken, Anna Magdalena +Würtemberg, Duchess + +Xantippe + +Young, Cecilia + +Zambelli, Antonia +Zarlino, Gioseffo +Zelter, Carl +Zimmerman, Mlle. Anna +Zingarelli +Zola + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, +Volume 2, by Rupert Hughes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AFFAIRS OF GREAT MUSICIANS *** + +***** This file should be named 11419-8.txt or 11419-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/1/11419/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Harry Jones, Sjaani and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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