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+Project Gutenberg's Great Violinists And Pianists, by George T. Ferris
+
+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: Great Violinists And Pianists
+
+Author: George T. Ferris
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2006 [EBook #17463]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS
+
+By George T. Ferris
+
+
+Copyright, 1881, By D. Appleton and Company.
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+The title of this little book may be misleading to some of its readers,
+in its failure to include sketches of many eminent artists well worthy
+to be classed under such a head. There has been no attempt to cover
+the immense field of executive music, but only to call attention to the
+lives of those musical celebrities who are universally recognized as
+occupying the most exalted places in the arts of violin and pianoforte
+playing; who stand forth as landmarks in the history of music. To do
+more than this, except in a merely encyclopedic fashion, within the
+allotted space, would have been impossible. The same necessity of limits
+has also compelled the writer to exclude consideration of the careers
+of noted living performers; as it was thought best that discrimination
+should be in favor of those great artists whose careers have been
+completely rounded and finished.
+
+An exception to the above will be noted in the case of Franz Liszt; but,
+aside from the fact that this greatest of piano-forte virtuosos, though
+living, has practically retired from the held of art, to omit him from
+such a volume as this would be an unpardonable omission. In connection
+with the personal lives of the artists sketched in this volume, the
+attempt has been made, in a general, though necessarily imperfect,
+manner, to trace the gradual development of the art of playing from its
+cruder beginnings to the splendid virtuosoism of the present time.
+The sources from which facts have been drawn are various, and, it
+is believed, trustworthy, including French, German, and English
+authorities, in some cases the personal reminiscences of the artists
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+THE VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.
+
+The Ancestry of the Violin.--The Origin of the Cremona School of
+Violin-Making.--The Amatis and Stradiuarii.--Extraordinary Art
+Activity of Italy at this Period.--Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph
+Guarnerius.--Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers
+of the World.--Corelli, the First Great Violinist.--His Contemporaries
+and Associates.--Anecdotes of his Career.--Corelli's
+Pupil, Geminiani.--Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and
+Chess-Player.--Giuseppe Tartini.--Becomes an Outcast from his Family
+on Account of his Love of Music.--Anecdote of the Violinist
+Vera-cini.--Tartini's Scientific Discoveries in Music.--His Account of
+the Origin of the "Devil's Trill."--Tartini's Pupils.
+
+
+VIOTTI.
+
+Viotti, the Connecting Link between the Early and Modern Violin
+Schools.--His Immense Superiority over his Contemporaries and
+Predecessors.--Other Violinists of his Time, Giornowick and
+Boccherini.--Viotti's Early Years.--His Arrival in Paris, and the
+Sensation he made.--His Reception by the Court.--Viotti's Personal Pride
+and Dignity.--His Rebuke to Princely Impertinence.--The Musical Circles
+of Paris.--Viotti's Last Public Concert in Paris.--He suddenly departs
+for London.--Becomes Director of the King's Theatre.--Is compelled to
+leave the Country as a Suspected Revolutionist.--His Return to England,
+and Metamorphosis into a Vintner.--The French Singer, Garat, finds him
+out in his London Obscurity.--Anecdote of Viotti's Dinner Party.--He
+quits the Wine Trade for his own Profession.--Is made Director of the
+Paris Grand Opéra.--Letter from Rossini.--Viotti's Account of the "Ranz
+des Vaches."--Anecdotes of the Great Violinist.--Dies in London in
+1824.--Viotti's Place as a Violinist, and Style of Playing.--The Tourté
+Bow first invented during his Time.--An Indispensable Factor in Great
+Playing on the Violin.--Viotti's Pupils, and his Influence on the
+Musical Art.
+
+
+LUDWIG SPOHR.
+
+Birth and Early Life of the Violinist Spohr.--He is presented with his
+First Violin at six.--The French _Emigré_ Dufour uses his Influence with
+Dr. Spohr, Sr., to have the Boy devoted to a Musical Career.--Goes
+to Brunswick for fuller Musical Instruction.--Spohr is appointed
+_Kammer-musicus_ at the Ducal Court.--He enters under the Tuition of
+and makes a Tour with the Violin Virtuoso Eck.--Incidents of the Russian
+Journey and his Return.--Concert Tour in Germany.--Loses his Fine
+Guarnerius Violin.--Is appointed Director of the Orchestra at Gotha.--He
+marries Dorette Schiedler, the Brilliant Harpist.--Spohr's Stratagem to
+be present at the Erfurt Musical Celebration given by Napoleon in
+Honor of the Allied Sovereigns.--Becomes Director of Opera in
+Vienna.--Incidents of his Life and Production of Various Works.--First
+Visit to England.--He is made Director of the Cassel Court
+Oratorios.--He is retired with a Pension.--Closing Years of his
+Life.--His Place as Composer and Executant.
+
+
+NICOLO PAGANINI.
+
+The Birth of the Greatest of Violinists.--His Mother's
+Dream.--Extraordinary Character and Genius.--Heine's Description of his
+Playing.--Leigh Hunt on Paganini.--Superstitious Rumors current
+during his Life.--He is believed to be a Demoniac.--His Strange
+Appearance.--Early Training and Surroundings.--Anecdotes of
+his Youth.--Paga-nini's Youthful Dissipations.--His Passion for
+Gambling.--He acquires his Wonderful Guarnerius Violin.--His Reform
+from the Gaming-table.--Indefatigable Practice and Work as a Young
+Artist.--Paganini as a _Preux Chevalier_.--His Powerful Attraction for
+Women.--Episode with a Lady of Rank.--Anecdotes of his Early Italian
+Concertizing.--The Imbroglio at Ferrara.--The Frail Health of
+Paganini.--Wonderful Success at Milan where he first plays One of
+the Greatest of his Compositions, "Le Streghe."--Duel with
+Lafont.--Incidents and Anecdotes.--His First Visit to Germany.--Great
+Enthusiasm of his Audiences.--Experiences at Vienna, Berlin, and other
+German Cities.--Description of Paganini, in Paris, by Castil-Blaze and
+Fetis.--His English Reception and the Impression made.--Opinions of the
+Critics.--Paganini not pleased with England.--Settles in Paris for Two
+Years, and becomes the Great Musical Lion.--Simplicity and Amiability
+of Nature.--Magnificent Generosity to Hector Berlioz.--The Great
+Fortune made by Paganini.--His Beautiful Country Seat near Parma.--An
+Unfortunate Speculation in Paris.--The Utter Failure of his
+Health.--His Death at Nice.--Characteristics and Anecdotes.--Interesting
+Circumstances of his Last Moments.--The Peculiar Genius of Paganini, and
+his Influence on Art.
+
+
+DE BÉRIOT.
+
+De Bériot's High Place in the Art of the Violin and Violin Music.--The
+Scion of an Impoverished Noble Family.--Early Education and Musical
+Training.--He seeks the Advice of Viotti in Paris.--Becomes a Pupil of
+Robrechts and Baillot successively.--De Bériot finishes and perfects his
+Style on his Own Model.--Great Success in England.--Artistic Travels
+in Europe.--Becomes Soloist to the King of the Netherlands.--He meets
+Malibran, the Great Cantatrice, in Paris.--Peculiar Circumstances which
+drew the Couple toward Each Other.--They form a Connection which only
+ends with Malibran's Life.--Sketch of Malibran and her Family.--The
+Various Artistic Journeys of Malibran and De Bériot.--Their Marriage
+and Mme. de Bériot's Death.--De Bériot becomes Professor in the Brussels
+Conservatoire.--His Later Life in Brussels.--His Son Charles Malibran de
+Bériot.--The Character of De Bériot as Composer and Player.
+
+
+OLE BULL.
+
+The Birth and Early Life of Ole Bull at Bergen, Norway.--His Family and
+Connections.--Surroundings of his Boyhood.--Early Display of his Musical
+Passion.--Learns the Violin without Aid.--Takes Lessons from an Old
+Musical Professor, and soon surpasses his Master.--Anecdotes of his
+Boyhood.--His Father's Opposition to Music as a Profession.--Competes
+for Admittance to the University at Christiania.--Is consoled
+for Failure by a Learned Professor.--"Better be a Fiddler than
+a Preacher."--Becomes Conductor of the Philharmonic Society at
+Bergen.--His first Musical Journey.--Sees Spohr.--Fights a Duel.--Visit
+to Paris.--He is reduced to Great Pecuniary Straits.--Strange Adventure
+with Vidocq, the Great Detective.--First Appearance in Concert in
+Paris.--Romantic Adventure leading to Acquaintance.--First Appearance
+in Italy.--Takes the Place of De Bériot by Great Good Luck.--Ole Bull
+is most enthusiastically received.--Extended Concert Tour in Italy and
+France.--His _Début_ and Success in England.--One Hundred and Eighty
+Concerts in Six Months.--Ole Bull's Gaspar di Salo Violin, and the
+Circumstances under which he acquired it.--His Answer to the King of
+Sweden.--First Visit and Great Success in America in 1848.--Attempt
+to establish a National Theatre.--The Norwegian Colony in
+Pennsylvania.--Latter Years of Ole Bull.--His Personal Appearance.--Art
+Characteristics.
+
+
+MUZIO CLEMENTI.
+
+The Genealogy of the Piano-forte.--The Harpsichord its Immediate
+Predecessor.--Supposed Invention of the Piano-forte.--Silbermann the
+First Maker.--Anecdote of Frederick the Great.--The Piano-forte only
+slowly makes its Way as against the Clavichord and Harpsichord.--Emanuel
+Bach, the First Composer of Sonatas for the Piano-forte.--His Views
+of playing on the New Instrument.--Haydn and Mozart as Players.--Muzio
+Clementi, the Earliest Virtuoso, strictly speaking, as a Pianist.--Born
+in Rome in 1752.--Scion of an Artistic Family.--First Musical
+Training.--Rapid Development of his Talents.--Composes Contrapuntal
+Works at the Age of Fourteen.--Early Studies of the Organ and
+Harpsichord.--Goes to England to complete his Studies.--Creates
+an Unequaled Furore in London.--John Christian Bach's Opinion of
+Clementi.--Clementi's Musical Tour.--His Duel with Mozart before the
+Emperor.--Tenor of Clementi's Life in England.--Clementi's Pupils.--Trip
+to St. Petersburg.--Sphor's Anecdote of Him.--Mercantile and
+Manufacturing Interest in the Piano as Partner of Collard.--The Players
+and Composers trained under Clementi.--His Composition.--Status as
+a Player.--Character and Influence as an Artist.--Development of the
+Technique of the Piano, culminating in Clementi.
+
+
+MOSCHELES.
+
+Clementi and Mozart as Points of Departure in Piano-forte
+Playing.--Moscheles the most Brilliant Climax reached by the Viennese
+School.--His Child-Life at Prague.--Extraordinary Precocity.--Goes to
+Vienna as the Pupil of Salieri and Albrechtsburger.--Acquaintance with
+Beethoven.--Moscheles is honored with a Commission to make a Piano
+Transcription of Beethoven's "Fidelio."--His Intercourse with the Great
+Man.--Concert Tour.--Arrival in Paris.--The Artistic Circle into which
+he is received.--Pictures of Art-Life in Paris.--London and its Musical
+Celebrities.--Career as a Wandering Virtuoso.--Felix Mendelssohn becomes
+his Pupil.--The Mendelssohn Family.--Moseheles's Marriage to a
+Hamburg Lady.--Settles in London.--His Life as Teacher, Player, and
+Composer.--Eminent Place taken by Moscheles among the Musicians of
+his Age.--His Efforts soothe the Sufferings of Beethoven's
+Death-bed.--Friendship for Mendelssohn.--Moscheles becomes connected
+with the Leipzig Conservatorium.--Death in 1870.--Moscheles as Pianist
+and Composer.--Sympathy with the Old as against the New School of the
+Piano.--His Powerful Influence on the Musical Culture and Tendencies of
+his Age.
+
+
+THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
+
+Robert Schumann's Place as a National Composer.--Peculiar Greatness as
+a Piano-forte Composer.--Born at Zwickau in 1810.--His Father's
+Aversion to his Musical Studies.--Becomes a Student of Jurisprudence
+in Leipzig.--Makes the Acquaintance of Clara Wieck.--Tedium of his Law
+Studies.--Vacation Tour to Italy.--Death of his Father, and Consent
+of his Mother to Schumann adopting the Profession of Music.--Becomes
+Wieck's Pupil.--Injury to his Hand which prevents all Possibilities of
+his becoming a Great Performer.--Devotes himself to Composition.--The
+Child, Clara Wieck--Remarkable Genius as a Player.--Her Early
+Training.--Paganini's Delight in her Genius.--Clara Wieck's
+Concert Tours.--Schumann falls deeply in Love with her, and
+Wieck's Opposition.--His Allusions to Clara in the "Neue
+Zeit-schrift."--Schumann at Vienna.--His Compositions at first
+Unpopular, though played by Clara Wieck and Liszt.--Schumann's Labors
+as a Critic.--He marries Clara in 1840.--His Song Period inspired by
+his Wife.--Tour to Russia, and Brilliant Reception given to the
+Artist Pair.--The "Neue Zeitschrift" and its Mission.--The
+Davidsbund.--Peculiar Style of Schumann's Writing.--He moves to
+Dresden.--Active Production in Orchestral Composition.--Artistic Tour in
+Holland.--He is seized with Brain Disease.--Characteristics as a Man,
+as an Artist, and as a Philosopher.--Mme. Schumann as her Husband's
+Interpreter.--Chopin a Colaborer with Schumann.--Schumann on Chopin
+again.--Chopin's Nativity.--Exclusively a Piano-forte Composer.--His
+Genre as Pianist and Composer.--Aversion to Concert-giving.--Parisian
+Associations.--New Style of Technique demanded by his Works.--Unique
+Treatment of the Instrument.--Characteristics of Chopin's Compositions.
+
+
+THALBERG AND GOTTSCHALK.
+
+Thalberg one of the Greatest of Executants.--Rather a Man of Remarkable
+Talents than of Genius.--Moseheles's Description of him.--The
+Illegitimate Son of an Austrian Prince.--Early Introduction to
+Musical Society in London and Vienna.--Beginning of his Career as a
+Virtuoso.--The Brilliancy of his Career.--Is appointed Court Pianist to
+the Emperor of Austria.--His Marriage.--Visits to America.--Thalberg's
+Artistic Idiosyncrasy.--Robert Schumann on his Playing.--His Appearance
+and Manner.--Characterization by George William Curtis.--Thalberg's
+Style and Worth as an Artist.--His Piano-forte Method, and Place as a
+Composer for the Piano.--Gottschalk's Birth and Early Years.--He is sent
+to Paris for Instruction.--Successful _Début_ and Publie Concerts
+in Paris and Tour through the French Cities.--Friendship with
+Berlioz.--Concert Tour to Spain.--Romantic Experiences.--Berlioz on
+Gottschalk.--Reception of Gottschalk in America.--Criticism of his
+Style.--Remarkable Success of his Concerts.--His Visit to the West
+Indies, Mexico, and Central America.--Protracted Absence.--Gottschalk
+on Life in the Tropics.--Return to the United States.--Three Brilliant
+Musical Years.--Departure for South America.--Triumphant Procession
+through the Spanish-American Cities.--Death at Rio Janeiro.--Notes on
+Gottschalk as Man and Artist.
+
+
+FRANZ LISZT.
+
+The Spoiled Favorite of Fortune.--His Inherited Genius.--Birth and
+Early Training.--First Appearance in Concert.--Adam Liszt and his Son
+in Paris.--Sensation made by the Boy's Playing.--His Morbid Religious
+Sufferings.--Franz Liszt thrown on his own Resources.--The Artistic
+Circle in Paris.--Liszt in the Ranks of Romanticism.--His Friends and
+Associates.--Mme. D'Agoult and her Connection with Franz
+Liszt.--He retires to Geneva.--Is recalled to Paris by the Thalberg
+_Furore_.--Rivalry between the Artists and their Factions.--He commences
+his Career as Traveling Virtuoso.--The Blaze of Enthusiasm throughout
+Europe.--Schumann on Liszt as Man and Artist.--He ranks the Hungarian
+Virtuoso as the Superior of Thalberg.--Liszt's Generosity to his own
+Countrymen.--The Honors paid to him in Pesth.--Incidents of his
+Musical Wanderings.--He loses the Proceeds of Three Hundred
+Concerts.--Contributes to the Completion of the Cologne Cathedral.--His
+Connection with the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, and the Celebration of
+the Unveiling.--Chorley on Liszt.--Berlioz and Liszt.--Character of the
+Enthusiasm called out by Liszt as an Artist.--Remarkable Personality
+as a Man.--Berlioz characterizes the Great Virtuoso in a Letter.--Liszt
+ceases his Life as a Virtuoso, and becomes Chapel-Master and Court
+Conductor at Weimar.--Avowed Belief in the New School of Music, and
+Production of Works of this School.--Wagner's Testimony to Liszt's
+Assistance.--Liszt's Resignation of his Weimar Post after Ten
+Years.--His Subsequent Life.--He takes Holy Orders.--Liszt as a Virtuoso
+and Composer.--Entitled to be placed among the most Remarkable Men of
+his Age.
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.
+
+
+
+
+THE VIOLIN AND EARLY VIOLINISTS.
+
+The Ancestry of the Violin.--The Origin of the Cremona School of
+Violin-Making.--The Amatis and Stradiuarii.--Extraordinary Art
+Activity of Italy at this Period.--Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph
+Guarnerius.--Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers
+of the World.--Corelli, the First Great Violinist.--His Contemporaries
+and Associates.--Anecdotes of his Career.--Corelli's
+Pupil, Geminiani.--Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and
+Chess-Player.--Giuseppe Tartini.--Becomes an Outcast from his Family
+on Account of his Love of Music.--Anecdote of the Violinist
+Veracini.--Tartini's Scientific Discoveries in Music.--His Account of
+the Origin of the "Devil's Trill."--Tartini's Pupils.
+
+
+I.
+
+The ancestry of the violin, considering this as the type of stringed
+instruments played with a bow, goes back to the earliest antiquity; and
+innumerable passages might be quoted from the Oriental and classical
+writers illustrating the important part taken by the forefathers of the
+modern violin in feast, festival, and religious ceremonial, in the fiery
+delights of battle, and the more dulcet enjoyments of peace. But it
+was not till the fifteenth century, in Italy, that the art of making
+instruments of the viol class began to reach toward that high perfection
+which it speedily attained. The long list of honored names connected
+with the development of art in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
+centuries is a mighty roll-call, and among these the names of the great
+violin-makers, beginning with Gaspard de Salo, of Brescia, who first
+raised a rude craft to an art, are worthy of being included. From
+Brescia came the masters who established the Cremona school, a name not
+only immortal in the history of music, but full of vital significance;
+for it was not till the violin was perfected, and a distinct school of
+violin-playing founded, that the creation of the symphony, the highest
+form of music, became possible.
+
+The violin-makers of Cremona came, as we have said, from Brescia,
+beginning with the Ama-tis. Though it does not lie within the province
+of this work to discuss in any special or technical sense the history of
+violin-making, something concerning the greatest of the Cremona masters
+will be found both interesting and valuable as preliminary to the
+sketches of the great players which make up the substance of the
+volume. The Amatis, who established the violin-making art at Cremona,
+successively improved, each member of the class stealing a march on
+his predecessor, until the peerless masters of the art, Antonius
+Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius del Jesű, advanced far beyond the
+rivalry of their contemporaries and successors. The pupils of the
+Amatis, Stradiuarius, and Guarnerius settled in Milan, Florence, and
+other cities, which also became centers of violin-making, but never to
+an extent which lessened the preeminence of the great Cremona makers.
+There was one significant peculiarity of all the leading artists of this
+violin-making epoch: each one as a pupil never contented himself with
+making copies of his master's work, but strove incessantly to strike
+out something in his work which should be an outcome of his own genius,
+knowledge, and investigation. It was essentially a creative age.
+
+Let us glance briefly at the artistic activity of the times when the
+violin-making craft leaped so swiftly and surely to perfection. If we
+turn to the days of Gaspard di Salo, Morelli, Magini, and the Amatis, we
+find that when they were sending forth their fiddles, Raphael, Leonardo
+da Vinci, Titian, and Tintoretto were busily painting their great
+canvases. While Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius were
+occupied with the noble instruments which have immortalized their names,
+Canaletto was painting his Venetian squares and canals, Giorgio was
+superintending the manufacture of his inimitable maiolica, and the
+Venetians were blowing glass of marvelous beauty and form. In the
+musical world, Corelli was writing his gigues and sarabandes, Geminiani
+composing his first instruction book for the violin, and Tartini
+dreaming out his "Devil's Trill"; and while Guadognini (a pupil of
+Antonius Stradiuarius), with the stars of lesser magnitude, were
+exercising their calling, Viotti, the originator of the school of modern
+violin-playing, was beginning to write his concertos, and Boccherini
+laying the foundation of chamber music.
+
+Such was the flourishing state of Italian art during the great Cremona
+period, which opened up a mine of artistic wealth for succeeding
+generations. It is a curious fact that not only the violin but violin
+music was the creature of the most luxurious period of art; for, in that
+golden age of the creative imagination, musicians contemporary with the
+great violin-makers were writing music destined to be better understood
+and appreciated when the violins then made should have reached their
+maturity.
+
+There can be no doubt that the conditions were all highly favorable
+to the manufacture of great instruments. There were many composers
+of genius and numerous orchestras scattered over Italy, Germany, and
+France, and there must have been a demand for bow instruments of a high
+order. In the sixteenth century, Palestrina and Zarlino were writing
+grand church music, in which violins bore an important part. In the
+seventeenth, lived Stradella, Lotti, Buononcini, Lulli, and Corelli. In
+the eighteenth, when violin-making Avas at its zenith, there were such
+names among the Italians as Scarlatti, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Locatelli,
+Boccherini, Tartini, Piccini, Viotti, and Nardini; while in France it
+was the epoch of Lecler and Gravinies, composers of violin music of
+the highest class. Under the stimulus of such a general art culture the
+makers of the violin must have enjoyed large patronage, and the more
+eminent artists have received highly remunerative prices for their
+labors, and, correlative to this practical success, a powerful stimulus
+toward perfecting the design and workmanship of their instruments. These
+plain artisans lived quiet and simple lives, but they bent their whole
+souls to the work, and belonged to the class of minds of which Carlyle
+speaks: "In a word, they willed one thing to which all other things were
+made subordinate and subservient, and therefore they accomplished it.
+The wedge will rend rocks, but its edge must be sharp and single; if it
+be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing."
+
+
+II.
+
+So much said concerning the general conditions under which the craft
+of violin-making reached such splendid excellence, the attention of the
+reader is invited to the greatest masters of the Cremona school.
+
+
+     "The instrument on which he played
+     Was in Cremona's workshops made,
+     By a great master of the past,
+     Ere yet was lost the art divine;
+     Fashioned of maple and of pine,
+     That in Tyrolean forests vast
+     Had rooked and wrestled with the blast.
+
+     "Exquisite was it in design,
+     A marvel of the lutist's art,
+     Perfect in each minutest part;
+     And in its hollow chamber thus
+     The maker from whose hand it came
+     Had written his unrivaled name,
+     'Antonius Stradivarius.'"
+
+
+The great artist whose work is thus made the subject of Longfellow's
+verse was born at Cremona in 1644. His renown is beyond that of all
+others, and his praise has been sounded by poet, artist, and musician.
+He has received the homage of two centuries, and his name is as little
+likely to be dethroned from its special place as that of Shakespeare
+or Homer. Though many interesting particulars are known concerning
+his life, all attempt has failed to obtain any connected record of the
+principal events of his career. Perhaps there is no need, for there
+is ample reason to believe that Antonius Stradiuarius lived a quiet,
+uncheckered, monotonous existence, absorbed in his labor of making
+violins, and caring for nothing in the outside world which did not touch
+his all-beloved art. Without haste and without rest, he labored for
+the perfection of the violin. To him the world was a mere workshop. The
+fierce Italian sun beat down and made Cremona like an oven, but it was
+good to dry the wood for violins. On the slopes of the hills grew grand
+forests of maple, pine, and willow, but he cared nothing for forest
+or hillside except as they grew good wood for violins. The vineyards
+yielded rich wine, but, after all, the main use of the grape was that it
+furnished the spirit wherewith to compound varnish. The sheep, ox, and
+horse were good for food, but still more important because from them
+came the hair of the bow, the violin strings, and the glue which held
+the pieces together. It was through this single-eyed devotion to
+his life-work that one great maker was enabled to gather up all the
+perfections of his predecessors, and stand out for all time as the
+flower of the Cremonese school and the master of the world. George
+Eliot, in her poem, "The Stradivari," probably pictures his life
+accurately:
+
+
+     "That plain white-aproned man, who stood at work,
+     Patient and accurate full fourscore years,
+     Cherished his sight and touch by temperance;
+     And since keen sense is love of perfectness,
+     Made perfect violins, the needed paths
+     For inspiration and high mastery."
+
+
+M. Fetis, in his notice of the greatest of violin-makers, summarizes his
+life very briefly. He tells us the life of Antonius Stradiuarius was
+as tranquil as his calling was peaceful. The year 1702 alone must have
+caused him some disquiet, when during the war the city of Cremona was
+taken by Marshal Villeroy, on the Imperialist side, retaken by Prince
+Eugene, and finally taken a third time by the French. That must have
+been a parlous time for the master of that wonderful workshop whence
+proceeded the world's masterpieces, though we may almost fancy the
+absorbed master, like Archimedes when the Romans took Syracuse, so
+intent on his labor that he hardly heard the din and roar of battle,
+till some rude soldier disturbed the serene atmosphere of the room
+littered with shavings and strewn with the tools of a peaceful craft.
+
+Polledro, not many years ago first violin at the Chapel Royal of Turin,
+who died at a very advanced age, declared that his master had known
+Stradiuarius, and that he was fond of talking about him. He was, he
+said, tall and thin, with a bald head fringed with silvery hair, covered
+with a cap of white wool in the winter and of cotton in the summer. He
+wore over his clothes an apron of white leather when he worked, and, as
+he was always working, his costume never varied. He had acquired what
+was regarded as wealth in those days, for the people of Cremona were
+accustomed to say "As rich as Stradiuarius." The house he occupied is
+still standing in the Piazza Roma, and is probably the principal place
+of interest in the old city to the tourists who drift thitherward.
+The simple-minded Cremonese have scarcely a conception to-day of the
+veneration with which their ancient townsman is regarded by the musical
+connoisseurs of the world. It was with the greatest difficulty that they
+were persuaded a few years ago, by the efforts of Italian and French
+musicians, to name one street Stradiuarius, and another Amati. Nicholas
+Amati, the greatest maker of his family, was the instructor of Antonius
+Stradiuarius, and during the early period of the latter artist the
+instruments could hardly be distinguished from those of Amati. But, in
+after-years, he struck out boldly in an original line of his own, and
+made violins which, without losing the exquisite sweetness of the Amati
+instruments, possessed far more robustness and volume of tone, reaching,
+indeed, a combination of excellences which have placed his name high
+above all others. It may be remarked of all the Cremona violins of the
+best period, whether Amati, Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, or Steiner,
+that they are marked no less by their perfect beauty and delicacy of
+workmanship than by their charm of tone. These zealous artisans were not
+content to imprison the soul of Ariel in other form than the lines
+and curves of ideal grace, exquisitely marked woods, and varnish as of
+liquid gold. This external beauty is uniformly characteristic of the
+Cremona violins, though shape varies in some degree with each maker.
+Of the Stradiuarius violins it may be said, before quitting the
+consideration of this maker, that they have fetched in latter years
+from one thousand to five thousand dollars. The sons and grandsons of
+Antonius were also violin-makers of high repute, though inferior to the
+chief of the family.
+
+The name of Joseph Guarnerius del Jesű is only less in estimation than
+that of Antonius Stradiuarius, of whom it is believed by many he was a
+pupil or apprentice, though of this there is no proof. Both his uncle
+Andreas and his cousin Joseph were distinguished violin-makers, but the
+Guarnerius patronymic has now its chiefest glory from that member known
+as "del Jesű." This great artist in fiddle-making was born at Cremona in
+the year 1683, and died in 1745. He worked in his native place till
+the day of his death, but in his latter years Joseph del Jesű became
+dissipated, and his instruments fell off somewhat in excellence of
+quality and workmanship. But his _chef d'oeuvres_ yield only to those
+of the great Stradiuarius in the estimation of connoisseurs. Many of the
+Guarnerius violins, it is said, were made in prison, where the artist
+was confined for debt, with inferior tools and material surreptitiously
+obtained for him by the jailer's daughter, who was in love with the
+handsome captive. These fruits of his skill were less beautiful in
+workmanship, though marked by wonderful sweetness and power of tone.
+Mr. Charles Reade, a great violin amateur as well as a novelist, says of
+these "prison" fiddles, referring to the comical grotesqueness of their
+form: "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_."
+Paganini's favorite was a Guarnerius del Jesű, though he had no less
+than seven instruments of the greatest Cremona masters. Spohr, the
+celebrated violinist and composer, offered to exchange his Strad, one
+of the finest in the world, for a Guarnerius, in the possession of Mr.
+Mawkes, an English musician.
+
+Carlo Bergonzi, the pupil of Antonius Stradiuarius, was another of the
+great Cremona makers, and his best violins have commanded extraordinary
+prices. He followed the model of his master closely, and some of his
+instruments can hardly be distinguished in workmanship and tone from
+genuine Strads. Something might be said, too, of Jacob Steiner,
+who, though a German (born about 1620), got the inspiration for his
+instruments of the best period so directly from Cremona that he ought
+perhaps to be classified with the violin-makers of this school. His
+famous violins, known as the Elector Steiners, were made under peculiar
+circumstances. Almost heartbroken by the death of his wife, he retired
+to a Benedictine monastery with the purpose of taking holy orders.
+But the art-passion of his life was too strong, and he made in his
+cloister-prison twelve instruments, on which he lavished the most
+jealous care and attention. These were presented to the twelve Electors
+of Germany, and their extraordinary merit has caused them to rank high
+among the great violins of the world. A volume might be easily compiled
+of anecdotes concerning violins and violin-makers. The vicissitudes
+and changes of ownership through which many celebrated instruments have
+passed are full of romantic interest. Each instrument of the greatest
+makers has a pedigree, as well authenticated as those of the great
+masterpieces of painting, though there have been instances where a Strad
+or a Guarnerius has been picked up by some strange accident for a mere
+trifle at an auction. There have been many imitations of the genuine
+Cremonas palmed off, too, on the unwary at a high price, but the
+connoisseur rarely fails to identify the great violins almost instantly.
+For, aside from their magical beauty of tone, they are made with the
+greatest beauty of form, color, and general detail. So much has been
+said concerning the greatest violin-makers, in view of the fact that
+coincident with the growth of a great school of art-manufacture in
+violins there also sprang up a grand school of violin-playing; for,
+indeed, the one could hardly have existed without the other.
+
+
+III.
+
+The first great performer on the violin whose career had any special
+significance, in its connection with the modern world of musical art,
+was Archangelo Corelli, who was born at Fusignano, in the territory of
+Bologna, in the year 1653. Corelli's compositions are recognized to-day
+as types of musical purity and freshness, and the great number of
+distinguished pupils who graduated from his teaching relate him closely
+with all the distinguished violinists even down to the present day. In
+Corelli's younger days the church had a stronger claim on musicians
+than the theatre or concert-room. So we find him getting his earliest
+instruction from the Capuchin Simonelli, who devoted himself to the
+ecclesiastical style. The pupil, however, yielded to an irresistible
+instinct, and soon put himself under the care of a clever and skillful
+teacher, the well-known Bassani. Under this tuition the young musician
+made rapid advancement, for he labored incessantly in the practice of
+his instrument. At the age of twenty Corelli followed that natural bent
+which carried him to Paris, then, as now, a great art capital; and we
+are told, on the authority of Fetis, that the composer Lulli became
+so jealous of his extraordinary skill that he obtained a royal mandate
+ordering Corelli to quit Paris, on pain of the Bastille.
+
+In 1680 he paid a visit to Germany, and was specially well received,
+and was so universally admired, that he with difficulty escaped the
+importunate invitations to settle at various courts as chief musician.
+After a three years' absence from his native land he returned and
+published his first sonatas. The result of his assiduous labor was that
+his fame as a violinist had spread all over Europe, and pupils came from
+distant lands to profit by his instruction. We are told of his style as
+a solo player that it was learned and elegant, the tone firm and even,
+that his playing was frequently impressed with feeling, but that during
+performance "his countenance was distorted, his eyes red as fire, and
+his eyeballs rolled as if he were in agony." For about eighteen years
+Corelli was domiciled at Rome, under the patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni.
+As leader of the orchestra at the opera, he introduced many reforms,
+among them that of perfect uniformity of bowing. By the violin sonatas
+composed during this period, it is claimed that Corelli laid the
+foundation for the art of violin-playing, though it is probable that he
+profited largely by those that went before him. It was at the house of
+Cardinal Ottoboni that Corelli met Handel, when the violent temper
+of the latter did not hesitate to show itself. Corelli was playing a
+sonata, when the imperious young German snatched the violin from his
+hand, to show the greatest virtuoso of the age how to play the music.
+Corelli, though very amiable in temper, knew how to make himself
+respected. At one of the private concerts at Cardinal Ottoboni's, he
+observed his host and others talking during his playing. He laid his
+violin down and joined the audience, saying he feared his music might
+interrupt the conversation.
+
+In 1708, according to Dubourg, Corelli accepted a royal invitation
+from Naples, and took with him his second violin, Matteo, and a
+violoncellist, in case he should not be well accompanied by the
+Neapolitan orchestra. He had no sooner arrived than he was asked to play
+some of his concertos before the king. This he refused, as the whole of
+his orchestra was not with him, and there was no time for a rehearsal.
+However, he soon found that the Neapolitan musicians played the
+orchestral parts of his concertos as well as his own accompanists did
+after some practice; for, having at length consented to play the first
+of his concertos before the court, the accompaniment was so good
+that Corelli is said to have exclaimed to Matteo: "_Si suona a
+Napoli!_"--"They _do_ play at Naples!" This performance being quite
+successful, he was presented to the king, who afterward requested him
+to perform one of his sonatas; but his Majesty found the adagio "so
+long and so dry that he got up and _left the room_ (!), to the great
+mortification of the eminent virtuoso." As the king had commanded the
+piece, the least he could have done would have been to have waited
+till it was finished. "If they play at Naples, they are not very polite
+there," poor Corelli must have thought! Another unfortunate mishap also
+occurred to him there, if we are to believe the dictum of Geminiani,
+one of Corelli's pupils, who had preceded him at Naples. It would appear
+that he was appointed to lead a composition of Scarlatti's, and on
+arriving at an air in C minor he led off in C major, which mistake he
+twice repeated, till Scarlatti came on the stage and showed him the
+difference. This anecdote, however, is so intrinsically improbable
+that it must be taken with several "grains of salt." In 1712 Corelli's
+concertos were beautifully engraved at Amsterdam, but the composer only
+survived the publication a few weeks. A beautiful statue, bearing the
+inscription "_Corelli princeps musicorum_," was erected to his memory,
+adjacent that honoring the memory of Raffaelle in the Pantheon. He
+accumulated a considerable fortune, and left a valuable collection of
+pictures. The solos of Corelli have been adopted as valuable studies by
+the most eminent modern players and teachers.
+
+Francesco Geminiani was the most remarkable of Corelli's pupils. Born at
+Lucca in 1680, he finished his studies under Corelli at Rome, and spent
+several years with great musical _éclat_ at Naples. In 1714 he went
+to England, in which country he spent many years. His execution was of
+great excellence, but his compositions only achieved temporary favor.
+His life is said to have been full of romance and incident. Geminiani's
+connection with Handel has a special musical interest. The king, who
+arrived in England in September, 1714, and was crowned at Westminster a
+month later, was irritated with Handel for having left Germany, where he
+held the position of chapel-master to George, when Elector of Brunswick,
+and still more so by his having composed a _Te Deum_ on the Peace of
+Utrecht, which was not favorably regarded by the Protestant princes of
+Germany. Baron Kilmanseck, a Hanoverian, and a great admirer of Handel,
+undertook to bring them together again. Being informed that the king
+intended to picnic on the Thames, he requested the composer to write
+something for the occasion. Thereupon Handel wrote the twenty-five
+little concerted pieces known under the title of "Water Music." They
+were executed in a barge which followed the royal boat. The orchestra
+consisted of four violins, one tenor, one violoncello, one double-bass,
+two hautboys, two bassoons, two French horns, two flageolets, one flute,
+and one trumpet. The king soon recognized the author of the music,
+and his resentment against Handel began to soften. Shortly after this
+Geminiani was requested to play some sonatas of his own composition in
+the king's private cabinet; but, fearing that they would lose much
+of their effect if they were accompanied in an inferior manner, he
+expressed the desire that Handel should play the accompaniments. Baron
+Kilmanseck carried the request to the king, and supported it strongly.
+The result was that peace was made, and an extra pension of two hundred
+pounds per annum settled upon Handel. Geminiani, after thirty-five
+years spent in England, went to Paris for five years, where he was most
+heartily welcomed by the musical world, but returned across the Channel
+again to spend his latter years in Dublin. It was here that Matthew
+Dubourg, whose book on "The Violin and Violinists" is a perfect
+treasure-trove of anecdote, became his pupil.
+
+Another remarkable violinist was an intimate friend of Geminiani, a
+name distinguished alike in the annals of chess-playing and music, André
+Danican Philidor. This musician was born near Paris in 1726, and was the
+grandson of the hautboy-player to the court of Louis XIII. His father
+and several of his relations were also eminent players in the royal
+orchestras of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Young Philidor was received into
+the Chapel Royal at Versailles in 1732, being then six years old, and
+when eleven he composed a motette which extorted much admiration. In
+the Chapel Royal there were about eighty musicians daily in attendance,
+violins, hautboys, violas, double-basses, choristers, etc.; and,
+cards not being allowed, they had a long table inlaid with a number of
+chess-boards, with which they amused their leisure time. When fourteen
+years old Philidor was the best chess-player in the band. Four years
+later he played at Paris two games of chess at the same time, without
+seeing the boards, and afterward extended this feat to playing five
+games simultaneously, which, though far inferior to the wonderful
+feats of Morphy, Paulsen, and others in more recent years, very much
+astonished his own generation. Philidor was an admirable violinist, and
+the composer of numerous operas which delighted the French public for
+many years. He died in London in 1759.
+
+There were several other pupils of Corelli who achieved rank in their
+art and exerted a recognizable influence on music. Locatelli displayed
+originality and genius in his compositions, and his studies, "Arte di
+Nuova Modulazione," was studied by Paganini. Another pupil, Lorenzo
+Somis, became noted as the teacher of Lecler, Pugnani (the professor of
+Viotti), and Giardini. Visconti, of Cremona, who was taught by Corelli,
+is said to have greatly assisted by his counsels the constructive genius
+of Antonius Stradiuarius in making his magnificent instruments.
+
+
+IV.
+
+The name of Giuseppe Tartini will recur to the musical reader more
+familiarly than those previously mentioned. He was the scion of a noble
+stock, and was born in Istria in 1692. Originally intended for the law,
+he was entered at the University of Padua at the age of eighteen for
+this profession, but his time was mostly given to the study of music and
+fencing, in both of which he soon became remarkably proficient, so
+that he surpassed the masters who taught him. It may be that accident
+determined the future career of Tartini, for, had he remained at the
+university, the whole bent of his life might have been different. Eros
+exerted his potent sway over the young student, and he entered into a
+secret marriage, that being the lowest price at which he could win his
+_bourgeois_ sweetheart. Tartini became an outcast from his family, and
+was compelled to fly and labor for his own living. After many hardships,
+he found shelter in a convent at Assisi, the prior of which was a family
+connection, who took compassion on the friendless youth. Here Tartini
+set to work vigorously on his violin, and prosecuted a series of
+studies which resulted in the "Sonata del Diavolo" and other remarkable
+compositions. At last he was reconciled to his family through the
+intercession of his monastic friend, and took his abode in Venice that
+he might have the benefit of hearing the playing of Veracini, a great
+but eccentric musician, then at the head of the Conservatario of that
+city. Veracini was nicknamed "Capo Pazzo," or "mad-head," on account of
+his eccentricity. Dubourg tells a curious story of this musician: Being
+at Lucca at the time of the annual festival called "Festa della Croce,"
+on which occasion it was customary for the leading artists of Italy to
+meet, Veracini put his name down for a solo. When he entered the choir,
+he found the principal place occupied by a musician of some rank named
+Laurenti. In reply to the latter's question, "Where are you going?"
+Veracini haughtily answered, "To the place of the first violinist." It
+was explained by Laurenti that he himself had been engaged to fill that
+post, but, if his interlocutor wished to play a solo, he could have
+the privilege either at high mass or at vespers. Evidently he did not
+recognize Veracini, who turned away in a rage, and took his position
+in the lowest place in the orchestra. When his turn came to play his
+concerto, he begged that instead of it he might play a solo where he
+was, accompanied on the violoncello by Lanzetti. This he did in so
+brilliant and unexpected a manner that the applause was loud and
+continued, in spite of the sacred nature of the place; and whenever he
+was about to make a close, he turned toward Laurenti and called out:
+"Cost se suona per fare il primo violino"--"This is the way to play
+first violin."
+
+Veracini played upon a fine Steiner violin. The only master he ever had
+was his uncle Antonio, of Florence; and it was by traveling all over
+Europe, and by numerous performances in public, that he formed a
+style of playing peculiar to himself, very similar to what occurred
+to Pa-ganini and the celebrated De Bériot in later years. It does not
+appear certain that Tartini ever took lessons from Veracini; but hearing
+the latter play in public had no doubt a very great effect upon him, and
+caused him to devote many years to the careful study of his instrument.
+Some say that Veracini's performance awakened a vivid emulation in
+Tartini, who was already acknowledged to be a very masterly player. Up
+to the time, however, that Tartini first heard Veracini, he had
+never attempted any of the more intricate and difficult feats of
+violin-playing, as effected by the management of the bow. An intimate
+friendship sprang up between the two artists and another clever
+musician named Marcello, and they devoted much time to the study of the
+principles of violin-playing, particularly to style and the varied kinds
+of bowing. Veracini's mind afterward gave way, and Tartini withdrew
+himself to Ancona, where in utter solitude he applied himself to working
+out the fundamental principles of the bow in the technique of the
+violin--principles which no succeeding violinist has improved or
+altered. Tartini, even while absorbed in music, did not neglect the
+study of science and mathematics, of which he was passionately fond,
+and in the pursuit of which he might have made a name not less than his
+reputation as a musician. It was at this time that Tartini made a very
+curious discovery, known as the _phenomenon of the third sound_, which
+created some sensation at the time, and has since given rise to numerous
+learned discourses, but does not appear to have led to any great
+practical result. Various memoirs or treatises were written by him, and
+that in which he develops the nature of the _third sound_ is his "Tratto
+di Musica se-condo la vera scienza de l'Armonia." In this and others of
+his works, he appears much devoted to _theory_, and endeavors to place
+all his practical facts upon a thoroughly scientific basis. The effect
+known as the _third sound_ consists in the sympathetic resonance of a
+third note when the two upper notes of a chord are played in perfect
+tune. "If you do not hear the bass," Tartini would say to his pupils,
+"the thirds or sixths which you are playing are not perfect in
+intonation."
+
+At Ancona, Tartini attained such reputation as a player and musician
+that he was appointed, in 1721, to the directorship of the orchestra of
+the church of St. Anthony at Padua. Here, according to Fetis, he spent
+the remaining forty-nine years of his life in peace and comfort, solely
+occupied with the labors connected with the art he loved.
+
+His great fame brought him repeated offers from the principal cities of
+Europe, even London and Paris, hat nothing could induce him to leave his
+beloved Italy. Though Tartini could not have been heard out of Italy,
+his violin school at Padua graduated many excellent players, who were
+widely known throughout the musical world. Tartini's compositions
+reached no less than one hundred and fifty works, distinguished not only
+by beauty of melody and knowledge of the violin, but by soundness
+of musical science. Some of his sonatas are still favorites in the
+concert-room. Among these, the most celebrated is the "Trille
+del Dia-volo," or "Devil's Sonata," composed under the following
+circumstances, as related by Tartini himself to his pupil Lalande:
+
+"One night in 1713," he says, "I dreamed that I had made a compact with
+the devil, who promised to be at my service on all occasions. Everything
+succeeded according to my mind; my wishes were anticipated and desires
+always surpassed by the assistance of my new servant. At last I thought
+I would offer my violin to the devil, in order to discover what kind of
+a musician he was, when, to my great astonishment, I heard him play
+a solo, so singularly beautiful and with such superior taste and
+precision, that it surpassed all the music I had ever heard or conceived
+in the whole course of my life. I was so overcome with surprise and
+delight that I lost my power of breathing, and the violence of this
+sensation awoke me. Instantly I seized my violin in the hopes of
+remembering some portion of what I had just heard, but in vain! The work
+which this dream suggested, and which I wrote at the time, is doubtless
+the best of all my compositions, and I still call it the 'Sonata del
+Diavolo'; but it sinks so much into insignificance compared with what
+I heard, that I would have broken my instrument and abandoned music
+altogether, had I possessed any other means of subsistence."
+
+Tartini died at Padua in 1770, and so much was he revered and admired
+in the city where he had spent nearly fifty years of his life, that his
+death was regarded as a public calamity. He used to say of himself that
+he never made any real progress in music till he was more than thirty
+years old; and it is curious that he should have made a great change
+in the nature of his performance at the age of fifty-two. Instead of
+displaying his skill in difficulties of execution, he learned to prefer
+grace and expression. His method of playing an adagio was regarded as
+inimitable by his contemporaries; and he transmitted this gift to his
+pupil Nardini, who was afterward called the greatest adagio player in
+the world. Another of Tartini's great _élevés_ was Pugnani, who before
+coming to him had been instructed by Lorenzo Somis, the pupil of
+Corelli. So it may be said that Pugnani united in himself the schools of
+Corelli and Tartini, and was thus admirably fitted to be the instructor
+of that grand player, who was the first in date of the violin virtuosos
+of modern times, Viotti.
+
+Both as composer and performer, Pugnani was held in great esteem
+throughout Europe. His first meeting with Tartini was an incident of
+considerable interest. He made the journey from Paris to Padua expressly
+to see Tartini, and on reaching his destination he proceeded to the
+house of the great violinist.
+
+Tartini received him kindly, and evinced some curiosity to hear him
+play. Pugnani took up his instrument and commenced a well-known solo,
+but he had not played many bars before Tartini suddenly seized his arm,
+saying, "Too loud, my friend, too loud!" The Piedmontese began again,
+but at the same passage Tartini stopped him again, exclaiming this time,
+"Too soft, my good friend, too soft!" Pugnani therefore laid down the
+violin, and begged of Tartini to give him some lessons. He was at
+once received among Tartini's pupils, and, though already an excellent
+artist, began his musical education almost entirely anew. Many anecdotes
+have been foisted upon Pugnani, some evidently the creation of rivals,
+and not worth repeating. Others, on the contrary, tend to enlighten us
+upon the character of the man. Thus, when playing, he was so completely
+absorbed in the music, that he has been known, at a public concert, to
+walk about the platform during the performance of a favorite cadenza,
+imagining himself alone in the room. Again, at the house of Madame
+Denis, when requested to play before Voltaire, who had little or no
+music in his soul, Pugnani stopped short, when the latter had the bad
+taste to continue his conversation, remarking in a loud, clear voice,
+"M. de Voltaire is very clever in making verses, but as regards music
+he is devilishly ignorant." Pugnani's style of play is said to have been
+very broad and noble, "characterized by that commanding sweep of the
+bow, which afterward formed so grand a feature in the performance of
+Viotti." He was distinguished as a composer as well as a player, and
+among his numerous works are some seven or eight operas, which were very
+successful for the time being on the Italian stage.
+
+
+
+
+VIOTTI.
+
+
+Viotti, the Connecting Link between the Early and Modern Violin
+Schools.--His Immense Superiority over his Contemporaries and
+Predecessors.--Other Violinists of his Time, Giornowick and
+Boccherini.--Viotti's Early Years--His Arrival in Paris, and the
+Sensation he made--His Reception by the Court.--Viotti's Personal Pride
+and Dignity.--His Rebuke to Princely Impertinence.--The Musical Circles
+of Paris.--Viotti's Last Publie Concert in Paris.--He suddenly departs
+for London.--Becomes Director of the King's Theatre.--Is compelled to
+leave the Country as a Suspected Revolutionist.--His Return to England,
+and Metamorphosis into a Vintner.--The French Singer, Garat, finds him
+out in his London Obscurity.--Anecdote of Viotti's Dinner Party.--He
+quits the Wine Trade for his own Profession.--Is made Director of the
+Paris Grand Opéra.--Letter from Rossini.--Viotti's Account of the
+"Ranz des Vaches."--Anecdotes of the Great Violinist.--Dies in London in
+1824.--Viotti's Place as a Violinist, and Style of Playing.--The Tourté
+Bow first invented during his Time.--An Indispensable Factor in Great
+Playing on the Violin.--Viotti's Pupils, and his Influence on the
+Musical Art.
+
+
+I.
+
+In the person of the celebrated Viotti we recognize the link connecting
+the modern school of violin-playing with the schools of the past. He
+was generally hailed as the leading violinist of his time, and his
+influence, not merely on violin music but music in general, was of a
+very palpable order. In him were united the accomplishments of the great
+virtuoso and the gifts of the composer. At the time that Viotti's star
+shot into such splendor in the musical horizon, there were not a few
+clever violinists, and only a genius of the finest type could have
+attained and perpetuated such a regal sway among his contemporaries. At
+the time when Viotti appeared in Paris the popular heart was completely
+captivated by Giornowick, whose eccentric and quarrelsome character as
+a man cooperated with his artistic excellence to keep him constantly
+in the public eye. Giornowick was a Palermitan, born in 1745, and his
+career was thoroughly artistic and full of romantic vicissitudes. His
+style was very graceful and elegant, his tone singularly pure. One of
+the most popular and seductive tricks in his art was the treating of
+well-known airs as rondos, returning ever and anon to his theme after
+a variety of brilliant excursions in a way that used to fascinate his
+hearers, thus anticipating some of his brilliant successors.
+
+Michael Kelly heard him at Vienna. "He was a man of a certain age," he
+tells us, "but in the full vigor of talent. His tone was very powerful,
+his execution most rapid, and his taste, above all, alluring. No
+performer in my remembrance played such pleasing music." Dubourg relates
+that on one occasion, when Giornowick had announced a concert at Lyons,
+he found the people rather retentive of their money, so he postponed the
+concert to the following evening, reducing the price of the tickets to
+one half. A crowded company was the result. But the bird had flown! The
+artist had left Lyons without ceremony, together with the receipts from
+sales of tickets.
+
+In London, where he was frequently heard between 1792 and 1796, he once
+gave a concert which was fully attended, but annoying to the player
+on account of the indifference of the audience and the clatter of
+the tea-cups; for it was then the custom to serve tea during the
+performance, as well as during the intervals. Giornowick turned to the
+orchestra and ordered them to cease playing. "These people," said he,
+"know nothing about music; anything is good enough for drinkers of warm
+water. I will give them something suited to their taste." Whereupon he
+played a very trivial and commonplace French air, which he disguised
+with all manner of meretricious flourishes, and achieved a great
+success. When Viotti arrived in Paris in 1779, Giornowick started on
+his travels after having heard this new rival once.
+
+A distinguished virtuoso and composer, with whom Viotti had already been
+thrown into contact, though in a friendly rather than a competitive way,
+was Boccherini, who was one of the most successful early composers of
+trios, quartets, and quintets for string instruments. During the latter
+part of Boccherini's life he basked in the sunlight of Spanish royalty,
+and composed nine works annually for the Royal Academy of Madrid, in
+which town he died in 1806, aged sixty-six. A very clever saying is
+attributed to him. The King of Spain, Charles IV, was fond of playing
+with the great composer, and was very ambitious of shining as a great
+violinist; his cousin, the Emperor of Austria, was also fond of the
+violin, and played tolerably well. One day the latter asked Boccherini,
+in a rather straightforward manner, what difference there was between
+his playing and that of his cousin Charles IV. "Sire," replied
+Boccherini, without hesitating for a moment, "Charles IV plays like a
+king, and your Majesty plays like an emperor."
+
+Giovanni Battista Viotti was born in a little Piedmontese village called
+Fontaneto, in the year 1755. The accounts of his early life are
+too confused and fragmentary to be trustworthy. It is pretty well
+established, however, that he studied under Pugnani at Turin, and that
+at the age of twenty he was made first violin at the Chapel Royal of
+that capital. After remaining three years, he began his career as a
+solo player, and, after meeting with the greatest success at Berlin and
+Vienna, directed his course to Paris, where he made his _debut_ at the
+"Concerts Spirituels."
+
+
+II.
+
+Fetis tells us that the arrival of Viotti in Paris produced a sensation
+difficult to describe. No performer had yet been heard who had attained
+so high a degree of perfection, no artist had possessed so fine a tone,
+such sustained elegance, such fire, and so varied a style. The fancy
+which was developed in his concertos increased the delight he produced
+in the minds of his auditory. His compositions for the violin were
+as superior to those which had previously been heard as his execution
+surpassed that of all his predecessors and contemporaries. Giornowick's
+style was full of grace and suave elegance; Viotti was characterized
+by a remarkable beauty, breadth, and dignity. Lavish attentions were
+bestowed on him from the court circle. Marie Antoinette, who was an
+ardent lover and most judicious patron of music, sent him her commands
+to play at Versailles. The haughty artistic pride of Viotti was signally
+displayed at one of these concerts before royalty. A large number of
+eminent musicians had been engaged for the occasion, and the audience
+was a most brilliant one. Viotti had just begun a concerto of his own
+composition, when the arrogant Comte d'Artois made a great bustle in
+the room, and interrupted the music by his loud whispers and utter
+indifference to the comfort of any one but himself. Viotti's dark eyes
+flashed fire as he stared sternly at this rude scion of the blood royal.
+At last, unable to restrain his indignation, he deliberately placed his
+violin in the case, gathered up his music from the stand, and withdrew
+from the concert-room without ceremony, leaving the concert, her
+Majesty, and his Royal Highness to the reproaches of the audience.
+This scene is an exact parallel of one which occurred at the house
+of Cardinal Ottoboni, when Corelli resented in similar fashion the
+impertinence of some of his auditors.
+
+Everywhere in artistic and aristocratic circles at the French capital
+Viotti's presence was eagerly sought. Private concerts were so much the
+vogue in Paris that musicians of high rank found more profit in these
+than in such as were given to the miscellaneous public. A delightful
+artistic rendezvous was the hôtel of the Comte de Balck, an enthusiastic
+patron and friend of musicians. Here Viotti's friend, Garat, whose voice
+had so great a range as to cover both the tenor and barytone registers,
+was wont to sing; and here young Orfila, the brilliant chemist,
+displayed his magnificent tenor voice in such a manner as to attract the
+most tempting offers from managers that he should desert the laboratory
+for the stage. But the young Portuguese was fascinated with science,
+and was already far advanced in the career which made him in his day
+the greatest of all authorities on toxicological chemistry. The most
+brilliant and gifted men and women of Paris haunted these reunions,
+and Viotti always appeared at his best amid such surroundings.
+Another favorite resort of his was the house of Mme. Montegerault at
+Montmorency, a lady who was a brilliant pianist. Sometimes she would
+seat herself at her instrument and begin an improvisation, and Viotti,
+seizing his violin, would join in the performance, and in a series of
+extemporaneous passages display his great powers to the delight of all
+present.
+
+He evinced the greatest distaste for solo playing at public concerts,
+and, aside from charity performances, only consented once to such an
+exhibition of his talents. A singular concert was arranged to take place
+on the fifth story of a house in Paris, the apartment being occupied
+by a friend of Viotti, who was also a member of the Government. "I will
+play," he said, on being urged, "but only on one condition, and that
+is, that the audience shall come up here to us--we have long enough
+descended to them; but times are changed, and now we may compel them to
+rise to our level"; or something to that effect. It took place in due
+course, and was a very brilliant concert indeed. The only ornament was a
+bust of Jean Jacques Rousseau. A large number of distinguished artists,
+both instrumental and vocal, were present, and a most aristocratic
+audience. A good deal of Boccherini's music was performed that evening,
+and though many of the titled personages had mounted to the fifth floor
+for the first time in their lives, so complete was the success of the
+concert that not one descended without regret, and all were warm in
+their praise of the performances of the distinguished violinist.
+
+What the cause of Viotti's sudden departure from Paris in 1790 was,
+it is difficult to tell. Perhaps he had offended the court by the
+independence of his bearing; perhaps he had expressed his political
+opinions too bluntly, for he was strongly democratic in his views;
+perhaps he foresaw the terrible storm which was gathering and was soon
+to break in a wrack of ruin, chaos, and blood. Whatever the cause, our
+violinist vanished from Paris with hardly a word of farewell to his most
+intimate friends, and appeared in London at Salomon's concerts with the
+same success which had signalized his Parisian _début_. Every one
+was delighted with the originality and power of his playing, and the
+exquisite taste that modified the robustness and passion which entered
+into the substance of his musical conceptions.
+
+Viotti was one of the artistic celebrities of London for several years,
+but his eccentric and resolute nature did not fail to involve him in
+several difficulties with powerful personages. He became connected with
+the management of the King's Theatre, and led the music for two years
+with signal ability. But he suddenly received an order from the
+British Government to leave England without delay. His sharp tongue and
+outspoken language were never consistent with courtly subserviency. We
+can fancy our musician shrugging his shoulders with disdain on receiving
+his order of banishment, for he was too much of a cosmopolite to be
+disturbed by change of country. He took up his residence at Schönfeld,
+Holland, in a beautiful and splendid villa, and produced there several
+of his most celebrated compositions, as well as a series of studies of
+the violin school.
+
+
+III.
+
+The edict which had sent Viotti from England was revoked in 1801, and
+he returned with commercial aspirations, for he entered into the wine
+trade. It could not be said of him, as of another well-known composer,
+who attempted to conduct a business in the vending of sweet sounds and
+the juice of the grape simultaneously, that he composed his wines and
+imported his music; for Viotti seems to have laid music entirely aside
+for the nonce, and we have no reason to suspect that his port and sherry
+were not of the best. Attention to business did not keep him from losing
+a large share of his fortune, however, in this mercantile venture, and
+for a while he was so completely lost in the London Babel as to have
+passed out of sight and mind of his old admirers. The French singer,
+Garat, tells an amusing story of his discovery of Viotti in London, when
+none of his Continental friends knew what had become of him.
+
+In the very zenith of his powers and height of his reputation, the
+founder of a violin school which remains celebrated to this day, Viotti
+had quitted Paris suddenly, and since his departure no one had received,
+either directly or indirectly, any news of him. According to Garat, some
+vague indications led him to believe that the celebrated violinist
+had taken up his residence in London, but, for a long time after his
+(Garat's) arrival in the metropolis, all his attempts to find him were
+fruitless. At last, one morning he went to a large export house for
+wine. It had a spacious courtyard, filled with numbers of large barrels,
+among which it was not easy to move toward the office or counting-house.
+On entering the latter, the first person who met his gaze was Viotti
+himself. Viotti was surrounded by a legion of employees, and so absorbed
+in business that he did not notice Garat. At last he raised his head,
+and, recognizing his old friend, seized him by the hand, and led him
+into an adjoining room, where he gave him a hearty welcome. Garat could
+not believe his senses, and stood motionless with surprise.
+
+"I see you are astonished at the metamorphosis," said Viotti; "it is
+certainly _drôle_--unexpected; but what _could_ you expect? At Paris
+I was looked upon as a ruined man, lost to all my friends; it was
+necessary to do something to get a living, and here I am, making my
+fortune!"
+
+"But," interrupted Garat, "have you taken into consideration all the
+drawbacks and annoyances of a profession to which you were not brought
+up, and which must be opposed to your tastes?"
+
+"I perceive," continued Viotti, "that you share the error which so many
+indulge in. Commercial enterprise is generally considered a most prosaic
+undertaking, but it has, nevertheless, its seductions, its prestige, its
+poetical side. I assure you no musician, no poet, ever had an existence
+more full of interesting and exciting incidents than those which cause
+the heart of the merchant to throb. His imagination, stimulated by
+success, carries him forward to new conquests; his clients increase, his
+fortune augments, the finest dreams of ambition are ever before him."
+
+"But art!" again interrupted his friend; "the art of which you are one
+of the finest representatives--you can not have entirely abandoned it?"
+
+"Art will lose nothing," rejoined Viotti, "and you will find that I
+can conciliate two things without interfering with either, though you
+doubtless consider them irreconcilable. We will continue this subject
+another time; at present I must leave you; I have some pressing business
+to transact this afternoon. But come and dine with me at six o'clock,
+and be sure you do not disappoint me."
+
+Garat, who relates this conversation, tells us that at the appointed
+time he returned to the house. All the barrels and wagons that had
+encumbered the courtyard were cleared away, and in their place were
+coroneted carriages, with footmen and servants. A lackey in brilliant
+livery conducted the visitor to the drawing-room on the first floor.
+The apartments were magnificently furnished, and glittered with
+mirrors, candelabra, gilt ornaments, and the most quaint and costly
+_bric-ŕ-brac_. Viotti received his guests at the head of the staircase,
+no longer the plodding man of business, but the courtly, high-bred
+gentleman. Garat's amazement was still further increased when he heard
+the names of the other guests, all distinguished men. After an admirably
+cooked dinner, there was still more admirable music, and Viotti proved
+to the satisfaction of his French friend that he was still the same
+great artist who had formerly delighted his listeners in Paris.
+
+The wine business turned out so badly for our violinist that he was fain
+to return to his old and legitimate profession. Through the intervention
+of powerful friends in Paris, he was appointed director of the Grand
+Opéra, but he became discontented in a very onerous and irritating
+position, and was retired at his own request with a pension. An
+interesting letter from the great Italian composer Rossini, who was then
+first trying his fortune in the French metropolis, written to Viotti
+in 1821, is pleasant proof of the estimate placed on his talents and
+influence:
+
+"Most esteemed Sir: You will be surprised at receiving a letter from an
+individual who has not the honor of your personal acquaintance, but I
+profit by the liberality of feeling existing among artists to address
+these lines to you through my friend Hérold, from whom I have learned
+with the greatest satisfaction the high, and, I fear, somewhat
+undeserved opinion you have of me. The oratorio of 'Moďse,' composed by
+me three years ago, appears to our mutual friend susceptible of dramatic
+adaptation to French words; and I, who have the greatest reliance on
+Hérold's taste and on his friendship for me, desire nothing more than to
+render the entire work as perfect as possible, by composing new airs in
+a more religious style than those which it at present contains, and
+by endeavoring to the best of my power that the result shall neither
+disgrace the composer of the partition, nor you, its patron and
+protector. If M. Viotti, with his great celebrity, will consent to
+be the Mecćnas of my name, he may be assured of the gratitude of his
+devoted servant,
+
+"Gioacchino Rossini.
+
+"P.S.--In a month's time I will forward you the alterations of the drama
+'Moďse,' in order that you may judge if they are conformable to the
+operatic style. Should they not be so, you will have the kindness to
+suggest any others better adapted to the purpose."
+
+
+IV.
+
+Viotti, though in many respects proud, resolute, and haughty in
+temperament, was simple-hearted and enthusiastic, and a passionate lover
+of nature. M. Eymar, one of his intimate friends, said of him, "Never
+did a man attach so much value to the simplest gifts of nature, and
+never did a child enjoy them more passionately." A modest flower growing
+in the grass of the meadow, a charming bit of landscape, a rustic
+_fęte_, in short, all the sights and sounds of the country, filled him
+with delight. All nature spoke to his heart, and his finest compositions
+were suggested and inspired by this sympathy. He has left the world a
+charming musical picture of the feelings experienced in the mountains
+of Switzerland. It was there he heard, under peculiar circumstances,
+and probably for the first time, the plaintive sound of a mountain-horn,
+breathing forth the few notes of a kind of "Ranz des Vaches."
+
+"The 'Ranz des Vaches' which I send you," he says in one of his letters,
+"is neither that with which our friend Jean Jacques has presented us,
+nor that of which M. De la Bord speaks in his work on music. I can
+not say whether it is known or not; all I know is, that I heard it
+in Switzerland, and, once heard, I have never forgotten it. I was
+sauntering along, toward the decline of day, in one of those sequestered
+spots.... Flowers, verdure, streamlets, all united to form a picture
+of perfect harmony. There, without being fatigued, I seated myself
+mechanically on a fragment of rock, and fell into so profound a reverie
+that I seemed to forget that I was upon earth. While sitting thus,
+sounds broke on my ear which were sometimes of a hurried, sometimes of
+a prolonged and sustained character, and were repeated in softened tones
+by the echoes around. I found they proceeded from a mountain-horn; and
+their effect was heightened by a plaintive female voice. Struck as if
+by enchantment, I started from my dreams, listened with breathless
+attention, and learned, or rather engraved upon my memory, the 'Ranz des
+Vaches' which I send you. In order to understand all its beauties, you
+ought to be transplanted to the scene in which I heard it, and to
+feel all the enthusiasm that such a moment inspired." It was a similar
+delightful experience which, according to Rossini's statement, first
+suggested to that great composer his immortal opera, "Guillaume Tell."
+
+Among many interesting anecdotes current of Viotti, and one which
+admirably shows his goodness of heart and quickness of resource, is one
+narrated by Ferdinand Langlé to Adolph Adam, the French composer. The
+father of the former, Marie Langlé, a professor of harmony in the French
+Conservatoire, was an intimate friend of Viotti, and one charming summer
+evening the twain were strolling on the Champs Élysées. They sat down on
+a retired bench to enjoy the calmness of the night, and became buried
+in reverie. But they were brought back to prosaic matters harshly by a
+babel of discordant noises that grated on the sensitive ears of the two
+musicians. They started from their seats, and Viotti said:
+
+"It can't be a violin, and yet there is some resemblance to one."
+
+"Nor a clarionet," suggested Langlé, "though it is something like it."
+
+The easiest manner of solving the problem was to go and see what it was.
+They approached the spot whence the extraordinary tones issued, and saw
+a poor blind man standing near a miserable-looking candle and playing
+upon a violin--but the latter was an instrument made of tin-plate.
+
+"Fancy!" exclaimed Viotti, "it is a violin, but a violin of tin-plate!
+Did you ever dream of such a curiosity?" and, after listening a while,
+he added, "I say, Langlé, I must possess that instrument. Go and ask the
+old blind man what he will sell it for."
+
+Langlé approached and asked the question, but the old man was
+disinclined to part with it.
+
+"But we will give you enough for it to enable you to purchase a better,"
+he added; "and why is not your violin like others?"
+
+The aged fiddler explained that, when he got old and found himself
+poor, not being able to work, but still able to scrape a few airs upon a
+violin, he had endeavored to procure one, but in vain. At last his good,
+kind nephew Eustache, who was apprenticed to a tinker, had made him one
+out of a tin-plate. "And an excellent one, too," he added; "and my poor
+boy Eustache brings me here in the morning when he goes to work, and
+fetches me away in the evening when he returns, and the receipts are
+not so bad sometimes--as, when he was out of work, it was I who kept the
+house going."
+
+"Well," said Viotti, "I will give you twenty francs for your violin. You
+can buy a much better one for that price; but let me try it a little."
+
+He took the violin in his hands, and produced some extraordinary
+effects from it. A considerable crowd gathered around, and listened
+with curiosity and astonishment to the performance. Langlé seized on
+the opportunity, and passed around the hat, gathering a goodly amount of
+chink from the bystanders, which, with the twenty francs, was handed to
+the astonished old beggar.
+
+"Stay a moment," said the blind man, recovering a little from his
+surprise; "just now I said I would sell the violin for twenty francs,
+but I did not know it was so good. I ought to have at least double for
+it."
+
+Viotti had never received a more genuine compliment, and he did not
+hesitate to give the old man two pieces of gold instead of one, and then
+immediately retired from the spot, passing through the crowd with the
+tin-plate instrument under his arm. He had scarcely gone forty yards
+when he felt some one pulling at his sleeve; it was a workman, who
+politely took off his cap, and said:
+
+"Sir, you have paid too dear for that violin; and if you are an amateur,
+as it was I who made it, I can supply you with as many as you like at
+six francs each."
+
+This was Eustache; he had just come in time to hear the conclusion of
+the bargain, and, little dreaming that he was so clever a violin-maker,
+wished to continue a trade that had begun so successfully. However,
+Viotti was quite satisfied with the one sample he had bought. He never
+parted with that instrument; and, when the effects of Viotti were sold
+in London after his death, though the tin fiddle only brought a few
+shillings, an amateur of curiosities sought out the purchaser, and
+offered him a large sum if he could explain how the strange instrument
+came into the possession of the great violinist.
+
+After resigning his position as director of the Grand Opéra, Viotti
+returned to London, which had become a second home to him, and spent his
+remaining days there. He died on the 24th of March, 1824.
+
+
+V.
+
+Viotti established and settled for ever the fundamental principles of
+violin-playing. He did not attain the marvelous skill of technique, the
+varied subtile and dazzling effects, with which his successor, Paganini,
+was to amaze the world, but, from the accounts transmitted to us, his
+performance must have been characterized by great nobility, breadth, and
+beauty of tone, united with a fire and agility unknown before his time.
+Viotti was one of the first to use the Tourté bow, that indispensable
+adjunct to the perfect manipulation of the violin. The value of this
+advantage over his predecessors cannot be too highly estimated.
+
+The bows used before the time of François Tourté, who lived in the
+latter years of the last century in Paris, were of imperfect shape and
+make. The Tourté model leaves nothing to be desired in all the qualities
+required to enable the player to follow out every conceivable manner of
+tone and movement--lightness, firmness, and elasticity. Tartini had made
+the stick of his bow elastic, an innovation from the time of Corelli,
+and had thus attained a certain flexibility and brilliancy in his bowing
+superior to his predecessors. But the full development of all the powers
+of the violin, or the practice of what we now call virtuosoism on this
+instrument, was only possible with the modern bow as designed by Tourté,
+of Paris. The thin, bent, elastic stick of the bow, with its greater
+length of sweep, gives the modern player incalculable advantages over
+those of an earlier age, enabling him to follow out the slightest
+gradations of tone from the fullest _forte_ to the softest _piano_,
+to mark all kinds of strong and gentle accents, to execute staccato,
+legato, saltato, and arpeggio passages with the greatest ease and
+certainty. The French school of violin-playing did not at first avail
+itself of these advantages, and even Viotti and Spohr did not fully
+grasp the new resources of execution. It was left for Paganini to open
+a new era in the art. His daring and subtile genius perceived and seized
+the wonderful resources of the modern bow at one bound. He used freely
+every imaginable movement of the bow, and developed the movement of the
+wrist to that high perfection which enabled him to practice all kinds
+of bowing with celerity. Without the Tourté bow, Paganini and the modern
+school of virtuosos, which has followed so splendidly from his example,
+would have been impossible. To many of our readers an amplification of
+this topic may be of interest. While the left hand of the violin-player
+fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already
+done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of
+his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the
+action of the right hand, the bowing, which, analogous to the pianist's
+touch, makes the sound spring into life. It is through the medium of
+the bow that the player embodies his ideas and feelings. It is therefore
+evident that herein rests one of the most important and difficult
+elements of the art of violin-playing, and that the excellence of a
+player, or even of a whole school of playing, depends to a great extent
+on its method of bowing. It would have been even better for the art
+of violin-playing as practiced to-day that the perfect instruments of
+Stradiuarius and Guarnerius should not have been, than that the Tourté
+bow should have been uninvented.
+
+The long, effective sweep of the bow was one of the characteristics
+of Viotti's playing, and was alike the admiration and despair of his
+rivals. His compositions for the violin are classics, and Spohr was
+wont to say that there could be no better test of a fine player than
+his execution of one of the Viotti sonatas or concertos. Spohr regretted
+deeply that he could not finish his violin training under this
+great master, and was wont to speak of him in terms of the greatest
+admiration. Viotti had but few pupils, but among them were a number of
+highly gifted artists. Rode, Robrechts, Cartier, Mdlle. Gerbini, Alday,
+La-barre, Pixis, Mari, Mme. Paravicini, and Vacher are well-known names
+to all those interested in the literature of the violin. The influence
+of Viotti on violin music was a very deep one, not only in virtue of his
+compositions, but in the fact that he molded the style not only of many
+of the best violinists of his own day, but of those that came after him.
+
+
+
+
+LUDWIG SPOHR.
+
+Birth and Early Life of the Violinist Spohr.--He is presented with his
+First Violin at six.--The French _Emigré_ Dufour uses his Influence with
+Dr. Spohr, Sr., to have the Boy devoted to a Musical Career.--Goes
+to Brunswick for fuller Musical Instruction.--Spohr is appointed
+_Kammer-musicus_ at the Ducal Court.--He enters under the Tuition of
+and makes a Tour with the Violin Virtuoso Eck.--Incidents of the Russian
+Journey and his Return.--Concert Tour in Germany.--Loses his Fine
+Guarnerius Violin.--Is appointed Director of the Orchestra at Gotha.--He
+marries Dorette Schiedler, the Brilliant Harpist.--Spohr's Stratagem to
+be present at the Erfurt Musical Celebration given by Napoleon in
+Honor of the Allied Sovereigns.--Becomes Director of Opera in
+Vienna.--Incidents of his Life and Production of Various Works.--First
+Visit to England.--He is made Director of the Cassel Court
+Oratorios.--He is retired with a Pension.--Closing Years of his
+Life.--His Place as Composer and Executant.
+
+
+I.
+
+"The first singer on the violin that ever appeared!" Such was the
+verdict of the enthusiastic Italians when they heard one of the greatest
+of the world's violinists, who was also a great composer. The modern
+world thinks of Spohr rather as the composer of symphony, opera, and
+oratorio than as a wonderful executant on the violin; but it was in
+the latter capacity that he enjoyed the greatest reputation during the
+earlier part of his lifetime, which was a long one, extending from the
+year 1784 to 1859. The latter half of Spohr's life was mostly devoted
+to the higher musical ambition of creating, but not until he had
+established himself as one of the greatest of virtuosos, and founded
+a school of violin-playing which is, beyond all others, the most
+scientific, exhaustive, and satisfactory. All of the great contemporary
+violinists are disciples of the Spohr school of execution. Great as a
+composer, still greater as a player, and widely beloved as a man--there
+are only a few names in musical art held in greater esteem than his,
+though many have evoked a deeper enthusiasm.
+
+Ludwig Spohr was born at Brunswick, April 5, 1784, of parents both of
+whom possessed no little musical talent. His father, a physician
+of considerable eminence, was an excellent flutist, and his mother
+possessed remarkable talent both as a pianist and singer. To the family
+concerts which he heard at home was the rapid development of the boy's
+talents largely due. Nature had given him a very sensitive ear and a
+fine clear voice, and at the age of four or five he joined his mother
+in duets at the evening gatherings. From the very first he manifested
+a taste for the instrument for which he was destined to become
+distinguished. He so teased his father that, at the age of six, he was
+presented with his first violin, and his joy on receiving his treasure
+was overpowering. The violin was never out of his hand, and he
+continually wandered about the house trying to play his favorite
+melodies. Spohr tells us in his "Autobiography": "I still recollect
+that, after my first lesson, in which I had learned to play the G-sharp
+chord upon all four strings, in my rapture at the harmony, I hurried to
+my mother, who was in the kitchen, and played the chord so incessantly
+that she was obliged to order me out."
+
+Young Spohr was placed under the tuition of Dufour, a French _emigré_ of
+the days of '91, who was an excellent player, though not a professional,
+then living at the town of Seesen, the home of the Spohr family; and
+under him the boy made very rapid progress. It was Dufour who, by
+his enthusiastic representations, overcame the opposition of Ludwig's
+parents to the boy's devoting himself to a life of music, for the notion
+of the senior Spohr was that the name musician was synonymous with that
+of a tavern fiddler, who played for dancers. In Germany, the land _par
+excellence_ of music, there was a general contempt among the educated
+classes, during the latter years of the eighteenth century, for the
+musical profession. Spohr remained under the care of Dufour until he was
+twelve years old, and devoted himself to his work with great sedulity.
+Though he as yet knew but little of counterpoint and composition, his
+creative talent already began to assert itself, and he produced several
+duos and trios, as well as solo compositions, which evinced great
+promise, though crude and faulty in the extreme. He was then sent
+to Brunswick, that he might have the advantage of more scientific
+instruction, and to this end was placed under the care of Kunisch,
+an excellent violin teacher, and under Hartung for harmony and
+counterpoint. The latter was a sort of Dr. Dryasdust, learned, barren,
+acrid, but an efficient instructor. When young Spohr showed him one of
+his compositions, he growled out, "There's time enough for that; you
+must learn something first." It may be said of Spohr, however, that his
+studies in theory were for the most part self-taught, for he was a most
+diligent student of the great masters, and was gifted with a keenly
+analytic mind.
+
+At the age of fourteen young Spohr was an effective soloist, and, as his
+father began to complain of the heavy expense of his musical education,
+the boy determined to make an effort for self-support. After revolving
+many schemes, he conceived the notion of applying to the duke, who was
+known as an ardent patron of music. He managed to place himself in the
+way of his Serene Highness, while the latter was walking in his garden,
+and boldly preferred his request for an appointment in the court
+orchestra. The duke was pleased to favor the application, and young
+Spohr was permitted to display his skill at a court concert, in which he
+acquitted himself so admirably as to secure the cordial patronage of the
+sovereign. Said the duke: "Be industrious and well behaved, and, if you
+make good progress, I will put you under the tuition of a great master."
+So Louis Spohr was installed as a _Kammer-musicus_, and his patron
+fulfilled his promise in 1802 by placing his _protégé_ under the charge
+of Francis Eck, one of the finest violinists then living. Under the
+tuition of this accomplished instructor, the young virtuoso made such
+rapid advance in the excellence of his technique, that he was soon
+regarded as worthy of accompanying his master on a grand concert tour
+through the principal cities of Germany and Russia.
+
+
+II.
+
+This concert expedition of the two violinists, as narrated in Spohr's
+"Autobiography," was full of interesting and romantic episodes. Both
+master and pupil were of amorous and susceptible temperaments, and
+their affairs were rarely regulated by a common sense of prudence. Spohr
+relates with delightful _naivete_ the circumstances under which he fell
+successively in love, and the rapidity with which he recovered from
+these fitful spasms of the tender passion. Herr Eck, in addition to his
+tendency to intrigues with the fairer half of creation, was also of
+a quarrelsome and exacting disposition, and the general result was
+ceaseless squabbling with authorities and musical societies in nearly
+every city they visited. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the
+two violinists gained both in fame and purse, and were everywhere well
+received. If Herr Eck carried off the palm over the boyish Spohr as a
+mere executant, the impression everywhere gained ground that the latter
+was by far the superior in real depth of musical science, and many of
+his own violin concertos were received with the heartiest applause. The
+concert tour came to an end at St. Petersburg in a singular way. Eck
+fell in love with a daughter of a member of the imperial orchestra, but
+the idea of marriage did not enter into his project. As the young lady
+soon felt the unfortunate results of her indiscretion, her parents
+complained to the Empress, at whose instance Eck was given the choice of
+marrying the girl or taking an enforced journey to Siberia. He chose the
+former, and determined to remain in St. Petersburg, where he was offered
+the first violin of the imperial orchestra. Poor Eck found he had
+married a shrew, and, between matrimonial discords and ill health
+brought on by years of excess, he became the victim of a nervous fever,
+which resulted in lunacy and confinement in a mad-house.
+
+Spohr returned to his native town in July, 1803, and his first meeting
+with his family was a curious one. "I arrived," he says, "at two o'clock
+in the morning. I landed at the Petri gate, crossed the Ocker in a boat,
+and hastened to my grandmother's garden, but found that the house
+and garden doors were locked. As my knocking didn't arouse any one, I
+climbed over the garden wall and laid myself down in a summer-house at
+the end of the garden. Wearied by the long journey, I soon fell asleep,
+and, notwithstanding my hard couch, would probably have slept for a
+long while had not my aunts in their morning walk discovered me. Much
+alarmed, they ran and told my grandmother that a man was asleep in the
+summer-house. Returning together, the three approached nearer, and,
+recognizing me, I was awakened amid joyous expressions, embraces, and
+kisses. At first, I did not recollect where I was, but soon recognized
+my dear relations, and rejoiced at being once again in the home and
+scenes of my childhood."
+
+Spohr was most graciously received by the duke, who was satisfied
+with the proofs of industry and ambition shown by his _protege_. The
+celebrated Rode, Viotti's most brilliant pupil, was at that time in
+Brunswick, and Spohr, who conceived the most enthusiastic admiration
+of his style, set himself assiduously to the study and imitation of
+the effects peculiar to Rode. On Rode's departure, Spohr appeared in a
+concert arranged for him, in which he played a new concerto dedicated to
+his ducal patron, and created an enthusiasm hardly less than that made
+by Rode himself. He was warmly congratulated by the duke and the court,
+and appointed first court-violinist, with a salary more than sufficient
+for the musician's moderate wants. Shortly after this he undertook
+another concert tour in conjunction with the violoncellist, Benike,
+through the principal German cities, which added materially to
+his reputation. But no amount of world's talk or money could fully
+compensate him for the loss of his magnificent violin, one of the
+_chefs-d'ouvre_ of Guarnerius del Gesů when that great maker was at his
+best. This instrument he had brought from Russia, and it was an imperial
+gift. A concert was announced for Gôttingen, and Spohr, with his
+companion, was about to enter the town by coach, when he asked one of
+the soldiers at the guard-house if the trunk, which had been strapped to
+the back of the carriage, and which contained his precious instrument,
+was in its place. "There is no trunk there," was the reply.
+
+"With one bound," says Spohr, "I was out of the carriage, and rushed
+out through the gate with a drawn hunting-knife. Had I, with more
+reflection, listened a while, I might have heard the thieves running out
+through a side path. But in my blind rage I had far overshot the place
+where I had last seen the trunk, and only discovered my overhaste when I
+found myself in the open field. Inconsolable for my loss, I turned
+back. While my fellow-traveler looked for the inn, I hastened to the
+post-office, and requested that an immediate search might be made in the
+garden houses outside the gate. With astonishment and vexation, I was
+informed that the jurisdiction outside the gate belonged to Weende, and
+that I must prefer my request there. As Weende was half a league from
+Gottingen, I was compelled to abandon for that evening all further steps
+for the recovery of my things. That these would prove fruitless on the
+following morning I was well assured, and I passed a sleepless night in
+a state of mind such as in my hitherto fortunate career had been unknown
+to me. Had I not lost my splendid Guarneri violin, the exponent of all
+the artistic success I had so far attained, I could have lightly borne
+the loss of clothes and money." The police recovered an empty trunk
+and the violin-case despoiled of its treasure, but still containing a
+magnificent Tourté bow, which the thieves had left behind. Spohr managed
+to borrow a Steiner violin, with which he gave his concert, but he did
+not for years cease to lament the loss of his grand Guarneri fiddle.
+
+In 1805 Spohr was quietly settled in his avocation at Brunswick as
+composer and chief _Kam-mer-musicus_ of the ducal court, when he
+received an offer to compete for the direction of the orchestra at
+Gotha, then one of the most magnificent organizations in Europe, to be
+at the head of which would give him an international fame. The offer
+was too tempting to be refused, and Spohr was easily victorious. His
+new duties were not onerous, consisting of a concert once a week, and
+in practicing and rehearsing the orchestra. The annual salary was five
+hundred thalers.
+
+One of the most interesting incidents of Spohr's life now occurred. The
+susceptible heart, which had often been touched, was firmly enslaved
+by the charms of Dorette Schiedler, the daughter of the principal court
+singer, and herself a fine virtuoso on the harp. Dorette was a woman
+whose personal loveliness was an harmonious expression of her beauty
+of character and artistic talent, and Spohr accepted his fate with
+joy. This girl of eighteen was irresistible, for she was accomplished,
+beautiful, tender, as good as an angel, and with the finest talent for
+music, for she played admirably, not only on the harp, but on the piano
+and violin. Spohr had reason to hope that the attachment was mutual, and
+was eager to declare his love. One night they were playing together at a
+court concert, and Spohr after the performance noticed the duchess, with
+an arch look at him, whispering some words to Dorette which covered her
+cheeks with blushes. That night, as the lovers were returning home in
+the carriage, Spohr said to her, "Shall we thus play together for life?"
+Dorette burst into tears, and sank into her lover's arms. The compact
+was sealed by the joyous assent of the mother, and the young couple were
+united in the ducal chapel, in the presence of the duchess and a large
+assemblage of friends, on the 2d of February, 1806.
+
+
+III.
+
+In the following year Spohr and his young wife set out on a musical
+tour, "by which," he says, "we not only reaped a rich harvest of
+applause, but saved a considerable sum of money." On his return to Gotha
+he was met by a band of pupils, who unharnessed the horses from the
+coach and drew him through the streets in triumph. He now devoted
+himself to composition largely, and produced his first opera, "Alruna,"
+which is said to have been very warmly received, both at Gotha and
+Weimar, in which latter city it was produced under the superintendence
+of the poet Goethe, who was intendant of the theatre. Spohr, however,
+allowed it to disappear, as his riper judgment condemned its faults more
+than it favored its excellences. Among his amusing adventures, one which
+he relates in his "Autobiography" as having occurred in 1808 is worth
+repeating. He tells us: "In the year 1808 took place the celebrated
+Congress of Sovereigns at Erfurt, on which occasion Napoleon entertained
+his friend Alexander of Russia and the various kings and princes of
+Germany. The lovers of sights and the curious of the whole country round
+poured in to see the magnificence displayed. In the company of some
+of my pupils, I made a pedestrian excursion to Erfurt, less to see the
+great ones of the earth than to see and admire the great ones of the
+French stage, Talma and Mars. The Emperor had sent to Paris for his
+tragic performers, who played every evening in the classic works of
+Corneille and Racine. I and my companions had hoped to have seen one
+such representation, but unfortunately I was informed that they took
+place for the sovereigns and their suites alone, and that everybody
+else was excluded from them." In this dilemma Spohr had recourse to
+stratagem. He persuaded four musicians of the orchestra to vacate their
+places for a handsome consideration, and he and his pupils engaged to
+fill the duties. But one of the substitutes must needs be a horn-player,
+and the four new players could only perform on violin and 'cello. So
+there was nothing to be done but for Spohr to master the French horn at
+a day's notice. At the expense of swollen and painful lips, he managed
+this sufficiently to play the music required with ease and precision.
+"Thus prepared," he writes, "I and my pupils joined the other musicians,
+and, as each carried his instrument under his arm, we reached our place
+without opposition. We found the saloon in which the theatre had been
+erected already brilliantly lit up and filled with the numerous suites
+of the sovereigns. The seats for Napoleon and his guests were right
+behind the orchestra. Shortly after, the most able of my pupils, to whom
+I had assigned the direction of the music, and under whose leadership I
+had placed myself as a new-fledged hornist, had tuned up the orchestra,
+the high personages made their appearance, and the overture began. The
+orchestra, with their faces turned to the stage, stood in a long row,
+and each was strictly forbidden to turn around and look with curiosity
+at the sovereigns. As I had received notice of this beforehand, I had
+provided myself secretly with a small looking-glass, by the help of
+which, as soon as the music was ended, I was enabled to obtain in
+succession a good view of those who directed the destinies of Europe.
+Nevertheless, I was soon so engrossed with the magnificent acting of the
+tragic artists that I abandoned my mirror to my pupils, and directed my
+whole attention to the stage. But at every succeeding _entr'acte_ the
+pain of my lips increased, and at the close of the performance they
+had become so much swollen and blistered that in the evening I could
+scarcely eat any supper. Even the next day, on my return to Gotha,
+my lips had a very negro-like appearance, and my young wife was not a
+little alarmed when she saw me. But she was yet more nettled when I told
+her that it was from kissing to such excess the pretty Erfurt women.
+When I had related, however, the history of my lessons on the horn, she
+laughed heartily at my expense."
+
+In October, 1809, Spohr and his wife started on an art journey to
+Russia, but they were recalled by the court chamberlain, who said that
+the duchess could not spare them from the court concerts, but would
+liberally indemnify them for the loss. Spohr returned and remained at
+home for nearly three years, during which time he composed a number of
+important works for orchestra and for the violin. In 1812 a visit to
+Vienna, during which he gave a series of concerts, so delighted the
+Viennese that Spohr was offered the direction of the Ander Wien theatre
+at a salary three times that received at Gotha, besides valuable
+emoluments. This, and the assurance of Count Palffy, the imperial
+intendant, that he meant to make the orchestra the finest in Europe,
+induced Spohr to accept the offer.
+
+When it became necessary for our musician to search for a domicile
+in Vienna, he met with another piece of good fortune. One morning
+a gentleman waited on him, introducing himself as a wealthy clock
+manufacturer and a passionate lover of music. The stranger made an
+eccentric proposition. Spohr should hand over to him all that he should
+compose or had composed for Vienna during the term of three years, the
+original scores to be his sole property during that time, and Spohr not
+even to retain a copy. "But are they not to be performed during that
+time?" "Oh, yes! as often as possible; but each time on my lending them
+for that purpose, and when I can be present myself." The bargain was
+struck, and the ardent connoisseur agreed to pay thirty ducats for a
+string quartet, five and thirty for a quintet, forty for a sextet, etc.,
+according to the style of composition. Two works were sold on the spot,
+and Spohr said he should devote the money to house-furnishing. Herr Von
+Tost undertook to provide the furniture complete, and the two made a
+tour among the most fashionable shops. When Spohr protested against
+purchasing articles of extreme beauty and luxury, Von Tost said, "Make
+yourself easy, I shall require no cash settlement. You will soon
+square all accounts with your manuscripts." So the Spohr domicile
+was magnificently furnished from kitchen to attic, more fitly, as the
+musician said, for a royal dignitary or a rich merchant than for a poor
+artist. Von Tost claimed he would gain two results: "First, I wish to be
+invited to all the concerts and musical circles in which you will
+play your compositions, and to do this I must have your scores in my
+possession; secondly, in possessing such treasures of art, I hope upon
+my business journeys to make a large acquaintance among the lovers of
+music, which I may turn to account in my manufacturing interests." Let
+us hope that this commercial enthusiast found his calculations verified
+by results.
+
+Spohr soon gave two important new works to the musical world, the opera
+of "Faust," and the cantata, "The Liberation of Germany," neither of
+which, however, was immediately produced. Weber brought out "Faust" at
+Prague in 1816, and the cantata was first performed at Franken-hausen in
+1815, at a musical festival on the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic,
+a battle which turned the scale of Napoleon's career. The same year
+(1815) also witnessed the quarrel between Spohr and Count Palffy, which
+resulted in the rupture of the former's engagement. Spohr determined to
+make a long tour through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Before shaking
+the dust of Vienna from his feet, he sold the Von Tost household at
+auction, and the sum realized was even larger than what had been paid
+for it, so vivid were the public curiosity and interest in view of the
+strange bargain under which the furniture had been bought. On the 18th
+of March, 1815, Louis Spohr, with his beloved Dorette and young family,
+which had increased with truly German fecundity, bade farewell to
+Vienna.
+
+Two years of concert-giving and sight-seeing swiftly passed, to the
+great augmentation of the German violinist's fame. On Spohr's return
+home he was invited to become the opera and music director of the
+Frankfort Theatre, and for two years more he labored arduously at this
+post. He produced the opera of "Zemire and Azar" (founded on the fairy
+fable of "Beauty and the Beast" ) during this period among other works,
+and it was very enthusiastically received by the public. This opera was
+afterward given in London, in English, with great success, though the
+opinion of the critics was that it was too scientific for the English
+taste.
+
+
+IV.
+
+Louis Spohr's first visit to England was in 1820, whither he went on
+invitation of the Philharmonic Society. He gives an amusing account of
+his first day in London, on the streets of which city he appeared in
+a most brilliantly colored shawl waistcoat, and narrowly escaped being
+pelted by the enraged mob, for the English people were then in mourning
+for the death of George III, which had recently occurred, and Spohr's
+gay attire was construed as a public insult. He played several of his
+own works at the opening Philharmonic concert, and the brilliant veteran
+of the violin, Viotti, to become whose pupil had once been Spohr's
+darling but ungratified dream, expressed the greatest admiration of the
+German virtuoso's magnificent playing. The "Autobiography" relates an
+amusing interview of Spohr with the head of the Rothschild's banking
+establishment, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction from the
+Frankfort Rothschild, as well as a letter of credit. "After Rothschild
+had taken both letters from me and glanced hastily over them, he said
+to me, in a subdued tone of voice, 'I have just read (pointing to
+the "Times") that you manage your business very efficiently; but I
+understand nothing of music. This is my music (slapping his purse); they
+understand that on the exchange.' Upon which with a nod of the head he
+terminated the audience. But just as I had reached the door he called
+after me, 'You can come out and dine with me at my country house.' A few
+days afterward Mme. Rothschild also invited me to dinner, but I did not
+go, though she repeated the invitation."
+
+While in London on this visit Spohr composed his B flat Symphony,
+which was given by the Philharmonic Society under the direction of the
+composer himself, and, as he tells us in his "Autobiography," it was
+played better than he ever heard it afterward. His English reception, on
+the whole, was a very cordial one, and he secured a very high place
+in public estimation, both as a violinist and orchestral composer. On
+returning to Germany, Spohr gave a series of concerts, during which time
+he produced his great D minor violin concerto, making a great sensation
+with it. He had not yet visited Paris in a professional way, and in the
+winter of 1821 he turned his steps thitherward, in answer to a pressing
+invitation from the musicians of that great capital. On January 20th he
+made his _début_ before a French audience, and gave a programme mostly
+of his own compositions. Spohr asserts that the satisfaction of the
+audience was enthusiastically expressed, but the fact that he did not
+repeat the entertainment would suggest a suspicion that the impression
+he made was not fully to his liking. It may be he did not dare take
+the risk in a city so full of musical attractions of every description.
+Certainly he did not like the French, though his reception from the
+artists and literati was of the most friendly sort. He was disgusted
+"with the ridiculous vanity of the Parisians." He writes: "When one or
+other of their musicians plays anything, they say, 'Well! can you
+boast of that in Germany?' Or when they introduce to you one of their
+distinguished artists, they do not call him the first in Paris, but at
+once the first in the world, although no nation knows less what other
+countries possess than they do, in their--for their vanity's sake most
+fortunate--ignorance."
+
+Spohr's appointment to the directorship of the court theatre at Cassel
+occurred in the winter of 1822, and he confesses his pleasure in the
+post, as he believed he could make its fine orchestra one of the most
+celebrated in Germany. He remained in this position for about thirty
+years, and during that time Cassel became one of the greatest musical
+centers of the country. His labors were assiduous, for he had the
+true tireless German industry, and he soon gave the world his opera
+of "Jessonda," which was first produced on July 28, 1823, with marked
+success. "Jessonda" has always kept its hold on the German stage, though
+it was not received with much favor elsewhere. Another opera, "Der Berg
+Geist" ("The Mountain Spirit"), quickly followed, the work having been
+written to celebrate the marriage of the Princess of Hesse with the Duke
+of Saxe-Meiningen. One of his most celebrated compositions, the oratorio
+"Die Letzten Dinge" ("The Last Judgment"), which is more familiar
+to English-speaking peoples than any other work of Spohr, was first
+performed on Good Friday, 1826, and was recognized from the first as
+a production of masterly excellence. Spohr's ability as a composer of
+sacred music would have been more distinctly accepted, had it not been
+that Handel, Haydn, and, in more recent years, Mendelssohn, raised the
+ideal of the oratorio so high that only the very loftiest musical genius
+is considered fit to reign in this sphere. The director of the Cassel
+theatre continued indefatigable in producing works of greater or less
+excellence, chamber-music, symphonies, and operas. Among the latter,
+attention may be called to "Pietro Albano" and the "Alchemist," clever
+but in no sense brilliant works, though, as it became the fashion in
+Germany to indulge in enthusiasm over Spohr, they were warmly praised
+at home. The best known of his orchestral works, "Die Weihe der Tone
+" ("The Power of Sound"), a symphony of unquestionable greatness, was
+produced in 1832. We are told that Spohr had been reading a volume of
+poems which his deceased friend Pfeiffer had left behind him, when he
+alighted on "Die Weihe der Tone," and the words delighted him so much
+that he thought of using them as the basis of a cantata. But he changed
+his purpose, and finally decided to delineate the subject of the poem
+in orchestral composition. The finest of all Spohr's symphonies was the
+outcome, a work which ranks high among compositions of this class. His
+toil on the new oratorio of "Calvary" was sadly interrupted by the death
+of his beloved wife Dorette, who had borne him a large family, and had
+been his most sympathetic and devoted companion. Spohr was so broken
+down by this calamity that it was several months before he could resume
+his labors, and it was because Dorette during her illness had felt such
+a deep interest in the progress of the work that the desolate husband
+so soon plucked heart to begin again. When the oratorio was produced on
+Good Friday, 1835, Spohr records in his diary: "The thought that my wife
+did not live to listen to its first performance sensibly lessened the
+satisfaction I felt at this my most successful work." This oratorio was
+not given in England till 1839, at the Norwich festival, Spohr being
+present to conduct it. The zealous and narrow-minded clergy of the day
+preached bitterly against it as a desecration, and one fierce bigot
+hurled his diatribes against the composer, when the latter was present
+in the cathedral. A journal of the day describes the scene: "We now see
+the fanatical zealot in the pulpit, and sitting right opposite to him
+the great composer, with ears happily deaf to the English tongue, but
+with a demeanor so becoming, with a look so full of pure good-will, and
+with so much humility and mildness in the features, that his countenance
+alone spoke to the heart like a good sermon. Without intending it, we
+make a comparison, and can not for a moment doubt in which of the two
+dwelt the spirit of religion which denoted the true Christian."
+
+Spohr had been two years a widower when he became enamored of one of
+the daughters of Court Councilor Pfeiffer. He tells us he had long been
+acquainted "with the high and varied intellectual culture of the two
+sisters, and so I became fully resolved to sue for the hand of the
+elder, Marianne, whose knowledge of music and skill in pianoforte
+playing I had already observed when she sometimes gave her assistance
+at the concerts of the St. Cecilia Society. As I had not the courage
+to propose to her by word of mouth, there being more than twenty years
+difference in our ages, I put the question to her in writing, and added,
+in excuse for my courtship, the assurance that I was as yet perfectly
+free from the infirmities of age." The proposition was accepted, and
+they were married without delay on January 3, 1836. The bridal couple
+made a long journey through the principal German cities, and were
+universally received with great rejoicings. Musical parties and banquets
+were everywhere arranged for them, at which Spohr and his young
+wife delighted every one by their splendid playing. The "Historical"
+symphony, descriptive of the music and characteristics of different
+periods, was finished in 1839, and made a very favorable impression both
+in Germany and England. Spohr had now become quite at home in England,
+where his music was much liked, and during different years went to the
+country, where oratorio music is more appreciated than anywhere else
+in the musical world, to conduct the Norwich festival. One of his most
+successful compositions of this description, "The Fall of Babylon," was
+written expressly for the festival of 1842. When it was given the next
+year in London under Spohr's own direction, the president of the Sacred
+Harmonic Society presented the composer at the close of the performance
+with a superb silver testimonial in the name of the society.
+
+
+V.
+
+Louis Spohr had now become one of the patriarchs of music, for his life
+spanned a longer arch in the history of the art than any contemporary
+except Cherubini. He was seven years old when Mozart died, and before
+Haydn had departed from this life Spohr had already begun to acquire
+a name as a violinist and composer. He lived to be the friend of
+Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Liszt, and Wagner. Everywhere he was held in
+veneration, even by those who did not fully sympathize with his musical
+works, for his career had been one of great fecundity in art. In
+addition to his rank as one of the few very great violin virtuosos, he
+had been indefatigable in the production of compositions in nearly all
+styles, and every country of Europe recognized his place as a musician
+of supereminent talent, if not of genius, one who had profoundly
+influenced contemporary music, even if he should not mold the art of
+succeeding ages. Testimonials of admiration and respect poured in on him
+from every quarter.
+
+He composed the opera of "The Crusaders" in 1845, and he was invited
+to conduct the first performance in Berlin. He relates two pleasing
+incidents in his "Autobiography." He had been invited to a select dinner
+party given at the royal palace, and between the king and Spohr, who
+was seated opposite, there intervened an ornamental centerpiece
+of considerable height in the shape of a flower vase. This greatly
+interfered with the enjoyment by the king of Spohr's conversation. At
+last his Majesty, growing impatient, removed the impediment with his own
+hands, so that he had a full view of Spohr.
+
+The other incident was a pleasing surprise from his colleagues in art.
+He was a guest of the Wickmann family, and they were all gathered in the
+illuminated garden saloon, when there entered through the gloom of the
+garden a number of dark figures swiftly following each other, who proved
+to be the members of the royal orchestra, with Meyerbeer and Taubert at
+their head. The senior member then presented Spohr with a beautifully
+executed gold laurel-wreath, while Meyerbeer made a speech full of
+feeling, in which he thanked him for his enthusiastic love of German
+art, and for all the grand and beautiful works which he had created,
+specially "The Crusaders." The twenty-fifth anniversary of Spohr's
+connection with the court theatre of Cassel occurred in 1847, and was
+to have been celebrated with a great festival. The death of Felix
+Bartholdy Mendelssohn cast a great gloom over musical Germany that
+year, so the festival was held not in honor of Spohr, but as a solemn
+memorial of the departed genius whose name is a household word among all
+those who love the art he so splendidly illustrated.
+
+Spohr's next production was the fine symphony known as "The Seasons,"
+one of the most picturesque and expressive of his orchestral works, in
+which he depicts with rich musical color the vicissitudes of the year
+and the associations clustering around them. This symphony was followed
+by his seventh quintet, in G minor, another string quartet, the
+thirty-second, and a series of pieces for the violin and piano, and in
+1852 we find the indefatigable composer busy in remodeling his opera of
+"Faust" for production by Mr. Gye, in London. It was produced with great
+splendor in the English capital, and conducted by Spohr himself; but
+it did not prove a great success, a deep disappointment to Spohr, who
+fondly believed this work to be his masterpiece. "On this occasion,"
+writes a very competent critic, _ŕ propos_ of the first performance,
+"there was a certain amount of heaviness about the performance which
+told very much against the probability of that opera ever becoming
+a favorite with the Royal Italian Opera subscribers. Nothing could
+possibly exceed the poetical grace of Eonconi in the title rôle, or
+surpass the propriety and expression of his singing. Mme. Castellan's
+_Cunegonda_ was also exceedingly well sung, and Tamberlik outdid himself
+by his thorough comprehension of the music, the splendor of his voice,
+and the refinement of his vocalization in the character of _Ugo_....
+The _Mephistopheles_ of Herr Formes was a remarkable personation, being
+truly demoniacal in the play of his countenance, and as characteristic
+as any one of Retsch's drawings of Goethe's fiend-tempter. His singing
+being specially German was in every way well suited to the occasion." In
+spite of the excellence of the interpretation, Spohr's "Faust" did not
+take any hold on the lovers of music in England, and even in Germany,
+where Spohr is held in great reverence, it presents but little
+attraction. The closing years of Spohr's active life as a musician were
+devoted to that species of composition where he showed indubitable
+title to be considered a man of genius, works for the violin and chamber
+music. He himself did not recognize his decadence of energy and musical
+vigor; but the veteran was more than seventy years old, and his royal
+master resolved to put his baton in younger and fresher hands. So he was
+retired from service with an annual pension of fifteen hundred thalers.
+Spohr felt this deeply, but he had scarcely reconciled himself to the
+change when a more serious casualty befell him. He fell and broke his
+left arm, which never gained enough strength for him to hold the beloved
+instrument again. It had been the great joy and solace of his life to
+play, and, now that in his old age he was deprived of this comfort, he
+was ready to die. Only once more did he make a public appearance. In the
+spring of 1859 he journeyed to Meiningen to direct a concert on behalf
+of a charitable fund. An ovation was given to the aged master. A
+colossal bust of himself was placed on the stage, arched with festoons
+of palm and laurel, and the conductor's stand was almost buried in
+flowers. He was received with thunders of welcome, which were again and
+again reiterated, and at the close of the performance he could hardly
+escape for the eager throng who wished to press his hand. Spohr died on
+October 22, 1859, after a few days' illness, and in his death Germany at
+least recognized the loss of one of its most accomplished and versatile
+if not greatest composers.
+
+
+VI.
+
+Dr. Ludwig Spohr's fame as a composer has far overshadowed his
+reputation as a violin virtuoso, but the most capable musical critics
+unite in the opinion that that rare quality, which we denominate genius,
+was principally shown in his wonderful power as a player, and his works
+written for the violin. Spohr was a man of immense self-assertion, and
+believed in the greatness of his own musical genius as a composer in the
+higher domain of his art. His "Autobiography," one of the most fresh,
+racy, and interesting works of the kind ever written, is full of varied
+illustrations of what Chorley stigmatizes his "bovine self-conceit." His
+fecund production of symphony, oratorio, and opera, as well as of the
+more elaborate forms of chamber music, for a period of forty years or
+more, proves how deep was his conviction of his own powers. Indeed, he
+half confesses himself that he is only willing to be rated a little
+less than Beethoven. Spohr was singularly meager, for the most part, in
+musical ideas and freshness of melody, but he was a profound master of
+the orchestra; and in that variety and richness of resources which
+give to tone-creations the splendor of color, which is one of the great
+charms of instrumental music, Spohr is inferior only to Wagner among
+modern symphonists. Spohr's more pretentious works are a singular union
+of meagerness of idea with the most polished richness of manner; but, in
+imagination and thought, he is far the inferior of those whose knowledge
+of treating the orchestra and contrapuntal skill could not compare with
+his. There are more vigor and originality in one of Schubert's greater
+symphonies than in all the multitudinous works of the same class ever
+written by Spohr. In Spohr's compositions for the violin as a solo
+instrument, however, he stands unrivaled, for here his true _genre_ as a
+man of creative genius stamps itself unmistakably.
+
+Before the coming of Spohr violin music had been illustrated by a
+succession of virtuosos, French and Italian, who, though melodiously
+charming, planned in their works and execution to exhibit the effects
+and graces of the players themselves instead of the instrument. Paganini
+carried this tendency to its most remarkable and fascinating extreme,
+but Spohr founded a new style of violin playing, on which the greatest
+modern performers who have grown up since his prime have assiduously
+modeled themselves. Mozart had written solid and simple concertos in
+which the performer was expected to embroider and finish the composer's
+sketch. This required genius and skill under instant command, instead
+of merely phenomenal execution. Again, Beethoven's concertos were so
+written as to make the solo player merely one of the orchestra, chaining
+him in bonds only to set him free to deliver the cadenza. This species
+of self-effacement does not consort with the purpose of solo playing,
+which is display, though under that display there should be power,
+mastery, and resource of thought, and not the trickery of the
+accomplished juggler. Spohr in his violin music most felicitously
+accomplished this, and he is simply incomparable in his compromise
+between what is severe and classical, and what is suave and delightful,
+or passionately exciting. In these works the musician finds nerve,
+sparkle, _elan_, and brightness combined with technical charm and
+richness of thought. Spohr's unconscious and spontaneous force in this
+direction was the direct outcome of his remarkable power as a solo
+player, or, more properly, gathered its life-like play and strength from
+the latter fact. It may be said of Spohr that, as Mozart raised opera to
+a higher standard, as Beethoven uplifted the ideal of the orchestra, as
+Clementi laid a solid foundation for piano-playing, so Spohr's creative
+force as a violinist and writer for the violin has established
+the grandest school for this instrument, to which all the foremost
+contemporary artists acknowledge their obligations.
+
+Dr. Spohr's style as a player, while remarkable for its display of
+technique and command of resource, always subordinated mere display to
+the purpose of the music. The Italians called him "the first singer on
+the violin," and his profound musical knowledge enabled him to produce
+effects in a perfectly legitimate manner, where other players had
+recourse to meretricious and dazzling exhibition of skill. His title to
+recollection in the history of music will not be so much that of a great
+general composer, but that of the greatest of composers for the violin,
+and the one who taught violinists that height of excellence as an
+excutant should go hand in hand with good taste and self-restraint, to
+produce its most permanent effects and exert its most vital influence.
+
+
+
+
+NICOLO PAGANINI.
+
+
+The Birth of the Greatest of Violinists.--His Mother's
+Dream--Extraordinary Character and Genius.--Heine's Description of his
+Playing.--Leigh Hunt on Paganini.--Superstitious Rumors current
+during his Life.--He is believed to be a Demoniac.--His Strange
+Appearance.--Early Training and Surroundings.--Anecdotes of his
+Youth.--Paganini's Youthful Dissipations.--His Passion for Gambling.--He
+acquires his Wonderful Guarnerius Violin.--His Reform from
+the Gaming-table.--Indefatigable Practice and Work as a Young
+Artist.--Paganini as a _Preux Chevalier_.--His Powerful Attraction for
+Women.--Episode with a Lady of Rank.--Anecdotes of his Early Italian
+Concertizing.--The Imbroglio at Ferrant.--The Frail Health of
+Paganini.--Wonderful Success at Milan, where he first plays One of
+the Greatest of his Compositions, "Le Streghe."--Duel with
+Lafont.--Incidents and Anecdotes.--His First Visit to Germany.--Great
+Enthusiasm of his Audiences.--Experiences at Vienna, Berlin, and other
+German Cities.--Description of Paganini, in Paris, by Castil-Blaze and
+Fetis.--His English Reception and the Impression made.--Opinions of the
+Critics.--Paganini not pleased with England.--Settles in Paris for Two
+Years, and becomes the Great Musical Lion.--Simplicity and Amiability
+of Nature.--Magnificent Generosity to Hector Berlioz.--The Great
+Fortune made by Paganini.--His Beautiful Country Seat near Parma.--An
+Unfortunate Speculation in Paris.--The Utter Failure of his
+Health.--His Death at Nice.--Characteristics and Anecdotes.--Interesting
+Circumstances of his Last Moments.--The Peculiar Genius of Paganini, and
+his Influence on Art.
+
+
+I.
+
+In the latter part of the last century an Italian woman of Genoa had a
+dream which she thus related to her little son: "My son, you will be a
+great musician. An angel radiant with beauty appeared to me during the
+night and promised to accomplish any wish that I might make. I asked
+that you should become the greatest of all violinists, and the angel
+granted that my desire should be fulfilled." The child who was thus
+addressed became that incomparable artist, Paganini, whose name now,
+a glorious tradition, is used as a standard by which to estimate the
+excellence of those who have succeeded him.
+
+No artist ever lived who so piqued public curiosity, and invested
+himself with a species of weird romance, which compassed him as with a
+cloud. The personality of the individual so unique and extraordinary,
+the genius of the artist so transcendant in its way, the mystery which
+surrounded all the movements of the man, conspired to make him an
+object of such interest that the announcement of a concert by him in
+any European city made as much stir as some great public event. Crowds
+followed his strange figure in the streets wherever he went, and, had
+the time been the mediaeval ages, he himself a celebrated magician or
+sorcerer, credited with power over the spirits of earth and air, his
+appearance could not have aroused a thrill of attention more absorbing.
+Over men of genius, as well as the commonplace herd, he cast the same
+spell, stamping himself as a personage who could be compared with no
+other.
+
+The German poet Heine thus describes his first acquaintance with this
+paragon of violinists:
+
+"It was in the theatre at Hamburg that I first heard Paganini's violin.
+Although it was fast-day, all the commercial magnates of the town were
+present in the front boxes, the goddesses Juno of Wandrahm, and the
+goddesses Aphrodite of Dreckwall. A religious hush pervaded the whole
+assembly; every eye was directed toward the stage, every ear was
+strained for hearing. At last a dark figure, which seemed to ascend from
+the under world, appeared on the stage. It was Paganini in full evening
+dress, black coat and waistcoat cut after a most villainous pattern,
+such as is perhaps in accordance with the infernal etiquette of the
+court of Proserpine, and black trousers fitting awkwardly to his thin
+legs. His long arms appeared still longer as he advanced, holding in one
+hand his violin, and in the other the bow, hanging down so as almost
+to touch the ground--all the while making a series of extraordinary
+reverences. In the angular contortions of his body there was something
+so painfully wooden, and also something so like the movements of a droll
+animal, that a strange disposition to laughter overcame the audience;
+but his face, which the glaring footlights caused to assume an even
+more corpse-like aspect than was natural to it, had in it something so
+appealing, something so imbecile and meek, that a strange feeling
+of compassion removed all tendency to laughter. Had he learned these
+reverences from an automaton or a performing dog? Is this beseeching
+look the look of one who is sick unto death, or does there lurk behind
+it the mocking cunning of a miser? Is that a mortal who in the agony
+of death stands before the public in the art arena, and, like a dying
+gladiator, bids for their applause in his last convulsions? or is it
+some phantom arisen from the grave, a vampire with a violin, who comes
+to suck, if not the blood from our hearts, at least the money from our
+pockets? Questions such as these kept chasing each other through the
+brain while Paganini continued his apparently interminable series of
+complimentary bows; but all such questionings instantly take flight the
+moment the great master puts his violin to his chin and began to play.
+
+"Then were heard melodies such as the nightingale pours forth in the
+gloaming when the perfume of the rose intoxicates her heart with sweet
+forebodings of spring! What melting, sensuously languishing notes of
+bliss! Tones that kissed, then poutingly fled from another, and at last
+embraced and became one, and died away in the ecstasy of union! Again,
+there were heard sounds like the song of the fallen angels, who,
+banished from the realms of bliss, sink with shame-red countenance to
+the lower world. These were sounds out of whose bottomless depth gleamed
+no ray of hope or comfort; when the blessed in heaven hear them, the
+praises of God die away upon their pallid lips, and, sighing, they veil
+their holy faces." Leigh Hunt, in one of his essays, thus describes the
+playing of this greatest of all virtuosos: "Paganini, the first time
+I saw and heard him, and the first moment he struck a note, seemed
+literally to strike it, to _give_ it a blow. The house was so crammed
+that, being among the squeezers in the standing room at the side of the
+pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arms
+akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of
+frame for it; and there on the stage through that frame, as through a
+perspective glass, were the face, the bust, and the raised hand of
+the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his chin, just going to
+begin, and looking exactly as I describe him in the following lines:
+
+    "His hand, Loading the air with dumb expectancy,
+     Suspended, ere it fell, a nation's breath.
+     He _smote_; and clinging to the serious chords
+     With Godlike ravishment drew forth a breath,
+     So deep, so strong, so fervid, thick with love--
+     Blissful, yet laden as with twenty prayers--
+     That Juno yearned with no diviner soul
+     To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.
+     The exceeding mystery of the loveliness
+     Sadden'd delight; and, with his mournful look,
+     Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face
+     Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed
+     Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes
+     One that has parted from his soul for pride,
+     And in the sable secret lived forlorn.
+
+"To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made
+on everybody, foreign or native, an Italian who stood near me said to
+himself, with a long sigh, 'O Dio!' and this had not been said long,
+when another person in the same tone uttered 'Oh Christ!' Musicians
+pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as
+possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him."
+
+The impression made by Paganini was something more than that of a great,
+even the greatest, violinist. It was as if some demoniac power lay
+behind the human, prisoned and dumb except through the agencies of
+music, but able to fill expression with faint, far-away cries of
+passion, anguish, love, and aspiration--echoes from the supernatural
+and invisible. His hearers forgot the admiration due to the wonderful
+virtuoso, and seemed to listen to voices from another world. The strange
+rumors that were current about him, Paganini seems to have been not
+disinclined to encourage, for, mingled with his extraordinary genius,
+there was an element of charlatanism. It was commonly reported that
+his wonderful execution on the G-string was due to a long imprisonment,
+inflicted on him for the assassination of a rival in love, during which
+he had a violin with one string only. Paganini himself writes that, "At
+Vienna one of the audience affirmed publicly that my performance was
+not surprising, for he had distinctly seen, while I was playing my
+variations, the devil at my elbow, directing my arm and guiding my bow.
+My resemblance to the devil was a proof of my origin." Even sensible
+people believed that Paganini had some uncanny and unlawful secret which
+enabled him to do what was impossible for other players. At Prague he
+actually printed a letter from his mother to prove that he was not the
+son of the devil. It was not only the perfectly novel and astonishing
+character of his playing, but to a large extent his ghostlike
+appearance, which caused such absurd rumors. The tall, skeleton-like
+figure, the pale, narrow, wax-colored face, the long, dark, disheveled
+hair, the mysterious expression of the heavy eye, made a weirdly strange
+_ensemble_. Heine tells us in "The Florentine Nights" that only one
+artist had succeeded in delineating the real physiognomy of Paganini: "A
+deaf and crazy painter, called Lyser, has in a sort of spiritual frenzy
+so admirably portrayed by a few touches of his pencil the head of
+Paganini that one is dismayed and moved to laughter at the faithfulness
+of the sketch! 'The devil guided my hand,' said the deaf painter to me,
+with mysterious gesticulations and a satirical yet good-natured wag of
+the head, such as he was wont to indulge in when in the midst of his
+genial tomfoolery."
+
+
+II.
+
+Nicolo Paganini was born at Genoa on the night of February 18, 1784,
+of parents in humbly prosperous circumstances, his father being a
+ship-broker, and, though illiterate in a general way, a passionate lover
+of music and an amateur of some skill. The father soon perceived the
+child's talent, and caused him to study so severely that it not only
+affected his constitution, but actually made him a tolerable player at
+the age of six years. The elder Paganini's knowledge of music was not
+sufficient to carry the lad far in mastering the instrument, but the
+extraordinary precocity shown so interested Signor Corvetto, the leader
+at the Genoese theatre, that he undertook to instruct the gifted child.
+Two years later the young Paganini was transferred to the charge of
+Signor Giacomo Costa, an excellent violinist, and director of church
+music at one of the cathedrals, under whom he made rapid progress in
+executive skill, while he studied harmony and counterpoint under the
+composer Gnecco. It was at this time, Paganini not yet being nine years
+of age, that he composed his first piece, a sonata now lost. In 1793 he
+made his first appearance in public at Genoa, and played variations
+on the air "La Carmagnole," then so popular, with immense effect. This
+_début_ was followed by several subsequent appearances, in which he
+created much enthusiasm. He also played a violin concerto every Sunday
+in church, an attraction which drew great throngs. This practice was
+of great use to Paganini, as it forced him continually to study fresh
+music. About the year 1795 it was deemed best to place the boy under
+the charge of an eminent professor, and Alessandro Rolla, of Parma, was
+pitched on. When the Paganinis arrived, they found the learned professor
+ill, and rather surly at the disturbance. Young Paganini, however,
+speedily silenced the complaints of the querulous invalid. The great
+player himself relates the anecdote: "His wife showed us into a room
+adjoining the bedroom, till she had spoken to the sick man. Finding on
+the table a violin and the music of Rolla's latest concerto, I took
+up the instrument and played the piece at sight. Astonished at what
+he heard, the composer asked for the name of the player, and could not
+believe it was only a young boy till he had seen for himself. He then
+told me that he had nothing to teach me, and advised me to go to Paër
+for study in composition." But, as Paër was at this time in Germany,
+Paganini studied under Ghiretti and Rolla himself while he remained in
+Parma, according to the monograph of Fetis.
+
+The youthful player had already begun to search out new effects on the
+violin, and to create for himself characteristics of tone and treatment
+hitherto unknown to players. After his return to Genoa he composed his
+first "Études," which were of such unheard-of difficulty that he was
+sometimes obliged to practice a single passage ten hours running. His
+intense study resulted not only in his acquirement of an unlimited
+execution, but in breaking down his health. His father was a harsh and
+inexorable taskmaster, and up to this time Paganini (now being fourteen)
+had remained quiescent under this tyrant's control. But the desire of
+liberty was breeding projects in his breast, which opportunity soon
+favored. He managed to get permission to travel alone for the first
+time to Lucca, where he had engaged to play at the musical festival
+in November, 1798. He was received with so much enthusiasm that he
+determined not to return to the paternal roof, and at once set off
+to fulfill engagements at Pisa and other towns. In vain the angry and
+mortified father sought to reclaim the young rebel who had slipped
+through his fingers. Nicolo found the sweets of freedom too precious
+to go back again to bondage, though he continued to send his father a
+portion of the proceeds of his playing.
+
+The youth, intoxicated with the license of his life, plunged into all
+kinds of dissipation, specially into gambling, at this time a universal
+vice in Italy, as indeed it was throughout Europe. Alternate fits of
+study and gaming, both of which he pursued with equal zeal, and the
+exhaustion of the life he led, operated dangerously on his enfeebled
+frame, and fits of illness frequently prevented his fulfillment of
+concert engagements. More than once he wasted in one evening the
+proceeds of several concerts, and was obliged to borrow money on his
+violin, the source of his livelihood, in order to obtain funds wherewith
+to pay his gambling debts. Anything more wild, debilitating, and ruinous
+than the life led by this boy, who had barely emerged from childhood,
+can hardly be imagined. On one occasion he was announced for a concert
+at Leghorn, but he had gambled away his money and pawned his violin, so
+that he was compelled to get the loan of an instrument in order to play
+in the evening. In this emergency he applied to M. Livron, a French
+gentleman, a merchant of Leghorn, and an excellent amateur performer,
+who possessed a Guarneri del Gesů violin, reputed among connoisseurs one
+of the finest instruments in the world. The generous Frenchman instantly
+acceded to the boy's wish, and the precious violin was put in his hands.
+After the concert, when Paganini returned the instrument to M. Livron,
+the latter, who had been to hear him, exclaimed, "Never will I profane
+the strings which your fingers have touched! That instrument is yours."
+The astonishment and delight of the young artist may be more easily
+imagined than described. It was upon this violin that Paganini afterward
+performed in all his concerts, and the great virtuoso left it to the
+town of Genoa, where it is now preserved in a glass case in the Museum.
+An excellent engraving of it, from a photograph, was published in 1875
+in George Hart's book on "The Violin."
+
+At this period of his life, between the ages of seventeen and twenty,
+Nicolo Paganini was surrounded by numerous admirers, and led into
+all kinds of dissipation. He was naturally amiable and witty in
+conversation, though he has been reproached with selfishness. There can
+be no doubt that he was, at this period, constantly under the combined
+influences of flattery and unbounded ambition; nevertheless, in spite
+of all his successful performances at concerts, the style of life he was
+leading kept him so poor that he frequently took in hand all kinds
+of musical work to supply the wants of the moment. It is a curious
+coincidence that the fine violin which was presented to him by M.
+Livron, as we have just seen, was the cause of his abandoning, after a
+while, the allurements of the gaming-tables. Paganini tells us himself
+that a certain nobleman was anxious to possess this instrument, and had
+offered for it a sum equivalent to about four hundred dollars; but the
+artist would not sell it even if one thousand had been offered for it,
+although he was, at this juncture, in great need of funds to pay off a
+debt of honor, and sorely tempted to accept the proffered amount. Just
+at this point Paganini received an invitation to a friend's house where
+gambling was the order of the day. "All my capital," he says, "consisted
+of thirty francs, as I had disposed of my jewels, watch, rings, etc.;
+I nevertheless resolved on risking this last resource, and, if fortune
+proved fickle, to sell my violin and proceed to St. Petersburg, without
+instrument or baggage, with the view of reestablishing my affairs. My
+thirty francs were soon reduced to three, and I already fancied myself
+on the road to Russia, when luck took a sudden turn, and I won one
+hundred and sixty francs. This saved my violin and completely set me up.
+From that day forward I gradually gave up gaming, becoming more and more
+convinced that a gambler is an object of contempt to all well-regulated
+minds."
+
+
+III.
+
+Love-making was also among the diversions which Paganini began early
+to practice. Like nearly all great musicians, he was an object of great
+fascination to the fair sex, and his life had its full share of amorous
+romances. A strange episode was his retirement in the country château of
+a beautiful Bolognese lady for three years, between the years 1801
+and 1804. Here, in the society of a lovely woman, who was passionately
+devoted to him, and amid beautiful scenery, he devoted himself to
+practicing and composition, also giving much study to the guitar (the
+favorite instrument of his inamorata), on which he became a wonderful
+proficient. This charming idyl in Paganini's life reminds one of the
+retirement of the pianist Chopin to the island of Majorca in the company
+of Mme. George Sand. It was during this period of his life that Paganini
+composed twelve of his finest sonatas for violin and guitar.
+
+When our musician returned again to Genoa and active life in 1804, he
+devoted much time also to composition. He was twenty years of age,
+and wrote here four grand quartets for violin, tenor, violoncello,
+and guitar, and also some bravura variations for violin with guitar
+accompaniment. At this period he gave lessons to a young girl of Genoa,
+Catherine Calcagno, about seven years of age; eight years later, when
+only fifteen years old, this young lady astonished Italian audiences by
+the boldness of her style. She continued her artistic career till the
+year 1816, when she had attained the age of twenty-one, and all traces
+of her in the musical world appear to be lost; doubtless, at this period
+she found a husband, and retired completely from public life.
+
+In 1805 Paganini accepted the position of director of music and
+conductor of the opera orchestra at Lucca, under the immediate patronage
+of the Princess Eliza, sister of Napoleon and wife of Bacciochi. The
+prince took lessons from him on the violin, and gave him whole charge of
+the court music. It was at the numerous concerts given at Lucca during
+this period of Paganini's early career that he first elaborated many of
+those curious effects, such as performances on one string, harmonic
+and pizzicato passages, which afterward became so characteristic of his
+style.
+
+But the demon of unrest would not permit Paganini to remain very long
+in one place. In 1808 he began his wandering career of concert-giving
+afresh, performing throughout northern Italy, and amassing considerable
+money, for his fame had now become so widespread that engagements poured
+on him thick and fast. The lessons of his inconsiderate past had already
+made a deep impression on his mind, and Paganini became very economical,
+a tendency which afterward developed into an almost miserly passion for
+money-getting and -saving, though, through his whole life, he performed
+many acts of magnificent generosity. He had numerous curious adventures,
+some of which are worth recording. At a concert in Leghorn he came on
+the stage, limping, from the effects of a nail which had run into his
+foot. This made a great laugh. Just as he began to play, the candles
+fell out of his music desk, and again there was an uproar. Suddenly the
+first string broke, and there was more hilarity; but, says Paganini,
+naively, "I played the piece on three strings, and the sneers quickly
+changed into boisterous applause." At Ferrara he narrowly escaped an
+enraged audience with his life. It had been arranged that a certain
+Signora Marcolini should take part in his concert, but illness prevented
+her singing, and at the last moment Paganini secured the services of
+Signora Pallerini, who, though a danseuse, possessed an agreeable voice.
+The lady was very nervous and diffident, but sang exceedingly well,
+though there were a few in the audience who were inconsiderate enough to
+hiss. Paganini was furious at this insult, and vowed to be avenged. At
+the end of the concert he proposed to amuse the audience by imitating
+the noises of various animals on his violin. After he had reproduced the
+mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog, the crowing of a cock, etc., he
+advanced to the footlights and called out, "Questo č per quelli che
+han fischiato" ("This is for those who hissed"), and imitated in an
+unmistakable way the braying of the jackass. At this the pit rose to
+a man, and charged through the orchestra, climbed the stage, and would
+have killed Paganini, had he not fled incontinently, "standing not on
+the order of his going, but going at once." The explanation of this
+sensitiveness of the audience is found in the fact that the people of
+Ferrara had a general reputation for stupidity, and the appearance of
+a Ferrarese outside of the town walls was the signal for a significant
+hee-haw. Paganini never gave any more concerts in that town.
+
+As he approached his thirtieth year his delicate and highly strung
+organization, already undermined by the excesses of his early
+youth, began to give way. He was frequently troubled with internal
+inflammation, and he was obliged to regulate his habits in the strictest
+fashion as to diet and hours of sleep. Even while comparatively well,
+his health always continued to be very frail.
+
+Paganini composed his remarkable variations called "Le Streghe" ("The
+Witches") at Milan in 1813. In this composition, the air of which was
+taken from a ballet by Sussmayer, called "Il Noce de Benevento," at the
+part where the witches appear in the piece as performed on the stage,
+the violinist introduced many of his most remarkable effects. He played
+this piece for the first time at La Scala theatre, and he was honored
+with the most tumultuous enthusiasm, which for a long time prevented the
+progress of the programme. Paganini always had a predilection for Milan
+afterward, and said he enjoyed giving concerts there more than at any
+other city in Europe. He gave no less than thirty-seven concerts here
+in 1813. In this city, three years afterward, occurred his interesting
+musical duel with Lafont, the well-known French violinist. Paganini
+was then at Genoa, and, hearing of Lafont's presence at Milan, at
+once hastened to that city to hear him play. "His performance," said
+Pagani-ni, "pleased me exceedingly." When the Italian violinist, a week
+later, gave a concert at La Scala, Lafont was in the audience, and the
+very next day he proposed that Paganini and himself should play together
+at the same concert. "I excused myself," said Paganini, "alleging that
+such experiments were impolitic, as the public invariably looked upon
+these matters as duels, in which there must be a victim, and that it
+would be so in this case; for, as he was acknowledged to be the best of
+the French violinists, so the public indulgently considered me to be
+the best player in Italy. Lafont not looking at it in this light, I was
+obliged to accept the challenge. I allowed him to arrange the programme.
+We each played a concerto of our own composition, after which we played
+together a duo concertante by Kreutzer. In this I did not deviate in the
+least from the composer's text while we played together, but in the solo
+parts I yielded freely to my own imagination, and introduced several
+novelties, which seemed to annoy my adversary. Then followed a 'Russian
+Air,' with variations, by Lafont, and I finished the concert with my
+variations called 'Le Streghe.' Lafont probably surpassed me in tone;
+but the applause which followed my efforts convinced me that I did not
+suffer by comparison." There seems to be no question that the victory
+remained with Paganini. A few years later Paganini played in a similar
+contest with the Polish violinist Lipinski, at Placentia. The two
+artists, however, were intimate friends, and there was not a spark
+of rivalry or jealousy in their generous emulation. In fact,
+Paganini appears to have been utterly without that conceit in his own
+extraordinary powers which is so common in musical artists. Heine gives
+an amusing illustration of this. He writes: "Once, after listening to a
+concert by Paganini, as I was addressing him with the most impassioned
+eulogies on his violin-playing, he interrupted me with the words, 'But
+how were you pleased to-day with my compliments and reverences?'" The
+musician thought more of his genuflexions than of his musical talent.
+
+
+IV.
+
+In the year 1817 Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Paganini were at Rome during
+Carnival time, and the trio determined on a grand frolic. Rossini had
+composed a very clever part-song, "Carnavale, Carnavale," known in
+English as "We are Poor Beggars," and the three great musicians, having
+disguised themselves as beggars, sang it with great effect through the
+streets. Rossini during this Carnival produced his "Cenerentola," and
+Paganini gave a series of concerts which excited great enthusiasm.
+Shortly after this, Paganini's health gave way completely at Naples, and
+the landlord of the hotel where he was stopping got the impression that
+his sickness was infectious. In the most brutal manner he turned the
+sick musician into the street. Fortunately, at this moment a violoncello
+player, Ciandelli, who knew Paga-nini well, was passing by, and came to
+the rescue, and his anger was so great, when he saw what had happened
+to the great violinist, that he belabored the barbarous landlord
+unmercifully with a stick, and conveyed the invalid to a comfortable
+lodging where he was carefully attended to. Some time subsequently
+Paganini had an opportunity of repaying this kindness, for he gave
+Ciandelli some valuable instruction, which enabled him in the course of
+a few years to become transformed from a very indifferent performer into
+an artist of considerable eminence.
+
+At the age of thirty-six Paganini again found himself at Milan, and
+there organized a society of musical amateurs, called "Gli Orfei." He
+conducted several of their concerts. But either the love of a roving
+life or the necessity of wandering in order to fill his exchequer kept
+him constantly on the move; and, though during these travels he is said
+to have met with many extraordinary adventures, very little reliance can
+be placed upon the accounts that have come down to us, the more so
+when we consider that Paga-nini's mode of life was, as we shall see
+presently, become by this time extremely sober. It was not until he
+was forty-four years old that he finally quitted Italy to make himself
+better known in foreign countries. He had been encouraged to visit
+Vienna by Prince Metternich, who had heard and admired his playing at
+Rome in 1817, and had repeatedly made plans to visit Germany, but his
+health had been so wretched as to prevent his departure from his native
+country. But a sojourn in the balmy climate of Sicily for a few months
+had done him so much good that in 1828 he put his long-deferred
+plans into execution. The first concert in March of that year made an
+unparalleled sensation. He gave a great number of concerts in Vienna,
+among them several for the poor. A fever seized all classes of society.
+The shop windows were crowded with goods _ŕ la Paganini_; a good stroke
+at billiards was called _un coup ŕ la Paganini_; dishes Avere named
+after him; his portrait was enameled on snuff-boxes, and the Viennese
+dandies carried his bust on the head of their walking-sticks. A cabman
+wheedled out of the reluctant violinist permission to print on his cab,
+_Cabriolet de Paganini_. By this cunning device, Jehu so augmented his
+profits that he was able to rent a large house and establish a hotel, in
+which capacity Paganini found him when he returned again to Vienna.
+
+Among the pleasant stories told of him is one similar to an incident
+previously related of Viotti. One day, as he was walking in Vienna,
+Paganini saw poor little Italian boy scraping some Neapolitan songs
+before the windows of a large house. A celebrated composer who
+accompanied the artist remarked to him, "There is one of your
+compatriots." Upon which Paganini evinced a desire to speak to the lad,
+and went across the street to him for that purpose. After ascertaining
+that he was a poor beggar-boy from the other side of the Alps, and that
+he supported his sick mother, his only relative, by his playing, the
+great violinist appeared touched. He literally emptied his pockets into
+the boy's hand, and, taking the violin and bow from him, began the
+most grotesque and extraordinary performance possible. A crowd soon
+collected, the great virtuoso was at once recognized by the bystanders,
+and when he brought the performance to an end, amid the cheers and
+shouts of all assembled, he handed round the boy's hat, and made a
+considerable collection of coin, in which silver pieces were very
+conspicuous. He then handed the sum to the young Italian, saying, "Take
+that to your mother," and, rejoining his companion, walked off with him,
+saying, "I hope I've done a good turn to that little animal." At
+Berlin, where he soon afterward astonished his crowded audiences by his
+marvelous playing, the same fanatical enthusiasm ensued; and, with
+the exception of Palermo, Naples (where he seems to have had many
+detractors), and Prague, his visits to the various cities of Europe were
+one continued triumph. People tried in vain to explain his method of
+playing, professors criticised him, and pamphlets were published which
+endeavored to make him out a quack or a charlatan. It was all to no
+purpose. Nothing could arrest his onward course; triumph succeeded
+triumph wherever he appeared; and, though no one could understand him,
+every one admired him, and he had only to touch his violin to enchant
+thousands. A curious scene occurred at Berlin, at a musical evening
+party to which Paganini was invited. A young and presumptuous professor
+of the violin performed there several pieces with very little effect; he
+was not aware of the presence of the Genoese giant, whom he did not know
+even by sight. Others, however, quickly recognized him, and he was asked
+to play, which he at first declined, but finally consented to do after
+urgent solicitation. Purposely he played a few variations in wretchedly
+bad style, which caused a suppressed laugh from those ignorant of his
+identity. The young professor came forward again and played another
+selection in a most pretentious and pointed way, as if to crush the
+daring wretch who had ventured to compete with him. Paganini again took
+up the instrument, and played a short piece with such touching pathos
+and astonishing execution, that the audience sat breathless till the
+last dying cadence wakened them into thunders of applause, and hearts
+thrilled as the name "Paganini" crept from mouth to mouth. The young
+professor had already vanished from the room, and was never again seen
+in the house where he had received so severe a lesson.
+
+Paganini repeated his triumphs again the following year, performing
+in Vienna and the principal cities of Germany, and everywhere arousing
+similar feelings of admiration. Orders and medals were bestowed on him,
+and his progress was almost one of royalty. His first concert in Paris
+was given on March 9, 1831, at the opera-house. He was then forty-seven
+years old, and Castil-Blaze described him as being nearly six feet
+in height, with a long, pallid face, brilliant eyes, like those of an
+eagle, long curling black hair, which fell down over the collar of his
+coat, a thin and cadaverous figure--altogether a personality so gaunt
+and delicate as to be more like a shadow than a man. The eyes sparkled
+with a strange phosphorescent gleam, and the long bony fingers were so
+flexible as to be likened only to "a handkerchief tied to the end of a
+stick." Petis describes the impression he created at his first concert
+as amounting to a "positive and universal frenzy." Being questioned as
+to why he always performed his own compositions, he replied "that, if he
+played other compositions than his own, he was obliged to arrange them
+to suit his own peculiar style, and it was less trouble to write a piece
+of his own." Indeed, whenever he attempted to interpret the works of
+other composers, he failed to produce the effects which might have been
+expected of him. This was especially the case in the works of Beethoven.
+
+
+V.
+
+When Paganini appeared in England, of course there was a prodigious
+curiosity to see and hear the great player. All kinds of rumors were
+in the public mouth about him, and many of the lower classes really
+believed that he had sold himself to the evil one. The capacious area
+of the opera-house was densely packed, and the prices of admission were
+doubled on the opening night. The enthusiasm awakened by the performance
+can best be indicated by quoting from some of the contemporary accounts.
+The concert opened with Beethoven's Second Symphony, performed by
+the Philharmonic Society, and it was followed by Lablache, who sang
+Rossini's "Largo al factotum." "A breathless silence then ensued,"
+writes Mr. Gardiner, an amateur of Leicester, who at the peril of his
+ribs had been struggling in the crowd for two hours to get admission,
+"and every eye watched the action of this extraordinary violinist as he
+glided from the side scenes to the front of the stage. An involuntary
+cheering burst from every part of the house, many persons rising from
+their seats to view the specter during the thunder of this unprecedented
+applause, his gaunt and extraordinary appearance being more like that
+of a devotee about to suffer martyrdom than one to delight you with
+his art. With the tip of his bow he set off the orchestra in a grand
+military movement with a force and vivacity as surprising as it was
+new. At the termination of this introduction, he commenced with a soft,
+streamy note of celestial quality, and with three or four whips of his
+bow elicited points of sound that mounted to the third heaven, and as
+bright as stars.... Immediately an execution followed which was equally
+indescribable. A scream of astonishment and delight burst from the
+audience at the novelty of this effect.... etc." This _naive_ account
+may serve to show the impression created on the minds of those not
+trained to guard their words with moderation.
+
+"Nothing can be more intense in feeling," said a contemporary critic,
+"than his conception and delivery of an adagio passage. His tone is,
+perhaps, not quite so full and round as that of a De Bériot or Baillot,
+for example; it is delicate rather than strong, but this delicacy was
+probably never possessed equally by another player." "There is no trick
+in his playing," writes another critic; "it is all fair scientific
+execution, opening to us a new order of sounds.... All his passages
+seem free and unpremeditated, as if conceived on the instant. One has no
+impression of their having cost him either forethought or labor....
+The word difficulty has no place in his vocabulary.... etc." Paganini's
+lengthened tour through London and the provinces was everywhere attended
+with the same success, and brought him in a golden harvest, for his
+reputation had now grown so portentous that he could exact the greatest
+terms from managers.
+
+Paganini avowed himself as not altogether pleased with England, but,
+under the surface of such complaints as the following, one detects the
+ring of gratified vanity. He writes in a MS. letter, dated from London
+in 1831, of the excessive and noisy admiration to which he was subjected
+in the London streets, which left him no peace, and actually blocked his
+passage to and from the theatre. "Although the public curiosity to see
+me," says he, "is long since satisfied; though I have played in public
+at least thirty times, and my likeness has been reproduced in all
+possible styles and forms, yet I can never leave my home without being
+mobbed by people who are not content with following and jostling me, but
+actually get in front of me, and prevent my going either way, address me
+in English of which I don't know a word, and even feel me as if to find
+out if I am made of flesh and blood. And this is not only among the
+common people, but among the upper classes." Paganini repeated his visit
+to England during the next season, playing his final farewell concert at
+the Victoria Theatre, London, June 17, 1832. The two following years
+our artist lived in Paris, and was the great lion of musical and
+social circles. People professed to be as much charmed with his lack of
+pretension, his _naive_ and simple manners, as with his musical genius.
+Yet no man was more exacting of his rights as an artist. One day a court
+concert was announced at the Tuilleries, at which Paganini was asked
+to play. He consented, and went to examine the room the day before. He
+objected to the numerous curtains, so hung as to deaden the sound,
+and requested the superintendent to see that they were changed. The
+supercilious official ignored the artist's wish, and the offended
+Paganini determined not to play. When the hour of the concert arrived,
+there was no violinist. The royalties and their attendants were all
+seated; murmurs arose, but still no Paganini. At last an official was
+sent to the hotel of the artist, only to be informed that _the great
+violinist had not gone out, but that he went to bed very early_. It was
+during his residence in Paris in the winter of 1834 that he proposed
+to Berlioz, for whom he had the most cordial esteem and admiration,
+to write a concerto for his Stradiuarius violin, which resulted in the
+famous symphony "Harold en Italie." Four years after this he bestowed
+the sum of twenty thousand francs on Berlioz, who was then in pressing
+need, delicately disguising the donation as a testimonial of his
+admiration for the "Symphonie Fantastique." Though the eagerness of
+Paganini to make money urged him to labor for years while his health was
+exceedingly frail, and though he was justly stigmatized as penurious
+in many ways, he was capable of princely generosity on occasions which
+appealed strongly to the ardent sympathies which lay at the bottom of
+his nature.
+
+Paganini made a great fortune by the exercise of his art, and in 1834
+purchased, among other property in his native country, a charming
+country seat called Villa Gajona, near Parma. Here he spent two years
+in comparative quiet, though still continuing to give concerts. At this
+period and for some time previous many music-sellers had striven to buy
+the copyright of his works. But Paganini put a price on it which
+was prescriptive, the probability being that he did not wish his
+compositions to pass out of his hands till he had given up his career on
+the concert stage. He was willing that they should be arranged for the
+piano, but not published as violin music.
+
+After his return to Italy Paganini gave several most successful
+concerts, among others, one for the poor at Placentia, on the 14th of
+November, 1834, and another at the court of the Duchess of Parma, in the
+December following. But his health was already giving way most visibly.
+Phthisis of the larynx, which rendered him a mere shadow of his former
+self, and sometimes almost deprived him of speech, had been gaining
+ground since his return to his native climate. In 1836, however, he was
+better, and some unscrupulous Parisian speculators induced him to lend
+his name to a joint-stock undertaking, a sort of gambling-room and
+concert-hall, which they called the Casino Paganini. This was duly
+opened in a fashionable part of Paris in 1837; but, as the Government
+would not allow the establishment to be used as a gambling-house, and
+the concerts did not pay the expenses, it became a great failure, and
+the illustrious artist actually suffered loss by it to the extent of
+forty thousand francs.
+
+One of his last, if not his very last, concert was given with the
+guitar-player, Signor Legnani, at Turin, on the 9th of June, 1837,
+for the benefit of the poor. He was then on his way to fulfill his
+engagements at the fatal Parisian casino, which opened with much
+splendor in the November following. But his health had again broken
+down, and the fatigue of the journey had told upon him so much that he
+was unable to appear at the casino. When the enterprise was found to
+be a failure, a pettifogging lawsuit was carried on against him, and,
+according to Fetis, who is very explicit on this subject, the French
+judges condemned him to pay the aforesaid forty thousand francs, and to
+be deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid--all this without
+hearing his defense!
+
+The career of Paganini was at this critical period fast drawing to a
+close. His medical advisers recommended him to return at once to the
+South, fearing that the winter would kill him in Paris. He died at Nice
+on May 27, 1840, aged fifty-six years. He left to his legitimized son
+Achille, the offspring of his _liaison_ with the singer Antonia Bianchi,
+a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, and the title of baron, of which he
+had received the patent in Germany. His beautiful Guarnerius violin, the
+vehicle of so many splendid artistic triumphs, he bequeathed to the town
+of Genoa, where he was born. Though Paganini was superstitious, and died
+a son of Holy Church, he did not leave any money in religious bequests,
+nor did he even receive the last sacraments. The authorities of Rome
+raised many difficulties about the funeral, and it was only after an
+enormous amount of trouble and expense that Achille was able to have a
+solemn service to the memory of his father performed at Parma. It was
+five years after Paganini's death that this occurred, and permission
+was obtained to have the body removed to holy ground in the village
+churchyard near the Villa Gajona. During this long period the dishonored
+remains of the illustrious musician were at the hospital of Nice, where
+the body had been embalmed, and afterward at a country place near Genoa,
+belonging to the family. The superstitious peasantry believed that
+strange noises were heard about the grave at night--the wailings of
+the unsatisfied spirit of Paganini over the unsanctified burial of its
+earthly shell. It was to end these painful stories that the young
+baron made a final determined effort to placate the ecclesiastical
+authorities.
+
+
+VI.
+
+The singular personality of Paganini displayed itself in his private no
+less than in his artistic life, and a few out of the many anecdotes told
+of him will be of interest, as throwing fresh light on the man. Paganini
+was accused of being selfish and miserly, of caring little even for his
+art, except as a means of accumulating money. While there is much in his
+life to justify such an indictment, it is no less true that he on many
+occasions displayed great generosity. He was always willing to give
+concerts for the benefit of his fellow-artists and for other charitable
+purposes, and on more than one occasion bestowed large sums of money for
+the relief of distress. We may assume that he was niggardly by habit
+and generous by impulse. Utterly ignorant of everything except the art
+of music, bred under the most unfortunate and demoralizing conditions,
+the fact that his character was, on the whole, so _naive_ and upright,
+speaks eloquently for the native qualities of his disposition. His
+eccentricities, perhaps, justified the unreasoning vulgar in believing
+that he was slightly crazed. His appearance and manner on the platform
+were fantastic in the extreme, and rarely failed to provoke ridicule,
+till his magic bow turned all other emotions into one of breathless
+admiration. He talked to himself continually when alone, a habit
+which was partly responsible for the popular belief that he was always
+attended by a familiar demon. When a stranger was introduced to him, his
+corpse-like face became galvanized into a ghastly smile, which produced
+a singular impression, half fascinating, half repulsive. He was taciturn
+in society, except among his intimates, when his buoyant spirits bubbled
+out in the most amusing jokes and anecdotes expressed in a polyglot
+tongue, for he never knew any language well except his own. Naturally
+irritable, his quick temper was inflamed by intestinal disease, which
+racked him with a suffering that was aggravated by a nostrum, in the use
+of which he indulged freely. Indeed, it was said by his friends that his
+death was accelerated by his devotion to medical quackery, from a belief
+in which no arguments could wean him.
+
+To his fellow-artists he was always polite and attentive, though they
+annoyed him by their persistent curiosity as to the means by which he
+produced his unrivaled effects--effects which the established technique
+of violin-playing could not explain. An Englishman named George Harris,
+who was an _attache_ of the Hanoverian court, attended Paganini for a
+year as his private secretary, and he asserts that Paganini was never
+seen to practice a single note of music in private. His astonishing
+dexterity was kept up to its pitch by the numerous concerts which he
+gave, and by his exquisitely delicate organization. He was accustomed to
+say that his whole early life had been one of prodigious and continual
+study, and that he could afford to repose in after years. Paganini's
+knowledge of music was profound and exact, and the most difficult music
+was mere child's play to him. Pasini, a well-known painter, living at
+Parma, did not believe the stories told of Paganini's ability to play
+the most difficult music at sight. Being the possessor of a valuable
+Stradiuarius violin, he challenged our artist to play, at first hand, a
+manuscript concerto which he placed before him. "This instrument
+shall be yours," he said, "if you can play, in a masterly manner, that
+concerto at first sight." The Genoese took the violin in his hand,
+saying, "In that case, my friend, you may bid adieu to it at once," and
+he immediately threw Pasini into ecstatic admiration by his performance
+of the piece. There is little doubt that this is the Stradiuarius
+instrument left by Paganini to his son, and valued at about six hundred
+pounds sterling.
+
+Of Antonia Bianchi, the mother of his son Achille, Paganini tells us
+that, after many years of a most devoted life, the lady's temper became
+so violent that a separation was necessary. "Antonia was constantly
+tormented," he says, "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 pianiste, and, when she read the few amiable words I had composed
+in honor of the artist to whom the book belonged, she tore it from my
+hands, demolished it on the spot, and, so fearful was her rage, would
+have assassinated me."
+
+He was very fond of his little son Achille. A French gentleman tells
+us that he called once to take Paganini to dine with him. He found the
+artist's room in great disorder. A violin on the table with manuscript
+music, another upon a chair, a snuff-box on the bed along with his
+child's toys, music, money, letters, articles of dress--all _pęle-męle_;
+nor were the tables and chairs in their proper places. Everything was in
+the most conspicuous confusion. The child was out of temper; something
+had vexed him; he had been told to wash his hands; and, while the little
+one gave vent to the most violent bursts of temper, the father stood
+as calm and quiet as the most accomplished of nurses. He merely turned
+quietly to his visitor, and said, in melancholy accents: "The poor child
+is cross; I do not know what to do to amuse him; I have played with him
+ever since morning, and I can not stand it any longer."
+
+"It was rather amusing," says the same writer, "to see Paganini in his
+slippers doing battle with his child, who came about up to his knees.
+The little one advanced boldly with his wooden sword, while the father
+retired, crying out, 'Enough, enough! I am already wounded.' But it was
+not enough; the young Achilles was never satisfied until his father,
+completely vanquished, fell heavily on the bed."
+
+In the early part of the present century the facilities for travel
+were far less convenient than at the present time, and it was always an
+arduous undertaking to one in Paganini's frail condition of health. He
+was, however, generally cheerful while jolting along in the post-chaise,
+and chatted incessantly as long as his voice held out. Harris tells us
+that the artist was in the habit of getting out when the horses
+were changed, to stretch his long limbs after the confinement of the
+carriage. Often he extended his promenades when he became interested in
+the town through which he was passing, and would not return till
+long after the fresh horses had been harnessed, thereby causing much
+annoyance to the driver. On one occasion Jehu swore, if it occurred
+again, he would drive on, and leave his passenger behind, to get along
+as best he could. The secretary, Harris, was enjoying a nap, and the
+driver was true to his resolution at the next stopping-place, leaving
+Paganini behind. This made much trouble, and a special coach had to be
+sent for the enraged artist, who was found sputtering oaths in half a
+dozen languages. Paganini refused to pay for the carriage, and it was
+only by force of law that he reluctantly settled the bill.
+
+His baggage was always of the plainest description; in fact, ludicrously
+simple. A shabby box contained his precious Guarnerius fiddle, and
+served also as a portmanteau wherein to pack his jewelry, his linen, and
+sundry trifles. In addition to this he carried a small traveling-bag and
+a hat-box. Mr. Harris tolls us that Paganini was in eating and drinking
+exceedingly frugal. Table indulgence was forbidden him by the condition
+of his health, as any deviation from the strictest diet resulted in
+great suffering. He was a thorough Italian in all his habits and ideas.
+Among other traits was a great disdain for the lower classes, though
+he was by no means subservient to people of rank and wealth. It was
+his habit, when an inferior addressed him, to inquire of his companion,
+"What does this animal want with me?" If he was pleased with his
+coachman, he would say, "That animal drives well." This seemed not so
+much the vulgar arrogance of a small nature, elevated above the class in
+life from which it sprang, as that pride of great gifts which made the
+freemasonry of genius the measure by which he judged all others, noble
+and simple. Like all men of highly nervous constitution, he was keenly
+susceptible to both enjoyment and suffering. He was so sensitive
+to atmospheric changes that his irritability was excessive during a
+thunderstorm. He would then remain silent for hours together, while his
+eyes rolled and his limbs twitched convulsively. Such fragile, nervous,
+highly sensitive organizations are not unfrequently characteristic of
+men of great genius, and in the great Italian violinist it was developed
+in an abnormal degree.
+
+The circumstances accompanying the last scenes of Paganini's life are
+very interesting. He had been intimate with most of the great people
+of Europe, among them Lord Byron, Sir Clifford Constable, Lord Holland,
+Rossini, Ugo Fascolo, Monti, Prince Jerome, the Princess Eliza, and most
+of the great painters, poets, and musicians of his age. For Lord Byron
+he had a most ardent and exaggerated admiration. Paganini had stopped at
+Nice on his way from Paris, detained by extreme debility, for his
+last hours were drawing near. Under the blue sky and balmy air of
+this Mediterranean paradise the great musician somewhat recovered his
+strength at first. One night he sat by his bedroom window, surrounded by
+a circle of intimate friends, watching the glories of the Italian sunset
+that emblazoned earth, air, and sky, with the richest dyes of nature's
+palette. A soft breeze swept into the room, heavy with the perfumes of
+flowers, and the twittering of the birds in the green foliage mingled
+with the hum of talk from the throngs of gay promenaders sauntering on
+the beach. For a while Paganini sat silently absorbed in watching the
+joyous scene, when suddenly his eyes turned on the picture of Lord Byron
+that hung on the wall. A flash of enthusiasm lightened his face, as if
+a great thought were struggling to the surface, and he seized his violin
+to improvise. The listeners declared that this "swan song" was the
+most remarkable production of his life. He illustrated the stormy and
+romantic career of the English poet in music. The accents of doubt,
+irony, and despair mingled with the cry of liberty and the tumult of
+triumph. Paganini had scarcely finished this wonderful musical picture
+when the bow fell from the icy fingers that refused any longer to
+perform their function, and the player sank into a dead swoon.
+
+The shock had been too great, and Paganini never quitted his bed
+afterward. The day before his death he seemed a little better, and
+directed his servant to buy a pigeon for him, as he had a slight return
+of appetite. On the last evening of his life he seemed very tranquil,
+and ordered the curtains to be drawn that he might look out of the
+window at the beautiful night. The full moon was sailing through the
+skies, flooding everything with splendor. Paganini gazed eagerly, gave a
+long sigh of pleasure, and fell back on his pillow dead.
+
+
+VII.
+
+Paganini was the first to develop the full resources of the violin as
+a solo instrument. He departed entirely from the traditions of
+violin-playing as practiced by earlier masters, as he believed that
+great fame could never be acquired in pursuing their methods. A work of
+Locatelli, one of the cleverest pupils of Corelli, and a great master
+of technique, first seems to have inspired him with a conception of
+the more brilliant possibilities of the violin. What further favored
+Paganini's new departure was that he lived in an age when the artistic
+mind, as well as thought in other directions, felt the desire of
+innovation. The French Revolution stirred Europe to its deepest roots,
+intellectually as well as politically. At a very early date in his
+career Paganini seems to have begun experimenting with the new effects
+for which he became famous, though these did not reach their full
+fruitage until just before he left Italy on his first general tour.
+Fetis says: "In adopting the ideas of his predecessors, in resuscitating
+forgotten effects, in superadding what his genius and perseverance gave
+birth to, he arrived at that distinctive character of performance which
+contributed to his ultimate greatness. The diversity of sounds, the
+different methods of tuning his instrument, the frequent employment
+of harmonics, single and double, the simultaneous pizzicato and bow
+passages, the various staccato effects, the use of double and even
+triple notes, a prodigious facility in executing wide intervals with
+unerring precision, together with an extraordinary knowledge of all
+styles of bowing--such were the principal features of Paganini's talent,
+rendered all the more perfect by his great execution, exquisitely
+nervous sensibility, and his deep musical feeling." In a word, Paganini
+possessed the most remarkable creative power in the technical treatment
+of an instrument ever given to a player. Franz Liszt as a pianist
+approaches him more nearly in this respect than any other virtuoso,
+but the field open to the violinist was far greater and wider than
+that offered to the great Hungarian pianist. It was not, however, mere
+perfection of technical power that threw Europe into such paroxysms of
+admiration; it was the irresistible power of a genius which has never
+been matched, and which almost justified the vulgar conclusion that none
+but one possessed with a demon could do such things. Paganini possessed
+the oft-quoted attribute of genius, "the power of taking infinite
+pains," but behind this there lay superlative gifts of mind, physique,
+and temperament. He completely dazzled the greatest musical artists as
+well as the masses. "His constant and daring flights," writes
+Moscheles, "his newly discovered flageolet tones, his gift of fusing
+and beautifying objects of the most diverse kinds--all these phases
+of genius so completely bewilder my musical perceptions that for days
+afterward my head is on fire and my brain reels." His tone lacked
+roundness and volume. His use of very thin strings, made necessary by
+his double harmonics and other specialties, necessarily prevented a
+broad, rich tone. But he more than compensated for this defect by the
+intense expression, "soft and melting as that of an Italian singer," to
+use the language of Moscheles again, which characterized the quality of
+sound he drew from his instrument. Spohr, a very great player, but,
+with all his polish, precision, and classical beauty of style, somewhat
+phlegmatic and conventional withal, critcised Paganini as lacking
+in good taste. He could never get in sympathy with the bent of
+individuality, the Southern passion and fire, and the exceptional gifts
+of temperament which made Paganini's idiosyncrasies of style as a player
+consummate beauties, where imitations of these effects on the part of
+others would be gross exaggeration. Spohr developed the school of Viotti
+and Rode, and in his attachment to that school could see no artistic
+beauty in any deviation. Paganini's peculiar method of treating the
+violin has never been regarded as a safe school for any other violinist
+to follow. Without Paganini's genius to give it vitality, his technique
+would justly be charged with exaggeration and charlatanism. Some of the
+modern French players, who have been strongly influenced by the great
+Italian, have failed to satisfy serious musical taste from this cause.
+On the German violinists he has had but little influence, owing to the
+powerful example of Spohr and the musical spirit of the great composers,
+which have tended to keep players within the strictly legitimate lines
+of art. Some of the principal compositions of Paganini are marked by
+great originality and beauty, and are violin classics. Schumann and
+Liszt have transcribed several of them for the piano, and Brahms for the
+orchestra. But the great glory of Paganini was as a virtuoso, not as a
+composer, and it has been generally agreed to place him on the highest
+pedestal which has yet been reached in the executive art of the violin.
+
+
+
+
+DE BÉRIOT
+
+
+De Bériot's High Place in the Art of the Violin and Violin Music.--The
+Scion of an Impoverished Noble Family.--Early Education and Musical
+Training.--He seeks the Advice of Viotti in Paris.--Becomes a Pupil of
+Kobrechts and Baillot successively.--De Bériot finishes and perfects his
+Style on his Own Model.--Great Success in England.--Artistic Travels
+in Europe.--Becomes Soloist to the King of the Netherlands.--He meets
+Malibran, the Great Cantatrice, in Paris.--Peculiar Circumstances which
+drew the Couple toward Each Other.--They form a Connection which only
+ends with Malibran's Life.--Sketch of Malibran and her Family.--The
+Various Artistic Journeys of Malibran and De Bériot.--Their Marriage
+and Mme. de Bériot's Death.--De Bériot becomes Professor in the Brussels
+Conservatoire.--His Later Life in Brussels.--His Son Charles Malibran de
+Bériot.--The Character of De Bériot as Composer and Player.
+
+
+I.
+
+Among the great players contemporary with Paganini, the name of Charles
+Auguste de Bériot shines in the musical horizon with the luster of a
+star of the first magnitude. His influence on music has been one of
+unmistakable import, for he has perpetuated his great talents through
+the number of gifted pupils who graduated from his teachings and
+gathered an inspiration from an artist-master, in whom were united
+splendid gifts as a player, an earnest musical spirit, depth and
+precision of science, the chivalry of high birth and breeding, and
+a width of intellectual culture which would have dignified the
+_litterateur_ or scholar. De Bériot was for many years the chief of the
+violin department at the Brussels Conservatoire, where, even before the
+revolution of 1830, there was one of the finest schools of instruction
+for stringed instruments to be found in Europe. When in the full
+ripeness of his fame as a virtuoso and composer, De Bériot was called on
+to take charge of the violin section of this great institution, and his
+influence has thus been transmitted in the world of art in a degree by
+no means limited to his direct greatness as an executant.
+
+De Bériot was born at Louvain, in 1802, of a noble family, which
+had been impoverished through the crash and turmoil of the French
+Revolution. Left an orphan at the age of nine years, without inheritance
+except that of a high spirit and family pride, he would have fared badly
+in these early years, had it not been for the kindness of M. Tiby, a
+professor of music, who perceived the child's latent talent, and he
+acquired skill in playing so rapidly that he was able to play one of
+Viotti's concertos at the age of nine. His hearers, many of whom were
+connoisseurs, were delighted, and prophesied for him the great career
+which made the name of De Bériot famous. Naturally of a contemplative
+and thoughtful mind, he lost no time in studying not only the art of
+violin-playing but also acquiring proficiency in general branches of
+knowledge. His theories of an art ideal even at that early age were far
+more lofty and earnest than that which generally guides the aspirations
+of musicians. De Bériot, in after years, attributed many of the elevated
+ideas which from this time guided his life to the influence of the
+well-known scholar and philosopher Jacotot, who, though a poor musician
+himself, had very clear ideas as to the aesthetic and moral foundations
+on which art success must be built. The text-book, Jacotot's "Method,"
+fell early into the young musician's hand, and imbued him with the
+principles of self-reliance, earnestness, and patience which helped to
+model his life, and contributed to the remarkable proficiency in his
+art on which his fame rests. Two golden principles were impressed on De
+Bériot's mind from these teachings: "All obstacles yield to unwearied
+pursuit," and "We are not ordinarily willing to do all that we are
+really able to accomplish." In after years De Bériot met Jacotot, and
+had the pleasure of acknowledging the deep obligation under which he
+felt himself bound.
+
+In 1821 young Charles de Bériot had attained the age of nineteen, and
+it was determined that he should leave his native town and go to Paris,
+where he could receive the teachings of the great masters of the violin.
+At this time he was a handsome youth with a strongly knit figure,
+somewhat above the middle height, with fine, dark eyes and hair, a
+florid complexion, and very gentlemanly appearance. Good blood and
+breeding displayed themselves in every movement, and ardent hope shone
+in his face. He resided for several months in Brussels, which was
+afterward to be his home, and associated with the scenes of his greatest
+usefulness, and then pursued his eager way to Paris with a letter of
+introduction to Viotti, then director of music at the Grand Opéra. De
+Bériot's ambition was to play before the veteran violinist of
+Europe, and to feed his own hopes on the great master's praise and
+encouragement.
+
+"You have a fine style," said Viotti; "give yourself up to the business
+of perfecting it; hear all men of talent; profit by everything, but
+imitate nothing." There was at this time in Brussels a violinist named
+Robrechts, a former pupil of Viotti, and one of the last artists who
+derived instruction directly from the celebrated Italian. Andreas
+Robrechts was born at Brussels on the 18th of December, 1797, and made
+rapid progress as a musician under Planken, a professor, who, like the
+late M. Wéry, who succeeded him, formed many excellent pupils. He then
+entered himself at the Conservatoire of Paris in 1814, where he received
+some private lessons from Baillot, while the institution itself was
+closed during the occupation by the allied armies.
+
+Viotti, hearing the young Robrechts play, was so struck with his
+magnificent tone and broad style that he undertook to give him finishing
+lessons, with the approbation of Baillot. This was soon arranged, and
+for many years the two violinists were inseparable. He even accompanied
+Viotti in his journey to London, where they were heard more than once in
+duets. The illustrious Italian had recognized in Robrechts the pupil
+who most closely adhered to his style of playing, and one of the few who
+were likely to diffuse it in after years.
+
+In 1820 Robrechts returned to Brussels, where he was elected first
+violin solo to the king, Wil-helm I. It was shortly after this that De
+Bériot took lessons from him, and he it was who gave him the letter
+of introduction to Viotti. The same excellent professor also gave
+instructions to the young Artot. He died in 1860, the last direct
+representative of the great Viotti school.
+
+It will now be seen where De Bériot acquired the first principles of
+that large, bold, and exquisitely charming style that in after life
+characterized both his performances and his compositions.
+
+
+II.
+
+Arriving at Paris, and believing probably that the classical style of
+Robrechts, from whom he had had instruction in Brussels, did not lead
+him swiftly forward enough in the path he would travel, he sought
+Viotti, as we have related above, and by his advice entered himself in
+the violin class of the Conservatoire, which was directed by Baillot, an
+eminent player of the Viotti school, though never a direct pupil of the
+latter master. De Bériot, however, did not remain long in the class, but
+applied himself most assiduously to the study of the violin in his own
+way. This is what Paganini had done, and through this course had been
+able to form a style so peculiarly his own. It is not probable that De
+Bériot at this time knew much about Paganini; certainly he had
+never heard him. Paganini was at first looked on as a mere comet of
+extraordinary brilliancy, without much soundness or true genius, and
+many who afterward became his most ardent admirers began with sneering
+at his pretensions. De Bériot was in later years undoubtedly powerfully
+influenced by Paganini, but at the time of which we speak the young
+violinist appears to have been determined to evolve a style and
+character in art out of his own resources purely. He was carrying out
+Viot-ti's advice.
+
+At this time our young artist was the possessor of a very fine
+instrument by Giovanni Magini, a celebrated maker of the Brescian
+school, and a pupil of Gaspar de Salo. Many of the violins of this make
+are of an excellence hardly inferior to the Strads of the best period,
+and De Bériot seems to have preferred this violin during the whole of
+his career, though he afterward owned instruments of the most celebrated
+makers.
+
+Very soon De Bériot made his public appearance in concerts, and was
+brilliantly successful from the outset. The range of his ambition may be
+seen from the fact that he had enough confidence in his own genius from
+the very first to play his own music, and it was conceded to possess
+great freshness and originality. These early "Airs Varié" consisted of
+an introduction, a theme, followed by three or four variations, and a
+brilliant finale.
+
+The young artist preceded Paganini in London several years, as he
+made his first appearance before an English audience in 1826. It was
+fortunate, perhaps, for De Bériot that such was the case, as it is more
+than probable that, after the dazzling and electric displays of
+the Geneose player, the more sedate and simple style which then
+characterized De Bériot would have failed to please. As it was, he
+was most cordially admired, and was generally recognized by English
+connoisseurs, as well as by the general public, as one of the most
+accomplished players who had ever visited England. The pecuniary results
+of these concerts were large, and sufficient to relieve De Bériot, who
+had formerly been rather straitened in his means, from the friction and
+embarrassment which poverty so often imposes on struggling talent.
+There was a peculiar charm in De Bériot's style which was permanently
+characteristic of him, though his technical method did not always remain
+the same. In addition to very facile execution and a rich, mellow tone,
+he possessed the most refined taste. His playing impressed people less
+as that of a great professional violinist than that of the marvelously
+accomplished amateur, the gentleman of leisure and culture, who
+performed with the easy, sparkling grace of one who took no thought of
+whether he played well or not, but did great feats on his instrument
+because he could not help it. Such was also the characteristic of Mario
+as a singer, and there seems to have been many features of resemblance
+between these two fine artists, though moving in different fields of
+art.
+
+After traveling through Europe for several years, giving concerts with
+great success, he was presented to King Wilhelm of the then united
+kingdom of the Netherlands. This monarch, though quite ignorant of
+music, was an enthusiastic patron of art, and, believing that De Bériot
+was destined to be a great ornament of his native country (for he was
+born in Belgium, though his parents were from France), bestowed on the
+artist a pension of two thousand florins a year, and the title of first
+violin solo to his majesty. But this honor was soon rudely snatched
+from De Bériot's grasp. The revolution of 1830, which began with
+the excitement inflamed in Brussels by the performance of Auber's
+revolutionary opera, "La Muette di Portici," better known as
+"Masaniello," dissolved the kingdom, and Belgium parted permanently
+from Holland. It was, perhaps, owing to this apparent misfortune that
+De Bériot made an acquaintance which culminated in the most interesting
+episode of his life. He lost his official position at Brussels, but he
+met Mme. Malibran.
+
+
+III.
+
+De Bériot returned to Paris, where Sontag and Malibran were engaged in
+ardent artistic rivalry, about equally dividing the suffrages of the
+French public. Mlle. Sontag was a beautiful, fair-haired, blue-eyed
+woman, in the very flush of her youth, with an expression of exquisite
+sweetness and mildness. De Bériot became madly enamored of her at once,
+and pressed his suit with vehemence, but without success. Henrietta
+Sontag was already the betrothed of Count Rossi, whom she soon afterward
+married, though the engagement was then a secret. The lady's firm
+refusal of the young Belgian artist's overtures filled him with a deep
+melancholy, which he showed so unmistakably that he became an object of
+solicitude to all his friends. Among those was Mme. Malibran, whose warm
+sympathies went out to an artist whose talents she admired. Malibran,
+living apart from her husband, was obliged to be careful in her conduct,
+to avoid giving food for the scandal of a censorious world, but this
+did not prevent her from exhibiting the utmost pity and kindness in her
+demeanor toward De Bériot. The violinist was soothed by this gentle and
+delightful companion, and it was not long before a fresh affection, even
+stronger than the other, sprang up in his susceptible nature for the
+woman whose ardent Spanish frankness found it difficult to conceal the
+fact that she cherished sentiments different from mere friendship.
+
+The splendid career of Mme. Malibran shines almost without a rival in
+the records of the lyric stage, and her influence on De Bériot, first
+her lover and afterward her husband, was most marked. Maria Garcia,
+afterward Mme. Malibran, was one of a family of very eminent musicians.
+She was trained by her father, Manuel Garcia, who, in addition to being
+a tenor singer of world-wide reputation, was a composer of some repute,
+and the greatest teacher of his time. Her sister, Pauline Garcia, in
+after years became one of the greatest dramatic singers who ever lived,
+and her brother Manuel also attained considerable eminence as singer,
+song-composer, and teacher. The whole family were richly dowered with
+musical gifts, and Maria was probably one of the most versatile and
+accomplished musical artists of any age. At the age of thirteen she was
+a professed musician, and at fifteen, when she came with her parents to
+London, she obtained a complete triumph by accidentally performing in
+Rossini's "Il Barbiere," to supply the place of a prima donna who was
+unable to appear.
+
+We can not tarry here to enter into the details of her interesting life.
+Her father having taken her to America, where she fulfilled a number
+of engagements with an increasing success, she finally espoused there
+a rich merchant named Malibran, much older than herself. It was a most
+ill-advised marriage, and, to make matters worse, the merchant failed
+very soon afterward. Some go so far as to say that he foresaw this
+catastrophe before he contracted his marriage, in the hope of regaining
+his fortune by the proceeds of the singer's career. However that may be,
+a separation took place, and Mme. Malibran returned to Paris in 1827.
+Her singing in Italian opera was everywhere a source of the most
+enthusiastic ovation, and, as she rose like a star of the first
+magnitude in the world of song, so the young De Bériot was fast earning
+his laurels as one of the greatest violinists of the day. In 1830 an
+indissoluble friendship united these two kindred spirits, and in 1832 De
+Bériot, Lablache, the great basso, and Mme. Malibran set out for a tour
+in Italy, where the latter had operatic engagements at Milan, Rome,
+and Naples, and where they all three appeared in concerts with the most
+_éclatant_ success--as may well be imagined.
+
+At Bologna, in 1834, it is difficult to say whether the cantatrice,
+or the violinist, or the inestimable basso, produced the greatest
+sensation; but her bust in marble was there and then placed under the
+peristyle of the Opera-house.
+
+Henceforward De Bériot never quitted her, and their affection seems to
+have increased as time wore on. In the year following she appeared in
+London, where she gave forty representations at Drury Lane, performing
+in "La Sonnambula," "The Maid of Artois," etc., for which she received
+the sum of three thousand two hundred pounds. De Bériot would not have
+made this amount probably with his violin in a year.
+
+After a second journey to Italy, in which Mme. Malibran renewed the
+enthusiasm which she had first created in the public mind, and a series
+of brilliant concerts which also added to De Bériot's prestige, they
+returned to Paris to wait for the divorce of Mme. Malibran from her
+husband, which had been dragging its way through the courts. The much
+longed for release came in 1836, and the union of hearts and
+lives, whose sincerity and devotion had more than half condoned its
+irregularity, was sanctified by the Church. The happiness of the
+artistic pair was not destined to be long. Only a month afterward Mme.
+de Bériot, who was then singing in London, had a dangerous fall from
+her horse. Always passionately fond of activity and exercise, she was an
+excellent horsewoman, and was somewhat reckless in pursuing her favorite
+pursuit. The great singer was thrown by an unruly and badly trained
+animal, and received serious internal injuries. Her indomitable spirit
+would not, however, permit her to rest. She returned to the Continent
+after the close of the London season, to give concerts, in spite of her
+weak health, and gave herself but little chance of recovery, before
+she returned again to England in September to sing at the Manchester
+festival, her last triumph, and the brilliant close of a short and very
+remarkable life. She was seized with sudden and severe illness, and died
+after nine days of suffering. During this period of trial to De Bériot,
+he never left the bedside of his dying wife, but devoted himself
+to ministering to her comfort, except once when she insisted on his
+fulfilling an important concert engagement. Racked with pain as she was,
+her greatest anxiety was as to his artistic success, fearing that his
+mental anguish would prevent his doing full justice to his talents. It
+is said that her friends informed her of the vociferous applause which
+greeted his playing, and a happy smile brightened her dying face. She
+died September 22, 1836, at the age of twenty-eight, but not too soon to
+have attained one of the most dazzling reputations in the history of
+the operatic stage. M. de Bériot was almost frantic with grief, for a
+profound love had joined this sympathetic and well-matched pair, and
+their private happiness had not been less than their public fame.*
+
+     * For a full sketch of Mme. Malibran de Beriot's artistic and
+     personal career, the reader is referred to "Great Singers,
+     Malibran to Tietjens," Appletons' "Handy-Volume Series."
+
+The news of this calamity to the world of music spread swiftly through
+the country, and was known in Paris the next day, where M. Mali-bran,
+the divorced husband of the dead singer, was then living. As the fortune
+which Mme. de Bériot had made by her art was principally invested in
+France, and there were certain irregularities in the French law which
+opened the way for claims of M. Malibran on her estate, De Bériot was
+obliged to hasten to Paris before his wife's funeral to take out letters
+of administration, and thus protect the future of the only child left by
+his wife, young Charles de Bériot, who afterward became a distinguished
+pianist, though never a professional musician. As the motives of this
+sudden disappearance were not known, De Bériot was charged with the
+most callous indifference to his wife. But it is now well known that
+his action was guided by a most imperative necessity, the welfare of
+his infant son, all that was left him of the woman he had loved so
+passionately. The remains of Mme. de Bériot were temporarily interred
+in the Collegiate Church in Manchester, but they were shortly afterward
+removed to Laeken, near Brussels. Over her tomb in the Laeken churchyard
+the magnificent mausoleum surmounted with her statue was erected by
+De Bériot. The celebrated sculptor Geefs modeled it, and the work is
+regarded as one of the _chefs-d'ouvre_ of the artist.
+
+
+IV.
+
+M. de Bériot did not recover from this shock for more than a year, but
+remained secluded at his country place near Brussels. It was not till
+Pauline Garcia (subsequently Mme. Viardot) made her _debut_ in concert
+in 1837, that De Bériot again appeared in public before one of the most
+brilliant audiences which had ever assembled in Brussels. In honor of
+this occasion the Philharmonic Society of that city caused two medals
+to be struck for M. de Bériot and Mlle. Garcia, the molds of which were
+instantly destroyed. The violinist gave a series of concerts assisted
+by the young singer in Belgium, Germany, and France, and returned to
+Brussels again on the anniversary of their first concert, where they
+appeared in the Théâtre de la Renaissance before a most crowded and
+enthusiastic audience. Among the features of the performance which
+called out the warmest applause was Panseron's grand duo for voice and
+violin, "Le Songe de Tartini," Mlle. Garcia both singing and playing
+the piano-forte accompaniment with remarkable skill. Two years afterward
+Mile. Garcia married M. Viardot, director of the Italian Opera at Paris,
+and De Bériot espoused Mlle. Huber, daughter of a Viennese magistrate,
+and ward of Prince Dietrischten Preskau, who had adopted her at an early
+age.
+
+De Bériot became identified with the Royal Conservatory of Music at
+Brussels in the year 1840, and thenceforward his life was devoted to
+composition and the direction of the violin school. He gave much time
+and care to the education of his son Charles, who, in addition to a
+wonderful resemblance to his mother, appears to have inherited much of
+the musical endowment of both parents. Had not an ample fortune rendered
+professional labor unnecessary, it is probable that the son of Malibran
+and De Bériot would have attained a musical eminence worthy of his
+lineage; but he is even now celebrated for his admirable performances
+in private, and his musical evenings are said to be among the most
+delightful entertainments in Parisian society, gathering the most
+celebrated artists and _litterateurs_ of the great capital.
+
+De Bériot ceased giving public concerts after taking charge of the
+violin classes of the Brussels Conservatoire, though he continued to
+charm select audiences in private concerts. Many of his pupils became
+distinguished players, among whom may be named Monasterio, Standish,
+Lauterbach, and, chief of all, Henri Vieuxtemps, with whose precocious
+talents he was so much pleased that he gave him lessons gratuitously.
+During his life at Brussels, and indeed during the whole of his
+career, De Bériot enjoyed the friendship and esteem of many of the
+most distinguished men of the day, among his most intimate friends and
+admirers having been Prince de Chimay, the Russian Prince Youssoupoff,
+and King Leopold I, of Belgium. The latter part of his life was not
+un-laborious in composition, but otherwise of affluent and elegant ease.
+During the last two years his eyesight failed him, and he gradually
+became totally blind. He died, April 13, 1870, at the age of
+sixty-eight, while visiting his friend Prince Youssoupoff at St.
+Petersburg, of the brain malady which had long been making fatal inroads
+on his health.
+
+In originality as a composer for the violin, probably no one can surpass
+De Bériot except Paganini, who exerted a remarkable modifying influence
+on him after he had formed his own first style. His works are full
+of grace and poetic feeling, and worked out with an intellectual
+completeness of form which gives him an honorable distinction even among
+those musicians marked by affluence of ideas. These compositions are
+likely to be among the violin classics, though some of the violinists
+of the Spohr school have criticised them for want of depth. He produced
+seven concertos, eleven _airs variés_, several books of studies,
+four trios for piano, violin, and 'cello, and, together with Osborne,
+Thalberg, and other pianists, a number of brilliant duos for piano and
+violin. His book of instruction for the violin is among the best ever
+written, though somewhat diffuse in detail. He may be considered the
+founder of the Franco-Belgian school of violinists, as distinguished
+from the classical French school founded by Viotti, and illustrated by
+Rode and Baillot. His early playing was molded entirely in this style,
+but the dazzling example of Paganini, in course of time, had its
+effect on him, as he soon adopted the captivating effects of harmonics,
+arpeggios, pizzicatos, etc., which the Genoese had introduced, though
+he stopped short of sacrificing his breadth and richness of tone. He
+combined the Paganini school with that of Viotti, and gave status to
+a peculiar _genre_ of players, in which may be numbered such great
+virtuosos as Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, who successively occupied the
+same professional place formerly illustrated by De Bériot, and the
+latter of whom recently died. De Bériot's playing was noted for accuracy
+of intonation, remarkable deftness and facility in bowing, grace,
+elegance, and piquancy, though he never succeeded in creating the
+unbounded enthusiasm which everywhere greeted Paganini.
+
+
+
+
+OLE BULL.
+
+
+The Birth and Early Life of Ole Bull at Bergen, Norway.--His Family and
+Connections.--Surroundings of his Boyhood.--Early Display of his Musical
+Passion.--Learns the Violin without Aid.--Takes Lessons from an Old
+Musical Professor, and soon surpasses his Master.--Anecdotes of his
+Boyhood.--His Father's Opposition to Music as a Profession.--Competes
+for Admittance to the University at Christiania.--Is consoled
+for Failure by a Learned Professor.--"Better be a Fiddler than
+a Preacher."--Becomes Conductor of the Philharmonic Society at
+Bergen.--His first Musical Journey.--Sees Spohr.--Fights a Duel.--Visit
+to Paris.--He is reduced to Great Pecuniary Straits.--Strange Adventure
+with Vidocq, the Great Detective.--First Appearance in Concert in
+Paris.--Romantic Adventure leading to Acquaintance.--First Appearance
+in Italy.--Takes the Place of Do Bériot by Great Good Luck.--Ole Bull
+is most enthusiastically received.--Extended Concert Tour in Italy and
+France.--His _Début_ and Success in England.--One Hundred and Eighty
+Concerts in Six Months.--Ole Bull's Gaspar di Salo Violin, and the
+Circumstances under which he acquired it.--His Answer to the King of
+Sweden.--First Visit and Great Success in America in 1843.--Attempt
+to establish a National Theatre.--The Norwegian Colony in
+Pennsylvania.--Latter Years of Ole Bull.--His Personal Appearance.--Art
+Characteristics.
+
+
+I.
+
+The life of Olaus Bull, or Ole Bull, as he is generally known to the
+world, was not only of much interest in its relation to music, but
+singularly full of vicissitude and adventure. He was born at Bergen,
+Norway, February 5, 1810, of one of the leading families of that resort
+of shippers, timber-dealers, and fishermen. His father, John Storm Bull,
+was a pharmaceutist, and among his ancestors he numbered the Norwegian
+poet Edward Storm, author of the "Sinclair Lay," an epic on the fate of
+Colonel Sinclair, who with a thousand Hebridean and Scotch pirates, made
+a descent on the Norwegian coast, thus emulating the Vikingr forefathers
+of the Norwegians themselves. The peasants slew them to a man by rolling
+rocks down on them from the fearful pass of the Gulbrands Dahl, and
+the event has been celebrated both by the poet's lay and the painter's
+brush. By the mother's side Ole Bull came of excellent Dutch stock,
+three of his uncles being captains in the army and navy, and another a
+journalist of repute. A passion for music was inherent in the family,
+and the editor had occasional quartet parties at his house, where the
+works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were given, much to the delight of
+young Ole, who was often present at these festive occasions.
+
+The romantic and ardent imagination of the boy was fed by the weird
+legends familiar to every Norwegian nursery. The Scheherezade of this
+occasion was the boy's own grandmother, who told him with hushed breath
+the fairy folk-lore of the mysterious Huldra and the Fossikal, or Spirit
+of the Waterfall, and Ole Bull, with his passion for music, was wont
+to fancy that the music of the rushing waters was the singing of the
+violins played by fairy artists. From an early age this Greek passion
+for personifying all the sights and sounds of nature manifested itself
+noticeably, but always in some way connected with music. He would fancy
+even that he could hear the bluebells and violets singing, and perfume
+and color translated themselves into analogies of sound. This poetic
+imagination grew with his years and widened with his experience,
+becoming the cardinal motive of Ole Bull's art life. For a long time the
+young boy had longed for a violin of his own, and finally his uncle who
+gave the musical parties presented him with a violin. Ole worked so hard
+in practicing on his new treasure that he was soon able to take part in
+the little concerts.
+
+There happened to be at this time in Bergen a professor of music named
+Paulsen, who also played skillfully on the violin. Originally from
+Denmark, he had come to Bergen on business, but, finding the brandy so
+good and cheap, and his musical talent so much appreciated, he postponed
+his departure so long that he became a resident. Paulsen, it was said,
+would show his perseverance in playing as long as there remained a drop
+in the brandy bottle before him, when his musical ambition came to a
+sudden close. When the old man, for he was more than sixty when young
+Ole Bull first knew him, had worn his clothes into a threadbare state,
+his friends would supply him with a fresh suit, and at intervals he gave
+concerts, which every one thought it a religious duty to attend. It
+was to this Dominie Sampson that Ole Bull was indebted for his earliest
+musical training; but it seems that the lad made such swift progress
+that his master soon had nothing further to teach him. Poor old Paulsen
+was in despair, for in his bright pupil he saw a successful rival, and,
+fearing that his occupation was gone, he left Bergen for ever.
+
+In spite of the boy's most manifest genius for music, his father was
+bent on making him a clergyman, going almost to the length of forbidding
+him to practice any longer on the dearly loved fiddle, which had now
+become a part of himself; but Ole persevered, and played at night
+softly, in constant fear that the sounds would be heard. But his mother
+and grandmother sympathized with him, and encouraged his labors of love
+in spite of the paternal frowns. The author of a recent article in an
+American magazine relates an interview with Ole Bull, in which the aged
+artist gave some interesting facts of that early period in his life.
+His father's assistant, who was musical, occasionally received musical
+catalogues from Copenhagen, and in one of these the boy first saw the
+name of Paganini, and reference to his famous "Caprices." One evening
+his father brought home some Italian musicians, and Ole Bull heard from
+them all they knew of the great player, who was then turning the musical
+world topsy-turvy with a fever of excitement. "I went to my grandmother.
+'Dear grandmother,' I said, 'can't I get some of Paganini's music?'
+'Don't tell any one,' said that dear old woman, 'but I will try and buy
+a piece of his for you if you are a good child.' And she did try, and
+I was wild when I got the Paganini music. How difficult it was, but oh,
+how beautiful! That garden-house was my refuge. Maybe--I am not so sure
+of it--the cats did not go quite so wild as some four years before. One
+day--a memorable one--I went to a quartet party. The new leader of our
+philharmonic was there, a very fine violinist, and he played for us a
+concerto of Spohr's. I knew it, and was delighted with his reading of
+it. We had porter to drink in another room, and we all drank it, but
+before they had finished I went back to the music-room, and commenced
+trying the Spohr. I was, I suppose, carried away with the music, forgot
+myself, and they heard me.
+
+"'This is impudence,' said the leader. 'And do you think, boy, that you
+can play it?' 'Yes,' I said, quite honestly. I don't to this day see why
+I should have told a story about it--do you? 'Now you shall play it,'
+said somebody. 'Hear him! hear him!' cried my uncle and the rest of
+them. I did try it, and played the allegro. All of them applauded save
+the leader, who looked mad.
+
+"'You think you can play anything, then?' asked the leader. He took a
+caprice of Paganini's from a music stand. 'Now you try this,' he said,
+in a rage. 'I will try it,' I said. 'All right; go ahead.'
+
+"Now it just happened that this caprice was my favorite, as the cats
+well knew. I could play it by memory, and I polished it off. When I did
+that, they all shouted. The leader before had been so cross and savage,
+I thought he would just rave now. But he did not say a word. He looked
+very quiet and composed like. He took the other musicians aside, and I
+saw that he was talking to them. Not long afterward this violinist left
+Bergen. I never thought I would see him again. It was in 1840, when I
+was traveling through Sweden on a concert tour, of a snowy day, that I
+met a man in a sleigh. It was quite a picture: just near sunset, and
+the northern lights were shooting in the sky; a man wrapped up in a
+bear-skin a-tracking along the snow. As he drew up abreast of me and
+unmuffled himself, he called out to my driver to stop. It was the
+leader, and he said to me, 'Well, now that you are a celebrated
+violinist, remember that, when I heard you play Paganini, I predicted
+that your career would be a remarkable one.' 'You were mistaken,' I
+cried, jumping up; 'I did not read that Paganini at sight; I had played
+it before.' 'It makes no difference; good-by,' and he urged on his
+horse, and in a minute the leader was gone."
+
+
+II.
+
+To please his father, Ole Bull studied assiduously to fit himself for
+the preliminary examination of the university, but he found time also to
+pursue his beloved music. At the age of eighteen he was entered at the
+University of Christiania as a candidate for admission, and went to that
+city somewhat in advance of the day of ordeal to finish his studies.
+He had hardly entered Christiania before he was seduced to play at a
+concert, which beginning gave full play to the music-madness beyond all
+self-restraint. As a result Ole Bull was "plucked," and at first he
+did not dare write to his father of this downfall of the hopes of the
+paternal Bull.
+
+We are told that he found consolation from one of the very professors
+who had plucked him. "It's the best thing could have happened to you,"
+said the latter, by way of encouragement.
+
+"How so?" inquired Ole.
+
+"My dear fellow," was the reply, "do you believe you are a fit man for
+a curacy in Finmarken or a mission among the Laps? Nature has made you a
+musician; stick to your violin, and you will never regret it."
+
+"But my father, think of his disappointed hopes," said Ole Bull.
+
+"Your father will never regret it either," answered the professor.
+
+As good fortune ordered for the forlorn youth, his musical friends did
+not desert him, but secured for him the temporary position of director
+of the Philharmonic Society of Christiania, the regular incumbent being
+ill. On the death of the latter shortly afterward, Ole Bull was tendered
+the place. As the new duties were very well paid, and relieved the youth
+from dependence on his father's purse, further opposition to his musical
+career was withdrawn.
+
+In the summer of 1829 Ole Bull made a holiday trip into Germany, and
+heard Dr. Spohr, then director of the opera at Cassel. "From this
+excursion," said one of Ole Bull's friends, "he returned completely
+disappointed. He had fancied that a violin-player like Spohr must be
+a man who, by his personal appearance, by the poetic character of his
+performance, or by the flash of genius, would enchant and overwhelm his
+hearers. Instead of this, he found in Spohr a correct teacher, exacting
+from the young Norwegian the same cool precision which characterized
+his own performance, and quite unable to appreciate the wild, strange
+melodies he brought from the land of the North." Spohr was a man of
+clock-work mechanism in all his methods and theories--young Ole Bull was
+all poetry, romance, and enthusiasm.
+
+At Minden our young violinist met with an adventure not of the
+pleasantest sort. He had joined a party of students about to give
+a concert at that place, and was persuaded to take the place of the
+violinist of the party, who had been rather free in his libations, and
+became "a victim of the rosy god." Ole Bull was very warmly applauded at
+the concert, and so much nettled was the student whose failure had made
+the vacancy for Ole Bull's talent, that the latter received a challenge
+to fight a duel, which was promptly accepted. Ole Bull proved that he
+could handle a sword as well as a fiddle-bow, for in a few passes he
+wounded and disabled his antagonist. He was advised, however, to leave
+that locality as soon as possible, and so he returned straight to
+Christiania, "feeling as if the very soil of Europe repelled him" (to
+use an expression from one of his letters).
+
+Ole Bull remained in Norway for two years, but he felt that he must
+bestir himself, and go to the great centers of musical culture if
+he would find a proper development and field for the genius which he
+believed he possessed. His friends at Christiania idolized him, and were
+loath to let him go, but nothing could stay him, so with pilgrim's staff
+and violin-case he started on his journey. Scarcely twenty-one years
+of age, nearly penniless, with no letters of introduction to people who
+could help him, but with boundless hope and resolution, he first
+set foot in Paris in 1831. The town was agog over Paganini and Mme.
+Malibran, and of course the first impulse of the young artist was to
+hear these great people. One night he returned from hearing Malibran,
+and went to bed so late that he slept till nearly noon the next day. To
+his infinite consternation, he discovered that his landlord had decamped
+during the early morning, taking away the household furniture of any
+value, and even abstracting the modest trunk which contained Ole Bull's
+clothes and his violin. After such an overwhelming calamity as this, the
+Seine seemed the only resource, and the young Norwegian, it is said,
+had nearly concluded to find relief from his troubles in its turbid
+and sin-weighted waters. But it happened that the young man had still a
+little money left, enough to support him for a week, and he concluded to
+delay the fatal plunge till the last sou was gone. It was while he was
+slowly enjoying the last dinner which he was able to pay for, that he
+made the acquaintance of a remarkable character, to whom he confided his
+misery and his determination to find a tomb in the Seine.
+
+
+III.
+
+Said the stranger, after pondering a few moments over the simple but sad
+story of the young violinist, in whom he had taken a sudden interest:
+
+"Well, I will do something for you, if you have courage and five
+francs."
+
+"I have both."
+
+"Then go to Frascate's at ten; pass through the first room, enter the
+second, where they play 'rouge-et-noir,' and when a new _taille_ begins
+put your five francs on _rouge_, and leave it there."
+
+This promise of an adventure revived Ole Bull's drooping spirits, and he
+was faithful in carrying out his unknown friend's instructions. At the
+precise hour the tall stalwart figure of the young Norwegian bent over
+the table at Frascate's, while the game of "rouge-et-noir" was being
+played. He threw his five francs on red; the card was drawn--red wins,
+and the five francs were ten. Again Ole Bull bet his ten francs on
+_rouge_, and again he won; and so he continued, leaving his money on the
+same color till a considerable amount of money lay before him. By this
+time the spirit of gaming was thoroughly aroused. Should he leave the
+money and trust to red turning up again, or withdraw the pile of gold
+and notes, satisfied with the kindness of Fortune, without further
+tempting the fickle goddess? He said to a friend afterward, in relating
+his feelings on this occasion:
+
+"I was in a fear--I acted as if possessed by a spirit not my own; no one
+can understand my feelings who has not been so tried--left alone in the
+world, as if on the extreme verge of an abyss yawning beneath, and at
+the same time feeling something within that might merit a saving hand at
+the last moment."
+
+Ole Bull stretched forth to grasp the money, when a white hand covered
+it before his. He seized the wrist with a fierce grasp, while the
+owner of it uttered a loud shriek, and loud threats came from the other
+players, who took sides in the matter, when a dark figure suddenly
+appeared on the scene, and spoke in a voice whose tones carried with
+them a magic authority which stilled all tumult at once. "Madame,
+leave this gold alone!"--and to Ole Bull: "Sir, take your money, if
+you please." The winner of an amount which had become very considerable
+lingered a few moments to see the further results of the play, and, much
+to his disgust, discovered that he would have possessed quite a little
+fortune had he left his pile undisturbed for one more turn of the cards.
+He was consoled, however, on arriving at his miserable lodgings, for he
+could scarcely believe that this stroke of good luck was true, and yet
+there was something repulsive in it to the fresh, unsophisticated nature
+of the man. He said in a letter to one of his friends, "What a hideous
+joy I felt--what a horrible pleasure it was to have saved one's own soul
+by the spoil of others!" The mysterious stranger who had thus befriended
+Ole Bull was the great detective Vidocq, whose adventures and exploits
+had given him a world-wide reputation. Ole Bull never saw him again.
+
+In exploring Paris for the purchase of a new violin, he accidentally
+made the acquaintance of an individual named Labout, who fancied that he
+had found the secret of the old Cremona varnish, and that, by using it
+on modern-made violins, the instruments would acquire all the tone
+and quality of the best old fiddles of the days of the Stradiuarii and
+Amati. The inventor persuaded Ole Bull to appear at a private concert
+where he proposed to test his invention, and where the Duke and Duchesse
+de Montebello were to be present. The Norwegian's playing produced
+a genuine sensation, and the duke took the young artist under his
+patronage. The result was that Ole Bull was soon able to give a concert
+on his own account, which brought him a profit of about twelve hundred
+francs, and made him talked about among the musical _cognoscenti_ of
+Paris. Of course every one at the time was Paganini mad, but Ole Bull
+secured more than a respectful hearing, and opened the way toward
+getting a solid footing for himself.
+
+Among the incidents which occurred to him in Paris about this time was
+one which had a curiously interesting bearing on his life. Obliged to
+move from his lodgings on account of the death of the landlord and his
+wife of cholera, a disease then raging in Paris, Ole Bull was told of
+a noble but impoverished family who had a room to let on account of the
+recent death of the only son. The Norwegian violinist presented himself
+at the somewhat dilapidated mansion of the Comtesse de Faye, and was
+shown into the presence of three ladies dressed in deepest mourning.
+The eldest of them, on hearing his errand, haughtily declined the
+proposition, when the more beautiful of the two girls said, "Look at
+him, mother!" with such eagerness as to startle the ancient dame.
+
+Ole Bull was surprised at this. The old lady put on her spectacles, and,
+as she riveted her eyes upon him, her countenance changed suddenly. She
+had found in him such a resemblance to the son she had lost that she
+at once consented to his residing in her house. Some time afterward Ole
+Bull became her son indeed, having married the fascinating girl who had
+exclaimed, "Look at him, mother!"
+
+With the little money he had now earned he determined to go to Italy,
+provided with some letters of introduction; and he gave his first
+Italian concert at Milan in 1834. Applause was not wanting, but his
+performance was rather severely criticised in the papers. The following
+paragraph, reproduced from an Italian musical periodical, published
+shortly after this concert, probably represents very truly the state of
+his talent at that period:
+
+"M. Ole Bull plays the music of Spohr, May-seder, Pugnani, and others,
+without knowing the true character of the music he plays, and partly
+spoils it by adding a color of his own. It is manifest that this
+color of his own proceeds from an original, poetical, and musical
+individuality; but of this originality he is himself unconscious. He
+has not formed himself; in fact, he has no style; he is an uneducated
+musician. _Whether he is a diamond or not is uncertain; but certain it
+is that the diamond is not polished_."
+
+In a short time Ole Bull discovered that it was necessary to cultivate,
+more than he had done, his cantabile--this was his weakest point, and a
+most important one. In Italy he found masters who enabled him to develop
+this great quality of the violin, and from that moment his career as an
+artist was established. The next concert of any consequence in which he
+played was at Bologna under peculiar circumstances; and his reputation
+as a great violinist appears to date from that concert. De Bériot and
+Malibran were then idolized at Bologna, and just as Ole Bull arrived in
+that ancient town, De Bériot was about to fulfill an engagement to play
+at a concert given by the celebrated Philharmonic Society there. The
+engagement had been made by the Marquis di Zampieri, between whom and
+the Belgian artist there was some feeling of mutual aversion, growing
+out of a misunderstanding and a remark of the marquis which had wounded
+the susceptibilities of the other. The consequence was that on the day
+of the concert De Bériot sent a note, saying that he had a sore finger
+and could not play.
+
+Marquis Zampieri was in a quandary, for the time was short. In his
+embarrassment he took council with Mme. Colbran Rossini, who was then at
+Bologna with her husband, the illustrious composer. It happened that Ole
+Bull's lodging was in the same palazzo, and Mme. Rossini had often heard
+the tones of the young artist's violin in his daily practicing; her
+curiosity had been greatly aroused about this unknown player, and now
+was the chance to gratify it. She told the noble _entrepreneur_ that she
+had discovered a violinist quite worthy of taking De Bériot's place.
+
+"Who is it?" inquired the marquis.
+
+"I don't know," answered the wife of Rossini.
+
+"You are joking, then?"
+
+"Not at all, but I am sure there is a genius in town, and he lodges
+close by here," pointing to Ole Bull's apartment. "Take your net,"
+she added, "and catch your bird before he has flown away." The marquis
+knocked at Ole Bull's door, and the delighted young artist soon
+concluded an engagement which insured him an appearance under the best
+auspices, for Mme. Malibran would sing at the same concert.
+
+In a few hours Ole Bull was performing before a distinguished audience
+in the concert-hall of the Philharmonic Society. Among the pieces he
+played, all of his own composition, was his "Quartet for One Violin,"
+in which his great skill in double and triple harmonics was admirably
+shown. Enthusiastic applause greeted the young virtuoso, and he was
+escorted home by a torchlight procession of eager and noisy admirers.
+This was Ole Bull's first really great success, though he had played
+in France and Germany. The Italians, with their quick, generous
+appreciation, and their demonstrative manner of showing admiration, had
+given him a reception of such unreserved approval as warmed his
+artistic ambition to the very core. Mme. Malibran, though annoyed at the
+mischance which glorified another at the expense of De Bériot, was too
+just and amiable not to express her hearty congratulations to the young
+artist, and De Bériot himself, when he was shortly afterward introduced
+to Ole Bull, treated him with most brotherly kindness and cordiality.
+Prince and Princess Poniatowsky also sent their cards to the now
+successful artist, and gave him letters of introduction to distinguished
+people which wore of great use in his concert tour. His career had now
+become assured, and the world received him with open arms.
+
+The following year, 1835, contributed a catalogue of similar successes
+in various cities of Italy and France, culminating in a grand concert at
+Paris in the Opera-house, where the most distinguished musicians of the
+city gave their warmest applause in recognition of the growing fame and
+skill of Ole Bull, for he had already begun to illustrate a new field in
+music by setting the quaint poetic legends and folk-songs of his native
+land. His specialty as a composer was in the domain of descriptive
+music, his genius was for the picturesque. His vivid imagination,
+full of poetic phantasy, and saturated with the heroic traditions and
+fairy-lore of a race singularly rich in this inheritance from an earlier
+age, instinctively flowered into art-forms designed to embody this
+legendary wealth. Ole Bull's violin compositions, though dry and
+rigorous musicians object to them as lacking in depth of science,
+as shallow and sensational, are distinctly tone-pictures full of
+suggestiveness for the imagination. It was this peculiarity which early
+began to impress his audiences, and gave Ole Bull a separate place by
+himself in an age of eminent players.
+
+
+IV.
+
+In 1836 and 1837 Ole Bull gave one hundred and eighty concerts in
+England during the space of sixteen months. By this time he had become
+famous, and a mere announcement sufficed to attract large audiences.
+Subsequently he visited successively every town of importance in Europe,
+earning large amounts of money and golden opinions everywhere. For
+a long time our artist used a fine Guarnerius violin and afterward a
+Nicholas Amati, which was said to be the finest instrument of this make
+in the world. But the violin which Ole Bull prized in latter years
+above all others was the famous Gaspar di Salo with the scroll carved
+by Benvenuto Cellini. Mr. Barnett Phillips, an American _littérateur_,
+tells the story of this noble old instrument, as related in Ole Bull's
+words:
+
+"Well, in 1839 I gave sixteen concerts at Vienna, and then Rhehazek was
+the great violin collector. I saw at his house this violin for the first
+time. I just went wild over it. 'Will you sell it?' I asked. 'Yes,' was
+the reply--'for one quarter of all Vienna.' Now Ehehazek was really as
+poor as a church mouse. Though he had no end of money put out in the
+most valuable instruments, he never sold any of them unless when forced
+by hunger. I invited Rhehazek to my concerts. I wanted to buy the violin
+so much that I made him some tempting offers. One day he said to
+me, 'See here, Ole Bull, if I do sell the violin, you shall have the
+preference at four thousand ducats.' 'Agreed,' I cried, though I knew it
+was a big sum.
+
+"That violin came strolling, or playing rather, through my brain for
+some years. It was in 1841. I was in Leipsic giving concerts. Liszt was
+there, and so also was Mendelssohn. One day we were all dining together.
+We were having a splendid time. During the dinner came an immense letter
+with a seal--an official document. Said Mendelssohn, 'Use no ceremony;
+open your letter.' 'What an awful seal!' cried Liszt. 'With your
+permission,' said I, and I opened the letter. It was from Bhehazek's
+son, for the collector was dead. His father had said that the violin
+should be offered to me at the price he had mentioned. I told Liszt and
+Mendelssohn about the price. 'You man from Norway, you are crazy,' said
+Liszt. 'Unheard of extravagance, which only a fiddler is capable of,'
+exclaimed Mendelssohn. 'Have you ever played on it? Have you ever tried
+it?' they both inquired. 'Never,' I answered, 'for it can not be played
+on at all just now.'
+
+"I never was happier than when I felt sure that the prize was mine.
+Originally the bridge was of boxwood, with two fishes carved on it--that
+was the zodiacal sign of my birthday, February--which was a good sign.
+Oh, the good times that violin and I have had! As to its history,
+Ehehazek told me that in 1809, when Innspruck was taken by the French,
+the soldiers sacked the town. This violin had been placed in the
+Innspruck Museum by Cardinal Aldobrandi at the close of the sixteenth
+century. A French soldier looted it, and sold it to Ehehazek for a
+trifle. This is the same violin that I played on, when I first came
+to the United States, in the Park Theatre. That was on Evacuation day,
+1843. I went to the Astor House, and made a joke--I am quite capable of
+doing such things. It was the day when John Bull went out and Ole Bull
+came in. I remember that at the very first concert one of my strings
+broke, and I had to work out my piece on the three strings, and it was
+supposed I did it on purpose." Ole Bull valued this instrument as beyond
+all price, and justly, for there have been few more famous violins than
+the Treasury violin of Innspruck, under which name it was known to all
+the amateurs and collectors of the world.
+
+During his various art wanderings through Europe, Ole Bull made many
+friends among the distinguished men of the world. A dominant pride
+of person and race, however, always preserved him from the slightest
+approach to servility. In 1838 he was presented to Carl Johann, king
+of Sweden, at Stockholm. The king had at that time a great feeling of
+bitterness against Norway, on account of the obstinate refusal of the
+people of that country to be united with Sweden under his rule. At the
+interview with Ole Bull the irate king let fall some sharp expressions
+relative to his chagrin in the matter.
+
+"Sire," said the artist, drawing himself up to the fullness of his
+magnificent height, and looking sternly at the monarch, "you forget that
+I have the honor to be a Norwegian."
+
+The king was startled by this curt rebuke, and was about to make an
+angry reply, but smoothed his face and answered, with a laugh:
+
+"Well! well! I know you d--d sturdy fellows." Carl Johann afterward
+bestowed on Ole Bull the order of Gustavus Vasa.
+
+
+V.
+
+Ole Bull's first visit to America was in 1843, and the impression
+produced by his playing was, for manifest causes, even greater than that
+created in Europe. He was the first really great violinist who had ever
+come to this country for concert purposes, and there was none other
+to measure him by. There were no great traditions of players who had
+preceded him; there were no rivals like Spohr, Paganini, and De Bériot
+to provoke comparisons. In later years artists discovered that this
+country was a veritable El Dorado, and regarded an American tour as
+indispensable to the fulfillment of a well-rounded career. But, when Ole
+Bull began to play in America, his performances were revelations, to the
+masses of those that heard him, of the possibilities of the violin. The
+greatest enthusiasm was manifested everywhere, and, during the three
+years of this early visit, he gave repeated performances in every city
+of any note in America. The writer of this little work met Ole Bull a
+few years ago in Chicago, and heard the artist laughingly say that,
+when he first entered what was destined to be such a great city, it was
+little more than a vast mudhole, a good-sized village scattered over
+a wide space of ground, and with no building of pretension except Fort
+Dearborn, a stockade fortification.
+
+Our artist returned to Europe in 1846, and for five years led a
+wandering life of concert-giving in England, France, Holland, Germany,
+Italy, and Spain, adding to his laurels by the recognition everywhere
+conceded of the increased soundness and musicianly excellence of his
+playing. It was indeed at this period that Ole Bull attained his best as
+a virtuoso. He had been previously seduced by the example of Paganini,
+and in the attempt to master the more strange and remote difficulties of
+the instrument had often laid himself open to serious criticism. But Ole
+Bull gradually formed a style of his own which was the outcome of his
+passion for descriptive and poetic playing, and the correlative of the
+mode of composition which he adopted. In still later years Ole Bull
+seems to have returned again to what might be termed claptrap and
+trickery in his art, and to have desired rather to excite wonder and
+curiosity than to charm the sensibilities or to satisfy the requirements
+of sound musical taste.
+
+In 1851 Ole Bull returned home with the patriotic purpose of
+establishing a strictly national theatre. This had been for a long time
+one of the many dreams which his active imagination had conjured up as
+a part of his mission. He was one of the earliest of that school of
+reformers, of whom we have heard so much of late years, that urge the
+readoption of the old Norse language--or, what is nearest to it now,
+the Icelandic--as the vehicle of art and literature. In the attempt to
+dethrone Dansk from its preeminence as the language of the drama, Ole
+Bull signally failed, and his Norwegian theatre, established at Bergen,
+proved only an insatiable tax on money-resources earned in other
+directions.
+
+The year succeeding this, Ole Bull again visited the United States,
+and spent five years here. The return to America did not altogether
+contemplate the pursuit of music, for there had been for a good while
+boiling in his brain, among other schemes, the project of a great
+Scandinavian colony, to be established in Pennsylvania under his
+auspices. He purchased one hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of
+land on the Susquehanna, and hundreds of sturdy Norwegians flocked over
+to the land of milk and honey thus auspiciously opened to them. Timber
+was felled, ground cleared, churches, cottages, school-houses built,
+and everything was progressing desirably, when the ambitious colonizer
+discovered that the parties who sold him the land were swindlers without
+any rightful claim to it. With the unbusiness-like carelessness of the
+man of genius, our artist had not investigated the claims of others
+on the property, and he thus became involved in a most perplexing and
+expensive suit at law. He attempted to punish the rascals who so nearly
+ruined him, but they were shielded behind the quips and quirks of the
+law, and got away scot free. Ole Bull's previously ample means were so
+heavily drained by this misfortune that he was compelled to take up
+his violin again and resume concert-giving, for he had incurred heavy
+pecuniary obligations that must be met. Driven by the most feverish
+anxiety, he passed from town to town, playing almost every night, till
+he was stricken down by yellow fever in New Orleans. His powerful frame
+and sound constitution, fortified by the abstemious habits which had
+marked his whole life of queer vicissitudes, carried him through this
+danger safely, and he finally succeeded in honorably fulfilling the
+responsibility which he had assumed toward his countrymen.
+
+For many recent years Ole Bull, when not engaged in concert-giving in
+Europe or America, has resided at a charming country estate on one
+of the little islands off the coast of Norway. His numerous farewell
+concert tours are very well known to the public, and would have won
+him ridicule, had not the genial presence and brilliant talents of the
+Norwegian artist been always good for a renewed and no less cordial
+welcome. He frequently referred to the United States in latter years as
+the beloved land of his adoption. One striking proof of his preference
+was, at all events, displayed in his marriage to an American lady, Miss
+Thorpe, of Wisconsin, in 1870. One son was the fruit of this second
+marriage, and Mr. and Mrs. Ole Bull divided their time between Norway
+and the United States.
+
+The magnificent presence of Ole Bull, as if of some grand old viking
+stepped out of his armor and dressed in modern garb, made a most
+picturesque personality. Those who have seen him can never forget him.
+The great stature, the massive, stalwart form, as upright as a pine, the
+white floating locks framing the ruddy face, full of strength and genial
+humor, lit up by keen blue eyes--all these things made Ole Bull the most
+striking man in _personnel_ among all the artists who have been familiar
+to our public.
+
+While Ole Bull will not be known in the history of art as a great
+scientific musician, there can be no doubt that his place as a brilliant
+and gifted solo player will stand among the very foremost. As a composer
+he will probably be forgotten, for his compositions, which made up the
+most of his concert programmes, were so radically interwoven with his
+executive art as a virtuoso that the two can not be dissevered. No one,
+unless he should be inspired by the same feelings which animated the
+breast of Ole Bull, could ever evolve from his musical tone-pictures
+of Scandinavian myth and folk-lore the weird fascination which his
+bow struck from the strings. Ole Bull, like Paganini, laid no claim to
+greatness in interpreting the violin classics. His peculiar title to
+fame is that of being, aside from brilliancy as a violin virtuoso, the
+musical exponent of his people and their traditions. He died at Bergen,
+Norway, on August 18, 1880, in the seventy-first year of his age,
+and his funeral services made one of the most august and imposing
+ceremonials held for many a long year in Norway.
+
+
+
+
+MUZIO CLEMENTI
+
+
+The Genealogy of the Piano-forte.--The Harpsichord its Immediate
+Predecessor.--Supposed Invention of the Piano-forte.--Silbermann the
+First Maker.--Anecdote of Frederick the Great.--The Piano-forte only
+slowly makes its Way as against the Clavichord and Harpsichord.--Emanuel
+Bach, the First Composer of Sonatas for the Piano-forte.--His Views
+of playing on the New Instrument.--Haydn and Mozart as Players.--Muzio
+Clementi, the Earliest Virtuoso, strictly speaking, as a Pianist.--Born
+in Rome in 1752.--Scion of an Artistic Family.--First Musical
+Training.--Rapid Development of his Talents.--Composes Contrapuntal
+Works at the Age of Fourteen.--Early Studies of the Organ and
+Harpsichord.--Goes to England to complete his Studies.--Creates
+an Unequaled Furore in London.--John Christian Bach's Opinion of
+Clementi.--Clementi's Musical Tour.--His Duel with Mozart before the
+Emperor.--Tenor of Clementi's Life in England.--Clementi's Pupils.--Trip
+to St. Petersburg.--Sphor's Anecdote of Him.--Mercantile and
+Manufacturing Interest in the Piano as Partner of Collard.--The Players
+and Composers trained under Clementi.--His Composition.--Status as
+a Player.--Character and Influence as an Artist.--Development of the
+Technique of the Piano, culminating in Clementi.
+
+
+I.
+
+Before touching the life of Clementi, the first of the great virtuosos
+who may be considered distinctively composers for and players on the
+pianoforte, it is indispensable to a clear understanding of the theme
+involved that the reader should turn back for a brief glance at the
+history of the piano and piano-playing prior to his time. Before the
+piano-forte came the harpsichord, prior to the latter the spinet,
+then the virginal, the clavichord, and monochord; before these, the
+clavieytherium. Before these instruments, which bring us down to modern
+civilized times, and constitute the genealogy of the piano-forte, we
+have the dulcimer and psaltery, and all the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman
+harps and lyres which were struck with a quill or plectrum. No product
+of human ingenuity has been the outcome of a steady and systematic
+growth from age to age by more demonstrable stages than this most
+remarkable of musical instruments. As it is not the intention to offer
+an essay on the piano, but only to make clearer the conditions under
+which a great school of players began to appear, the antiquities of the
+topic are not necessary to be touched.
+
+The modern piano-forte had as its immediate predecessor the harpsichord,
+the instrument on which the heroines of the novels of Fielding,
+Smollett, Richardson, and their contemporaries were wont to discourse
+sweet music, and for which Haydn and Mozart composed some delightful
+minor works. In the harpsichord the strings were set in vibration by
+points of quill or hard leather. One of these instruments looked like
+a piano, only it was provided with two keyboards, one above the other,
+related to each other as the swell and main keyboards of an organ.
+At last it occurred to lovers of music that all refinement of musical
+expression depended on touch, and that whereas a string could be plucked
+or pulled by machinery in but one way, it could be hit in a hundred
+ways. It was then that the notion of striking the strings with a hammer
+found practical use, and by the addition of this element the piano-forte
+emerged into existence. The idea appears to have occurred to three men
+early in the eighteenth century, almost simultaneously--Cristofori, an
+Italian, Marins, a Frenchman, and Schrôter, a German. For years attempts
+to carry out the new mechanism were so clumsy that good harpsichords
+on the wrong principle were preferred to poor piano-fortes on the right
+principle. But the keynote of progress had been struck, and the day
+of the quill and leather jack was swiftly drawing to a close. A small
+hammer was made to strike the string, producing a marvelously clear,
+precise, delicate tone, and the "scratch" with a sound at the end of it
+was about to be consigned to oblivion for ever and a day.
+
+Gottfried Silbermann, an ingenious musical instrument maker, of
+Freyhurg, Saxony, was the first to give the new principle adequate
+expression, about the year 1740, and his pianos excited a great deal of
+curiosity among musicians and scientific men. He followed the mechanism
+of Cristofori, the Italian, rather than of his own countrymen. Schrôter
+and his instruments appear to have been ingenious, though Sebastian
+Bach, who loved his "well-tempered clavichord" (the most powerful
+instrument of the harpsichord class) too well to be seduced from his
+allegiance, pronounced them too feeble in tone, a criticism which he
+retracted in after years. Silbermann experimented and labored with
+incessant energy for many years, and he had the satisfaction before
+dying of seeing the piano firmly established in the affection and
+admiration of the musical world. One of the most authentic of musical
+anecdotes is that of the visit of John Sebastian Bach and his son to
+Frederick the Great, at Potsdam, in 1747. The Prussian king was an
+enthusiast in music, and himself an excellent performer on the flute,
+of which, as well as of other instruments, he had a large collection. He
+had for a long time been anxious for a visit from Bach, but that great
+man was too much enamored of his own quiet musical solitude to
+run hither and thither at the beck of kings. At last, after much
+solicitation, he consented, and arrived at Potsdam late in the evening,
+all dusty and travel-stained. The king was just taking up his flute
+to play a concerto, when a lackey informed him of the coming of Bach.
+Frederick was more agitated than he ever had been in the tumult of
+battle. Crying aloud, "Gentlemen, old Bach is here!" he rushed out to
+meet the king in a loftier domain than his own, and ushered him into the
+lordly company of powdered wigs and doublets, of fair dames shining with
+jewels, satins, and velvets, of courtiers glittering in all the colors
+of the rainbow. "Old Bach" presented a shabby figure amid all this
+splendor, but the king cared nothing for that. He was most anxious to
+hear the grand old musician play on the new Silbermann piano, which was
+the latest hobby of the Prussian monarch.
+
+It is not a matter of wonder that the lovers of the harpsichord and
+clavichord did not take kindly to the piano-forte at first. The keys
+needed a greater delicacy of treatment, and the very fact that the
+instrument required a new style of playing was of course sufficient to
+relegate the piano to another generation. The art of playing had at the
+time of the invention of the piano attained a high degree of efficiency.
+Such musicians as Do-menico Scarlatti in Italy and John Sebastian Bach
+in Germany had developed a wonderful degree of skill in treating the
+_clavecin_, or spinet, and the clavichord, and, if we may trust the old
+accounts, they called out ecstasies of admiration similar to those which
+the great modern players have excited. With the piano-forte, however, an
+entirely new style of expression came into existence. The power to play
+soft or loud at will developed the individual or personal feeling of the
+player, and new effects were speedily invented and put in practice. The
+art of playing ceased to be considered from the merely objective point
+of view, for the richer resources of the piano suggested the indulgence
+of individuality of expression. It was left to Emanuel Bach to make
+the first step toward the proper treatment of the piano, and to adapt
+a style of composition expressly to its requirements, though even he
+continued to prefer the clavichord. The rigorous, polyphonic style of
+his illustrious father was succeeded by the lyrical and singing
+element, which, if fantastic and daring, had a sweet, bright charm very
+fascinating. He writes in one of his treatises: "Methinks music
+ought appeal directly to the heart, and in this no performer on
+the piano-forte will succeed by merely thumping and drumming, or by
+continual arpeggio playing. During the last few years my chief endeavor
+has been to play the piano-forte, in spite of its deficiency in
+sustaining the sound, so much as possible, in a singing manner, and
+to compose for it accordingly. This is by no means an easy task, if we
+desire not to leave the ear empty or to disturb the noble simplicity of
+the cantabile by too much noise."
+
+Haydn and Mozart, who composed somewhat for the harpsichord (for until
+the closing years of the eighteenth century this instrument had
+not entirely yielded to the growing popularity of the piano-forte),
+distinguished themselves still more by their treatment of the latter
+instrument. They closely followed the maxims of Emanuel Bach. They
+aimed to please the public by sweet melody and agreeable harmony, by
+spontaneous elegance and cheerfulness, by suave and smooth simplicity.
+Their practice in writing for the orchestra and for voices modified
+their piano-forte style both as composers and players, but they never
+sacrificed that intelligible and simple charm which appeals to the
+universal heart to the taste for grand, complex, and eccentric effects,
+which has so dominated the efforts of their successors. Mozart's most
+distinguished contemporaries bear witness to his excellence as a player,
+and his great command over the piano-forte, and his own remarks on
+piano-playing are full of point and suggestion. He asserts "that the
+performer should possess a quiet and steady hand, with its natural
+lightness, smoothness, and gliding rapidity so well developed that the
+passages should flow like oil.... All notes, graces, accents, etc.,
+should be brought out with fitting taste and expression.... In passages
+[technical figures], some notes may be left to their fate without
+notice, but is that right? Three things are necessary to a good
+performer"; and he pointed significantly to his head, his heart, and
+the tips of his fingers, as symbolical of understanding, sympathy, and
+technical skill. But it was fated that Clementi should be the Columbus
+in the domain of piano-forte playing and composition. He was the father
+of the school of modern piano technique, and by far surpassed all his
+contemporaries in the boldness, vigor, brilliancy, and variety of his
+execution, and he is entitled to be called first (in respect of date)
+of the great piano-forte virtuosos, Clementi wrote solely for this
+instrument (for his few orchestral works are now dead). The piano, as
+his sole medium of expression, became a vehicle of great eloquence and
+power, and his sonatas, as pure types of piano-forte compositions, are
+unsurpassed, even in this age of exuberant musical fertility.
+
+
+II.
+
+Muzio Clementi was born at Rome in the year 1752, and was the son of
+a silver worker of great skill, who was principally engaged on the
+execution of the embossed figures and vases employed in the Catholic
+worship. The boy at a very early age evinced a most decided taste
+for music, a predilection which delighted his father, himself an
+enthusiastic amateur, and caused him to bestow the utmost pains on the
+cultivation of the child's talents. The boy's first master was Buroni,
+choir-master a tone of the churches, and a relation of the family.
+Later, young Clementi took lessons in thorough bass from an eminent
+organist, Condicelli, and after a couple of years' application he was
+thought sufficiently advanced to apply for the position of organist,
+which he obtained, his age then being barely nine. He prosecuted his
+studies with great zeal under the ablest masters, and his genius for
+composition as well as for playing displayed a rapid development. By the
+time Clementi had attained the age of fourteen he had composed several
+contrapuntal works of considerable merit, one of which, a mass for four
+voices and chorus, gained great applause from the musicians and public
+of Rome.
+
+During his studies of counterpoint and the organ Clementi never
+neglected his harpsichord, on which he achieved remarkable proficiency,
+for the piano-forte at this time, though gradually coming into use, was
+looked on rather as a curiosity than an instrument of practical value.
+The turning-point of Clementi's life occurred in 1767, through his
+acquaintance with an English gentleman of wealth, Mr. Peter Beckford,
+who evinced a deep interest in the young musician's career. After much
+opposition Mr. Beckford persuaded the elder Clementi to intrust his
+son's further musical education to his care. The country seat of Mr.
+Beckford was in Dorsetshire, England, and here, by the aid of a fine
+library, social surroundings of the most favorable kind, and indomitable
+energy on his own part, he speedily made himself an adept in the English
+language and literature. The talents of Clementi made him almost an
+Admirable Crichton, for it is asserted that, in addition to the most
+severe musical studies, he made himself in a few years a proficient in
+the principal modern languages, in Greek and Latin, and in the
+whole circle of the belles-lettres. His studies in his own art were
+principally based on the works of Corelli, Alexander Scarlatti,
+Handel's harpsichord and organ music, and on the sonatas of Paradies, a
+Neapolitan composer and teacher, who enjoyed high repute in London for
+many years. Until 1770 Clementi spent his time secluded at his patron's
+country seat, and then fully equipped with musical knowledge, and with
+an unequaled command of the instrument, he burst on the town as pianist
+and composer. He had already written at this time his "Opus No. 2,"
+which established a new era for sonata compositions, and is recognized
+to-day as the basis for all modern works of this class.
+
+Clementi's attainments were so phenomenal that he carried everything
+before him in London, and met with a success so brilliant as to be
+almost without precedent. Socially and musically he was one of the
+idols of the hour, and the great Handel himself had not met with as much
+adulation. Apropos of the great sonata above mentioned, with which the
+Clementi furore began in London, it is said that John Christian Bach,
+son of Sebastian, one of the greatest executants of the time, confessed
+his inability to do it justice, and Schrôter, one of those sharing the
+honor of the invention of the piano-forte, and a leading musician of his
+age, said, "Only the devil and Clementi could play it." For seven years
+the subject of our sketch poured forth a succession of brilliant works,
+continually gave concerts, and in addition acted as conductor of the
+Italian opera, a life sufficiently busy for the most ambitious man. In
+1780 Clementi began his musical travels, and gave the first concerts
+of his tour at Paris, whither he was accompanied by the great singer
+Pacchierotti. He was received with the greatest favor by the queen,
+Marie Antoinette, and the court, and made the acquaintance of Gluck, who
+warmly admired the brilliant player who had so completely revolutionized
+the style of execution on instruments with a keyboard. Here he also met
+Viotti, the great violinist, and played a _duo concertante_ with the
+latter, expressly composed for the occasion. Clementi was delighted with
+the almost frantic enthusiasm of the French, so different from the more
+temperate approbation of the English. He was wont to say jocosely that
+he hardly knew himself to be the same man. From Paris Clementi passed,
+via Strasburg and Munich, where he was most cordially welcomed,
+to Vienna, the then musical Mecca of Europe, for it contained two
+world-famed men--"Papa" Haydn and the young prodigy Mozart. The Emperor
+Joseph II, a great lover of music, could not let the opportunity slip,
+for he now had a chance to determine which was the greater player, his
+own pet Mozart or the Anglo-Italian stranger whose fame as an executant
+had risen to such dimensions. So the two musicians fought a musical
+duel, in which they played at sight the most difficult works, and
+improvised on themes selected by the imperial arbiter. The victory
+was left undecided, though Mozart, who disliked the Italians, spoke
+afterward of Clementi, in a tone at variance with his usual gentleness,
+as "a mere mechanician, without a pennyworth of feeling or taste."
+Clementi was more generous, for he couldn't say too much of Mozart's
+"singing touch and exquisite taste," and dated from this meeting a
+considerable difference in his own style of play.
+
+With the exception of occasional concert tours to Paris, Clementi
+devoted all his time up to 1802 in England, busy as conductor, composer,
+virtuoso, and teacher. In the latter capacity he was unrivaled, and
+pupils came to him from all parts of Europe. Among these pupils were
+John B. Cramer and John Field, names celebrated in music. In 1802
+Clementi took the brilliant young Irishman, John Field, to St.
+Petersburg on a musical tour, where both master and pupil were received
+with unbounded enthusiasm, and where the latter remained in affluent
+circumstances, having married a Russian lady of rank and wealth.
+Field was idolized by the Russians, and they claim his compositions
+as belonging to their music. He is now distinctively remembered as the
+inventor of that beautiful form of musical writing, the nocturne. Spohr,
+the violinist, met Clementi and Field at the Russian capital, and gives
+the following amusing account in his "Autobiography": "Clementi, a man
+in his best years, of an extremely lively disposition and very engaging
+manners, liked much to converse with me, and often invited me after
+dinner to play at billiards. In the evening I sometimes accompanied him
+to his large piano-forte warehouse, where Field was often obliged
+to play for hours to display instruments to the best advantage to
+purchasers. I have still in recollection the figure of the pale
+overgrown youth, whom I have never since seen. When Field, who had
+outgrown his clothes, placed himself at the piano, stretching out his
+arms over the keyboard, so that the sleeves shrank up nearly to the
+elbow, his whole figure appeared awkward and stiff in the highest
+degree. But, as soon as his touching instrumentation began, everything
+else was forgotten, and one became all ear. Unfortunately I could not
+express my emotion and thankfulness to the young man otherwise than
+by the pressure of the hand, for he spoke no language but his mother
+tongue. Even at that time many anecdotes of the remarkable avarice of
+the rich Clementi were related, which had greatly increased in later
+years when I again met him in London. It was generally reported that
+Field was kept on very short allowance by his master, and was obliged to
+pay for the good fortune of having his instruction by many privations.
+I myself experienced a little sample of Clementi's truly Italian
+parsimony, for one day I found teacher and pupil with upturned sleeves,
+engaged at the wash-tub, washing their stockings and other linen. They
+did not suffer themselves to be disturbed, and Clementi advised me to do
+the same, as washing in St. Petersburg was not only very expensive, but
+the linen suffered much from the method used in washing it."
+
+From the above it may be suspected that Clementi was not only player
+and composer, but man of business. He had been very successful in
+money-making in England from the start, and it was not many years before
+he accumulated a sufficient amount to buy an interest in the firm of
+Longman & Broderip, "manufacturers of musical instruments, and music
+sellers to their majesties." The failure of the house, by which he
+sustained heavy losses, induced him to try his hand alone at music
+publishing and piano-forte manufacturing; and his great success (the
+firm is still extant in the person of his partner's son, Mr. Col-lard)
+proves he was an exception to the majority of artists, who rarely
+possess business talents. Clementi met many reverses in his commercial
+career. In March, 1807, the warehouses occupied by Clementi's new firm
+were destroyed by fire, entailing a loss of about forty thousand pounds.
+But the man's courage was indomitable, and he retrieved his misfortunes
+with characteristic pluck and cheerfulness. After 1810 he gave up
+playing in public, and devoted himself to composing and the conduct of
+his piano-forte business, which became very large and valuable. Himself
+an inventor and mechanician, he made many important improvements in the
+construction of the piano, some of which have never been superseded.
+
+
+III.
+
+Clementi numbers among his pupils more great names in the art of
+piano-forte playing than any other great master. This is partly owing
+to the fact, it may be, that he began his career in the infancy of the
+piano-forte as an instrument, and was the first to establish a solid
+basis for the technique of the instrument. In addition to John Field and
+J. B. Cramer, previously mentioned, were Zeuner, Dussek, Alex. Kleugel,
+Ludwig Berger, Kalkbrenner, Charles Mayer, and Meyerbeer. These
+musicians not only added richly to the literature of the piano-forte,
+but were splendid exponents of its powers as virtuosos. But mere
+artistic fame is transitory, and it is in Clementi's contributions to
+the permanent history of piano-forte playing that we must find his chief
+claim on the admiration of posterity. He composed not a few works for
+the orchestra, and transcriptions of opera, but these have now receded
+to the lumber closet. The works which live are his piano concertos, of
+which about sixty were written for the piano alone, and the remainder
+as duets or trios; and, _par excellence_, his "Gradus ad Parnassum," a
+superb series of one hundred studies, upon which even to-day the solid
+art of piano-forte playing rests. Clementi's works must always remain
+indispensable to the pianist, and, in spite of the fact that piano
+technique has made such advances during the last half century, there are
+several of Clementi's sonatas which tax the utmost skill of such players
+as Liszt and Von Billow, to whom all ordinary difficulty is merely a
+plaything. As Viotti was the father of modern violin-playing, Clementi
+may be considered the father of virtuosoism on the piano-forte, and he
+has left an indelible mark, both mechanically and spiritually, on
+all that pertains to piano-playing. Compared with Clementi's style in
+piano-forte composition, that of Haydn and Mozart appears poor and thin.
+Haydn and Mozart regarded execution as merely the vehicle of ideas, and
+valued technical brilliancy less than musical substance. Clementi, on
+the other hand, led the way for that class of compositions which pay
+large attention to manual skill. His works can not be said to burn with
+that sacred fire which inspires men of the highest genius, but they are
+magnificently modeled for the display of technical execution, brilliancy
+of effect, and virile force of expression. The great Beethoven, who
+composed the greatest works for the piano-forte, as also for the
+orchestra, had a most exalted estimate of Clementi, and never wearied
+of playing his music and sounding his praises. No musician has probably
+exerted more far-reaching effects in this department of his art than
+Clementi, though he can not be called a man of the highest genius,
+for this lofty attribute supposes great creative imagination and rich
+resources of thought, as well as knowledge, experience, skill, and
+transcendent aptitude for a single instrument.
+
+As far as a musician of such unique and colossal genius as Beethoven
+could be influenced by preceding or contemporary artists, his style as
+a piano-forte player and composer was more modified by Clementi than
+by any other. He was wont to say that no one could play till he
+knew Clementi by heart. He adopted many of the peculiar figures and
+combinations original with Clementi, though his musical mentality,
+incomparably richer and greater than that of the other, transfigured
+them into a new life. That Beethoven found novel means of expression
+to satisfy the importunate demands of his musical conceptions; that his
+piano works display a greater polyphony, stronger contrasts, bolder
+and richer rhythm, broader design and execution, by no means impair
+the value of his obligations to Clementi, obligations which the most
+arrogant and self-centered of men freely allowed. Beethoven's fancy was
+penetrated by all the qualities of tone which distinguish the string,
+reed, and brass instruments; his imagination shot through and through
+with orchestral color; and he succeeded in saturating his sonatas with
+these rich effects without sacrificing the specialty of the piano-forte.
+But in general style and technique he is distinctly a follower of
+Clementi. The most unique and splendid personality in music has thus
+been singled out as furnishing a vivid illustration of the influence
+exerted by Clementi in the department of the piano-forte.
+
+Clementi lived to the age of eighty, and spent the last twelve years of
+his life in London uninterruptedly, his growing feebleness preventing
+him from taking his usual musical trips to the Continent. He retained
+his characteristic energy and freshness of mind to the last, and
+was held in the highest honor by the great circle of artists who had
+centered in London, for he was the musical patriarch in England, as
+Cherubini was in France at a little later date. He was married three
+times, had children in his old age, and only a few months before
+his death, Moscheles records in his diary, he was able to arouse the
+greatest enthusiasm by the vigor and brilliancy of his playing, in spite
+of his enfeebled physical powers. He died March 9, 1832, at Eversham,
+and his funeral gathered a great convocation of musical celebrities. His
+life covered an immense arch in the history of music.
+
+At his birth Handel was alive; at his death Beethoven, Schubert,
+and Weber had found refuge in the grave from the ingratitude of a
+contemporary public. He began his career by practicing Scarlatti's
+harpsichord sonatas; he lived to be acquainted with the finest
+piano-forte works of all time. When he first used the piano, he
+practiced on the imperfect and feeble Silbermann instrument. When he
+died, the magnificent instruments of Erard, Broadwood, and Collard,
+to the latter of which his own mechanical and musical knowledge had
+contributed much, were in common vogue. Such was the career of Muzio
+Clementi, the father of piano-forte virtuosos. Had he lived later, he
+might have been far eclipsed by the great players who have since adorned
+the art of music. As Goethe says, through the mouthpiece of Wil-helm.
+Meister: "The narrowest man may be complete while he moves within the
+bounds of his own capacity and acquirements, but even fine qualities
+become clouded and destroyed if this indispensable proportion is
+exceeded. This unwholesome excess, however, will begin to appear
+frequently, for who can suffice to the swift progress and increasing
+requirements of the ever-soaring present time?" But, measured by his own
+day and age, Clementi deserves the pedestal on which musical criticism
+has placed him.
+
+
+
+
+MOSCHELES.
+
+
+Clementi and Mozart as Points of Departure in Piano-forte
+Playing.--Moscheles the most Brilliant Climax reached by the Viennese
+School.--His Child-Life at Prague.--Extraordinary Precocity.--Goes to
+Vienna as the Pupil of Salieri and Albrechts-burger.--Acquaintance
+with Beethoven.--Moscheles is honored with a Commission to make a Piano
+Transcription of Beethoven's "Fidelio."--His Intercourse with the Great
+Man.--Concert Tour.--Arrival in Paris.--The Artistic Circle into which
+he is received.--Pictures of Art-Life in Paris.--London and its Musical
+Celebrities.--Career as a Wandering Virtuoso.--Felix Mendelssohn becomes
+his Pupil.--The Mendelssohn Family.--Moscheles's Marriage to a
+Hamburg Lady.--Settles in London.--His Life as Teacher, Player, and
+Composer.--Eminent Place taken by Moscheles among the Musicians of
+his Age.--His Efforts soothe the Sufferings of Beethoven's
+Deathbed.--Friendship for Mendelssohn.--Moscheles becomes connected with
+the Leipzig Conservatorium.--Death in 1870.--Moscheles as Pianist
+and Composer.--Sympathy with the Old as against the New School of the
+Piano.--His Powerful Influence on the Musical Culture and Tendencies of
+his Age.
+
+
+I.
+
+The rivalry of Clementi and Mozart as exponents of piano-forte playing
+in their day was continued in their schools of performance. The original
+cause of this difference was largely based on the character of the
+instruments on which they played. Clementi used the English piano-forte,
+and Mozart the Viennese, and the style of execution was no less the
+outcome of the mechanical difference between the two vehicles of
+expression than the result of personal idiosyncrasies. The English
+instrument was speedily developed into the production of a richer,
+fuller, and more sonorous tone, while the Viennese piano-forte continued
+for a long time to be distinguished by its light, thin, sweet quality of
+sound, and an action so sensitive that the slightest pressure produced
+a sound from the key, so that the term "breathing on the keys" became
+a current expression, Clementi's piano favored a bold, masculine,
+brilliant style of playing, while the Viennese piano led to a rapid,
+fluent, delicate treatment. The former player founded the school which
+has culminated, through a series of great players, in the magnificent
+virtuosoism of Franz Liszt, while the Vienna school has no nearer
+representative than Tgnaz Moscheles, one of the greatest players in the
+history of the pianoforte, who, whether judged by his gifts as a
+concert performer, a composer for the instrument which he so brilliantly
+adorned, or from his social and intellectual prominence, must be set
+apart as peculiarly a representative man. There were other eminent
+players, such as Hummel, Czerny, and Herz, contemporary with Moscheles
+and belonging to the same _genre_ as a pianist, but these names do not
+stand forth with the same clear and permanent luster in their relation
+to the musical art.
+
+Ignaz Moscheles was born at Prague, May 30, 1794, his parents being
+well-to-do people of Hebrew stock. His father, a cloth merchant, was
+passionately fond of music, and was accustomed to say, "One of my
+children must become a thoroughbred musician." Ignaz was soon selected
+as the one on whom the experiment should be made, and the rapid
+progress he made justified the accident of choice, for all of the family
+possessed some musical talent. The boy progressed too fast, for he
+attempted at the age of seven to play Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique."
+He was traveling on the wrong road, attempting what he could in no
+way attain, when his father took him to Dionys Weber, one of the best
+teachers of the time. "I come," said the parent, "to you as our first
+musician, for sincere truth instead of empty flattery. I want to find
+out from you if my boy has such genuine talent that you can make a
+really good musician of him." "Naturally, I was called on to play," says
+Moscheles, in his "Autobiography," "and I was bungler enough to do it
+with some conceit. My mother having decked me out in my Sunday best, I
+played my best piece, Beethoven's 'Sonata Pathétique.' But what was my
+astonishment on finding that I was neither interrupted by bravos nor
+overwhelmed by praise! and what were my feelings when Dionys Weber
+finally delivered himself thus:
+
+"'Candidly speaking, the boy has talent, but is on the wrong road, for
+he makes bosh of great works which he does not understand, and to which
+he is utterly unequal. I could make something of him if you could hand
+him over to me for three years, and follow out my plan to the letter.
+The first year he must play nothing but Mozart, the second Clementi, and
+the third Bach; but only that: not a note as yet of Beethoven; and if
+he persists in using the circulating libraries, I have done with him for
+ever.'"
+
+This scheme was followed out strictly, and Moscheles at the age of
+fourteen had acquired a sufficient mastery of the piano to give a
+concert at Prague with brilliant success. The young musician continued
+to pursue his studies assiduously under Weber's direction until
+his father's death, and his mother then determined to yield to his
+oft-repeated wish to try his musical fortunes in a larger field, and win
+his own way in life. So young Ignaz, little more than a child, went to
+Vienna, where he was warmly received in the hospitable musical circles
+of that capital. He took lessons in counterpoint from Albrechts-burger,
+and in composition from Salieri, and in all ways indicated that serene,
+tireless industry which marked his whole after-career. Moscheles spent
+eight years at Vienna, continually growing in estimation as artist and
+beginning to make his mark as a composer. His own reminiscences of the
+brilliant and gifted men who clustered in Vienna are very pleasant, but
+it is to Beethoven that his admiration specially went forth. The great
+master liked his young disciple much, and proposed to him that he should
+set the numbers of "Fidelio" for the piano, a task which, it is needless
+to say, was gladly accepted. Moscheles tells us one morning, when he
+went to see Beethoven, he found him lying in bed. "He happened to be in
+remarkably good spirits, jumped up immediately, and placed himself, just
+as he was, at the window looking out on the Schotten-bastei, with the
+view of examining the 'Fidelio' numbers which I had arranged. Naturally,
+a crowd of street-boys collected under the window, when he roared out,
+'Now, what do these confounded boys want?' I laughed and pointed to his
+own figure. 'Yes, yes! You are quite right,' he said, and hastily put on
+a dressing-gown."
+
+Moscheles's associations were even at this early period with all the
+foremost people of the age, and he was cordially welcome in every
+circle. He composed a good deal, besides giving concerts and playing in
+private select circles, and was recognized as being the equal of Hummel,
+who had hitherto been accepted as the great piano virtuoso of Vienna.
+The two were very good friends in spite of their rivalry. They, as well
+as all the Viennese musicians, were bound together by a common tie, very
+well expressed in the saying of Moscheles: "We musicians, whatever we
+be, are mere satellites of the great Beethoven, the dazzling luminary."
+
+
+II.
+
+In the autumn of 1816 Moscheles bade a sorrowful adieu to the imperial
+city, where he had spent so many happy years, to undertake an extended
+concert tour, armed with letters of introduction to all the courts of
+Europe from Prince Lichtenstein, Countess Hardigg, and other influential
+admirers. He proceeded directly to Leipzig, where he was warmly received
+by the musical fraternity of that city, especially by the Wiecks, of
+whose daughter Clara he speaks in highly eulogistic words. He played his
+own compositions, which already began to show that serene and finished
+beauty so characteristic of his after-writings. Ŕ similar success
+greeted him at Dresden, where, among other concerts, he gave one before
+the court. Of this entertainment Moscheles writes: "The court actually
+dined (this barbarous custom still prevails), and the royal household
+listened in the galleries, while I and the court band made music to
+them, and barbarous it really was; but, in regard to truth, I must add
+that royalty and also the lackeys kept as quiet as possible, and the
+former congratulated me, and actually condescended to admit me to
+friendly conversation." He continued his concerts in Munich, Augsburg,
+Amsterdam, Brussels, and other cities, creating the most genuine
+admiration wherever he went, and finally reached Paris in December,
+1817.
+
+Here our young artist was promptly received in the extraordinary world
+of musicians, artists, authors, wits, and social celebrities which then,
+as now, made Paris so delightful for those possessing the countersign of
+admission. Baillot, the violinist, gave a private concert in his honor,
+in which he in company with Spohr played before an audience made up of
+such artists and celebrities as Cherubini, Auber, Herold, Adam, Lesueur,
+Pacini, Paer, Habeneck, Plantade, Blangini, La-font, Pleyel, Ivan
+Muller, Viotti, Pellegrini, Boďeldieu, Schlesinger, Manuel Garcia, and
+others. These areopagites of music set the mighty seal of their approval
+on Moscheles's genius. He was invited everywhere, to dinners, balls, and
+_fętes_, and there was no _salon_ in Paris so high and exclusive which
+did not feel itself honored by his presence. His public concerts were
+thronged with the best and most critical audiences, and he by no means
+shone the less that he appeared in conjunction with other distinguished
+artists. He often entertained parties of jovial artists at his lodgings,
+and music, punch, and supper enlivened the night till 3 A.M. Whoever
+could play or sing was present, and good music alternated with amusing
+tricks played on the respective instruments. "Altogether," he writes,
+"it is a happy, merry time! Certainly, at the last state dinner of
+the Rothschilds, in the presence of such notabilities as Canning
+or Narischkin, I was obliged to keep rather in the background. The
+invitation to a large, brilliant, but ceremonious ball appears a very
+questionable way of showing me attention. The drive up, the endless
+queue of carriages, wearied me, and at last I got out and walked.
+There, too, I found little pleasure." On the other hand, he praises the
+performance of Gluck's opera at the house of the Erards. The "concerts
+spirituels" delight him. "Who would not," he says, "envy me this
+enjoyment? These concerts justly enjoy a world-wide celebrity. There I
+listen with the most solemn earnestness." On the other hand, there are
+cheerful episodes, and jovial dinners with Carl Blum and Schlesinger, at
+the Restaurant Lemelle. "Yesterday," he writes, "Schlesinger quizzed me
+about my slowness in eating, and went so far as to make the stupid bet
+with me, that he would demolish three dozen oysters while I ate one
+dozen, and he was quite right. On perceiving, however, that he was on
+the point of winning, I took to making faces, made him laugh so heartily
+that he couldn't go on eating; thus I won my bet." We find the
+following notice on the 20th of March: "I spent the evening at Ciceri's,
+son-in-law of Isabey, the famous painter, where I was introduced to
+one of the most interesting circles of artists. In the first room were
+assembled the most famous painters, engaged in drawing several things
+for their own amusement. In the midst of these was Cherubini, also
+drawing. I had the honor, like every one newly introduced, of having
+my portrait taken in caricature. Bégasse took me in hand, and succeeded
+well. In an adjoining room were musicians and actors, among them
+Ponchard, Le-vasseur, Dugazon, Panseron, Mlle, de Munck, and Mme.
+Livčre, of the Théâtre Français. The most interesting of their
+performances, which I attended merely as a listener, was a vocal quartet
+by Cherubini, performed under his direction. Later in the evening, the
+whole party armed itself with larger or smaller 'mirlitons' (reed-pipe
+whistles), and on these small monotonous instruments, sometimes made
+of sugar, they played, after the fashion of Russian horn music, the
+overture to 'Demophon,' two frying-pans representing the drums." On the
+27th of March this "mirliton" concert was repeated at Ciceri's, and on
+this occasion Cherubini took an active part. Moscheles relates: "Horace
+Vernet entertained us with his ventriloquizing powers, M. Salmon with
+his imitation of a horn, and Dugazon actually with a 'mirliton' solo.
+Lafont and I represented the classical music, which, after all, held,
+its own." It was hard to tear himself from these gayeties; but he
+had not visited London, and he was anxious to make himself known at a
+musical capital inferior to none in Europe. He little thought that in
+London he was destined to find his second home. He plunged into the
+gayeties and enjoyments of the English capital with no less zest than he
+had already experienced in Paris. He found such great players as J. B.
+Cramer, Ferdinand Ries, Kalkbrenner, and Clementi in the field; but
+our young artist did not altogether lose by comparison. Among other
+distinguished musicians, Moscheles also met Kiesewetter, the violinist,
+the great singers Mara and Catalani, and Dragonetti, the greatest of
+double-bass players. Dragonetti was a most eccentric man, and of him
+Moscheles says: "In his _salon_ in Liecester Square he has collected
+a large number of various kinds of dolls, among them a negress. When
+visitors are announced, he politely receives them, and says that this
+or that young lady will make room for them; he also asks his intimate
+acquaintances whether his favorite dolls look better or worse since
+their last visit, and similar absurdities. He is a terrible snuff-taker,
+helping himself out of a gigantic snuff-box, and he has an immense and
+varied collection of snuff-boxes. The most curious part of him is his
+language, a regular jargon, in which there is a mixture of his native
+Bergamese, bad French, and still worse English."
+
+During the several months of this first English visit Moscheles made
+many acquaintances which were destined to ripen into solid friendships,
+and gave many concerts in which the most distinguished artists, vocal
+and instrumental, participated. Altogether, he appears to have been
+delighted with the London art and social world little less than he had
+been with that of Paris. He returned, however, to the latter city in
+August, and again became a prominent figure in the most fashionable and
+admired concerts. During this visit to Paris he writes in his diary:
+"Young Erard took me to-day to his piano-forte factory to try the new
+invention of his uncle Sebastian. This quicker action of the hammer
+seems to me so important that I prophesy a new era in the manufacture
+of piano-fortes. I still complain of some heaviness in the touch, and,
+therefore, prefer to play on Pape's and Petzold's instruments (Viennese
+pianos). I admired the Erards, but am not thoroughly satisfied, and
+urged him to make new improvements."
+
+From 1815, when Moscheles began his career as a virtuoso in the
+production of his "Variationen fiber den Alexandermarsch," to 1826,
+he established a great reputation as a virtuoso and composer for the
+piano-forte. Though he played his own works at concerts with marked
+approbation, he also became distinguished as an interpreter of Mozart
+and Beethoven, for whom he had a reverential admiration. Moscheles often
+records his own sense of insignificance by the side of these Titans
+of music. A delightful characteristic of the man was his modesty about
+himself, and his genial appreciation of other musicians. Nowhere do
+those performers who, for example, came in active rivalry with himself,
+receive more cordial and unalloyed praise. Moscheles was entirely devoid
+of that littleness which finds vent in envy and jealousy, and was as
+frank and sympathetic in his estimate of others as he was ambitious and
+industrious in the development of his own great talents. In 1824 he gave
+piano-forte lessons to Felix Mendelssohn, then a youth of fifteen, at
+Berlin. He wrote of the Mendelssohn family: "This is a family the like
+of which I have never known. Felix, a boy of fifteen, is a phenomenon.
+What are all prodigies as compared with him? Gifted children, but
+nothing else. This Felix Mendelssohn is already a mature artist, and
+yet but fifteen years old! We at once settled down together for several
+hours, for I was obliged to play a great deal, when really I wanted to
+hear him and see his compositions, for Felix had to show me a concerto
+in C minor, a double concerto, and several motets; and all so full of
+genius, and at the same time so correct and thorough! His elder sister
+Fanny, also extraordinarily gifted, played by heart, and with admirable
+precision, fugues and passacailles by Bach. I think one may well call
+her a thorough 'Mus. Doc' (guter Musiker). Both parents give one the
+impression of being people of the highest refinement. They are far from
+overrating their children's talents; in fact, they are anxious about
+Felix's future, and to know whether his gift will prove sufficient to
+lead to a noble and truly great career. Will he not, like so many other
+brilliant children, suddenly collapse? I asserted my conscientious
+conviction that Felix would ultimately become a great master, that I
+had not the slightest doubt of his genius; but again and again I had
+to insist on my opinion before they believed me. These two are not
+specimens of the genus prodigy-parents (Wunderkinds Eltern), such as I
+most frequently endure." Moscheles soon came to the conclusion that to
+give Felix regular lessons was useless. Only a little hint from time
+to time was necessary for the marvelous youth, who had already begun to
+compose works which excited Moscheles's deepest admiration.
+
+
+III.
+
+In January, 1825, Moscheles, in the course of his musical wanderings,
+gave several concerts at Hamburg. Among the crowd of listeners who
+came to hear the great pianist was Charlotte Embden, the daughter of an
+excellent Hamburg family. She was enchanted by the playing of Moscheles,
+and, when she accidentally made the acquaintance of the performer at the
+house of a mutual acquaintance, the couple quickly became enamored of
+each other. A brief engagement of less than a month was followed by
+marriage, and so Moscheles entered into a relation singularly felicitous
+in all the elements which make domestic life most blessed. After a brief
+tour in the Rhenish cities, and a visit to Paris, Moscheles proceeded to
+London, where he had determined to make his home, for in no country had
+such genuine and unaffected cordiality boon shown him, and nowhere
+were the rewards of musical talent, whether as teacher, virtuoso, or
+composer, more satisfying to the man of high ambition. He made London
+his home for twenty years, and during this time became one of the most
+prominent figures in the art circles of that great city. Moscheles's
+mental accomplishments and singular geniality of nature contributed,
+with his very great abilities as a musician, to give him a position
+attained by but few artists. He gave lessons to none but the most
+talented pupils, and his services were sought by the most wealthy
+families of the English capital, though the ability to pay great prices
+was by no means a passport to the good graces of Moscheles. Among
+the pupils who early came under the charge of this great master was
+Thalberg, who even then was a brilliant player, but found in the exact
+knowledge and great experience of Moscheles that which gave the
+crowning finish to his style. Busy in teaching, composing, and public
+performance; busy in responding to the almost incessant demands made by
+social necessity on one who was not only intimate in the best circles
+of London society, but the center to whom all foreign artists of merit
+gravitated instantly they arrived in London; busy in confidential
+correspondence with all the great musicians of Europe, who discussed
+with the genial and sympathetic Moscheles all their plans and
+aspirations, and to whom they turned in their moments of trouble, he
+was indeed a busy man; and had it not been for the loving labors of his
+wife, who was his secretary, his musical copyist, and his assistant in
+a myriad of ways, he would have been unequal to his burden. Moscheles's
+diary tells the story of a man whose life, though one of tireless
+industry, was singularly serene and happy, and without those salient
+accidents and vicissitudes which make up the material of a picturesque
+life.
+
+He made almost yearly tours to the Continent for concert-giving
+purposes, and kept his friendship with the great composers of the
+Continent green by personal contact. Beethoven was the god of his
+musical idolatry, and his pilgrimage to Vienna was always delightful
+to him. When Beethoven, in the early part of 1827, was in dire distress
+from poverty, just before his death, it was to Moscheles that he applied
+for assistance; and it was this generous friend who promptly arranged
+the concert with the Philharmonic Society by which one hundred pounds
+sterling was raised to alleviate the dying moments of the great man
+whom his own countrymen would have let starve, even as they had allowed
+Schubert and Mozart to suffer the direst want on their deathbeds.
+
+An adequate record of Moscheles's life during the twenty years of his
+London career would be a pretty full record of all matters of musical
+interest occurring during this time. In 1832 he was made one of the
+directors of the Philharmonic Society, and in 1837-'38 he conducted
+with signal success Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony." When Sir Henry Bishop
+resigned, in 1845, Moscheles was made the conductor, and thereafter
+wielded the baton over this orchestra, the noblest in England. Among the
+yearly pleasures to which our pianist looked forward with the greatest
+interest were the visits of Mendelssohn, between whom and Moscheles
+there was the most tender friendship. Whole pages of his diary are given
+up to an account of Mendelssohn's doings, and to the most enthusiastic
+expression of his love and admiration for one of the greatest musical
+geniuses of modern times.
+
+We can not attempt to follow up the placid and gentle current of
+Moscheles's life, flowing on to ever-increasing honor and usefulness,
+but hasten to the period when he left England in 1846, to
+become associated with Mendelssohn in the conduct of the Leipzig
+Conservatorium, then recently organized. Mendelssohn lived but a few
+months after achieving this great monument of musical education, but
+Moscheles remained connected with it for nearly twenty years, and to his
+great zeal, knowledge, and executive skill is due in large measure the
+solid success of the institution. Mendelssohn's early death, while yet
+in the very prime of creative genius, was a stunning blow to Moscheles;
+more so, perhaps, than would have occurred from the loss of any one
+except his beloved wife, the mother of his five children. Our musician
+died himself, in Leipzig, March 10, 1870, and his passage from this
+world was as serene and quiet as his passage through had been. He lived
+to see his daughters married to men of high worth and position, and his
+sons substantially placed in life. Perhaps few distinguished musicians
+have lived a life of such monotonous happiness, unmarked by those events
+which, while they give romantic interest to a career, make the gift at
+the expense of so much personal misery.
+
+
+IV.
+
+As a pianist Moscheles was distinguished by an incisive, brilliant
+touch, wonderfully clear, precise phrasing, and close attention to the
+careful accentuation of every phase of the composer's meaning. Of the
+younger composers for the piano, Mendelssohn and Schumann were the only
+ones with whose works he had any sympathy, though he often complains of
+the latter on account of his mysticism. His intelligence had as much
+if not more part in his art work than his emotions, and to this we may
+attribute that fine symmetry and balance in his own compositions, which
+make them equal in this respect to the productions of Mendelssohn.
+Chopin he regarded with a sense of admiration mingled with dread, for
+he could by no means enter into the peculiar conditions which make the
+works of the Polish composer so unique. He wrote of Chopin's "Études,"
+in 1838: "My thoughts and consequently my fingers ever stumble and
+sprawl at certain crude modulations, and I find Chopin's productions
+on the whole too sugared, too little worthy of a man and an educated
+musician, though there is much charm and originality in the national
+color of his motive." When he heard Chopin play in after-years, however,
+he confessed the fascination of the performance, and bewailed his own
+incapacity to produce such effects in execution, though himself one of
+the greatest pianists in the world. So, too, Moscheles, though dazzled
+by Liszt's brilliant virtuosoism and power of transforming a single
+instrument into an orchestra, shook his head in doubt over such
+performances, and looked on them as charlatanism, which, however
+magnificent as an exhibition of talent, would ultimately help to degrade
+the piano by carrying it out of its true sphere. Moscheles himself was
+a more bold and versatile player than any other performer of his school,
+but he aimed assiduously to confine his efforts within the perfectly
+legitimate and well-established channels of pianism.
+
+As an extemporaneous player, perhaps no pianist has ever lived who could
+surpass Moscheles. His improvisation on themes suggested by the audience
+always made one of the most attractive features of his concerts. His
+profound musical knowledge, his strong sense of form, the clearness and
+precision with which he instinctively clothed his ideas, as well as the
+fertility of the ideas themselves, gave his improvised pieces something
+of the same air of completeness as if they were the outcome of hours of
+laborious solitude. His very lack of passion and fire were favorable
+to this clear-cut and symmetrical expression. His last improvisation
+in public, on themes furnished by the audience, formed part of the
+programme of a concert at London, in 1865, given by Mme. Jenny Lind
+Goldschmidt, in aid of the sufferers by the war between Austria and
+Prussia, where he extemporized for half an hour on "See the Conquering
+Hero Comes," and on a theme from the andante of Beethoven's C Minor
+Symphony, in a most brilliant and astonishing style.
+
+Aside from his greatness as a virtuoso and composer for the piano-forte,
+whose works will always remain classics in spite of vicissitudes
+of public opinion, even as those of Spohr will for the violin, the
+influence of Moscheles in furtherance of a solid and true musical taste
+was very great, and worthy of special notice. Perhaps no one did more
+to educate the English mind up to a full appreciation of the greatest
+musical works. As teacher, conductor, player, and composer, the life
+of Ignaz Moscheles was one of signal and permanent worth, and its
+influences fertilized in no inconsiderable streams the public thought,
+not only of his own times, but indirectly of the generation which has
+followed. It is not necessary to attribute to him transcendent genius,
+but lie possessed, what was perhaps of equal value to the world, an
+intellect and temperament splendidly balanced to the artistic needs of
+his epoch. The list of Moscheles's numbered compositions reaches Op.
+142, besides a large number of ephemeral productions which he did not
+care to preserve.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
+
+Robert Schumann's Place as a National Composer.--Peculiar Greatness as
+a Piano-forte Composer.--Born at Zwickau in 1810.--His Father's
+Aversion to his Musical Studies.--Becomes a Student of Jurisprudence
+in Leipzig.--Makes the Acquaintance of Clara Wieck.--Tedium of his Law
+Studies.--Vacation Tour to Italy.--Death of his Father, and Consent
+of his Mother to Schumann adopting the Profession of Music.--Becomes
+Wieck's Pupil.--Injury to his Hand which prevents all Possibilities of
+his becoming a Great Performer.--Devotes himself to Composition.--The
+Child, Clara Wieck--Remarkable Genius as a Player.--Her Early
+Training.--Paganini's Delight in her Genius.--Clara Wieck's
+Concert Tours.--Schumann falls deeply in Love with her, and Wieck's
+Opposition.--His Allusions to Clara in the "Neue Zeitschrift."--Schumann
+at Vienna.--His Compositions at first Unpopular, though played by Clara
+Wieck and Liszt.--Schumann's Labors as a Critic.--He Marries Clara
+in 1840.--His Song Period inspired by his Wife.--Tour to Russia, and
+Brilliant Reception given to the Artist Pair.--The "Neue Zeitschrift"
+and its Mission.--The Davidsbund.--Peculiar Style of Schumann's
+Writing.--He moves to Dresden.--Active Production in Orchestral
+Composition.--Artistic Tour in Holland.--He is seized with
+Brain Disease.--Characteristics as a Man, as an Artist, and as a
+Philosopher.--Mme. Schumann as her Husband's Interpreter.--Chopin
+a Colaborer with Schumann.--Schumann on Chopin again.--Chopin's
+Nativity.--Exclusively a Piano-forte Composer.--His _Genre_ as Pianist
+and Composer.--Aversion to Concert-giving.--Parisian Associations.--New
+Style of Technique demanded by his Works.--Unique Treatment of the
+Instrument.--Characteristics of Chopin's Compositions.
+
+
+I.
+
+Robert Schumann shares with Weber the honor of giving the earliest
+impulse to what may be called the romantic school of music, which has
+culminated in the operatic creations of Richard Wagner. Greatly to the
+gain of the world, his early aspirations as a mere player were crushed
+by the too intense zeal through which he attempted to perfect his
+manipulation, the mechanical contrivance he used having had the
+effect of paralyzing the muscular power of one of his hands. But this
+department of art work was nobly borne by his gifted wife, _nee_ Clara
+Wieck, and Schumann concentrated his musical ambition in the higher
+field of composition, leaving behind him works not only remarkable for
+beauty of form, but for poetic richness of thought and imagination.
+Schumann composed songs, cantatas, operas, and symphonies, but it is in
+his works for the piano-forte that his idiosyncrasy was most strikingly
+embodied, and in which he has bequeathed the most precious inheritance
+to the world of art. All his powers were swept impetuously into one
+current, the poetic side of art, and alike as critic and composer he
+stands in a relation to the music of the pianoforte which places him on
+a pinnacle only less lofty than that of Beethoven.
+
+Robert Schumann was born in the small Saxon town of Zwickau in the
+year 1810, and was designed by his father, a publisher and author
+of considerable reputation, for the profession of the law. The elder
+Schumann, though a man of talent and culture, had a deep distaste for
+his son's clearly displayed tendencies to music, and though he permitted
+him to study something of the science in the usual school-boy way (for
+music has always been a part of the educational course in Germany), he
+discouraged in every way Robert's passion. The boy had quickly become a
+clever player, and even at the age of eight had begun to put his ideas
+on paper. We are told by his biographers that he was accustomed
+to extemporize at school, and had such a knack in portraying the
+characteristics of his school-fellows in music as to make his purpose
+instantly recognizable. His father died when Schumann was only
+seventeen, and his mother, who was also bent on her son becoming a
+jurist, became his guardian. It was a severe battle between taste
+and duty, but love for his widowed mother conquered, and young Robert
+Schumann entered the University of Leipzig as a law student. It was with
+a feeling almost of despair that he wrote at this time, "I have decided
+upon law as my profession, and will work at it industriously, however
+cold and dry the beginning may be." Previously, however, he had spent a
+year in the household of Frederick Wieck, the distinguished teacher of
+music. So much he had exacted before succumbing to maternal pleading.
+At this time he first made the acquaintance of a charming and precocious
+child, Clara Wieck, who played such an important part in his future
+life.
+
+Robert Schumann's law studies were inexpressibly tedious to him, and so
+he told his sympathetic professor, the learned Thibaut, author of the
+treatise "On the Purity of Music," in a characteristic manner. He went
+to the piano and played Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," commenting on
+the different passages: "Now she speaks--that's the love prattle; now
+he speaks--that's the man's earnest voice; now both the lovers speak
+together "; concluding with the remark, "Isn't all that better far than
+anything that jurisprudence can utter?" The young student became quite
+popular in society as a pianist, heard Ernst and Paganini for the first
+time, and composed several works, among them the Toccata in D major.
+The genius for music would come to the fore in spite of jurisprudence.
+A vacation trip to Italy which the young man made gave fresh fuel to
+the flame, and he began to write the most passionate pleas to his
+mother that she should con sent to his adoption of a musical career. The
+distressed woman wrote to Wieck to know what he thought, and the answer
+was favorable to Robert's aspirations. Robert was intoxicated with his
+mother's concession, and he poured out his enthusiasm to Wieck: "Take
+me as I am, and, above all, bear with me. No blame shall depress me, no
+praise make me idle. Pails upon pails of very cold theory can not hurt
+me, and I will work at it without the least murmur."
+
+Taking lodgings at the house of Wieck, Schumann devoted himself to
+piano-forte playing with intense ardor; but his zeal outran prudence.
+To hasten his proficiency and acquire an independent action for each
+finger, he contrived a mechanical apparatus which held the third
+finger of the right hand immovable, while the others went through their
+evolutions. The result was such a lameness of the hand that it was
+incurable, and young Schumann's career as a virtuoso was for ever
+checked. His deep sorrow, however, did not unman him long, for he turned
+his attention to the study of composition and counterpoint under Kupsch,
+and, afterward, Heinrich Dorn. He remained for three years under Wieck's
+roof, and the companionship of the child Clara, whose marvelous musical
+powers were the talk of Leipzig, was a sweet consolation to him in his
+troubles and his toil, though ten years his junior. The love, which
+became a part of his life, had already begun to flutter into unconscious
+being in his feeling for a shy and reserved little girl.
+
+Schumann tells us that the year 1834 was the most important one of his
+life, for it witnessed the birth of the "N'eue Zeitschrift fur Musik,"
+a journal which was to embody his notions of ideal music, and to be the
+organ of a clique of enthusiasts in lifting the art out of Philistinism
+and commonplace. The war-cry was "Reform in art," and never-ending
+battle against the little and conventional ideas which were believed
+then to be the curse of German music. Among the earlier contributors
+were Wieck, Schumke, Knorr, Banck, and Schumann himself, who wrote
+under the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius. Between his new journal and
+composing, Schumann was kept busy, but he found time to persuade himself
+that he was in love with Frâulein Ernestine von Fricken, a beautiful but
+somewhat frivolous damsel, who became engaged to the young composer and
+editor. Two years cooled off this passion, and a separation was mutually
+agreed on. Perhaps Schumann recognized something, in the lovely child
+who was swiftly blooming into maidenhood, which made his own inner soul
+protest against any other attachment.
+
+
+II.
+
+It would have been very strange indeed if two such natures as Clara
+Wieck and Robert Schumann had not gravitated toward each other during
+the almost constant intercourse between them which took place between
+1835 and 1838. Clara, born in 1820, had been her father's pupil from her
+tenderest childhood, but the development of her musical gifts was not
+forced in such a way as to interfere with her health and the exuberance
+of her spirits. The exacting teacher was also a tender father and a
+man of ripe judgment, and he knew the bitter price which mere mental
+precocity so frequently has to pay for its existence.
+
+But the young girl's gifts were so extraordinary, and withal her
+character so full of childish simplicity and gayety, that it was
+difficult to think of her as of the average child phenomenon. At the age
+of nine she could play Mozart's concertos, and Hummel's A minor Concerto
+for the orchestra, one of the most difficult of compositions. A year
+later she began to compose, and improvised without difficulty, for her
+lessons in counterpoint and harmony had kept pace with her studies of
+pianoforte technique. Paganini visited Leipzig at this period, and was
+so astonished at the little Clara's precocious genius that he insisted
+on her presence at all his concerts, and addressed her with the deepest
+respect as a fellow-artist. She first appeared in public concert at
+the age of eleven, in Leipzig, Weimar, and other places, playing Pixis,
+Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin. The latter of these
+composers was then almost unknown in Germany, and Clara Wieck, young
+as she was, contributed largely to making him popular. A year later she
+visited Paris in company with her father, and heard Chopin, Liszt, and
+Kalkbrenner, who on their part were delighted with the little artist,
+who, beneath the delicacy and timidity of the child, indicated
+extraordinary powers. Society received her with the most flattering
+approbation, and when her father allowed her to appear in concert her
+playing excited the greatest delight and surprise. Her improvisation
+specially displayed a vigor of imagination, a fine artistic taste, and
+a well-defined knowledge which justly called out the most enthusiastic
+recognition.
+
+When Clara Wieck returned home, she gave herself up to work with fresh
+ardor, studying composition under Heinrich Dorn, singing under the
+celebrated Mieksch, and even violin-playing, so great was her ambition
+for musical accomplishments. From 1836 to 1838 she made an extended
+musical tour through Germany, and was welcomed as a musico-poetic ideal
+by the enthusiasts who gathered around her. The poet Grillparzer spoke
+of her as "the innocent child who first unlocked the casket in which
+Beethoven buried his mighty heart," and it must be confessed that Clara
+Wieck, even as a young girl, did more than any other pianist to develop
+a love of and appreciation for the music of the Titan of composers.
+
+Long before Schumann distinctly contemplated the image of Clara as
+the beloved one, the half of his soul, he had divined her genius, and
+expressed his opinion of her in no stinted terms of praise. When she was
+as yet only thirteen, he had written of her in his journal: "As I
+know people who, having but just heard Clara, yet rejoice in their
+anticipation of their next occasion of hearing her, I ask, What sustains
+this continual interest in her? Is it the 'wonder child' herself, at
+whose stretches of tenths people shake their heads while they are amazed
+at them, or the most difficult difficulties which she sportively flings
+toward the public like flower garlands? Is it the special pride of
+the city with which a people regards its own natives? Is it that she
+presents to us the most interesting productions of recent art in as
+short a time as possible? Is it that the masses understand that art
+should not depend on the caprices of a few enthusiasts, who would direct
+us back to a century over whose corpse the wheels of time are hastening?
+I know not; I only feel that here we are subdued by genius, which men
+still hold in respect. In short, we here divine the presence of a power
+of which much is spoken, while few indeed possess it.... Early she
+drew the veil of Isis aside. Serenely the child looks up; older eyes,
+perhaps, would have been blinded by that radiant light.... To Clara
+we dare no longer apply the measuring scale of age, but only that of
+fulfillment.... Clara Wieck is the first German artist.... Pearls do not
+float on the surface; they must be sought for in the deep, often with
+danger. But Clara is an intrepid diver."
+
+The child whose genius he admired ripened into a lovely young woman, and
+Schumann became conscious that there had been growing in his heart for
+years a deep, ardent love. He had fancied himself in love more
+than once, but now he felt that he could make no mistake as to the
+genuineness of his feelings. In 1836 he confessed his feelings to the
+object of his affections, and discovered that he not only loved but
+was loved, for two such gifted and sympathetic natures could hardly be
+thrown together for years without the growth of a mutual tenderness.
+The marriage project was not favored by Papa Wieck, much as he liked the
+young composer who had so long been his pupil and a member of his family
+circle. The father of Clara looked forward to a brilliant artistic
+career for his daughter, perhaps hoped to marry her to some serene
+highness, and Schumann's prospects were as yet very uncertain. So he
+took Clara on a long artistic journey through Germany, with a view of
+quenching this passion by absence and those public adulations which he
+knew Clara's genius would command. But nothing shook the devotion of
+her heart, and she insisted on playing the compositions of the young
+composer at her concerts, as well as those of Beethoven, Liszt, and
+Chopin, the latter two of whom were just beginning to be known and
+admired.
+
+Hoping to overcome Papa Wieck's opposition by success, Schumann took
+his new journal to Vienna, and published it in that city, carrying on
+simultaneously with his editorial duties active labors in composition.
+The attempt to better his fortunes in Vienna, however, did not prove
+very successful, and after six months he returned again to Leipzig.
+Schumann's generous sympathy with other great musicians was signally
+shown in his very first Vienna experiences, for he immediately made
+a pious pilgrimage to the Währing cemetery to offer his pious gift of
+flowers on the graves of Beethoven and Schubert. On Beethoven's grave
+he found a steel pen, which he preserved as a sacred treasure, and used
+afterward in writing his own finest musical fancies. He remembered, too,
+that the brother of Schubert, Ferdinand, was still living in a suburb
+of Vienna. "He knew me," Schumann says, "from my admiration for his
+brother, as I had publicly expressed it, and showed me many things. At
+last he let me look at the treasures of Franz Schubert's compositions,
+which he still possesses. The wealth that lay heaped up made me shudder
+with joy, what to take first, where to cease. Among other things, he
+also showed me the scores of several symphonies, of which many had never
+been heard, while others had been tried, but put back, on the score of
+their being too difficult and bombastic." One of these symphonies, that
+in C major, the largest and grandest in conception, Schumann chose
+and sent to Leipzig, where it was soon afterward produced under
+Mendelssohn's direction at one of the Ge-wandhaus concerts, and produced
+an immediate and profound sensation. For the first time the world
+witnessed, in a more expanded sphere, the powers of a composer the very
+beauties of whose songs had hitherto been fatal to his general success.
+During this period of Schumann's life the most important works he
+composed were the "Études Symphoniques," the famous "Carnival" dedicated
+to Liszt, the "Scenes of Childhood," the "Fantasia" dedicated to Liszt,
+the "Novellettes," and "Kreisleriana." As he writes to Heinrich Dorn:
+"Much music is the result of the contest I am passing through for
+Clara's sake." Schumann's compositions had been introduced to the public
+by the gifted interpretation of Clara Wieck, with whom it was a labor of
+love, and also by Franz Liszt, then rising almost on the top wave of his
+dazzling fame as a virtuoso. Liszt was a profound admirer of the less
+fortunate Schumann, and did everything possible to make him a favorite
+with the public, but for a long time in vain. Liszt writes of this as
+follows: "Since my first knowledge of his compositions I had played many
+of them in private circles at Milan and Vienna, without having succeeded
+in winning the approbation of my hearers. These works were, fortunately
+for them, too far above the then trivial level of taste to find a home
+in the superficial atmosphere of popular applause. The public did not
+fancy them, and few players understood them. Even in Leipzig, where I
+played the 'Carnival' at my second Gewandhaus concert, I did not
+obtain my customary applause. Musicians, even those who claimed to be
+connoisseurs also, carried too thick a mask over their ears to be able
+to comprehend that charming 'Carnival,' harmoniously framed as it is,
+and ornamented with such rich variety of artistic fancy. I did not
+doubt, however, but that this work would eventually win its place in
+general appreciation beside Beethoven's thirty-three variations on a
+theme by Diabelli (which work it surpasses, according to my opinion, in
+melody, richness, and inventiveness)." Both as a composer and writer on
+music, Schumann embodied his deep detestation of the Philistinism and
+commonplace which stupefied the current opinions of the time, and he
+represented in Germany the same battle of the romantic in art against
+what was known as the classical which had been carried on so fiercely in
+France by Berlioz, Liszt, and Chopin.
+
+
+III.
+
+The year 1840 was one of the most important in Schumann's life. In
+February he was created Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Jena,
+and, still more precious boon to the man's heart, Wieck's objections to
+the marriage with Clara had been so far melted away that he consented,
+though with reluctance, to their union. The marriage took place quietly
+at a little church in Schônfeld, near Leipzig. This year was one of the
+most fruitful of Schumann's life. His happiness burst forth in lyric
+forms. He wrote the amazing number of one hundred and thirty-eight
+songs, among which the more famous are the set entitled "Myrtles," the
+cycles of song from Heine, dedicated to Pauline Viardot, Chamisso's
+"Woman's Love and Life," and Heine's "Poet Love." Schumann as a
+song-writer must be called indeed the musical reflex of Heine, for his
+immortal works have the same passionate play of pathos and melancholy,
+the sharp-cut epigrammatic form, the grand swell of imagination,
+impatient of the limits set by artistic taste, which characterize the
+poet themes. Schumann says that nearly all the works composed at this
+time were written under Clara's inspiration solely. Blest with the
+continual companionship of a woman of genius, as amiable as she was
+gifted, who placed herself as a gentle mediator between Schumann's
+intellectual life and the outer world, he composed many of his finest
+vocal and instrumental compositions during the years immediately
+succeeding his marriage; among them the cantata "Paradise and the
+Peri," and the "Faust" music. His own connection with public life
+was restricted to his position as teacher of piano-forte playing,
+composition, and score playing at the Leipzig Conservatory, while the
+gifted wife was the interpreter of his beautiful piano-forte works as an
+executant. A more perfect fitness and companionship in union could not
+have existed, and one is reminded of the married life of the poet pair,
+the Brownings. After four years of happy and quiet life, in which mental
+activity was inspired by the most delightful of domestic surroundings,
+an artistic tour to St. Petersburg was undertaken by Robert and Clara
+Schumann. Our composer did not go without reluctance. "Forgive me," he
+writes to a friend, "if I forbear telling you of my unwillingness to
+leave my quiet home." He seems to have had a melancholy premonition that
+his days of untroubled happiness were over. A genial reception awaited
+them at the Russian capital. They were frequently invited to the Winter
+Palace by the emperor and empress, and the artistic circles of the city
+were very enthusiastic over Mme. Schumann's piano-forte playing. Since
+the days of John Field, Clementi's great pupil, no one had raised such
+a furore among the music-loving Russians. Schumann's music, which it was
+his wife's dearest privilege to interpret, found a much warmer welcome
+than among his own countrymen at that date. In the Sclavonic nature
+there is a deep current of romance and mysticism, which met with
+instinctive sympathy the dreamy and fantastic thoughts which ran riot in
+Schumann's works.
+
+On returning from the St. Petersburg tour, Schumann gave up the "Neue
+Zeitschrift," the journal which he had made such a powerful organ of
+musical revolution, and transferred it to Oswald Lorenz. Schumann's
+literary work is so deeply intertwined with his artistic life and
+mission that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate the two.
+He had achieved a great work--he had planted in the German mind the
+thought that there was such a thing as progress and growth; that
+stagnation was death; and that genius was for ever shaping for itself
+new forms and developments. He had taught that no art is an end to
+itself, and that, unless it embodies the deep-seated longings and
+aspirations of men ever striving toward a loftier ideal, it becomes
+barren and fruitless--the mere survival of a truth whose need had
+ceased. He was the apostle of the musico-poetical art in Germany, and,
+both as author and composer, strove with might and main to educate his
+countrymen up to a clear understanding of the ultimate outcome of the
+work begun by Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber.
+
+Schumann as a critic was eminently catholic and comprehensive. Deeply
+appreciative of the old lights of music, he received with enthusiasm all
+the fresh additions contributed by musical genius to the progress of
+his age. Eschewing the cold, objective, technical form of criticism,
+his method of approaching the work of others was eminently subjective,
+casting on them the illumination which one man of genius gives
+to another. The cast of his articles was somewhat dramatic and
+conversational, and the characters represented as contributing
+their opinions to the symposium of discussion were modeled on actual
+personages. He himself was personified under the dual form of Florestan
+and Eusebius, the "two souls in his breast"--the former, the fiery
+iconoclast, impulsive in his judgments and reckless in attacking
+prejudices; the latter, the mild, genial, receptive dreamer. Master
+Raro, who stood for Wieck, also typified the calm, speculative side of
+Schumann's nature. Chiara represented Clara Wieck, and personified the
+feminine side of art. So the various personages were all modeled after
+associates of Schumann, and, aside from the freshness and fascination
+which this method gave his style, it enabled him to approach his
+subjects from many sides. The name of the imaginary society was the
+Davids-bund, probably from King David and his celebrated harp, or
+perhaps in virtue of David's victories over the Philistines of his day.
+
+As an illustration of Schumann's style and method of treating musical
+subjects, we can not do better than give his article on Chopin's "Don
+Juan Fantasia": "Eusebius entered not long ago. You know his pale face
+and the ironical smile with which he awakens expectation. I sat with
+Florestan at the piano-forte. Florestan is, as you know, one of
+those rare musical minds that foresee, as it were, coming novel or
+extraordinary things. But he encountered a surprise today. With the
+words 'Off with your hats, gentlemen! a genius,' Eusebius laid down a
+piece of music. We were not allowed to see the title-page. I turned over
+the music vacantly; the veiled enjoyment of music which one does not
+hear has something magical in it. And besides this, it seems that every
+composer has something different in the note forms. Beethoven looks
+differently from Mozart on paper; the difference resembles that between
+Jean Paul's and Goethe's prose. But here it seemed as if eyes, strange,
+were glancing up to me--flower eyes, basilisk eyes, peacock's eyes,
+maiden's eyes; in many places it looked yet brighter. I thought I
+saw Mozart's 'La ci darem la mano' wound through a hundred chords.
+_Leporello_ seemed to wink at me, and _Don Juan_ hurried past in his
+white mantle. 'Now play it,' said Florestan. Eusebius consented, and we,
+in the recess of a window, listened. Eusebius played as though he were
+inspired, and led forward countless forms filled with the liveliest,
+warmest life; it seemed that the inspiration of the moment gave to his
+fingers a power beyond the ordinary measure of their cunning. It is true
+that Florestan's whole applause was expressed in nothing but a happy
+smile, and the remark that the variations might have been written by
+Beethoven or Franz Schubert, had either of these been a piano virtuoso;
+but how surprised he was when, turning to the title-page, he read 'La ci
+darem la mano, varié pour le piano-forte, par Frederic Chopin, Ouvre 2,'
+and with what astonishment we both cried out, 'An Opus 2!' How our faces
+glowed as we wondered, exclaiming, 'That is something reasonable once
+more! Chopin? I never heard of the name--who can he be? In any case, a
+genius. Is not that _Zerlina's_ smile, And _Leporello_, etc' I could not
+describe the scene. Heated with wine, Chopin, and our own enthusiasm,
+we went to Master Raro, who with a smile, and displaying but little
+curiosity for Chopin, said, 'Bring me the Chopin! I know you and your
+enthusiasm.' We promised to bring it the next day. Eusebius soon bade us
+good-night. I remained a short time with Master Raro. Florestan, who had
+been for some time without a habitation, hurried to my house through the
+moonlit streets. 'Chopin's variations,' he began, as if in a dream,
+'are constantly running through my head; the whole is so dramatic
+and Chopin-like; the introduction is so concentrated. Do you remember
+_Leporello's_ springs in thirds? That seems to me somewhat unfitted
+to the theme; but the theme--why did he write that in A flat? The
+variations, the finale, the adagio, these are indeed something; genius
+burns through every measure. Naturally, dear Julius, _Don Juan, Zerlina,
+Leporello, Massetto_, are the _dramatis persona; Zerlina's_ answer in
+the theme has a sufficiently enamored character; the first variation
+expresses, a kind of coquettish coveteousness: the Spanish Grandee
+flirts amiably with the peasant girl in it. This leads of itself to the
+second, which is at once confidential, disputative, and comic, as though
+two lovers were chasing each other and laughing more than usual about
+it. How all this is changed in the third! It is filled with fairy music
+and moonshine; _Masetto_ keeps at a distance, swearing audibly, but
+without any effect on _Don Juan_. And now the fourth--what do you
+think of it? Eusebius played it altogether correctly. How boldly, how
+wantonly, it springs forward to meet the man! though the adagio (it
+seems quite natural to me that Chopin repeats the first part) is in
+B flat minor, as it should be, for in its commencement it presents a
+beautiful moral warning to _Don Juan_. It is at once so mischievous
+and beautiful that _Leporello_ listens behind the hedge, laughing and
+jesting that oboes and clarionettes enchantingly allure, and that the
+B flat major in full bloom correctly designates the first kiss of love.
+But all this is nothing compared to the last (have you any more wine,
+Julius?). That is the whole of Mozart's finale, popping champagne corks,
+ringing glasses, _Leporello's_ voice between, the grasping, torturing
+demons, the fleeing _Don Juan_--and then the end, that beautifully
+soothes and closes all.' Florestan concluded by saying that he had never
+experienced feelings similar to those awakened by the finale. When the
+evening sunlight of a beautiful day creeps up toward the highest peaks,
+and when the last beam vanishes, there comes a moment when the white
+Alpine giants close their eyes. We feel that we have witnessed a
+heavenly apparition. 'And now awake to new dreams, Julius, and sleep.'
+'Dear Flores-tan,' I answered, 'these confidential feelings, are perhaps
+praiseworthy, although somewhat subjective; but as deeply as yourself I
+bend before Chopin's spontaneous genius, his lofty aim, his mastership;
+and after that we fell asleep.'" This article was the first journalistic
+record of Chopin's genius.
+
+
+IV.
+
+When Schumann gave up his journal in 1845 he moved to Dresden, and he
+began to suffer severely from the dreadful disorder to which he fell a
+victim twelve years later. This disease--an abnormal formation of
+bone in the brain--afflicted him with excruciating pains in the head,
+sleeplessness, fear of death, and strange auricular delusions. A sojourn
+at Parma, where he had complete repose and a course of sea-bathing,
+partially restored his health, and he gave himself up to musical
+composition again. During the next three years, up to 1849, Schumann
+wrote some of his finest works, among which may be mentioned his opera
+"Genoviva," his Second symphony, the cantata "The Rose's Pilgrimage,"
+more beautiful songs, much piano-forte and concerted music, and the
+musical illustrations of Byron's "Manfred," which latter is one of his
+greatest orchestral works.
+
+During the years 1850 to 1854 Schumann composed his "Rhenish Symphony,"
+the overtures to the "Bride of Messina" and "Hermann and Dorothea,"
+and many vocal and piano-forte works. He accepted the post of musical
+director at Dűsseldorf in 1850, removed to that city with his wife and
+children, and, on arriving, the artistic pair were received with a
+civic banquet. The position was in many respects agreeable, but the
+responsibilities were too great for Schumann's declining health, and
+probably hastened his death. In 1853 Robert and Clara Schumann made
+a grand artistic tour through Holland, which resembled a triumphal
+procession, so great was the musical enthusiasm called out. When they
+returned Schumann's malady returned with double force, and on February
+27, 1854, he attempted to end his misery by jumping into the Rhine.
+Madness had seized him with a clutch which was never to be released,
+except at short intervals. Every possible care was lavished on him by
+his heartbroken and devoted wife, and the assiduous attention of the
+friends who reverenced the genius now for ever quenched. The last two
+years of his life were spent in the private insane asylum at Endenich,
+near Bonn, where he died July 20, 1856. Schumann possessed a wealth of
+musical imagination which, if possibly equaled in a few instances, is
+nowhere surpassed in the records of his art. For him music possessed
+all the attributes inherent in the other arts--absolute color and
+flexibility of form. That he attempted to express these phases of art
+expression, with an almost boundless trust in their applicability to
+tone and sound, not unfrequently makes them obscure to the last degree,
+but it also gave much of his composition a richness, depth, and subtilty
+of suggestive power which place them in a unique niche, and will
+always preserve them as objects of the greatest interest to the musical
+student. There is no doubt that his increasing mental malady is evident
+in the chaotic character of some of his later orchestral compositions,
+but, in those works composed during his best period, splendor of
+imagination goes hand in hand with genuine art treatment. This is
+specially noticeable in the songs and the piano-forte works. Schumann
+was essentially lyrical and subjective, though his intellectual breadth
+and culture (almost unrivaled among his musical compeers) always kept
+him from narrowness as a composer. He led the van in the formation of
+that pictorial and descriptive style of music which has asserted itself
+in German music, but his essentially lyric personality in his attitude
+to the outer world presented the external thoroughly saturated and
+modified by his own moods and feelings.
+
+In his piano-forte works we find his most complete and satisfactory
+development as the artist composer. Here the world, with its myriad
+impressions, its facts, its purposes, its tendencies, met the man and
+commingled in a series of exquisite creations, which are true tone
+pictures. In this domain Beethoven alone was worthy to be compared with
+him, though the animus and scheme of the Beethoven piano-forte works
+grew out of a totally different method.
+
+In personal appearance Schumann bore the marks of the man of genius. As
+he reached middle age we are told of him that his figure was of middle
+height, inclined to stoutness, that his bearing was dignified, his
+movements slow. His features, though irregular, produced an agreeable
+impression; his forehead was broad and high, the nose heavy, the eyes
+excessively bright, though generally veiled and downcast, the mouth
+delicately cut, the hair thick and brown, his cheeks full and ruddy. His
+head was squarely formed, of an intensely powerful character, and the
+whole expression of his face sweet and genial. Even when young he was
+distinguished by a kind of absent-mindedness that prevented him from
+taking much part in conversation. Once, it is said, he entered a lady's
+drawing-room to call, played a few chords on the piano, and smilingly
+left without speaking a word. But, among intimate friends, he could be
+extraordinarily fluent and eloquent in discussing an interesting topic.
+He was conscious of his own shyness, and once wrote to a friend: "I
+shall be very glad to see you here. In me, however, you must not expect
+to find much. I scarcely ever speak except in the evening, and most in
+playing the piano." His wife was the crowning blessing of his life. She
+was not only his consoler, but his other intellectual life, for she,
+with her great powers as a virtuoso, interpreted his music to the world,
+both before and after his death. It has rarely been the lot of an artist
+to see his most intimate feelings and aspirations embodied to the world
+by the genius of the mother of his children. Well did Ferdinand Hiller
+write of this artist couple: "What love beautified his life! A woman
+stood beside him, crowned with the starry circlet of genius, to whom he
+seemed at once the father to his daughter, the master to the scholar,
+the bridegroom to the bride, the saint to the disciple."
+
+Clara Schumann still lives, though becoming fast an old woman in years,
+if still young in heart, and still able to win the admiration of the
+musical world by her splendid playing. Berlioz, who heard her in her
+youth, pronounced her the greatest virtuoso in Germany, in one of his
+letters to Heine; and while she was little more than a child she had
+gained the heartiest admiration in England, France, and Germany. Henry
+Chorley heard her at Leipzig in 1839, and speaks of "the organ-playing
+on the piano of Mme. Schumann (better known in England under the name of
+Clara Wieck), who commands her instrument with the enthusiasm of a sibyl
+and the grasp of a man." Since Schumann's death, Mme. Schumann has been
+known as the exponent of her husband's works, which she has performed in
+Germany and England with an insight, a power of conception, and a beauty
+of treatment which have contributed much to the recognition of his
+remarkable genius.
+
+
+V.
+
+The name of Frederic Francis Chopin is so closely linked in the minds
+of musical students with that of Schumann in that art renaissance which
+took place almost simultaneously in France and Germany, when so many
+daring and original minds broke loose from the petrifactions of custom
+and tradition, that we shall not venture to separate them here. Chopin
+was too timid and gentle to be a bold aggressor, like Berlioz, Liszt,
+and Schumann, but his whole nature responded to the movement, and his
+charming and most original compositions, which glow with the fire of a
+genius perhaps narrow in its limits, have never been surpassed for their
+individuality and poetic beauty. The present brief sketch of Chopin
+does not propose to consider his life biographically, full of pathos and
+romance as that life may be.*
+
+     * See article Chopin, in "Great German Composers."
+
+Schumann, in his "N'eue Zeitschrift," sums up the characteristics of the
+Polish composer admirably; "Genius creates kingdoms, the smaller states
+of which are again divided by a higher hand among talents, that these
+may organize details which the former, in its thousand-fold activity,
+would be unable to perfect. As Hummel, for example, followed the call
+of Mozart, clothing the thoughts of that master in a flowing, sparkling
+robe, so Chopin followed Beethoven. Or, to speak more simply, as Hummel
+imitated the style of Mozart in detail, rendering it enjoyable to the
+virtuoso on one particular instrument, so Chopin led the spirit of
+Beethoven into the concert-room.
+
+"Chopin did not make his appearance accompanied by an orchestral army,
+as great genius is accustomed to do; he only possessed a small cohort,
+but every soul belongs to him to the last hero.
+
+"He is the pupil of the first masters--Beethoven, Schubert, Field. The
+first formed his mind in boldness, the second his heart in tenderness,
+the third his hand to its flexibility. Thus he stood well provided with
+deep knowledge in his art, armed with courage in the full consciousness
+of his power, when in the year 1830 the great voice of the people arose
+in the West. Hundreds of youths had waited for the moment; but Chopin
+was the first on the summit of the wall, behind which lay a cowardly
+renaissance, a dwarfish Philistinism, asleep. Blows were dealt right
+and left, and the Philistines awoke angrily, crying out, 'Look at the
+impudent one!' while others behind the besieger cried, 'The one of noble
+courage.'
+
+"Besides this, and the favorable influence of period and condition, fate
+rendered Chopin still more individual and interesting in endowing him
+with an original pronounced nationality; Polish, too, and because this
+nationality wanders in mourning robes in the thoughtful artist, it
+deeply attracts us. It was well for him that neutral Germany did not
+receive him too warmly at first, and that his genius led him straight
+to one of the great capitals of the world, where he could freely poetize
+and grow angry. If the powerful autocrat of the North knew what a
+dangerous enemy threatens him in Chopin's works in the simple melodies
+of his mazurkas, he would forbid music. Chopin's works are cannons
+buried in flowers.... He is the boldest, proudest poet soul of to-day."
+
+But Schumann could have said something more than this, and added that
+Chopin was a musician of exceptional attainments, a virtuoso of the very
+highest order, a writer for the piano pure and simple preeminent beyond
+example, and a master of a unique and perfect style.
+
+Chopin was born of mixed French and Polish parentage, February 8,
+1810, at Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw. He was educated at the Warsaw
+Conservatory, and his eminent genius for the piano shone at this time
+most unmistakably. He found in the piano-forte an exclusive organ for
+the expression of his thoughts. In the presence of this confidential
+companion he forgot his shyness and poured forth his whole soul.
+A passionate lover of his native country, and burning with those
+aspirations for freedom which have made Poland since its first partition
+a volcano ever ready to break forth, the folk-themes of Poland are
+at the root of all of Chopin's compositions, and in the waltzes and
+mazurkas bearing his name we find a passionate glow and richness of
+color which make them musical poems of the highest order.
+
+Chopin's art position, both as a pianist and composer, was a unique one.
+He was accustomed to say that the breath of the concert-room stifled
+him, whereas Liszt, his intimate friend and fellow-artist, delighted in
+it as a war-horse delights in the tumult of battle. Chopin always shrank
+from the display of his powers as a mere executant. To exhibit his
+talents to the public was an offense to him, and he only cared for his
+remarkable technical skill as a means of placing his fanciful original
+poems in tone rightly before the public. It was with the greatest
+difficulty that his intimate friends, Liszt, Meyerbeer, Nourrit,
+Delacroix, Heine, Mme. George Sand, Countess D'Agoult, and others, could
+persuade him to appear before large mixed audiences. His genius only
+shone unconstrained as a player in the society of a few chosen intimate
+friends, with whom he felt a perfect sympathy, artistic, social, and
+intellectual. Exquisite, fastidious, and refined, Chopin was loss an
+aristocrat from political causes, or even by virtue of social caste,
+than from the fact that his art nature, which was delicate, feminine,
+and sensitive, shrank from all companions except those molded of the
+finest clay. We find this sense of exclusiveness and isolation in all
+of the Chopin music, as in some quaint, fantastic, ideal world, whose
+master would draw us up to his sphere, but never descend to ours.
+
+In the treatment of the technical means of the piano-forte, he entirely
+wanders from the old methods. Moscheles, a great pianist in an age of
+great players, gave it up in despair, and confessed that he could not
+play Chopin's music. The latter teaches the fingers to serve his own
+artistic uses, without regard to the notions of the schools. It is said
+that M. Kalkbrenner advised Chopin to attend his classes at the Paris
+Conservatoire, that the latter might learn the proper fingering. Chopin
+answered his officious adviser by placing one of his own "Études" before
+him, and asking him to play it. The failure of the pompous professor
+was ludicrous, for the old-established technique utterly failed to do it
+justice. Chopin's end as a player was to faithfully interpret the poetry
+of his own composition. His genius as a composer taught him to make
+innovations in piano-forte effects. He was thus not only a great
+inventor as a composer, but as regards the technique of the piano-forte.
+He not only told new things well worth hearing which the world would not
+forget, but devised new ways of saying them, and it mattered but little
+to him whether his more forcible and passionate dialectic offended what
+Schumann calls musical Philistinism or no. Chopin formed a school of his
+own which was purely the outcome of his genius, though as Schumann, in
+the extract previously quoted, justly says: "He was molded by the
+deep poetic spirit of Beethoven, with whom form only had value as it
+expressed truthfully and beautifully symmetry of conception."
+
+The forms of Chopin's compositions grew out of the keyboard of the
+piano, and their _genre_ is so peculiar that it is nearly impracticable
+to transpose them for any other instrument. Some of the noted
+contemporary violinists have attempted to transpose a few of the
+Nocturnes and Études, but without success. Both Schumann and Liszt
+succeeded in adapting Paganini's most complex and difficult violin works
+for the piano-forte, but the compositions of Chopin are so essentially
+born to and of the one instrument that they can not be well suited to
+any other. The cast of the melody, the matchless beauty and swing of the
+rhythm, his ingenious treatment of harmony, and the chromatic changes
+and climaxes through which the motives are developed, make up a new
+chapter in the history of the piano-forte.
+
+Liszt, in his life of Chopin, says of him: "His character was indeed
+not easily understood. A thousand subtile shades, mingling, crossing,
+contradicting, and disguising each other, rendered it almost
+undecipherable at first view; kind, courteous, affable, and almost
+of joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret convulsions which
+agitated him to be ever suspected. His works, concertos, waltzes,
+sonatas, ballades, polonaises, mazurkas, nocturnes, scherzi, all reflect
+a similar enigma in a most poetical and romantic form."
+
+Chopin's moral nature was not cast in an heroic mold, and he lacked the
+robust intellectual marrow which is essential to the highest forms of
+genius in art as well as in literature and affairs, though it is not
+safe to believe that he was, as painted by George Sand and Liszt, a
+feeble youth, continually living at death's door in an atmosphere of
+moonshine and sentimentality. But there can be no question that the
+whole bent of Chopin's temperament and genius was melancholy, romantic,
+and poetic, and that frequently he gives us mere musical moods and
+reveries, instead of well-defined and well-developed ideas. His music
+perhaps loses nothing, for, if it misses something of the clear,
+inspiring, vigorous quality of other great composers, it has a subtile,
+dreamy, suggestive beauty all its own.
+
+The personal life of Chopin was singularly interesting. His long and
+intimate connection with George Sand; the circumstances under which it
+was formed; the blissful idyl of the lovers in the isle of Majorca; the
+awakening from the dream, and the separation--these and other striking
+circumstances growing out of a close association with what was best in
+Parisian art and life, invest the career of the man, aside from his art,
+with more than common charm to the mind of the reader. Having touched
+on these phases of Chopin's life at some length in a previous volume of
+this series, we must reluctantly pass them by.
+
+In closing this imperfect review of the Polish composer, it is enough to
+say that the present generation has more than sustained the judgment
+of his own as to the unique and wonderful beauty of his compositions.
+Hardly any concert programme is considered complete without one or more
+numbers selected from his works; and though there are but few pianists,
+even in a day when Chopin as a stylist has been a study, who can do
+his subtile and wonderful fancies justice, there is no composer for the
+piano-forte who so fascinates the musical mind.
+
+
+
+
+THALBERG AND GOTTSCHALK.
+
+
+Thalberg one of the Greatest of Executants.--Bather a Man of Remarkable
+Talents than of Genius.--Moscheles's Description of him.--The
+Illegitimate Son of an Austrian Prince.--Early Introduction to
+Musical Society in London and Vienna.--Beginning of his Career as a
+Virtuoso.--The Brilliancy of his Career.--Is appointed Court Pianist to
+the Emperor of Austria.--His Marriage.--Visits to America.--Thalborg's
+Artistic Idiosyncrasy.--Robert Schumann on his Playing.--His Appearance
+and Manner.--Characterization by George William Curtis.--Thalberg's
+Style and Worth as an Artist.--His Pianoforte Method, and Place as a
+Composer for the Piano.--Gott-schalk's Birth and Early Years.--He is
+sent to Paris for Instruction.--Successful _Début_ and Public
+Concerts in Paris and Tour through the French Cities.--Friendship with
+Berlioz.--Concert Tour to Spain.--Romantic Experiences.--Berlioz on
+Gottschalk.--Reception of Gottschalk in America.--Criticism of his
+Style.--Remarkable Success of his Concerts.--His Visit to the West
+Indies, Mexico, and Central America.--Protracted Absence.--Gottschalk
+on Life in the Tropics.--Return to the United States.--Three Brilliant
+Musical Years.--Departure for South America.--Triumphant Procession
+through the Spanish-American Cities.--Death at Rio Janeiro.--Notes on
+Gottschalk as Man and Artist.
+
+
+I.
+
+One of the most remarkable of the great piano-forte virtuosos was
+unquestionably Sigismond Thalberg, an artist who made a profound
+sensation in two hemispheres, and filled a large space in the musical
+world for more than forty-five years. Originally a disciple of the
+Viennese school of piano-forte playing, a pupil of Mosche-les, and a
+rigid believer in making the instrument which was the medium of his
+talent sufficient unto itself, wholly indifferent to the daring and
+boundless ambition which made his great rival, Franz Liszt, pile Pelion
+on Ossa in his grasp after new effects, Thalberg developed virtuoso-ism
+to its extreme degree by a mechanical dexterity which was perhaps
+unrivaled. But the fingers can not express more than rests in the heart
+and brain to give to their skill, and Thalberg, with all his immense
+talent, seems to have lacked the divine spark of genius. It goes without
+saying, to those who are familiar with the current cant of criticism,
+that the word genius is often applied in a very loose and misleading
+manner. But, in all estimates of art and artists, where there are two
+clearly defined factors, imagination or formative power and technical
+dexterity, it would seem that there should not be any error in deciding
+on the propriety of such a word as a measure of the quality of an
+artist's gifts. The lack of the creative impulse could not be mistaken
+in Thalberg's work, whether as player or composer. But the ability to
+execute all that came within the scope of his sympathies or intelligence
+was so prodigious that the world was easily dazzled into forgetting
+his deficiencies in the loftier regions of art. Trifles are often very
+significant. What, for example, could more vividly portray an artist's
+tendencies than the description of Thalberg by Moscheles, who knew him
+more thoroughly than any other contemporary, and felt a keener sympathy
+with his _genre_ as an artist than with the more striking originality of
+Chopin and Liszt. Moscheles writes:
+
+"I find his introduction of harp effects on the piano quite original.
+His theme, which lies in the middle part, is brought out clearly in
+relief with an accompaniment of complicated arpeggios which reminds me
+of a harp. The audience is amazed. He himself sits immovably calm;
+his whole bearing as he sits at the piano is soldierlike; his lips are
+tightly compressed and his coat buttoned closely. He told me he acquired
+this attitude of self-control by smoking a Turkish pipe while practicing
+his piano-forte exercises: the length of the tube was so calculated as
+to keep him erect and motionless." This exact discipline and mechanism
+were not merely matters of technical culture; they were the logical
+outcome of the man and surely a part of himself. But within his limits,
+fixed as these were, Thalberg was so great that he must be conceded to
+be one of the most striking and brilliant figures of an age fecund in
+fine artists.
+
+Thalberg was born at Geneva, January 7,1812, and was the natural son of
+Prince Dietrichstein, an Austrian nobleman, temporarily resident in that
+city. His talent for music, inherited from both sides, for his mother
+was an artist and his father an amateur of no inconsiderable skill,
+became obvious at a very tender age, following the law which so
+generally holds in music that superior gifts display themselves at an
+early period. These indications of nature were not ignored, for the boy
+was placed under instruction before he had completed his sixth year. It
+is a little singular that his first teacher was not a pianist, though a
+very superior musician. Mittag was one of the first bassoonists of
+his times, and, in addition to his technical skill, a thoroughly
+accomplished man in the science of his profession. Thalberg was
+accustomed to attribute the wonderfully rich and mellow tone which
+characterized his playing to the influence and training of Mittag. From
+this instructor the future great pianist passed to the charge of the
+distinguished Hummel, who was not only one of the greatest virtuosos of
+the age, but ranked by his admirers as only a little less than Beethoven
+himself in his genius for pianoforte compositions, though succeeding
+generations have discredited his former fame by estimating him merely
+a "dull classic." Contemporaneously with his pupilage under Hummel,
+he studied the theory of music with Simon Sechter, an eminent
+contrapuntist. Even at this early age, for Thalberg must have been
+less than ten years old, he impressed all by the great precision of
+his fingering and the instinctive ease with which he mastered the most
+difficult mechanism of the art of playing. At the age of fourteen young
+Thalberg went to London in the household of his father, who had been
+appointed imperial ambassador to England, and the youth was then placed
+under the instruction of the great pianist Moscheles. The latter speaks
+of Thalberg as the most distinguished of his pupils, and as being, even
+at that age, already an artist of distinction and mark. It was a source
+of much pleasure to Moscheles that his brilliant scholar, who played
+much at private soirées, was not only recognized by the _dilletante_
+public generally, but by such veteran artists as Clementi and Cramer.
+Moscheles, in his diary, speaks of the wonderful brilliancy of a grand
+fancy dress ball given by Thalberg's princely father at Covent Garden
+Theatre. Pit, stalls, and proscenium were formed into one grand room,
+in which the crowd promenaded. The costumes were of every conceivable
+variety, and many of the most gorgeous description. The spectators, in
+full dress, sat in the boxes; on the stage was a court box, occupied by
+the royal family; and bands played in rooms adjoining for small parties
+of dancers. "You will have some idea," wrote Mme. Moscheles, in a
+letter, "of the crowd at this ball, when I tell you that we left the
+ballroom at two o'clock and did not get to the prince's carriage till
+four." One of the interesting features of this ball was that the
+boy Thalberg played in one of the smaller rooms before the most
+distinguished people present, including the royal family, all crowding
+in to hear the youthful virtuoso, whose tacit recognition by his father
+had already opened to him the most brilliant drawing-rooms in London.
+
+Thalberg did not immediately begin to perform in public, but, on
+returning to Vienna in 1827, played continually at private soirées,
+where he had the advantage of being heard and criticised by the foremost
+amateurs and musicians of the Austrian capital. It had some time since
+become obvious to the initiated that another great player was about to
+be launched on his career. The following year the young artist tried his
+hand at composition, for he published variations on themes from Weber's
+"Euryanthe," which were well received. Thalberg in after-years spoke of
+all his youthful productions with disdain, but his early works displayed
+not a little of the brilliant style of treatment which subsequently gave
+his fantasias a special place among compositions for the piano-forte.
+
+It was not till 1830 that young Thalberg fairly began his career as
+a traveling player. The cities of Germany received him with the most
+_éclatant_ admiration, and his feats of skill as a performer were
+trumpeted by the newspapers and musical journals as something
+unprecedented in the art of pianism. From Germany Thalberg proceeded to
+France and England, and his audiences were no less pronounced in their
+recognition. Liszt had already been before him in Paris, and Chopin
+arrived about the same time. Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller, and
+Field were playing, but the splendid, calm beauty of Thalberg's style
+instantly captivated the public, and elicited the most extravagant
+and delighted applause not only from the public, but from enlightened
+connoisseurs.
+
+To follow the course of Thalberg's pianoforte achievements in his
+musical travels through Europe would be merely to repeat a record of
+uninterrupted successes. He disarmed envy and criticism everywhere, and
+even those disposed to withhold a frank and generous acknowledgment of
+his greatness did not dare to question powers of execution which
+seemed without a technical flaw. During his travels Thalberg composed
+a concerto for piano and orchestra, to play at his concerts. But this
+species of composition was so obviously unsuited to his abilities that
+he quickly forsook it, and thenceforward devoted his efforts exclusively
+to the instrument of which he was such an eminent master. A more
+extensive ambition had been rebuked in more ways than one. He composed
+two operas, "Fiorinda" and "Christine," and of course easily yielded to
+the entreaties of his admirers to have them produced. But it was clearly
+evident that his musical idiosyncrasy, though magnificent of its kind,
+was limited in range, and after the failure of his operas and attempts
+at orchestral writing Thalberg calmly accepted the situation.
+
+In the year 1834 Thalberg was appointed pianist of the Imperial Chamber
+to the court of Austria, and accompanied the Emperor Ferdinand to
+Toplitz, where a convocation of the European sovereigns took place. His
+performances were warmly received by the assembled monarchs, and he was
+overwhelmed with presents and congratulations. Thalberg's way throughout
+the whole of his life was strewn with roses, and, though his career did
+not present the same romantic incidents which make the life of Franz
+Liszt so picturesque, it was attended by the same lavish favors of
+fortune. From one patron he received the gift of a fine estate, from
+another a magnificent city mansion in Vienna, and testimonials, like
+snuff-boxes set with diamonds, jeweled court-swords, superbly set
+portraits of his royal and imperial patrons, and costly jewelry, poured
+in on him continually. Imperial orders from Austria and Russia were
+bestowed on him, and hardly any mark of favor was denied him by that
+good fortune which had been auspicious to him from his very birth. In
+1845, while still in the service of the Austrian emperor, though he did
+not intermit his musical tours through the principal European cities,
+Thalberg married the charming widow, whom he had known and admired
+before her marriage, the daughter of the great singer Lablache, Mme.
+Bouchot, whose first husband had been the distinguished French painter
+of that name. The marriage was a happy one, though scandal, which loves
+to busy itself about the affairs of musical celebrities, did not fail
+to associate Thalberg's name with several of the most beautiful women of
+his time. Mile. Thalberg, a daughter of this marriage, made her _début_
+with considerable success in London, in 1874.
+
+Thalberg's first visit to America was in 1853, and he came again in
+1857, to more than repeat the enthusiastic reception with which he was
+greeted by music-loving Americans. Musical culture at that time had not
+attained the refinement and knowledge which now make an audience in
+one of our greater cities as fastidious and intelligent as can be found
+anywhere in the world. But Thalberg's wonderful playing, though lacking
+in the fire, glow, and impetuosity which would naturally most arouse the
+less cultivated musical sense, created a _furore_, which has never been
+matched since, among those who specially prided themselves on being good
+judges. He extended both tours to Cuba, Mexico, and South America, and
+it is said took away with him larger gains than he had ever made during
+the same period in Europe.
+
+During the latter years of Thalberg's life he spent much of his time
+in elegant ease at his fine country estate near Naples, only giving
+concerts at some few of the largest European capitals, like London and
+Paris. He became an enthusiastic wine-grower, and wine from his estate
+gained a medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1867. Many of his best
+piano-forte compositions date from the period when he had given up the
+active pursuit of virtuosoism. His works comprise a concerto, three
+sonatas, many nocturnes, rondos, and études, about thirty fantasias, two
+operas, and an instruction series, which latter has been adopted by many
+of the best teachers, and has been the means of forming a number of able
+pupils. This fine artist died at his Neapolitan estate, April 27, 1871.
+
+
+II.
+
+Thalberg had but little sympathy with the dreamy romanticism which
+found such splendid exponents, while he was yet in his early youth,
+in Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt. Imagination in its higher functions he
+seemed to lack. A certain opulence and picturesqueness of fancy united
+in his artistic being with an intelligence both lucid and penetrating,
+and a sense of form and symmetry almost Greek in its fastidiousness. The
+sweet, vague, passionate aspiration^, the sensibility that quivers
+with every breath of movement from the external world, he could not
+understand. Placidity, grace, and repose he had in perfection. Yet he
+was very highly appreciated by those who had little in common with his
+artistic nature. As, for example, Robert Schumann writes of Thalberg and
+his playing, on the occasion of a charity concert, given in Leipzig in
+1841: "In his passing flight the master's pinions rested here awhile,
+and, as from the angel's pinions in one of Rucker's poems, rubies and
+other precious stones fell from them and into indigent hands, as the
+master ordained it. It is difficult to say anything new of one who has
+been so praise beshow-ered as he has. But every earnest virtuoso is glad
+to hear one thing said at any time--that he has progressed in his
+art since he last delighted us. This best of all praise we are
+conscientiously able to bestow on Thalberg; for, during the last two
+years that we have not heard him, he has made astonishing additions to
+his acquirements, and, if possible, moves with greater boldness, grace,
+and freedom than ever. His playing seemed to have the same effect on
+every one, and the delight that he probably feels in it himself was
+shared by all. True virtuosity gives us something more than mere
+flexibility and execution: aman may mirror his own nature in it, and in
+Thalberg's playing it becomes clear to all that he is one of the favored
+ones of fortune, one accustomed to wealth and elegance. Accompanied
+by happiness, bestowing pleasure, he commenced his career; under such
+circumstances he has so far pursued it, and so he will probably continue
+it. The whole of yesterday evening and every number that he played gave
+us a proof of this. The public did not seem to be there to judge, but
+only to enjoy; they were as certain of enjoyment as the master was of
+his art."
+
+Thalberg in his appearance had none of the traditional wild
+picturesqueness of style and manner which so many distinguished artists,
+even Liszt himself, have thought it worth while to carry perhaps to
+the degree of affectation. Smoothly shaven, quiet, eminently
+respectable-looking, his handsome, somewhat Jewish-looking face composed
+in an expression of unostentatious good breeding, he was wont to
+seat himself at the piano with all the simplicity of one doing any
+commonplace thing. He had the air of one who respected himself, his art,
+and the public. His performance was in an exquisitely artistic sense
+that of the gentleman, perfect, polished, and elaborately wrought. The
+distinguished American litterateur, Mr. George William Curtis, who heard
+him in New York in 1857, thus wrote of him: "He is a proper artist in
+this, that he comprehends the character of his instrument. He neither
+treats it as a violoncello nor a full orchestra. Those who in private
+have enjoyed the pleasure of hearing--or, to use a more accurate
+epithet, of seeing--Strepitoso, that friend of mankind, play the piano,
+will understand what we mean when we speak of treating the piano as if
+it were an orchestra. Strepitoso storms and slams along the keyboard
+until the tortured instrument gives up its musical soul in despair
+and breaks its heart of melody by cracking all its strings.... Every
+instrument has its limitations, but Strepitoso will tolerate no such
+theory. He extracts music from his piano, not as if he were sifting the
+sands for gold, but as if he were raking oysters.... Now, Thalberg's
+manner is different from Strepitoso's. He plays the piano; that is the
+phrase which describes his performance. He plays it quietly and suavely.
+You could sit upon the lawn on a June night and hear with delight
+the sounds that trickled through the moonlight from the piano of this
+master. They would not melt your soul in you; they would not touch those
+longings that, like rays of starry light, respond to the rays of the
+stars; they would not storm your heart with the yearning passion
+of their strains, but you would confess it was a good world as you
+listened, and be glad you lived in it--you would be glad of your home
+and all that made it homelike; the moonlight as you listened would melt
+and change, and your smiling eyes would seem to glitter in cheerful
+sunlight as Thalberg ended."
+
+Thalberg's style was, perhaps, the best possible illustration of the
+legitimate effects of the pianoforte carried to the highest by as
+perfect a technique as could possibly be attained by human skill.
+
+That he lacked poetic fire and passion, that the sense of artistic
+restraint and a refined fastidiousness chilled and fettered him, is
+doubtlessly true. Whether the absence of the imaginative warmth and
+vigor which suffuse a work of art with the glow of something that can
+not be fully expressed, and kindle the thoughts of the hearer to take
+hitherto unknown flights, is fully compensated for by that repose and
+symmetry of style which know exactly what it wishes to express, and,
+being perfect master of the means of expression, puts forth an exact
+measure of effort and then stops as if shut down by an iron wall--this
+is an open question, and must be answered according to one's art
+theories. The exquisite modeling of a Benvenuto Cellini vase, wrought
+with patient elaboration into a thing of unsurpassable beauty, does not
+invoke as high a sense of pleasure as an heroic statue or noble painting
+by some great master, but of its kind the pleasure is just as complete.
+Apart from Thalberg's power as a player, however, there was something
+captivating in the quality of his talent, which, though not creative,
+was gifted with the power of seizing the very essence of the music to
+be interpreted. A striking example of this is shown in the fantasias he
+composed on the different operas, a form of writing which reached its
+perfection in him. His own contribution is simply a most delightful
+setting of the melodies of his subject, and the whole is steeped in the
+very atmosphere and feeling of the original, as if the master himself
+had done the work.
+
+A good example is the fantasia on Mozart's "Don Giovanni." The little,
+wild, unformed melodies rustle in quick gusts along the keys as if
+wavering shadows, yet with all the familiar rhythm and family likeness,
+filling the mind of the hearer with the atmosphere and necessity of what
+is to follow, while gradually the full harmonies unfold themselves. The
+introduction of the minuet is one of the most striking portions. The
+scene of the minuet in the opera is a vision of rural loveliness and
+repose, whispering of flowers, fields, and happy flying hours. All this
+becomes poetized, and the music seems to imply rich reaches of odorous
+garden and moonlight, whispering foliage, and nightingales mad with the
+delight of their own singing, and a palace on the lawn sounding with
+riotous mirth. The player-composer weaves the glamour of such a dream,
+and the hearer finds himself strolling in imagination through the
+moonlit garden, listening to the birds, the waters, and the rustling
+leaves, while the stately beat of the minuet comes throbbing through
+it all, calling up the vision of gayly dressed cavaliers and beautiful
+ladies fantastically moving to the tune. Such poetic sentiment as
+this of the purely picturesque sort was in large measure Thalberg's
+possession, but he could never understand that turbulent ground-swell of
+passion which music can also powerfully express, and by which the
+soul is lifted up to the heights of ecstasy or plunged in depths of
+melancholy. Music as a vehicle for such meanings was mere Egyptian
+hieroglyphic, utterly beyond his limitation, absolute bathos and
+absurdity.
+
+It is doubtful whether any player ever possessed a more wonderfully
+trained mechanism; the smallest details were polished and finished with
+the utmost care, the scales marvels of evenness, the shakes rivaling the
+trill of a canary bird. His arpeggios at times rolled like the waves
+of the sea, and at others resembled folds of transparent lace floating
+airily with the movements of the wearer. The octaves were wonderfully
+accurate, and the chords appeared to be struck by steel mallets instead
+of fingers. He was called the Bayard of pianists, "le Chevalier sans
+peur et sans reproche." His tone was noble, yet mellow and delicate, and
+the gradations between his forte and piano were traced most exquisitely.
+In a word, technical execution could go no further. It is said that
+he never played a piece in public till he had absolutely made it the
+property of his fingers. He was the first to divide the melody between
+the two hands, making the right hand perform a brilliant figure in the
+higher register, while the left hand exhibited a full and rich bass
+part, supplementing it with an accompaniment in chords. It was this
+characteristic which made his fantasias so unique and interesting, in
+spite of their lack of originality of motive, as compositions. Almost
+all writers for the piano have since adopted this device, even the great
+Mendelssohn using it in some of his concertos and "Songs without Words";
+and in many cases it has been transformed into a mere trick of arrant
+musical charlatanism, designed to cover up with a sham glitter the utter
+absence of thought and motive. No better suggestion of the dominant
+characteristic of Thal-berg as a pianist can be found than a critical
+word of his friend Moscheles: "The proper ground for finger gymnastics
+is to be found in Thalberg's latest compositions; for mind [Geist], give
+me Schumann."
+
+
+III.
+
+During Thalberg's first visit to America he had an active and dangerous
+rival in the young and brilliant pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk,
+who was as fresh to New York audiences as Thalberg himself, though the
+latter had the advantage over his young competitor in a fame which
+was almost world-wide. Of American pianists Louis Gottschalk stands
+confessedly at the head by virtue of remarkable native gifts, which, had
+they been assisted by greater industry and ambition, might easily have
+won him a very eminent rank in Europe as well as in his own country. An
+easy, pleasure-loving, tropical nature, flexible, facile, and disposed
+to sacrifice the future to the present, was the only obstacle to the
+attainment to a place level with the foremost artists of his age.
+
+Edward Gottschalk, who came to America in his young manhood and settled
+in New Orleans, and his wife, a French Creole lady, had five children,
+of whom the future pianist was the eldest, born in 1829. His feeling for
+music manifested itself when he was three years old by his ability to
+play a melody on the piano which he had heard. Instantly he was strong
+enough, he was placed under the instruction of a good teacher, and no
+pains were spared to develop his precocious talent. At the age of six he
+had made such progress on the piano that he was also instructed on
+the violin, and soon was able to play pieces of more than ordinary
+difficulty with taste and expression. We are told that the lad gave
+a benefit concert at the age of eight to assist an unfortunate
+violin-player, with considerable success, and was soon in great request
+at evening parties as a child phenomenon. The propriety of sending
+the little Louis to Paris had long been discussed, and it was finally
+accomplished in 1842.
+
+On reaching Paris he was first put under the teaching of Charles Halle,
+but, as the latter master was a little careless, he was replaced by M.
+Camille Stamaty, who had the reputation of being the ablest professor
+in the city. The following year he began the study of harmony and
+counterpoint with M. Malidan, and the rapid progress he evinced in his
+studies was of a kind to justify his parents in their wish to devote him
+to the career of a pianist.
+
+Young Louis Gottschalk was much petted in the aristocratic salons of
+Paris, to which he had admission through his aunts, the Comtesse de
+Lagrange and the Comtesse de Bourjally. His remarkable musical gifts,
+and more especially his talent for improvisation, excited curiosity and
+admiration, even in a city where the love of musical novelty had been
+sated by a continual supply of art prodigies. Young as he was, he wrote
+at this time not a few charming compositions, which were in after-years
+occasional features of his concerts. His delicate constitution succumbed
+under hard work, and for a while a severe attack of typhoid fever
+interrupted his studies. On his recovery, our young artist spent a few
+months in the Ardennes. On returning to Paris, he became the pupil of
+Hector Berlioz, who felt a deep interest in the young American, as an
+art prodigy from a land of savages in harmony, and devoted himself so
+assiduously to the study that he declined an invitation from the Spanish
+queen to become a guest of the court at Madrid.
+
+An amusing incident occurred in a pedestrian trip which he made to the
+Vosges in 1846. He had forgotten his passport, and, on arriving at a
+small town, was arrested by a gendarme and taken before the maire. The
+latter official was reading a newspaper containing a notice of his last
+concert, and through this means he assured the worthy functionary of his
+identity, and was cordially welcomed to the hospitality of the official
+residence.
+
+His friend Berlioz, who was ever on the alert to help the American pupil
+who promised to do him so much credit, arranged a series of concerts
+for him at the Italian Opéra in the winter of 1846-'47, and these proved
+brilliantly successful, not merely in filling the young artist's purse,
+but in augmenting his fast-growing reputation. Steady labor in study and
+concert-giving, many of his public performances being for charity, made
+two years pass swiftly by. A musical tour through France in 1849 was
+highly successful, and the young American returned to Paris, loaded
+down with gifts, and rich in the sense of having justly earned the
+congratulations which showered on him from all his friends. A second
+invitation now came from Spain, and Louis Gottschalk on arriving at
+Madrid was made a guest at the royal palace. From the king he received
+two orders, the diamond cross of Isabella la Catholique and that of
+Leon d'Holstein, and from the Duke de Montpensier he received a sword of
+honor. We are told that at one of the private court concerts Gottschalk
+played a duet with Don Carlos, the father of the recent pretender to the
+Spanish throne.
+
+Among the romantic incidents narrated of this visit of Gottschalk to
+Madrid, one is too characteristic to be overlooked, as showing the
+tender, generous nature of the artist. An imaginative Spanish girl,
+whose fancy had been excited by the public enthusiasm about Gottschalk,
+but was too ill to attend his concerts, had a passionate desire to hear
+him play, and pined away in the fret-fulness of ungratified desire. Her
+family were not able to pay Gottschalk for the trouble of giving such an
+exclusive concert, but, to satisfy the sick girl, made the circumstances
+known to the artist. Gottschalk did not hesitate a moment, but ordered
+his piano to be conveyed to the humble abode of the patient. Here by her
+bedside he played for hours to the enraptured girl, and the strain of
+emotion was so great that her life ebbed away before he had finished the
+final chords. Gottschalk remained in Spain for two years, and it was not
+till the autumn of 1852 that he returned to Paris, to give a series of
+farewell concerts before returning again to America, where his father
+and brothers were anxiously awaiting him.
+
+
+IV.
+
+Before Gottschalk's departure from Paris, Hector Berlioz thus wrote of
+his _protégé_, for whom we may fancy he had a strong bias of liking; and
+no judge is so generous in estimation as one artist of another, unless
+the critic has personal cause of dislike, and then no judge is so
+sweepingly unjust: "Gottschalk is one of the very small number who
+possess all the different elements of a consummate pianist, all the
+faculties which surround him with an irresistible prestige, and give him
+a sovereign power. He is an accomplished musician; he knows just how far
+fancy may be indulged in expression. He knows the limits beyond which
+any freedom taken with the rhythm produces only confusion and disorder,
+and upon these limits he never encroaches. There is an exquisite grace
+in his manner of phrasing sweet melodies and throwing off light touches
+from the higher keys. The boldness, brilliancy, and originality of his
+play at once dazzle and astonish, and the infantile _naivete_ of his
+smiling caprices, the charming simplicity with which he renders simple
+things, seem to belong to another individuality, distinct from that
+which marks his thundering energy. Thus the success of M. Gottschalk
+before an audience of musical cultivation is immense."
+
+But even this enthusiastic praise was pale in comparison with the
+eulogiums of some of the New York journals, after the first concert of
+Gottschalk at Niblo's Garden Theatre. One newspaper, which arrogated
+special strength and good judgment in its critical departments,
+intimated that after such a revelation it was useless any longer to
+speak of Beethoven! Whether Beethoven as a player or Beethoven as a
+composer was meant was left unknown. Gottschalk at his earlier concerts
+played many of his own compositions, made to order for the display
+of his virtuosoism, and their brilliant, showy style was very well
+calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of the general public. Perhaps the
+most sound and thoughtful opinion of Gottschalk expressed during the
+first enthusiasm created by his playing was that of a well-known musical
+journal published in Boston:
+
+"Well, at the concert, which, by the way, did not half fill the Boston
+Music Hall, owing partly, we believe, to the one-dollar price, and
+partly, we _hope_, to distrust of an artist who plays wholly his own
+compositions, our expectation was confirmed. There was, indeed, most
+brilliant execution; we have heard none more brilliant, but are not yet
+prepared to say that Jaell's was less so. Gottschalk's touch is the most
+clear and crisp and beautiful that we have ever known. His play is
+free and bold and sure, and graceful in the extreme; his runs pure and
+liquid; his figures always clean and perfectly denned; his command of
+rapid octave passages prodigious; and so we might go through with all
+the technical points of masterly execution. It _was_ great execution.
+But what is execution, without some thought and meaning in the
+combinations to be executed?... Skillful, graceful, brilliant,
+wonderful, we own his playing was. But players less wonderful have given
+us far deeper satisfaction. We have seen a criticism upon that concert,
+in which it was regretted that his music was too fine for common
+apprehension, 'too much addressed to the _reasoning_ faculties,' etc.
+To us the want was, that it did _not_ address the reason; that it seemed
+empty of ideas, of inspiration; that it spake little to the mind or
+heart, excited neither meditation nor emotion, but simply dazzled by the
+display of difficult feats gracefully and easily achieved. But of
+what use were all these difficulties? ('Difficult! I wish it was
+_impossible_,' said Dr. Johnson.) Why all that rapid tossing of handfuls
+of chords from the middle to the highest octaves, lifting the hand with
+such conscious appeal to our eyes? To what end all those rapid octave
+passages? since in the intervals of easy execution, in the seemingly
+quiet impromptu passages, the music grew so monotonous and commonplace:
+the same little figure repeated and repeated, after listless pauses, in
+a way which conveyed no meaning, no sense of musical progress, but only
+the appearance of fastidiously critical scale-practicing."
+
+In the series of concerts given by Gottschalk throughout the United
+States, the public generally showed great enthusiasm and admiration,
+and the young pianist sustained himself very successfully against the
+memories of Jaell, Henri Herz, and Leopold de Meyer, as well as the
+immediate rivalry of Thalberg, who appealed more potently to a select
+few. The hold the American pianist had secured on his public did not
+lessen during the five years of concert-giving which succeeded. No
+player ever displayed his skill before American audiences who had in so
+large degree that peculiar quality of geniality in his style which so
+endears him to the public. This characteristic is something apart from
+genius or technical skill, and is peculiarly an emanation from the
+personality of the man.
+
+In the spring of 1837 Gottschalk found himself in Havana, whither he had
+gone to make the beginning of a musical tour through the West Indies.
+His first concert was given at the Tacon Theatre, which Mr. Maretzek,
+who was giving operatic representations then in Havana, yielded to
+him for the occasion. The Cubans gave the pianist a tropical warmth of
+welcome, and Gott-schalk's letters from the old Spanish city are full
+of admiration for the climate, the life, and the people, with whom there
+was something strongly sympathetic in his own nature. The artist had not
+designed to protract his musical wanderings in the beautiful island of
+the Antilles for any considerable period, but his success was great,
+and the new experiences admirably suited his dreaming, sensuous,
+pleasure-loving temperament. Everywhere the advent of Gottschalk at
+a town was made the occasion of a festival, and life seemed to be one
+continued gala-day with him.
+
+
+V.
+
+In the early months of 1860 the young pianist, Arthur Napoleon, joined
+Gottschalk at Havana, and the two gave concerts throughout the West
+Indies, which were highly successful. The early summer had been designed
+for a tour through Central America and Venezuela, but a severe attack of
+illness prostrated Gottschalk, and he was not able to sail before August
+for his new field of musical conquest. Our artist did not return to New
+York till 1862, after an absence of five years, though his original plan
+had only contemplated a tour of two years. It must not be supposed that
+Gottschalk devoted his time continually to concert performances and
+composition, though he by no means neglected the requirements of
+musical labor. As he himself confesses, the balmy climate, the glorious
+landscapes, the languid _dolce far niente_, which tended to enervate
+all that came under their magic spell, wrought on his susceptible
+temperament with peculiar effect. A quotation from an article written by
+Gottschalk, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly," entitled "Notes of
+a Pianist," will furnish the reader a graphic idea of the influence
+of tropical life on such an imaginative and voluptuous character,
+passionately fond of nature and outdoor life: "Thus, in succession, I
+have visited all the Antilles--Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Swedish,
+and Danish; the Guianas, and the coasts of Para. At times, having become
+the idol of some obscure _pueblo_, whose untutored ears I had charmed
+with its own simple ballads, I would pitch my tent for five, six, eight
+months, deferring my departure from day to day, until finally I began
+seriously to entertain the idea of remaining there for evermore.
+Abandoning myself to such influences, I lived without care, as the bird
+sings, as the flower expands, as the brook flows, oblivious of the past,
+reckless of the future, and sowed both my heart and my purse with the
+ardor of a husbandman who hopes to reap a hundred ears for every grain
+he confides to the earth. But, alas! the fields where is garnered the
+harvest of expended doubloons, and where vernal loves bloom anew, are
+yet to be discovered; and the result of my prodigality was that, one
+fine morning, I found myself a bankrupt in heart, with my purse
+at ebb-tide. Suddenly disgusted with the world and myself, weary,
+discouraged, mistrusting men (ay, and women too), I fled to a desert on
+the extinct volcano of M------, where, for several months, I lived the
+life of a cenobite, with no companion but a poor lunatic whom I had met
+on a small island, and who had attached himself to me. He followed me
+everywhere, and loved me with that absurd and touching constancy of
+which dogs and madmen alone are capable. My friend, whose insanity was
+of a mild and harmless character, fancied himself the greatest genius in
+the world. He was, moreover, under the impression that he suffered from
+a gigantic, monstrous tooth. Of the two idiosyncrasies, the latter alone
+made his lunacy discernible, too many individuals being affected with
+the other symptom to render it an anomalous feature of the human mind.
+My friend was in the habit of protesting that this enormous tooth
+increased periodically, and threatened to encroach upon his entire jaw.
+Tormented, at the same time, with the desire of regenerating humanity,
+he divided his leisure between the study of dentistry, to which he
+applied himself in order to impede the progress of his hypothetical
+tyrant, and a voluminous correspondence which he kept up with the Pope,
+his brother, and the Emperor of the French, his cousin. In the latter
+occupation he pleaded the interests of humanity, styled himself 'the
+Prince of Thought,' and exalted me to the dignity of his illustrious
+friend and benefactor. In the midst of the wreck of his intellect, one
+thing still survived--his love of music. He played the violin; and,
+strange as it may appear, although insane, he could not understand the
+so-called _music of the future_.
+
+"My hut, perched on the verge of the crater, at the very summit of the
+mountain, commanded a view of all the surrounding country. The rock
+upon which it was built projected over a precipice whose abysses were
+concealed by creeping plants, cactus, and bamboos. The species
+of table-rock thus formed had been encircled with a railing, and
+transformed into a terrace on a level with the sleeping-room, by my
+predecessor in this hermitage. His last wish had been to be buried
+there; and from my bed I could see his white tombstone gleaming in the
+moonlight a few steps from my window. Every evening I rolled my piano
+out upon the terrace; and there, facing the most incomparably beautiful
+landscape, all bathed in the soft and limpid atmosphere of the tropics,
+I poured forth on the instrument, and for myself alone, the thoughts
+with which the scene inspired me. And what a scene! Picture to yourself
+a gigantic amphitheatre hewn out of the mountains by an army of Titans;
+right and left, immense virgin forests full of those subdued and distant
+harmonies which are, as it were, the voices of Silence; before me,
+a prospect of twenty leagues marvelously enhanced by the extreme
+transparency of the air; above, the azure of the sky: beneath, the
+creviced sides of the mountain sweeping down to the plain; afar, the
+waving savannas; beyond them, a grayish speck (the distant city); and,
+encompassing them all, the immensity of the ocean closing the horizon
+with its deep-blue line. Behind me was a rock on which a torrent of
+melted snow dashed its white foam, and there, diverted from its course,
+rushed with a mad leap and plunged headlong into the gulf that yawned
+beneath my window.
+
+"Amid such scenes I composed 'Réponds-moi la Marche des Gibaros,'
+'Polonia,' 'Columbia,' 'Pastorella e Cavaličre,' 'Jeunesse,' and many
+other unpublished works. I allowed my fingers to run over the keys,
+wrapped up in the contemplation of these wonders; while my poor friend,
+whom I heeded but little, revealed to me with a childish loquacity the
+lofty destiny he held in reserve for humanity. Can you conceive the
+contrast produced by this shattered intellect expressing at random its
+disjointed thoughts, as a disordered clock strikes by chance any
+hour, and the majestic serenity of the scene around me? I felt it
+instinctively. My misanthropy gave way. I became indulgent toward myself
+and mankind, and the wounds of my heart closed once more. My despair was
+soothed; and soon the sun of the tropics, which tinges all things with
+gold--dreams as well as fruits--restored me with new confidence and
+vigor to my wanderings.
+
+"I relapsed into the manners and life of these primitive countries:
+if not strictly virtuous, they are at all events terribly attractive.
+Existence in a tropical wilderness, in the midst of a voluptuous and
+half-civilized race, bears no resemblance to that of a London cockney, a
+Parisian lounger, or an American Quaker. Times there were, indeed, when
+a voice was heard within me that spoke of nobler aims. It reminded me
+of what I once was, of what I yet might be; and commanded imperatively a
+return to a healthier and more active life. But I had allowed myself to
+be enervated by this baneful languor, this insidious _far niente_; and
+my moral torpor was such that the mere thought of reappearing before
+a polished audience struck me as superlatively absurd. 'Where was the
+object?' I would ask myself. Moreover, it was too late; and I went on
+dreaming with open eyes, careering on horseback through the savannas,
+listening at break of day to the prattle of the parrots in the
+guava-trees, at nightfall to the chirp of the _grillos_ in the
+cane-fields, or else smoking my cigar, taking my coffee, rocking myself
+in a hammock--in short, enjoying all the delights that are the very
+heart-blood of a _guajiro_, and out of the sphere of which he can see
+but death, or, what is worse to him, the feverish agitation of our
+Northern society. Go and talk of the funds, of the landed interest, of
+stock-jobbing, to this Sybarite lord of the wilderness, who can live all
+the year round on luscious bananas and delicious cocoa-nuts which he
+is not even at the trouble of planting; who has the best tobacco in
+the world to smoke; who replaces today the horse he had yesterday by a
+better one, chosen from the first _calallada_ he meets; who requires no
+further protection from the cold than a pair of linen trousers, in that
+favored clime where the seasons roll on in one perennial summer; who,
+more than all this, finds at eve, under the rustling palm-trees, pensive
+beauties, eager to reward with their smiles the one who murmurs in their
+ears those three words, ever new, ever beautiful, 'Yo te quiero.'"
+
+
+VI.
+
+Mr. Gottschalk's return to America in February, 1862, was celebrated by
+a concert in Irving Hall, on the anniversary of his _début_ in New York.
+This was the beginning of another brilliant musical series, in pursuance
+of which he appeared in every prominent city of the country. While
+many found fault with Gottschalk for descending to pure "claptrap" and
+bravura playing, for using his great powers to merely superficial and
+unworthy ends, he seemed to retain as great a hold as ever over the
+masses of concert-goers. Gottschalk himself, with his epicurean,
+easy-going nature, laughed at the lectures read him by the critics and
+connoisseurs, who would have him follow out ideals for which he had no
+taste. It was like asking the butterfly to live the life of the bee.
+Great as were the gifts of the artist, it was not to be expected that
+these would be pursued in lines not consistent with the limitations
+of his temperament. Gottschalk appears to have had no desire except to
+amuse and delight the world, and to have been foreign to any loftier
+musical aspiration, if we may judge by his own recorded words. He passed
+through life as would a splendid wild singing-bird, making music
+because it was the law of his being, but never directing that talent
+with conscious energy to some purpose beyond itself.
+
+In 1863 family misfortunes and severe illness of himself cooperated to
+make the year vacant of musical doings, but instantly he recovered he
+was engaged by M. Strakosch to give another series of concerts in the
+leading Eastern cities. Without attempting to linger over his career for
+the next two years, let us pass to his second expedition to the tropics
+in 1865. Four years were spent in South America, each country that he
+visited vieing with the other in doing him honor. Magnificent gifts were
+heaped on him by his enthusiastic Spanish-American admirers, and life
+was one continual ovation. In Peru he gave sixty concerts, and was
+presented with a costly decoration of gold, diamond, and pearl. In Chili
+the Government voted him a grand gold medal, which the board of public
+schools, the board of visitors of the hospitals, and the municipal
+government of Valparaiso supplemented by gold medals, in recognition
+of Gottschalk's munificence in the benefit concerts he gave for various
+public and humane institutions. The American pianist, through the whole
+of his career, had shown the traditional benevolence of his class in
+offering his services to the advancement of worthy objects. A similar
+reception awaited Gottschalk in Montevideo, where the artist became
+doubly the object of admiration by the substantial additions he made
+to the popular educational fund. While in this city he organized and
+conducted a great musical festival in which three hundred musicians
+engaged, exclusive of the Italian Opera company then at Montevideo.
+
+The spring of 1869 brought Gottschalk to the last scene of his musical
+triumphs, for the span of his career was about to close over him. Rio
+Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, gave Gottschalk an ardent reception,
+which made this city properly the culmination of his toils and triumphs.
+Gottschalk wrote that his performances created such a _furore_ that
+boxes commanded a premium of seventy-five dollars, and single seats
+fetched twenty-five. He was frequently entertained by Dom Pedro at the
+palace; in every way the Brazilians testified their lavish admiration of
+his artistic talents. In the midst of his success Gottschalk was seized
+with yellow fever, and brought very low. Indeed, the report came back
+to New York that he was dead, a report, however, which his own letters,
+written from the bed of convalescence, soon contradicted.
+
+In October of 1869 Gottschalk was appointed by the emperor to take the
+leadership of a great festival, in which eight hundred performers in
+orchestra and chorus would take part. Indefatigable labor, in rehearsing
+his musicians and organizing the almost innumerable details of such an
+affair, acted on a frame which had not yet recovered its strength from a
+severe attack of illness. With difficulty he dragged himself through the
+tedious preparation, and when he stood up to conduct the first concert
+of the festival, on the evening of November 26, he was so weak that he
+could scarcely stand. The next day he was too ill to rise, and, though
+he forced himself to go to the opera-house in the evening, he was so
+weak as to be unable to conduct the music, and he had to be driven back
+to his hotel. The best medical skill watched over him, but his hour had
+come, and after three weeks of severe suffering he died, December 18,
+1869. The funeral solemnities at the Cathedral of Rio were of the most
+imposing character, and all the indications of really heart-felt sorrow
+were shown among the vast crowd of spectators, for Gottschalk had
+quickly endeared himself to the public both as man and artist. At the
+time of Gott-schalk's death, it was his purpose to set sail for Europe
+at the earliest practicable moment, to secure the publication of some of
+his more important works, and the production of his operas, of which he
+had the finished scores of not less than six.
+
+Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an artist and composer whose gifts were
+never more than half developed; for his native genius as a musician was
+of the highest order. Shortly before he died, at the age of forty, he
+seemed to have ripened into more earnest views and purposes, and, had
+he lived to fulfill his prime, it is reasonable to hazard the conjecture
+that he would have richly earned a far loftier niche in the pantheon
+of music than can now be given him. A rich, pleasure-loving, Oriental
+temperament, which tended to pour itself forth in dreams instead of
+action; vivid emotional sensibilities, which enabled him to exhaust
+all the resources of pleasure where imagination stimulates sense; and
+a thorough optimism in his theories, which saw everything at its best,
+tended to blunt the keen ambition which would otherwise inevitably have
+stirred the possessor of such artistic gifts. Gottschalk fell far short
+of his possibilities, though he was the greatest piano executant ever
+produced by our own country. He might have dazzled the world even as he
+dazzled his own partial countrymen.
+
+His style as a pianist was sparkling, dashing, showy, but, in the
+judgment of the most judicious, he did not appear to good advantage in
+comparison with Thalberg, in whom a perfect technique was dominated by
+a conscious intellectualism, and a high ideal, passionless but severely
+beautiful.
+
+Gottschalk's idiosyncrasy as a composer ran in parallel lines with
+that of the player. Most of the works of this musician are brilliant,
+charming, tender, melodious, full of captivating excellence, but
+bright with the flash of fancy, rather than strong with the power
+of imagination. We do not find in his piano-forte pieces any of that
+subtile soul-searching force which penetrates to the deepest roots
+of thought and feeling. Sundry musical cynics were wont to crush
+Gottschalk's individuality into the coffin of a single epigram. "A
+musical bonbon to tickle the palates of sentimental women." But this
+falls as far short of justice as the enthusiasm of many of his admirers
+overreaches it. The easy and genial temperament of the man, his ability
+to seize the things of life on their bright side, and a naive indolence
+which indisposed the artist to grapple with the severest obligations of
+an art life, prevented Gottschalk from attaining the greatness possible
+to him, but they contributed to make him singularly lovable, and to
+justify the passionate attachment which he inspired in most of those
+who knew him well. But, with all of Gottschalk's limitations, he must
+be considered the most noticeable and able of pianists and composers for
+the piano yet produced by the United States.
+
+
+
+
+FRANZ LISZT.
+
+
+The Spoiled Favorite of Fortune.--His Inherited Genius.--Birth and
+Early Training.--First Appearance in Concert.--Adam Liszt and his Son
+in Paris.--Sensation made by the Boy's Playing.--His Morbid Religious
+Sufferings.--Franz Liszt thrown on his own Resources.--The Artistic
+Circle in Paris.--Liszt in the Banks of Romanticism.--His Friends and
+Associates.--Mme. D'Agoult and her Connection with Franz
+Liszt.--He retires to Geneva.--Is recalled to Paris by the Thalberg
+_Furore_.--Rivalry between the Artists, and their Factions.--He
+commences his Career as Traveling Virtuoso.--The Blaze of Enthusiasm
+throughout Europe.--Schumann on Liszt as Man and Artist.--He ranks the
+Hungarian Virtuoso as the Superior of Thalberg.--Liszt's Generosity to
+his own Countrymen.--The Honors paid to him in Pesth.--Incidents of
+his Musical Wanderings.--He loses the Proceeds of Three Hundred
+Concerts.--Contributes to the Completion of the Cologne Cathedral.--His
+Connection with the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, and the Celebration of
+the Unveiling.--Chorley on Liszt.--Berlioz and Liszt.--Character of the
+Enthusiasm called out by Liszt as an Artist.--Remarkable Personality
+as a Man.--Berlioz characterizes the Great Virtuoso in a Letter.--Liszt
+erases his Life as a Virtuoso, and becomes Chapel-Master and Court
+Conductor at Weimar.--Avowed Belief in the New School of Music, and
+Production of Works of this School.--Wagner's Testimony to Liszt's
+Assistance.--Liszt's Resignation of his Weimar Post after Ten
+Years.--His Subsequent Life.--He takes Holy Orders.--Liszt as a Virtuoso
+and Composer.--Entitled to be placed among tire most Remarkable Men of
+his Age.
+
+
+I.
+
+There are but few names in music more interesting than that of Franz
+Liszt, the spoiled favorite of Europe for more than half a century, and
+without question the greatest piano-forte virtuoso that ever lived. His
+life has passed through the sunniest regions of fortune and success,
+and from his cradle upward the gods have showered on him their richest
+gifts. His career as an artist and musician has been most remarkable,
+his personal life full of romance, and his connection with some of
+the most vital changes in music which have occurred during the century
+interesting and significant. From his first appearance in public, at the
+age of twelve, his genius was acknowledged with enthusiasm throughout
+the whole republic of art, from Beethoven down to the obscurest
+_dilletante_, and it may be asserted that the history of music knows
+no instance of success approaching that achieved by the performances
+of this great player in every capital of Europe, from Madrid to St.
+Petersburg. When he wearied of the fame of the virtuoso, and became
+a composer, not only for the piano-forte, but for the orchestra, his
+invincible energy soon overcame all difficulties in his path, and he has
+lived to see himself accepted as one of the greatest of living musical
+thinkers and writers.
+
+The life of Liszt is so crowded with important incidents that it is
+difficult to condense into the brief limits of a sketch any fairly
+adequate statement of his career. He was born October 22, 1811, in the
+village of Raiding, in Hungary, and it is said that his father Adam
+Liszt, who was in the service of the Prince Esterhazy, was firmly
+convinced that the child would become distinguished on account of the
+appearance of a remarkable comet during the year. Adam Liszt himself was
+a fine pianist, gifted indeed with a talent which might have made him
+eminent had he pursued it. All his ambition and hope, however, centered
+in his son, in whom musical genius quickly declared itself; and the
+father found teaching this gifted child not only a labor of love, but
+a task smoothed by the extraordinary aptness of the pupil. He was
+accustomed to say to the young Franz: "My son, you are destined to
+realize the glorious ideal that has shone in vain before my youth. In
+you that is to reach its fulfillment which I have myself but faintly
+conceived. In you shall my genius grow up and bear fruit; I shall renew
+my youth in you even after I am laid in the grave." Such prophetic words
+recall the vision of the Genoese woman, who foresaw the future greatness
+of the little Nicolo Paganini, a genius who resembled in many ways the
+phenomenal musical force embodied in Franz Liszt. When the lad was very
+young, perhaps not more than six, he read the "Kené" of Chateaubriand,
+and it made such an indelible impression on his mind that he in after
+years spoke of it as having been one of the most potent influences of
+his life, since it stimulated the natural melancholy of his character
+when his nature was most flexible and impressible.
+
+At the age of nine he made his first appearance in public at Odenburg,
+playing Bies's concerto in three flats, and improvising a fantasia so
+full of melodic ideas, striking rhythms, and well-arranged harmony as to
+strike the audience with surprise and admiration. Among the hearers was
+Prince Esterhazy, who was so pleased with the precocious talent shown
+that he put a purse of fifty ducats in the young musician's hand. Soon
+after this Adam Liszt went to Pres-burg to live, and several noblemen,
+among whom were Prince Esterhazy, and the Counts Amadée and Szapary, all
+of them enthusiastic patrons of music, determined to bear the burden of
+the boy's musical education. To this end they agreed to allow him six
+hundred florins a year for six years. Young Liszt was placed at Vienna
+under the tutelage of the celebrated pianist and teacher Czerny, and
+soon made such progress that he was able to play such works as those
+even of Beethoven and Hummel at first sight. When Liszt did this for
+one of Hummel's most difficult concertos, at the rooms of the music
+publisher one day, it created a great sensation in Vienna, and he
+quickly became one of the lions of the drawing-rooms of the capital.
+Czerny himself was so much delighted with the genius of his charge
+that he refused to accept the three hundred florins stipulated for his
+lessons, saying he was but too well repaid by the success of the pupil.
+
+Though toiling with incessant industry in musical study and practice,
+for the boy was working at composition with Salieri and Randhartinger,
+as well as the piano-forte with Czerny, he found time to indulge in
+those strange, mystical, and fantastic dreams which have molded his
+whole life, oscillating between pietistic delirium, wherein he saw
+celestial visions and felt the call to a holy life, and the most
+voluptuous images and aspirations for earthly pleasures. Franz Liszt
+at this early age had a sensibility so delicate, and an imagination so
+quickly kindled, that he himself tells us no one can guess the extremes
+of ecstasy and despair through which he alternately passed. These
+spiritual experiences were perhaps fed by the mysticism of Jacob Boehme,
+whose works came into his possession, and furnished a most delusive and
+dangerous guide for the young enthusiast's fancy. But, dream and suffer
+as he might, nothing was allowed to quench the ardor of his musical
+studies.
+
+Eighteen months were passed in diligent labor under the guidance of the
+masters, who found teaching almost unnecessary, as the wonderful lad
+needed but a hint to work out for himself the most difficult problems,
+and he toiled so incessantly that he often became conscious of the
+change of day into night only by the failure of the light and the coming
+of the candles. Finally, by advice of Salieri, after eighteen months of
+labor, he determined to appear in concert in Vienna. On this occasion
+the audience was composed of the most distinguished people of Vienna,
+drawn thither to hear the young musical wonder of whom every one talked.
+Among the hearers was Beethoven, who after the concert gave the proud
+boy the most cordial praise, and prophesied a great career for him.
+
+The elder Liszt was already in Paris, and it was determined that
+Franz should go to that city, to avail himself of the instructions of
+Cherubini, at the Conservatoire, who as a teacher of counterpoint had
+no equal in Europe. The Prince Metternich sent letters of the warmest
+recommendation, but they were of no avail, for Cherubini, who was
+singularly whimsical and obstinate in his notions, refused to accept
+the new candidate, on account of the rule of the Conservatoire excluding
+pupils of foreign birth, a plea which the famous director did not
+hesitate to break when he chose. Franz, however, continued his studies
+under Reicha and Paer, and, while the gates of the Conservatoire were
+closed, all the salons of Paris opened to receive him. Everywhere he was
+feted, courted, caressed. This fair-haired, blue-eyed lad, with the seal
+of genius burning on his face, had made the social world mad over him.
+The young adventurer was sailing in a treacherous channel, full of
+dangerous reefs. Would he, in the homage paid to him, an unmatured
+youth, by scholars, artists, wealth, beauty, and rank, forgot in mere
+self-love and vanity his high obligations to his art and the sincere
+devotion which alone could wrest from art its richest guerdon? This
+problem seems to have troubled his father, for he determined to take his
+young Franz away from the palace of Circe. The boy had already made an
+attempt at composition in the shape of an operetta, in one act, "Don
+Sanche," which was very well received at the Académie Royale. Adolph
+Nourrit, the great singer, had led the young composer on the stage,
+where he was received with thunders of applause by the audience, and
+was embraced with transport by Rudolph Kreutzer, the director of the
+orchestra.
+
+Adam Liszt and his son went to England, and spent about six months in
+giving concerts in London and other cities. Franz was less than
+fourteen years old, but the pale, fragile, slender boy had, in the deep
+melancholy which stamped the noble outline of his face, an appearance
+of maturity that belied his years. English audiences everywhere received
+him with admiration, but he seemed to have lost all zest for the
+intoxicating wine of public favor. A profound gloom stole over him,
+and we even hear of hints at an attempt to commit suicide. Adam Liszt
+attributed it to the sad English climate, which Hein-rich Heine cursed
+with such unlimited bitterness, and took his boy back again to sunnier
+France. But the dejection darkened and deepened, threatening even
+to pass into epilepsy. It assumed the form of religious enthusiasm,
+alternating with fits of remorse as of one who had committed the
+unpardonable sin, and sometimes expressed itself in a species of frenzy
+for the monastic life. These strange experiences alarmed the father,
+and, in obedience to medical advice, he took the ailing, half-hysterical
+lad to Boulogne-sur-Mer, for sea-bathing.
+
+
+II.
+
+While by the seaside Franz Liszt lost the father who had loved him
+with the devotion of father and mother combined. This fresh stroke of
+affliction deepened his dejection, and finally resulted in a fit of
+severe illness. When he was convalescent new views of life seemed
+to inspire him. He was now entirely thrown on his own resources for
+support, for Adam Liszt had left his affairs so deeply involved that
+there was but little left for his son and widow. A powerful nature,
+turned awry by unhealthy broodings, is often rescued from its own mental
+perversities by the sense of some new responsibility suddenly imposed on
+it. Boy as Liszt was, the Titan in him had already shown itself in
+the agonies and struggles which he had undergone, and, now that the
+necessity of hard work suddenly came, the atmosphere of turmoil and
+gloom began to clear under the imminent practical burden of life. He set
+resolutely to work composing and giving concerts. The religious mania
+under which he had rested for a while turned his thoughts to sacred
+music, and most of his compositions were masses. But the very effort of
+responsible toil set, as it were, a background against which he could
+appoint the true place and dimensions of his art work. There was another
+disturbance, however, which now stirred up his excitable mind. He fell
+madly in love with a lady of high rank, and surrendered his young heart
+entirely to this new passion. The unfortunate issue of this attachment,
+for the lady was much older than himself, and laughed with a gentle
+mockery at the infatuation of her young adorer, made Liszt intensely
+unhappy and misanthropical, but it did not prevent him from steady
+labor. Indeed, work became all the more welcome, as it served to
+distract his mind from its amorous pains, and his fantastic musings,
+instead of feeding on themselves, expressed themselves in his art.
+Certainly no healthier sign of one beginning to clothe himself in his
+right mind again can easily be imagined.
+
+Liszt was now twenty years of age, and had regularly settled in Paris.
+He became acquainted intimately with the leaders of French literature,
+and was an habitué of the brilliant circles which gathered these great
+minds night after night. Lamartine and Chateaubriand were yielding
+place to a young and fiery school of writers and thinkers, but cordially
+clasped hands with the successors whom they themselves had made
+possible. Mme. George Sand, Balzac, Dumas, Victor Hugo, and others were
+just then beginning to stir in the mental revolution which they made
+famous. Liszt felt a deep interest in the literary and scientific
+interests of the day, and he threw himself into the new movement with
+great enthusiasm, for its strong wave moved art as well as letters with
+convulsive throes. The musician found in this fresh impulse something
+congenial to his own fiery, restless, aspiring nature. He entered
+eagerly into all the intellectual movements of the day. He became a
+St. Simonian and such a hot-headed politician that, had he not been an
+artist, and as such considered a harmless fanatic, he would perhaps have
+incurred some penalties. Liszt has left us, in his "Life of Chopin," and
+his letters, some very vivid portraitures of the people and the events,
+the fascinating literary and artistic reunions, and the personal
+experiences which made this part of his life so interesting; but,
+tempting as it is, we can not linger. There can be no question that this
+section of his career profoundly colored his whole life, and that
+the influence of Victor Hugo, Balzac, and Mme. George Sand is very
+perceptible in his compositions not merely in their superficial tone
+and character, but in the very theory on which they are built. Liszt
+thenceforward cut loose from all classic restraints, and dared to fling
+rules and canons to the winds, except so far as his artistic taste
+approved them. The brilliant and daring coterie, defying conventionality
+and the dull decorum of social law, in which our artist lived, wrought
+also another change in his character. Liszt had hitherto been almost
+austere in his self-denial, in restraint of passion and license, in
+a religious purity of life, as if he dwelt in the cold shadow of the
+monastery, not knowing what moment he should disappear within its gates.
+There was now to be a radical change.
+
+One of the brilliant members of the coterie in which he lived a life of
+such keen mental activity was Countess D'Agoult, who afterward became
+famous in the literary world as "Daniel Stern." Beautiful, witty,
+accomplished, imaginative, thoroughly in sympathy with her friend
+George Sand in her views of love and matrimony, and not less daring
+in testifying to her opinion by actions, the name of Mme. D'Agoult had
+already been widely bruited abroad in connection with more than one
+romantic escapade. In the powerful personality of young Franz Liszt,
+instinct with an artistic genius which aspired like an eagle, vital with
+a resolute, reckless will, and full of a magnetic energy that overflowed
+in everything--looks, movements, talk, playing--the somewhat fickle
+nature of Mme. D'Agoult was drawn to the artist like steel to a magnet.
+Liszt, on the other hand, easily yielded to the refined and delicious
+sensuousness of one of the most accomplished women of her time, who to
+every womanly fascination added the rarest mental gifts and high social
+place.
+
+The mutual passion soon culminated in a tie which lasted for many years,
+and was perhaps as faithfully observed by both parties as could be
+expected of such an irregular connection. Three children were the
+offspring of this attachment, a son who died, and two daughters, one of
+whom became the wife of M. Ollivier, the last imperial prime minister of
+France, and the other successively Mme. Von Bűlow and Mme. Wagner, under
+which latter title she is still known. The _chroniques scandaleuses_
+of Paris and other great cities of Europe are full of racy scandals
+purporting to connect the name of Liszt with well-known charming and
+beautiful women, but, aside from the uncertainty which goes with such
+rumors, this is not a feature of Liszt's life on which it is our purpose
+to dilate. The errors of such a man, exposed by his temperament and
+surroundings to the fiercest breath of temptation, should be rather
+veiled than opened to the garish day. Of the connection with Mme.
+D'Agoult something has been briefly told, because it had an important
+influence on his art career. Though the Church had never sanctioned the
+tie, there is every reason to believe that the lady's power over Liszt
+was consistently used to restrain his naturally eccentric bias, and to
+keep his thoughts fixed on the loftiest art ideals.
+
+
+III.
+
+Soon after Liszt's connection with Mme. D'Agoult began, he retired with
+his devoted companion to Geneva, Switzerland, a city always celebrated
+in the annals of European literature and art. In the quiet and charming
+atmosphere of this city our artist spent two years, busy for the most
+part in composing. He had already attained a superb rank as a pianist,
+and of those virtuosos who had then exhibited their talents in Paris
+no one was considered at all worthy to be compared with Liszt except
+Chopin. Aside from the great mental grasp, the opulent imagination, the
+fire and passion, the dazzling technical skill of the player, there was
+a vivid personality in Liszt as a man which captivated audiences. This
+element dominated his slightest action. He strode over the concert
+stage with the haughty step of a despot who ruled with a sway not to be
+contested. Tearing his gloves from his fingers and hurling them on
+the piano, he would seat himself with a proud gesture, run his fingers
+through his waving blonde locks, and then attack the piano with the
+vehemence of a conqueror taking his army into action. Much of this
+manner was probably the outcome of natural temperament, something the
+result of affectation; but it helped to add to the glamour with which
+Liszt always held his audiences captive. When he left Paris for a
+studious retirement at Geneva, the throne became vacant. By and by there
+came a contestant for the seat, a player no less remarkable in many
+respects than Liszt himself, Sigismond Thalberg, whose performances
+aroused Paris, alert for a new sensation, into an enthusiasm which
+quickly mounted to boiling heat. Humors of the danger threatened to his
+hitherto acknowledged ascendancy reached Liszt in his Swiss retreat. The
+artist's ambition was stirred to the quick; he could not sleep at night
+with the thought of this victorious rival who was snatching his laurels,
+and he hastened back to Paris to meet Thalberg on his own ground.
+The latter, however, had already left Paris, and Liszt only felt the
+ground-swell of the storm he had raised. There was a hot division of
+opinion among the Parisians, as there had been in the days of Gluck and
+Piccini. Society was divided into Lisztians and Thalbergians, and to
+indulge in this strife was the favorite amusement of the fashionable
+world. Liszt proceeded to reestablish his place by a series of
+remarkable concerts, in which he introduced to the public some of the
+works wrought out during his retirement, among them transcriptions from
+the songs of Schubert and the symphonies of Beethoven, in which the most
+free and passionate poetic spirit was expressed through the medium of
+technical difficulties in the scoring before unknown to the art of the
+piano-forte. There can be no doubt that the influence of Thalberg's
+rivalry on Liszt's mind was a strong force, and suggested new
+combinations. Without having heard Thalberg, our artist had already
+divined the secret of his effects, and borrowed from them enough to give
+a new impulse to an inventive faculty which was fertile in expedients
+and quick to assimilate all things of value to the uses of its own
+insatiable ambition.
+
+Franz Liszt's career as a traveling virtuoso commenced in 1837, and
+lasted for twelve years. Hitherto he had resisted the impulsion to
+such a course, all his desires rushing toward composition, but the
+extraordinary rewards promised cooperated with the spur of rivalry to
+overcome all scruples. The first year of these art travels was made
+memorable by the great inundation of the Danube, which caused so much
+suffering at Pesth. Thousands of people were rendered homeless, and
+the scene was one that appealed piteously to the humanitarian mind. The
+heart of Franz Liszt burned with sympathy, and he devoted the proceeds
+of his concerts for nearly two months to the alleviation of the woes of
+his countrymen. A princely sum was contributed by the artist, which went
+far to assist the sufferers. The number of occasions on which Liszt
+gave his services to charity was legion. It is credibly stated that the
+amount of benefactions contributed by his benefit concerts, added to the
+immense sums which he directly disbursed, would have made him several
+times a millionaire.
+
+The blaze of enthusiasm which Liszt kindled made his track luminous
+throughout the musical centers of Europe. Cćsar-like, his very arrival
+was a victory, for it aroused an indescribable ferment of agitation,
+which rose at his concerts to wild excesses. Ladies of the highest rank
+tore their gloves to strips in the ardor of their applause, flung
+their jewels on the stage instead of bouquets, shrieked in ecstasy and
+sometimes fainted, and made a wild rush for the stage at the close of
+the music to see Liszt, and obtain some of the broken strings of the
+piano, which the artist had ruined in the heat of his play, as precious
+relics of the occasion. The stories told of the Liszt craze among the
+ladies of Germany and Russia are highly amusing, and have a value as
+registering the degree of the effect he produced on impressible minds.
+Even sober and judicious critics who knew well whereof they spoke
+yielded to the contagion. Schumann writes of him, _apropos_ of his
+Dresden and Leipzig concerts in 1840: "The whole audience greeted his
+appearance with an enthusiastic storm of applause, and then he began to
+play. I had heard him before, but an artist is a different thing in the
+presence of the public compared with what he appears in the presence of
+a few. The fine open space, the glitter of light, the elegantly dressed
+audience--all this elevates the frame of mind in the giver and receiver.
+And now the demon's power began to awake; he first played with the
+public as if to try it, then gave it something more profound, until
+every single member was enveloped in his art; and then the whole mass
+began to rise and fall precisely as he willed it. I never found any
+artist except Paga-nini to possess in so high a degree this power of
+subjecting, elevating, and leading the public. It is an instantaneous
+variety of wildness, tenderness, boldness, and airy grace; the
+instrument glows under the hand of its master.... It is most easy to
+speak of his outward appearance. People have often tried to picture
+this by comparing Liszt's head to Schiller's or Napoleon's; and the
+comparison so far holds good, in that extraordinary men possess certain
+traits in common, such as an expression of energy and strength of will
+in the eyes and mouth. He has some resemblance to the portraits of
+Napoleon as a young general, pale, thin, with a remarkable profile,
+the whole significance of his appearance culminating in his head. While
+listening to Liszt's playing, I have often almost imagined myself as
+listening to one I heard long before. But this art is scarcely to be
+described. It is not this or that style of piano-forte playing; it is
+rather the outward expression of a daring character, to whom Fate has
+given as instruments of victory and command, not the dangerous weapon of
+war, but the peaceful ones of art. No matter how many and great artists
+we possess or have seen pass before us of recent years, though some of
+them equal him in single points, all must yield to him in energy and
+boldness. People have been very fond of placing Thalberg in the lists
+beside him, and then drawing comparisons. But it is only necessary to
+look at both heads to come to a conclusion. I remember the remark of
+a Viennese designer who said, not inaptly, that his countryman's head
+resembled that of a handsome countess with a man's nose, while of Liszt
+he observed that he might sit to every painter for a Grecian god. There
+is a similar difference in their art. Chopin stands nearer to Liszt as a
+player, for at least he loses nothing beside him in fairy-like grace and
+tenderness; next to him Paganini, and, among women, Mme. Malibran; from
+these Liszt himself says he has learned the most.... Liszt's most genial
+performance was yet to come, Weber's 'Concert-stuck,' which he played
+at the second performance. Virtuoso and public seemed to be in the
+freshest mood possible on that evening, and the enthusiasm during and
+after his playing almost exceeded anything hitherto known here. Although
+Liszt grasped the piece from the begin-ing with such force and grandeur
+that an attack on the battle-field seemed to be in question, yet he
+carried this on with continually increasing power, until the passage
+where the player seems to stand at the summit of the orchestra, leading
+it forward in triumph. Here, indeed, he resembled that great commander
+to whom he has been compared, and the tempestuous applause that greeted
+him was not unlike an adoring 'Vive l'Empereur.'"
+
+Flattering to his pride, however, as were the universal honors bestowed
+on the artist, none were so grateful as those from his own countrymen.
+The philanthropy of his conduct had made a deep impression on the
+Hungarians. Two cities, Pesth and Odenburg, created him an honorary
+citizen; a patent of nobility was solicited for him by the _comitat_ of
+Odenburg; and the "sword of honor," according to Hungarian custom, was
+presented to him with due solemnities. A brief account from an Hungarian
+journal of the time is of interest.
+
+"The national feeling of the Magyars is well known; and proud are they
+of that star of the first magnitude which arose out of their nation.
+Over the countries of Europe the fame of the Hungarian Liszt came to
+them before they had as yet an opportunity of admiring him. The Danube
+was swollen by rains, Pesth was inundated, thousands were mourning
+the loss of friends and relations or of all their property. During
+his absence in Milan Liszt learned that many of his countrymen were
+suffering from absolute want. His resolution was taken. The smiling
+heaven of Italy, the _dolce far niente_ of Southern life, could not
+detain him. The following morning he had quitted Milan and was on his
+way to Vienna. He performed for the benefit of those who had suffered
+by the inundation at Pesth. His art was the horn of plenty from which
+streamed forth blessings for the afflicted. Eighteen months afterward he
+came to Pesth, not as the artist in search of pecuniary advantage,
+but as a Magyar. He played for the Hungarian national theatre, for the
+musical society, for the poor of Pesth and of Odenburg, always before
+crowded houses, and the proceeds, fully one hundred thousand francs,
+were appropriated for these purposes. Who can wonder that admiration
+and pride should arise to enthusiasm in the breasts of his grateful
+countrymen? He was complimented by serenades, garlands were thrown
+to him; in short, the whole population of Pesth neglected nothing to
+manifest their respect, gratitude, and affection. But these honors,
+which might have been paid to any other artist of high distinction, did
+not satisfy them. They resolved to bind him for ever to the Hungarian
+nation from which he sprang. The token of manly honor in Hungary is
+a sword, for every Magyar has the right to wear a sword, and avails
+himself of that right. It was determined that their celebrated
+countryman should be presented with the Hungarian sword of honor. The
+noblemen appeared at the theatre, in the rich costume they usually wear
+before the emperor, and presented Liszt, midst thunders of applause from
+the whole assembled people, with a costly sword of honor." It was also
+proposed to erect a bronze statue of him in Pesth, but Liszt persuaded
+his countrymen to give the money to a struggling young artist instead.
+
+
+IV.
+
+In the autumn of 1840 Liszt went from Paris, at which city he had been
+playing for some time, to the north of Germany, where he at first found
+the people colder than he had been wont to experience. But this soon
+disappeared before the magic of his playing, and even the Hamburgers,
+notorious for a callous, bovine temperament, gave wild demonstrations
+of pleasure at his concerts. He specially pleased the worthy citizens
+by his willingness to play off-hand, without notes, any work which they
+called for, a feat justly regarded as a stupendous exercise of memory.
+From Hamburg he went to London, where he gave nine concerts in a
+fortnight, and stormed the affections and admiration of the English
+public as he had already conquered the heart of Continental Europe.
+While in London a calamity befell him. A rascally agent in whom he
+implicitly trusted disappeared with the proceeds of three hundred
+concerts, an enormous sum, amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds
+sterling. Liszt bore this reverse with cheerful spirits and scorned
+the condolences with which his friends sought to comfort him, saying he
+could easily make the money again, that his wealth was not in money, but
+in the power of making money.
+
+The artist's musical wanderings were nearly without ceasing. His
+restless journeying carried him from Italy to Denmark, and from the
+British Islands to Russia, and everywhere the art and social world bowed
+at his feet in recognition of a genius which in its way could only be
+designated by the term "colossal." It seems cumbersome and monotonous to
+repeat the details of successive triumphs; but some of them are attended
+by features of peculiar interest. He offered, in the summer of 1841,
+to give the proceeds of a concert to the completion of the Cathedral
+of Cologne (who that loves music does not remember Liszt's setting of
+Heine's song "Im Rhein," where he translates the glory of the Cathedral
+into music?). Liszt was then staying at the island of Nonneworth, near
+Bonn, and a musical society, the Liedertafel, resolved to escort him
+up to Cologne with due pomp, and so made a grand excursion with a great
+company of invited guests on a steamboat hired for the purpose. A fine
+band of music greeted Liszt on landing, and an extensive banquet was
+then served, at which Liszt made an eloquent speech, full of wit and
+feeling. The artist acceded to the desire of the great congregation of
+people who had gathered to hear him play; and his piano was brought
+into the ruined old chapel of the ancient nunnery, about which so many
+romantic Rhenish legends cluster. Liszt gave a display of his wonderful
+powers to the delighted multitude, and the long-deserted hall of
+Nonneworth chapel, which for many years had only heard the melancholy
+call of the owl, resounded with the most magnificent music. Finally
+the procession with Liszt at the head marched to the steamboat, and the
+vessel glided over the bosom of the Rhine amid the dazzling glare of
+fireworks and to the music of singing and instruments. All Cologne was
+assembled to meet them, and Liszt was carried on the shoulders of his
+frantic admirers to his hotel.
+
+In common with all other great musicians, Liszt has throughout life been
+a reverential admirer of the genius of Beethoven, an isolated force
+in music without peer or parallel. In his later years Liszt bitterly
+reproached himself because, in the vanity and impetuosity of his youth,
+he had dared to take liberties with the text of the Beethoven sonatas.
+Many interesting facts in Liszt's life connect themselves, directly
+or indirectly, with Beethoven. Among these is worthy of mention our
+artist's part in the Beethoven festival at Bonn in 1845, organized to
+celebrate the erection of a colossal bronze statue. The enterprise had
+been languishing for a long time, when Liszt promptly declared he
+would make up the deficiency single-handed, and this he did with great
+celerity. In an incredibly short time the money was raised, and the
+commission put in the hands of the sculptor Hilbnel, of Dresden, one of
+the foremost artists of Germany.
+
+The programme for the celebration was drawn up by Liszt and Dr. Spohr,
+who were to be the joint conductors of the festival music. A thousand
+difficulties intervened to embarrass the organization of the affair,
+the jealousies of prominent singers, who revolted against the
+self-effacement they would needs undergo, a certain truly German
+parsimony in raising the money for the expenses, and the envious
+littleness of certain great composers and musicians, who feared that
+Liszt would reap too much glory from the prominence of the part he
+had taken in the affair, But Liszt's energy had surmounted all these
+obstacles, when finally, only a month before the festival, which was
+to take place in August, it was discovered that there was no suitable
+Pesthalle in Bonn. The committee said, "What if the affair should not
+pay expenses? would they not be personally saddled with the debt?" Liszt
+promptly answered that, if the proceeds were not sufficient, he himself
+would pay the cost of the building. The architect of the Cologne
+Cathedral was placed at the head of the work, a waste plot of ground
+selected, the trees grubbed up, timber fished up from one of the great
+Rhine rafts, and the Festhalle rose with the swiftness of Aladdin's
+palace. The erection of the statue of Beethoven at his birthplace,
+and the musical celebration thereof in August, 1845, one of the most
+interesting events of its kind that ever occurred, must be, for the most
+part, attributed to the energy and munificence of Franz Liszt. Great
+personages were present from all parts of Europe, among them King
+William of Prussia and Queen Victoria of England. Henry Chorley, who
+has given a pretty full description of the festival, says that Liszt's
+performance of Beethoven's concerto in E flat was the crowning glory
+of the festival, in spite of the richness and beauty of the rest of the
+programme. "I must lastly commemorate, as the most magnificent piece of
+piano-forte playing I ever heard, Dr. Liszt's delivery of the concerto
+in E flat.... Whereas its deliverer restrained himself within all the
+limits that the most sober classicist could have prescribed, he still
+rose to a loftiness, in part ascribable to the enthusiasm of time and
+place, in part referable to a nature chivalresque, proud, and poetic in
+no common degree, which I have heard no other instrumentalist attain....
+The triumph in the mind of the executant sustained the triumph in the
+idea of the compositions without strain, without spasm, but with a
+breadth and depth and height such as made the genius of the executant
+approach the genius of the inventor.... There are players, there are
+poets; and as a poet Liszt was possibly never so sublimely or genuinely
+inspired as in that performance, which remains a bright and precious
+thing in the midst of all the curiously parti-colored recollections of
+the Beethoven festival at Bonn."
+
+In 1846, among Liszt's other musical experiences, he played in concerts
+with Berlioz throughout Austria and Southern Germany. The impetuous
+Osechs and Magyars showed their hot Tartar blood in the passion of
+enthusiasm they displayed. Berlioz relates that, at his first concert at
+Pesth, he performed his celebrated version of the "Rákóczy March," and
+there was such a furious explosion of excitement that it wellnigh put an
+end to the concert. At the end of the performance Berlioz was wiping the
+perspiration from his face in the little room off the stage, when the
+door burst open, and a shabbily dressed man, his face glowing with a
+strange fire, rushed in, throwing himself at Berlioz's feet, his eyes
+brimming with tears. He kissed the composer over and over again, and
+sobbed out brokenly: "Ah, sir! Me Hungarian... poor devil... not
+speak French... _un, poco l'taliano_.... Pardon... my ecstasy... Ah!
+understand your cannon... Yes! yes! the great battle... Germans, dogs!"
+Then, striking great blows with his fists on his chest, "In my heart I
+carry you... A Frenchman, revolutionist... know how to write music for
+revolutions." At a supper given after the performance, Berlioz tells
+us Liszt made an inimitable speech, and got so gloriously be-champagned
+that it was with great difficulty that he could be restrained from
+pistolling a Bohemian nobleman, at two o'clock in the morning, who
+insisted that he could carry off more bottles under his belt than Liszt.
+But the latter played at a concert next day at noon "assuredly as he had
+never played before," says Berlioz.
+
+Before passing from that period of Liszt's career which was distinctly
+that of the virtuoso, it is proper to refer to the unique character of
+the enthusiasm which everywhere followed his track like the turmoil of
+a stormy sea. Europe had been familiar with other great players, many of
+them consummate artists, like Hummel, Henri Herz, Czerny, Kalkbrenner,
+Field, Moscheles, and Thalberg, the most brilliant name of them all. But
+the feeling which these performers aroused was pale and passionless
+in comparison with that evoked by Franz Liszt. This was not merely the
+outcome of Liszt as a player and musician, but of Liszt as a man. The
+man always impressed people as immeasurably bigger than what he did,
+great as that was. His nature had a lavishness that knew no bounds. He
+lived for every distinguished man and beautiful woman, and with every
+joyous thing. He had wit and sympathy to spare for gentle and simple,
+and his kindliness was lavished with royal profusion on the scum as well
+as the salt of the earth. This atmosphere of personal grandeur radiated
+from him, and invested his doings, musical and otherwise, with something
+peculiarly fine and fascinating. And then as a player Liszt rose above
+his mates as something of a different genius, a different race, a
+different world, to every one else who has ever handled a piano. He is
+not to be considered among the great composers, also pianists, who have
+merely treated their instrument as an interpreting medium, but as a
+poet, who executively employed the piano as his means of utterance and
+material for creation. In mere mechanical skill, after every one else
+has ended, Liszt had still something to add, carrying every man's
+discovery further. If he was surpassed by Thalberg in richness of sound,
+he surpassed Thalberg by a variety of tone of which the redoubtable
+Viennese player had no dream. He had his delicate, light, freakish
+moods in which he might stand for another Chopin in qualities of fancy,
+sentiment, and faëry brilliancy. In sweep of hand and rapidity of
+finger, in fire and fineness of execution, in that interweaving of
+exquisite momentary fancies where the work admits, in a memory so vast
+as to seem almost superhuman; in that lightning quickness of view,
+enabling him to penetrate instantaneously the meaning of a new
+composition, and to light it up properly with its own inner spirit (some
+touch of his own brilliancy added); briefly, in a mastery, complete,
+spontaneous, enjoying and giving enjoyment, over every style and school
+of music, all those who have heard Liszt assert that he is unapproached
+among players and the traditions of players.
+
+In a letter from Berlioz to Liszt, the writer gives us a vivid idea of
+the great virtuoso's playing and its effects. Berlioz is complaining of
+the difficulties which hamper the giving of orchestral concerts.
+After rehearsing his mishaps, he says: "After all, of what use is such
+information to you? You can say with confidence, changing the mot of
+Louis XIV, '_L'orchestre, c'est moi; le chour, c'est moi; le chef
+c'est encore moi_.' My piano-forte sings, dreams, explodes, resounds;
+it defies the flight of the most skillful forms; it has, like the
+orchestra, its brazen harmonies; like it, and without the least
+preparation, it can give to the evening breeze its cloud of fairy chords
+and vague melodies. I need neither theatre, nor box scene, nor much
+staging. I have not to tire myself out at long rehearsals. I want
+neither a hundred, fifty, nor twenty players. I do not even need any
+music. A grand hall, a grand pianoforte, and I am master of a grand
+audience. I show myself and am applauded; my memory awakens, dazzling
+fantasies grow beneath my fingers. Enthusiastic acclamations answer
+them. I sing Schubert's "Ave Maria," or Beethoven's "Adelaida" on the
+piano, and all hearts tend toward me, all breasts hold their breath....
+Then come luminous bombs, the banquet of this grand firework, and the
+cries of the public, and the flowers and the crowns that rain around
+the priest of harmony, shuddering on his tripod; and the young beauties,
+who, all in tears, in their divine confusion kiss the hem of his
+cloak; and the sincere homage drawn from serious minds and the feverish
+applause torn from many; the lofty brows that bow down, and the narrow
+hearts, marveling to find themselves expanding '.... It is a dream, one
+of those golden dreams one has when one is called Liszt or Paganini."
+
+That such a man as this, brilliant in wit, extravagant in habit and
+opinion, courted for his personal fascination by every one greatest in
+rank and choicest in intellect from his prodigious youth to his ripe
+manhood, should suddenly cease from display at the moment when his
+popularity was at its highest, when no rival was in being, is a
+remarkable trait in Dr. Franz Liszt's remarkable life. But this he did
+in 1849, by settling in Weimar as conductor of the court theatre, his
+age then being thirty-eight years.
+
+
+V.
+
+Liszt closed his career as a virtuoso, and accepted a permanent
+engagement at Weimar, with the distinct purpose of becoming identified
+with the new school of music which was beginning to express itself so
+remarkably through Richard Wagner. His new position enabled him to bring
+works before the world which would otherwise have had but little chance
+of seeing the light of day, and he rapidly produced at brief intervals
+eleven works, either for the first time, or else revived from what had
+seemed a dead failure. Among these works were "Lohengrin," "Rienzi," and
+"Tannhâuser" by Wagner, "Benvenuto Cellini" by Berlioz, and Schumann's
+"Genoveva," and music to Byron's "Manfred." Liszt's new departure
+and the extraordinary band of artists he drew around him attracted
+the attention of the world of music, and Weimar became a great musical
+center, even as in the days of Goethe it had been a visiting shrine for
+the literary pilgrims of Europe. Thus a nucleus of bold and enthusiastic
+musicians was formed whose mission it was to preach the gospel of the
+new musical faith.
+
+Richard Wagner says that, after the revolution of 1849, when he was
+compelled to fly for his life, he was thoroughly disheartened as an
+artist, and that all thought of musical creativeness was dead within
+him. From this stagnation he was rescued by a friend, and that friend
+was Franz Liszt. Let us tell the story in Wagner's own words:
+
+"I met Liszt for the first time during my earliest stay in Paris, at
+a period when I had renounced the hope, nay, even a wish of a Paris
+reputation, and, indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the
+artistic life which I found there. At our meeting he struck me as the
+most perfect contrast to my own being and situation. In this world into
+which it had been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt
+had grown up from his earliest age so as to be the object of general
+love and admiration at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness
+and want of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him with suspicion.
+I had no opportunity of disclosing my being and working to him, and
+therefore the reception I met with on his part was of a superficial
+kind, as was indeed natural in a man to whom every day the most
+divergent impressions claimed access. But I was not in a mood to look
+with unprejudiced eyes for the natural cause of this behavior, which,
+though friendly and obliging in itself, could not but wound me in the
+then state of my mind. I never repeated my first call on Liszt, and,
+without knowing or even wishing to know him, I was prone to look on
+him as strange and adverse to my nature. My repeated expression of this
+feeling was afterward told to him, just at the time when my "Rienzi"
+at Dresden was attracting general attention. He was surprised to find
+himself misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely
+known, and whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to him. I am
+still moved when I think of the repeated and eager attempts he made to
+change my opinion of him, even before he knew any of my works. He acted
+not from any artistic sympathy, but led by the purely human wish of
+discontinuing a casual disharmony between himself and another being;
+perhaps he also felt an infinitely tender misgiving of having really
+hurt me unconsciously. He who knows the selfishness and terrible
+insensibility of our social life, and especially of the relations
+of modern artists to each other, can not be struck with wonder, nay,
+delight, with the treatment I received from this remarkable man.... At
+Weimar I saw him for the last time, when I was resting for a few days in
+Thuringia, uncertain whether the threatening persecution would compel me
+to continue my flight from Germany. The very day when my personal
+danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conducting a rehearsal of my
+'Tannhouser,' and was astonished at recognizing my second self in
+his achievement. What I had felt in inventing this music, he felt in
+performing it; what I had wanted to express in writing it down, he
+expressed in making it sound. Strange to say, through the love of this
+rarest friend, I gained, at the very moment of becoming homeless, a real
+home for my art which I had hitherto longed for and sought for in
+the wrong place.... At the end of my last stay in Paris, when, ill,
+miserable, and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on
+the score of my 'Lohengrin,' which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I
+felt something like compassion that this music should never sound from
+off the death-pale paper. Two words I wrote to Liszt; the answer was
+that preparation was being made for the performance on the grandest
+scale which the limited means of Weimar permitted. Everything that
+man or circumstances could do was done to make the work understood....
+Errors and misconceptions impeded the desired success. What was to be
+done to supply what was wanted, so as to further the true understanding
+on all sides and, with it, the ultimate success of the work? Liszt saw
+it at once, and did it. He gave to the public his own impression of the
+work in a manner the convincing eloquence and overpowering efficacy of
+which remain unequaled. Success was his reward, and with this success he
+now approaches me, saying, 'Behold, we have come so far! Now create us a
+new work, that we may go still farther.'"
+
+Liszt remained at Weimar for ten years, when he resigned his place
+on account of certain narrow jealousies and opposition offered to his
+plans. Since 1859 he has lived at Weimar, Pesth, and Rome, always
+the center of a circle of pupils and admirers, and, though no longer
+occupying an active place in the world, full of unselfish devotion to
+the true interests of music and musicians. In 1868 he took minor orders
+in the Roman priesthood. Since his early youth Liszt had been the
+subject of strong paroxysms of religious feeling, which more than once
+had nearly carried him into monastic life, and thus his brilliant career
+would have been lost to the world and to art. After he had gained every
+reward that can be lavished on genius, and tasted to the very dregs
+the wine of human happiness, so far as that can come of a splendid
+prosperity and the adoration of the musical world for nearly half a
+century, a sudden revulsion seems to have recalled again to the surface
+that profound religious passion which the glory and pleasure of his busy
+life had never entirely suppressed. It was by no means astonishing to
+those who knew Liszt's life best that he should have taken holy orders.
+
+Abbé Liszt lives a portion of each year with the Prince-Cardinal
+Hohenlohe, in the well-known Villa d'Esté, near Rome, a château with
+whose history much romance is interwoven. He is said to be very zealous
+in his religious devotions, and to spend much time in reading and
+composing. He rarely touches the piano, unless inspired by the presence
+of visitors whom he thoroughly likes, and even in such cases less for
+his own pleasure than for the gratification of his friends. Even his
+intimate friends would hardly venture to ask Liszt to play. His summer
+months are divided between Pesth and Weimar, where his advent always
+makes a glad commotion among the artistic circles of these respective
+cities. Of the various pupils who have been formed by Liszt, Hans von
+Bulow, who married his daughter Cosima, is the most distinguished,
+and shares with Rubenstein the honor of being the first of European
+pianists, now that Liszt has for so long a time withdrawn himself from
+the field of competition.
+
+
+VI.
+
+Liszt has been a very industrious and prolific writer, his works
+numbering thirty-one compositions for the orchestra; seven for the
+piano-forte and orchestra; two for piano and violin; nine for the organ;
+thirteen masses, psalms, and other sacred music; two oratorios;
+fifteen cantatas and chorals; sixty-three songs; and one hundred
+and seventy-nine works for the piano-forte proper. The bulk of these
+compositions, the most important of them at least, were produced in
+the first forty years of his life, and testify to enormous energy and
+capacity for work, as they came into being during his active period as
+a virtuoso. In addition to his musical works, Liszt has shown
+distinguished talent in letters, and his articles and pamphlets, notably
+the monographs on Robert Franz, Chopin, and the Music of the Gypsies,
+indicate that, had he not chosen to devote himself to music, he might
+have made himself an enviable name in literature.
+
+Perhaps no better characterization of Liszt could be made than to call
+him the musical Victor Hugo of his age. In both these great men we find
+the same restless and burning imagination, a quickness of sensibility
+easily aroused to vehemence, a continual reaching forward toward the new
+and untried and impatience of the old, the same great versatility, the
+same unequaled command of all the resources of their respective crafts,
+and, until within the last twenty years, the same ceaseless fecundity.
+Of Liszt as a player it is not necessary to speak further. Suffice it
+that he is acknowledged to have been, while pursuing the path of the
+virtuoso, not only great, but the greatest in the records of art, with
+the possible exception of Paganini. To the possession of a technique
+which united all the best qualities of other players, carrying each
+a step further, he added a powerful and passionate imagination which
+illuminated the work before him. Wagner wrote of him: "He who has had
+frequent opportunities, particularly in a friendly circle, of hearing
+Liszt play, for instance, Beethoven, must have understood that this
+was not mere reproduction, but production. The actual point of division
+between these two things is not so easily determined as most people
+believe, but so much I have ascertained without a doubt, that, in order
+to reproduce Beethoven, one must produce with him." It was this quality
+which made Liszt such a vital interpreter of other composers, as well as
+such a brilliant performer of his own works. As a composer for the piano
+Franz Liszt has been accused of sacrificing substantial charm of motive
+for the creation of the most gigantic technical difficulties, designed
+for the display of his own skill. This charge is best answered by a
+study of his transcriptions of songs and symphonies, which, difficult in
+an extreme degree, are yet rich in no less excess with musical thought
+and fullness of musical color. He transcribed the "Etudes" of Pa-ganini,
+it is true, as a sort of "tour deforce", and no one has dared to attempt
+them in the concert room but himself; but for the most part Liszt's
+piano-forte writings are full of substance in their being as well as
+splendid elaboration in their form. This holds good no less of the
+purely original compositions, like the concertos and "Rhapsodies
+Hongroises," than of the transcriptions and paraphrases of the _Lied_,
+the opera, and symphony.
+
+As a composer for the orchestra Liszt has spent the ripest period of his
+life, and attained a deservedly high rank. His symphonies belong to what
+has been called, for want of a better name, "programme music," or music
+which needs the key of the story or legend to explain and justify the
+composition. This classification may yet be very misleading. Liszt does
+not, like Berlioz, refer every feature of the music to a distinct event,
+emotion, or dramatic situation, but concerns himself chiefly with
+the pictorial and symbolic bearings of his subject. For example, the
+"Mazeppa" symphony, based on Victor Hugo's poem, gets its significance,
+not in view of its description of Mazeppa's peril and rescue, but
+because this famous ride becomes the symbol of man: "_Lie vivant sur
+la croupe fatale, Genie, ardent Coursier_." The spiritual life of this
+thought burns with subtile suggestions throughout the whole symphony.
+
+Liszt has not been merely a devoted adherent of the "Music of the
+Future" as expressed in operatic form, but he has embodied his belief
+in the close alliance of poetry and music in his symphonies and
+transcriptions of songs. Anything more pictorial, vivid, descriptive,
+and passionate can not easily be fancied. It is proper also to say in
+passing that the composer shows a command over the resources of the
+orchestra similar to his mastery of the piano, though at times a
+tendency to violent and strident effects offends the ear. Franz Liszt,
+take him for all in all, must be regarded as one of the most remarkable
+men of the last half century, a personality so stalwart, picturesque,
+and massive as to be not only a landmark in music, but an imposing
+figure to those not specially characterized by their musical sympathies.
+His influence on his art has been deep and widespread; his connection
+with some of the most important movements of the last two generations
+well marked; and his individuality a fact of commanding force in the
+art circles of nearly every country of Europe, where art bears any vital
+connection with social and public life.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
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+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+
+<title>Violinists and Pianists
+    by George T. Ferris
+</title>
+
+<style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+		body {background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { margin:10%;
+		    text-indent:   1em;
+        margin-top:    .75em;
+        margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; }
+		hr  { width: 50%; }
+    hr.full { width: 100%; }
+    .foot { margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 95%; }
+		img {border: 0;}
+    HR  { width: 33%; text-align: center; }
+		blockquote {font-size: 97%; }
+		.figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;}
+    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
+		PRE    { font-size: 90%; margin-left: 20%;}
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Great Violinists And Pianists, by George T. Ferris
+
+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: Great Violinists And Pianists
+
+Author: George T. Ferris
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2006 [EBook #17463]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div style="height: 6em;"><br><br><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a>
+<div class="figure">
+<center><img src="images/spines.jpg" height="757" width="720"
+alt="spines.jpg
+"></center>
+<br /><br />
+<br />
+
+</div>
+<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a>
+<div class="figure">
+<center><img src="images/violin-tp.jpg" height="630" width="446"
+alt="titlepage
+"></center>
+<br />
+
+</div>
+<a name="h2H_4_0001" id="h2H_4_0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<h2>
+    GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS
+</h2><br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>
+By George T. Ferris
+</h2>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<a name="h2H_4_0002" id="h2H_4_0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+
+
+<h2>
+    NOTE
+</h2>
+<p>
+The title of this little book may be misleading to some of its readers,
+in its failure to include sketches of many eminent artists well worthy
+to be classed under such a head. There has been no attempt to cover
+the immense field of executive music, but only to call attention to the
+lives of those musical celebrities who are universally recognized as
+occupying the most exalted places in the arts of violin and pianoforte
+playing; who stand forth as landmarks in the history of music. To do
+more than this, except in a merely encyclopedic fashion, within the
+allotted space, would have been impossible. The same necessity of limits
+has also compelled the writer to exclude consideration of the careers
+of noted living performers; as it was thought best that discrimination
+should be in favor of those great artists whose careers have been
+completely rounded and finished.
+</p>
+<p>
+An exception to the above will be noted in the case of Franz Liszt; but,
+aside from the fact that this greatest of piano-forte virtuosos, though
+living, has practically retired from the held of art, to omit him from
+such a volume as this would be an unpardonable omission. In connection
+with the personal lives of the artists sketched in this volume, the
+attempt has been made, in a general, though necessarily imperfect,
+manner, to trace the gradual development of the art of playing from its
+cruder beginnings to the splendid virtuosoism of the present time.
+The sources from which facts have been drawn are various, and, it
+is believed, trustworthy, including French, German, and English
+authorities, in some cases the personal reminiscences of the artists
+themselves.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0002">
+NOTE
+</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0004">
+THE GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0005">
+THE VIOLIN AND EARLY VIOLINISTS.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0006">
+VIOTTI.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0007">
+LUDWIG SPOHR.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0008">
+NICOLO PAGANINI.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0009">
+DE BÉRIOT
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0010">
+OLE BULL.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0011">
+MUZIO CLEMENTI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0012">
+MOSCHELES.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0013">
+THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0014">
+THALBERG AND GOTTSCHALK.
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0015">
+FRANZ LISZT.
+</a></p>
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<a name="h2H_TOC" id="h2H_TOC"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h2>
+    THE VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Ancestry of the Violin.&mdash;The Origin of the Cremona School of
+Violin-Making.&mdash;The Amatis and Stradiuarii.&mdash;Extraordinary Art
+Activity of Italy at this Period.&mdash;Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph
+Guarnerius.&mdash;Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers
+of the World.&mdash;Corelli, the First Great Violinist.&mdash;His Contemporaries
+and Associates.&mdash;Anecdotes of his Career.&mdash;Corelli's
+Pupil, Geminiani.&mdash;Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and
+Chess-Player.&mdash;Giuseppe Tartini.&mdash;Becomes an Outcast from his Family
+on Account of his Love of Music.&mdash;Anecdote of the Violinist
+Vera-cini.&mdash;Tartini's Scientific Discoveries in Music.&mdash;His Account of
+the Origin of the "Devil's Trill."&mdash;Tartini's Pupils.
+</p>
+<center>
+VIOTTI.
+</center>
+<p>
+Viotti, the Connecting Link between the Early and Modern Violin
+Schools.&mdash;His Immense Superiority over his Contemporaries and
+Predecessors.&mdash;Other Violinists of his Time, Giornowick and
+Boccherini.&mdash;Viotti's Early Years.&mdash;His Arrival in Paris, and the
+Sensation he made.&mdash;His Reception by the Court.&mdash;Viotti's Personal Pride
+and Dignity.&mdash;His Rebuke to Princely Impertinence.&mdash;The Musical Circles
+of Paris.&mdash;Viotti's Last Public Concert in Paris.&mdash;He suddenly departs
+for London.&mdash;Becomes Director of the King's Theatre.&mdash;Is compelled to
+leave the Country as a Suspected Revolutionist.&mdash;His Return to England,
+and Metamorphosis into a Vintner.&mdash;The French Singer, Garat, finds him
+out in his London Obscurity.&mdash;Anecdote of Viotti's Dinner Party.&mdash;He
+quits the Wine Trade for his own Profession.&mdash;Is made Director of the
+Paris Grand Opéra.&mdash;Letter from Rossini.&mdash;Viotti's Account of the "Ranz
+des Vaches."&mdash;Anecdotes of the Great Violinist.&mdash;Dies in London in
+1824.&mdash;Viotti's Place as a Violinist, and Style of Playing.&mdash;The Tourté
+Bow first invented during his Time.&mdash;An Indispensable Factor in Great
+Playing on the Violin.&mdash;Viotti's Pupils, and his Influence on the
+Musical Art.
+</p>
+<center>
+LUDWIG SPOHR.
+</center>
+<p>
+Birth and Early Life of the Violinist Spohr.&mdash;He is presented with his
+First Violin at six.&mdash;The French <i>Emigré</i> Dufour uses his Influence with
+Dr. Spohr, Sr., to have the Boy devoted to a Musical Career.&mdash;Goes
+to Brunswick for fuller Musical Instruction.&mdash;Spohr is appointed
+<i>Kammer-musicus</i> at the Ducal Court.&mdash;He enters under the Tuition of
+and makes a Tour with the Violin Virtuoso Eck.&mdash;Incidents of the Russian
+Journey and his Return.&mdash;Concert Tour in Germany.&mdash;Loses his Fine
+Guarnerius Violin.&mdash;Is appointed Director of the Orchestra at Gotha.&mdash;He
+marries Dorette Schiedler, the Brilliant Harpist.&mdash;Spohr's Stratagem to
+be present at the Erfurt Musical Celebration given by Napoleon in
+Honor of the Allied Sovereigns.&mdash;Becomes Director of Opera in
+Vienna.&mdash;Incidents of his Life and Production of Various Works.&mdash;First
+Visit to England.&mdash;He is made Director of the Cassel Court
+Oratorios.&mdash;He is retired with a Pension.&mdash;Closing Years of his
+Life.&mdash;His Place as Composer and Executant.
+</p>
+<center>
+NICOLO PAGANINI.
+</center>
+<p>
+The Birth of the Greatest of Violinists.&mdash;His Mother's
+Dream.&mdash;Extraordinary Character and Genius.&mdash;Heine's Description of his
+Playing.&mdash;Leigh Hunt on Paganini.&mdash;Superstitious Rumors current
+during his Life.&mdash;He is believed to be a Demoniac.&mdash;His Strange
+Appearance.&mdash;Early Training and Surroundings.&mdash;Anecdotes of
+his Youth.&mdash;Paga-nini's Youthful Dissipations.&mdash;His Passion for
+Gambling.&mdash;He acquires his Wonderful Guarnerius Violin.&mdash;His Reform
+from the Gaming-table.&mdash;Indefatigable Practice and Work as a Young
+Artist.&mdash;Paganini as a <i>Preux Chevalier</i>.&mdash;His Powerful Attraction for
+Women.&mdash;Episode with a Lady of Rank.&mdash;Anecdotes of his Early Italian
+Concertizing.&mdash;The Imbroglio at Ferrara.&mdash;The Frail Health of
+Paganini.&mdash;Wonderful Success at Milan where he first plays One of
+the Greatest of his Compositions, "Le Streghe."&mdash;Duel with
+Lafont.&mdash;Incidents and Anecdotes.&mdash;His First Visit to Germany.&mdash;Great
+Enthusiasm of his Audiences.&mdash;Experiences at Vienna, Berlin, and other
+German Cities.&mdash;Description of Paganini, in Paris, by Castil-Blaze and
+Fetis.&mdash;His English Reception and the Impression made.&mdash;Opinions of the
+Critics.&mdash;Paganini not pleased with England.&mdash;Settles in Paris for Two
+Years, and becomes the Great Musical Lion.&mdash;Simplicity and Amiability
+of Nature.&mdash;Magnificent Generosity to Hector Berlioz.&mdash;The Great
+Fortune made by Paganini.&mdash;His Beautiful Country Seat near Parma.&mdash;An
+Unfortunate Speculation in Paris.&mdash;The Utter Failure of his
+Health.&mdash;His Death at Nice.&mdash;Characteristics and Anecdotes.&mdash;Interesting
+Circumstances of his Last Moments.&mdash;The Peculiar Genius of Paganini, and
+his Influence on Art.
+</p>
+<p>
+DE BÉRIOT.
+</p>
+<p>
+De Bériot's High Place in the Art of the Violin and Violin Music.&mdash;The
+Scion of an Impoverished Noble Family.&mdash;Early Education and Musical
+Training.&mdash;He seeks the Advice of Viotti in Paris.&mdash;Becomes a Pupil of
+Robrechts and Baillot successively.&mdash;De Bériot finishes and perfects his
+Style on his Own Model.&mdash;Great Success in England.&mdash;Artistic Travels
+in Europe.&mdash;Becomes Soloist to the King of the Netherlands.&mdash;He meets
+Malibran, the Great Cantatrice, in Paris.&mdash;Peculiar Circumstances which
+drew the Couple toward Each Other.&mdash;They form a Connection which only
+ends with Malibran's Life.&mdash;Sketch of Malibran and her Family.&mdash;The
+Various Artistic Journeys of Malibran and De Bériot.&mdash;Their Marriage
+and Mme. de Bériot's Death.&mdash;De Bériot becomes Professor in the Brussels
+Conservatoire.&mdash;His Later Life in Brussels.&mdash;His Son Charles Malibran de
+Bériot.&mdash;The Character of De Bériot as Composer and Player.
+</p>
+<center>
+OLE BULL.
+</center>
+<p>
+The Birth and Early Life of Ole Bull at Bergen, Norway.&mdash;His Family and
+Connections.&mdash;Surroundings of his Boyhood.&mdash;Early Display of his Musical
+Passion.&mdash;Learns the Violin without Aid.&mdash;Takes Lessons from an Old
+Musical Professor, and soon surpasses his Master.&mdash;Anecdotes of his
+Boyhood.&mdash;His Father's Opposition to Music as a Profession.&mdash;Competes
+for Admittance to the University at Christiania.&mdash;Is consoled
+for Failure by a Learned Professor.&mdash;"Better be a Fiddler than
+a Preacher."&mdash;Becomes Conductor of the Philharmonic Society at
+Bergen.&mdash;His first Musical Journey.&mdash;Sees Spohr.&mdash;Fights a Duel.&mdash;Visit
+to Paris.&mdash;He is reduced to Great Pecuniary Straits.&mdash;Strange Adventure
+with Vidocq, the Great Detective.&mdash;First Appearance in Concert in
+Paris.&mdash;Romantic Adventure leading to Acquaintance.&mdash;First Appearance
+in Italy.&mdash;Takes the Place of De Bériot by Great Good Luck.&mdash;Ole Bull
+is most enthusiastically received.&mdash;Extended Concert Tour in Italy and
+France.&mdash;His <i>Début</i> and Success in England.&mdash;One Hundred and Eighty
+Concerts in Six Months.&mdash;Ole Bull's Gaspar di Salo Violin, and the
+Circumstances under which he acquired it.&mdash;His Answer to the King of
+Sweden.&mdash;First Visit and Great Success in America in 1848.&mdash;Attempt
+to establish a National Theatre.&mdash;The Norwegian Colony in
+Pennsylvania.&mdash;Latter Years of Ole Bull.&mdash;His Personal Appearance.&mdash;Art
+Characteristics.
+</p>
+<center>
+MUZIO CLEMENTI.
+</center>
+<p>
+The Genealogy of the Piano-forte.&mdash;The Harpsichord its Immediate
+Predecessor.&mdash;Supposed Invention of the Piano-forte.&mdash;Silbermann the
+First Maker.&mdash;Anecdote of Frederick the Great.&mdash;The Piano-forte only
+slowly makes its Way as against the Clavichord and Harpsichord.&mdash;Emanuel
+Bach, the First Composer of Sonatas for the Piano-forte.&mdash;His Views
+of playing on the New Instrument.&mdash;Haydn and Mozart as Players.&mdash;Muzio
+Clementi, the Earliest Virtuoso, strictly speaking, as a Pianist.&mdash;Born
+in Rome in 1752.&mdash;Scion of an Artistic Family.&mdash;First Musical
+Training.&mdash;Rapid Development of his Talents.&mdash;Composes Contrapuntal
+Works at the Age of Fourteen.&mdash;Early Studies of the Organ and
+Harpsichord.&mdash;Goes to England to complete his Studies.&mdash;Creates
+an Unequaled Furore in London.&mdash;John Christian Bach's Opinion of
+Clementi.&mdash;Clementi's Musical Tour.&mdash;His Duel with Mozart before the
+Emperor.&mdash;Tenor of Clementi's Life in England.&mdash;Clementi's Pupils.&mdash;Trip
+to St. Petersburg.&mdash;Sphor's Anecdote of Him.&mdash;Mercantile and
+Manufacturing Interest in the Piano as Partner of Collard.&mdash;The Players
+and Composers trained under Clementi.&mdash;His Composition.&mdash;Status as
+a Player.&mdash;Character and Influence as an Artist.&mdash;Development of the
+Technique of the Piano, culminating in Clementi.
+</p>
+<center>
+MOSCHELES.
+</center>
+<p>
+Clementi and Mozart as Points of Departure in Piano-forte
+Playing.&mdash;Moscheles the most Brilliant Climax reached by the Viennese
+School.&mdash;His Child-Life at Prague.&mdash;Extraordinary Precocity.&mdash;Goes to
+Vienna as the Pupil of Salieri and Albrechtsburger.&mdash;Acquaintance with
+Beethoven.&mdash;Moscheles is honored with a Commission to make a Piano
+Transcription of Beethoven's "Fidelio."&mdash;His Intercourse with the Great
+Man.&mdash;Concert Tour.&mdash;Arrival in Paris.&mdash;The Artistic Circle into which
+he is received.&mdash;Pictures of Art-Life in Paris.&mdash;London and its Musical
+Celebrities.&mdash;Career as a Wandering Virtuoso.&mdash;Felix Mendelssohn becomes
+his Pupil.&mdash;The Mendelssohn Family.&mdash;Moseheles's Marriage to a
+Hamburg Lady.&mdash;Settles in London.&mdash;His Life as Teacher, Player, and
+Composer.&mdash;Eminent Place taken by Moscheles among the Musicians of
+his Age.&mdash;His Efforts soothe the Sufferings of Beethoven's
+Death-bed.&mdash;Friendship for Mendelssohn.&mdash;Moscheles becomes connected
+with the Leipzig Conservatorium.&mdash;Death in 1870.&mdash;Moscheles as Pianist
+and Composer.&mdash;Sympathy with the Old as against the New School of the
+Piano.&mdash;His Powerful Influence on the Musical Culture and Tendencies of
+his Age.
+</p>
+<center>
+THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
+</center>
+<p>
+Robert Schumann's Place as a National Composer.&mdash;Peculiar Greatness as
+a Piano-forte Composer.&mdash;Born at Zwickau in 1810.&mdash;His Father's
+Aversion to his Musical Studies.&mdash;Becomes a Student of Jurisprudence
+in Leipzig.&mdash;Makes the Acquaintance of Clara Wieck.&mdash;Tedium of his Law
+Studies.&mdash;Vacation Tour to Italy.&mdash;Death of his Father, and Consent
+of his Mother to Schumann adopting the Profession of Music.&mdash;Becomes
+Wieck's Pupil.&mdash;Injury to his Hand which prevents all Possibilities of
+his becoming a Great Performer.&mdash;Devotes himself to Composition.&mdash;The
+Child, Clara Wieck&mdash;Remarkable Genius as a Player.&mdash;Her Early
+Training.&mdash;Paganini's Delight in her Genius.&mdash;Clara Wieck's
+Concert Tours.&mdash;Schumann falls deeply in Love with her, and
+Wieck's Opposition.&mdash;His Allusions to Clara in the "Neue
+Zeit-schrift."&mdash;Schumann at Vienna.&mdash;His Compositions at first
+Unpopular, though played by Clara Wieck and Liszt.&mdash;Schumann's Labors
+as a Critic.&mdash;He marries Clara in 1840.&mdash;His Song Period inspired by
+his Wife.&mdash;Tour to Russia, and Brilliant Reception given to the
+Artist Pair.&mdash;The "Neue Zeitschrift" and its Mission.&mdash;The
+Davidsbund.&mdash;Peculiar Style of Schumann's Writing.&mdash;He moves to
+Dresden.&mdash;Active Production in Orchestral Composition.&mdash;Artistic Tour in
+Holland.&mdash;He is seized with Brain Disease.&mdash;Characteristics as a Man,
+as an Artist, and as a Philosopher.&mdash;Mme. Schumann as her Husband's
+Interpreter.&mdash;Chopin a Colaborer with Schumann.&mdash;Schumann on Chopin
+again.&mdash;Chopin's Nativity.&mdash;Exclusively a Piano-forte Composer.&mdash;His
+Genre as Pianist and Composer.&mdash;Aversion to Concert-giving.&mdash;Parisian
+Associations.&mdash;New Style of Technique demanded by his Works.&mdash;Unique
+Treatment of the Instrument.&mdash;Characteristics of Chopin's Compositions.
+</p>
+<center>
+THALBERG AND GOTTSCHALK.
+</center>
+<p>
+Thalberg one of the Greatest of Executants.&mdash;Rather a Man of Remarkable
+Talents than of Genius.&mdash;Moseheles's Description of him.&mdash;The
+Illegitimate Son of an Austrian Prince.&mdash;Early Introduction to
+Musical Society in London and Vienna.&mdash;Beginning of his Career as a
+Virtuoso.&mdash;The Brilliancy of his Career.&mdash;Is appointed Court Pianist to
+the Emperor of Austria.&mdash;His Marriage.&mdash;Visits to America.&mdash;Thalberg's
+Artistic Idiosyncrasy.&mdash;Robert Schumann on his Playing.&mdash;His Appearance
+and Manner.&mdash;Characterization by George William Curtis.&mdash;Thalberg's
+Style and Worth as an Artist.&mdash;His Piano-forte Method, and Place as a
+Composer for the Piano.&mdash;Gottschalk's Birth and Early Years.&mdash;He is sent
+to Paris for Instruction.&mdash;Successful <i>Début</i> and Publie Concerts
+in Paris and Tour through the French Cities.&mdash;Friendship with
+Berlioz.&mdash;Concert Tour to Spain.&mdash;Romantic Experiences.&mdash;Berlioz on
+Gottschalk.&mdash;Reception of Gottschalk in America.&mdash;Criticism of his
+Style.&mdash;Remarkable Success of his Concerts.&mdash;His Visit to the West
+Indies, Mexico, and Central America.&mdash;Protracted Absence.&mdash;Gottschalk
+on Life in the Tropics.&mdash;Return to the United States.&mdash;Three Brilliant
+Musical Years.&mdash;Departure for South America.&mdash;Triumphant Procession
+through the Spanish-American Cities.&mdash;Death at Rio Janeiro.&mdash;Notes on
+Gottschalk as Man and Artist.
+</p>
+<center>
+FRANZ LISZT.
+</center>
+<p>
+The Spoiled Favorite of Fortune.&mdash;His Inherited Genius.&mdash;Birth and
+Early Training.&mdash;First Appearance in Concert.&mdash;Adam Liszt and his Son
+in Paris.&mdash;Sensation made by the Boy's Playing.&mdash;His Morbid Religious
+Sufferings.&mdash;Franz Liszt thrown on his own Resources.&mdash;The Artistic
+Circle in Paris.&mdash;Liszt in the Ranks of Romanticism.&mdash;His Friends and
+Associates.&mdash;Mme. D'Agoult and her Connection with Franz
+Liszt.&mdash;He retires to Geneva.&mdash;Is recalled to Paris by the Thalberg
+<i>Furore</i>.&mdash;Rivalry between the Artists and their Factions.&mdash;He commences
+his Career as Traveling Virtuoso.&mdash;The Blaze of Enthusiasm throughout
+Europe.&mdash;Schumann on Liszt as Man and Artist.&mdash;He ranks the Hungarian
+Virtuoso as the Superior of Thalberg.&mdash;Liszt's Generosity to his own
+Countrymen.&mdash;The Honors paid to him in Pesth.&mdash;Incidents of his
+Musical Wanderings.&mdash;He loses the Proceeds of Three Hundred
+Concerts.&mdash;Contributes to the Completion of the Cologne Cathedral.&mdash;His
+Connection with the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, and the Celebration of
+the Unveiling.&mdash;Chorley on Liszt.&mdash;Berlioz and Liszt.&mdash;Character of the
+Enthusiasm called out by Liszt as an Artist.&mdash;Remarkable Personality
+as a Man.&mdash;Berlioz characterizes the Great Virtuoso in a Letter.&mdash;Liszt
+ceases his Life as a Virtuoso, and becomes Chapel-Master and Court
+Conductor at Weimar.&mdash;Avowed Belief in the New School of Music, and
+Production of Works of this School.&mdash;Wagner's Testimony to Liszt's
+Assistance.&mdash;Liszt's Resignation of his Weimar Post after Ten
+Years.&mdash;His Subsequent Life.&mdash;He takes Holy Orders.&mdash;Liszt as a Virtuoso
+and Composer.&mdash;Entitled to be placed among the most Remarkable Men of
+his Age.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0004" id="h2H_4_0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    THE GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.
+</h2>
+<a name="h2H_4_0005" id="h2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    THE VIOLIN AND EARLY VIOLINISTS.
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Ancestry of the Violin.&mdash;The Origin of the Cremona School of
+Violin-Making.&mdash;The Amatis and Stradiuarii.&mdash;Extraordinary Art
+Activity of Italy at this Period.&mdash;Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph
+Guarnerius.&mdash;Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers
+of the World.&mdash;Corelli, the First Great Violinist.&mdash;His Contemporaries
+and Associates.&mdash;Anecdotes of his Career.&mdash;Corelli's
+Pupil, Geminiani.&mdash;Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and
+Chess-Player.&mdash;Giuseppe Tartini.&mdash;Becomes an Outcast from his Family
+on Account of his Love of Music.&mdash;Anecdote of the Violinist
+Veracini.&mdash;Tartini's Scientific Discoveries in Music.&mdash;His Account of
+the Origin of the "Devil's Trill."&mdash;Tartini's Pupils.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+The ancestry of the violin, considering this as the type of stringed
+instruments played with a bow, goes back to the earliest antiquity; and
+innumerable passages might be quoted from the Oriental and classical
+writers illustrating the important part taken by the forefathers of the
+modern violin in feast, festival, and religious ceremonial, in the fiery
+delights of battle, and the more dulcet enjoyments of peace. But it
+was not till the fifteenth century, in Italy, that the art of making
+instruments of the viol class began to reach toward that high perfection
+which it speedily attained. The long list of honored names connected
+with the development of art in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
+centuries is a mighty roll-call, and among these the names of the great
+violin-makers, beginning with Gaspard de Salo, of Brescia, who first
+raised a rude craft to an art, are worthy of being included. From
+Brescia came the masters who established the Cremona school, a name not
+only immortal in the history of music, but full of vital significance;
+for it was not till the violin was perfected, and a distinct school of
+violin-playing founded, that the creation of the symphony, the highest
+form of music, became possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+The violin-makers of Cremona came, as we have said, from Brescia,
+beginning with the Ama-tis. Though it does not lie within the province
+of this work to discuss in any special or technical sense the history of
+violin-making, something concerning the greatest of the Cremona masters
+will be found both interesting and valuable as preliminary to the
+sketches of the great players which make up the substance of the
+volume. The Amatis, who established the violin-making art at Cremona,
+successively improved, each member of the class stealing a march on
+his predecessor, until the peerless masters of the art, Antonius
+Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius del Jesű, advanced far beyond the
+rivalry of their contemporaries and successors. The pupils of the
+Amatis, Stradiuarius, and Guarnerius settled in Milan, Florence, and
+other cities, which also became centers of violin-making, but never to
+an extent which lessened the preeminence of the great Cremona makers.
+There was one significant peculiarity of all the leading artists of this
+violin-making epoch: each one as a pupil never contented himself with
+making copies of his master's work, but strove incessantly to strike
+out something in his work which should be an outcome of his own genius,
+knowledge, and investigation. It was essentially a creative age.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us glance briefly at the artistic activity of the times when the
+violin-making craft leaped so swiftly and surely to perfection. If we
+turn to the days of Gaspard di Salo, Morelli, Magini, and the Amatis, we
+find that when they were sending forth their fiddles, Raphael, Leonardo
+da Vinci, Titian, and Tintoretto were busily painting their great
+canvases. While Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius were
+occupied with the noble instruments which have immortalized their names,
+Canaletto was painting his Venetian squares and canals, Giorgio was
+superintending the manufacture of his inimitable maiolica, and the
+Venetians were blowing glass of marvelous beauty and form. In the
+musical world, Corelli was writing his gigues and sarabandes, Geminiani
+composing his first instruction book for the violin, and Tartini
+dreaming out his "Devil's Trill"; and while Guadognini (a pupil of
+Antonius Stradiuarius), with the stars of lesser magnitude, were
+exercising their calling, Viotti, the originator of the school of modern
+violin-playing, was beginning to write his concertos, and Boccherini
+laying the foundation of chamber music.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such was the flourishing state of Italian art during the great Cremona
+period, which opened up a mine of artistic wealth for succeeding
+generations. It is a curious fact that not only the violin but violin
+music was the creature of the most luxurious period of art; for, in that
+golden age of the creative imagination, musicians contemporary with the
+great violin-makers were writing music destined to be better understood
+and appreciated when the violins then made should have reached their
+maturity.
+</p>
+<p>
+There can be no doubt that the conditions were all highly favorable
+to the manufacture of great instruments. There were many composers
+of genius and numerous orchestras scattered over Italy, Germany, and
+France, and there must have been a demand for bow instruments of a high
+order. In the sixteenth century, Palestrina and Zarlino were writing
+grand church music, in which violins bore an important part. In the
+seventeenth, lived Stradella, Lotti, Buononcini, Lulli, and Corelli. In
+the eighteenth, when violin-making Avas at its zenith, there were such
+names among the Italians as Scarlatti, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Locatelli,
+Boccherini, Tartini, Piccini, Viotti, and Nardini; while in France it
+was the epoch of Lecler and Gravinies, composers of violin music of
+the highest class. Under the stimulus of such a general art culture the
+makers of the violin must have enjoyed large patronage, and the more
+eminent artists have received highly remunerative prices for their
+labors, and, correlative to this practical success, a powerful stimulus
+toward perfecting the design and workmanship of their instruments. These
+plain artisans lived quiet and simple lives, but they bent their whole
+souls to the work, and belonged to the class of minds of which Carlyle
+speaks: "In a word, they willed one thing to which all other things were
+made subordinate and subservient, and therefore they accomplished it.
+The wedge will rend rocks, but its edge must be sharp and single; if it
+be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing."
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+So much said concerning the general conditions under which the craft
+of violin-making reached such splendid excellence, the attention of the
+reader is invited to the greatest masters of the Cremona school.
+</p>
+<pre>
+     "The instrument on which he played
+     Was in Cremona's workshops made,
+     By a great master of the past,
+     Ere yet was lost the art divine;
+     Fashioned of maple and of pine,
+     That in Tyrolean forests vast
+     Had rooked and wrestled with the blast.
+
+     "Exquisite was it in design,
+     A marvel of the lutist's art,
+     Perfect in each minutest part;
+     And in its hollow chamber thus
+     The maker from whose hand it came
+     Had written his unrivaled name,
+     'Antonius Stradivarius.'"
+</pre>
+<p>
+The great artist whose work is thus made the subject of Longfellow's
+verse was born at Cremona in 1644. His renown is beyond that of all
+others, and his praise has been sounded by poet, artist, and musician.
+He has received the homage of two centuries, and his name is as little
+likely to be dethroned from its special place as that of Shakespeare
+or Homer. Though many interesting particulars are known concerning
+his life, all attempt has failed to obtain any connected record of the
+principal events of his career. Perhaps there is no need, for there
+is ample reason to believe that Antonius Stradiuarius lived a quiet,
+uncheckered, monotonous existence, absorbed in his labor of making
+violins, and caring for nothing in the outside world which did not touch
+his all-beloved art. Without haste and without rest, he labored for
+the perfection of the violin. To him the world was a mere workshop. The
+fierce Italian sun beat down and made Cremona like an oven, but it was
+good to dry the wood for violins. On the slopes of the hills grew grand
+forests of maple, pine, and willow, but he cared nothing for forest
+or hillside except as they grew good wood for violins. The vineyards
+yielded rich wine, but, after all, the main use of the grape was that it
+furnished the spirit wherewith to compound varnish. The sheep, ox, and
+horse were good for food, but still more important because from them
+came the hair of the bow, the violin strings, and the glue which held
+the pieces together. It was through this single-eyed devotion to
+his life-work that one great maker was enabled to gather up all the
+perfections of his predecessors, and stand out for all time as the
+flower of the Cremonese school and the master of the world. George
+Eliot, in her poem, "The Stradivari," probably pictures his life
+accurately:
+</p>
+<pre>
+     "That plain white-aproned man, who stood at work,
+     Patient and accurate full fourscore years,
+     Cherished his sight and touch by temperance;
+     And since keen sense is love of perfectness,
+     Made perfect violins, the needed paths
+     For inspiration and high mastery."
+</pre>
+<p>
+M. Fetis, in his notice of the greatest of violin-makers, summarizes his
+life very briefly. He tells us the life of Antonius Stradiuarius was
+as tranquil as his calling was peaceful. The year 1702 alone must have
+caused him some disquiet, when during the war the city of Cremona was
+taken by Marshal Villeroy, on the Imperialist side, retaken by Prince
+Eugene, and finally taken a third time by the French. That must have
+been a parlous time for the master of that wonderful workshop whence
+proceeded the world's masterpieces, though we may almost fancy the
+absorbed master, like Archimedes when the Romans took Syracuse, so
+intent on his labor that he hardly heard the din and roar of battle,
+till some rude soldier disturbed the serene atmosphere of the room
+littered with shavings and strewn with the tools of a peaceful craft.
+</p>
+<p>
+Polledro, not many years ago first violin at the Chapel Royal of Turin,
+who died at a very advanced age, declared that his master had known
+Stradiuarius, and that he was fond of talking about him. He was, he
+said, tall and thin, with a bald head fringed with silvery hair, covered
+with a cap of white wool in the winter and of cotton in the summer. He
+wore over his clothes an apron of white leather when he worked, and, as
+he was always working, his costume never varied. He had acquired what
+was regarded as wealth in those days, for the people of Cremona were
+accustomed to say "As rich as Stradiuarius." The house he occupied is
+still standing in the Piazza Roma, and is probably the principal place
+of interest in the old city to the tourists who drift thitherward.
+The simple-minded Cremonese have scarcely a conception to-day of the
+veneration with which their ancient townsman is regarded by the musical
+connoisseurs of the world. It was with the greatest difficulty that they
+were persuaded a few years ago, by the efforts of Italian and French
+musicians, to name one street Stradiuarius, and another Amati. Nicholas
+Amati, the greatest maker of his family, was the instructor of Antonius
+Stradiuarius, and during the early period of the latter artist the
+instruments could hardly be distinguished from those of Amati. But, in
+after-years, he struck out boldly in an original line of his own, and
+made violins which, without losing the exquisite sweetness of the Amati
+instruments, possessed far more robustness and volume of tone, reaching,
+indeed, a combination of excellences which have placed his name high
+above all others. It may be remarked of all the Cremona violins of the
+best period, whether Amati, Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, or Steiner,
+that they are marked no less by their perfect beauty and delicacy of
+workmanship than by their charm of tone. These zealous artisans were not
+content to imprison the soul of Ariel in other form than the lines
+and curves of ideal grace, exquisitely marked woods, and varnish as of
+liquid gold. This external beauty is uniformly characteristic of the
+Cremona violins, though shape varies in some degree with each maker.
+Of the Stradiuarius violins it may be said, before quitting the
+consideration of this maker, that they have fetched in latter years
+from one thousand to five thousand dollars. The sons and grandsons of
+Antonius were also violin-makers of high repute, though inferior to the
+chief of the family.
+</p>
+<p>
+The name of Joseph Guarnerius del Jesű is only less in estimation than
+that of Antonius Stradiuarius, of whom it is believed by many he was a
+pupil or apprentice, though of this there is no proof. Both his uncle
+Andreas and his cousin Joseph were distinguished violin-makers, but the
+Guarnerius patronymic has now its chiefest glory from that member known
+as "del Jesű." This great artist in fiddle-making was born at Cremona in
+the year 1683, and died in 1745. He worked in his native place till
+the day of his death, but in his latter years Joseph del Jesű became
+dissipated, and his instruments fell off somewhat in excellence of
+quality and workmanship. But his <i>chef d'oeuvres</i> yield only to those
+of the great Stradiuarius in the estimation of connoisseurs. Many of the
+Guarnerius violins, it is said, were made in prison, where the artist
+was confined for debt, with inferior tools and material surreptitiously
+obtained for him by the jailer's daughter, who was in love with the
+handsome captive. These fruits of his skill were less beautiful in
+workmanship, though marked by wonderful sweetness and power of tone.
+Mr. Charles Reade, a great violin amateur as well as a novelist, says of
+these "prison" fiddles, referring to the comical grotesqueness of their
+form: "Such is the force of genius, that I believe in our secret hearts
+we love these impudent fiddles best, they are so full of <i>chic</i>."
+Paganini's favorite was a Guarnerius del Jesű, though he had no less
+than seven instruments of the greatest Cremona masters. Spohr, the
+celebrated violinist and composer, offered to exchange his Strad, one
+of the finest in the world, for a Guarnerius, in the possession of Mr.
+Mawkes, an English musician.
+</p>
+<p>
+Carlo Bergonzi, the pupil of Antonius Stradiuarius, was another of the
+great Cremona makers, and his best violins have commanded extraordinary
+prices. He followed the model of his master closely, and some of his
+instruments can hardly be distinguished in workmanship and tone from
+genuine Strads. Something might be said, too, of Jacob Steiner,
+who, though a German (born about 1620), got the inspiration for his
+instruments of the best period so directly from Cremona that he ought
+perhaps to be classified with the violin-makers of this school. His
+famous violins, known as the Elector Steiners, were made under peculiar
+circumstances. Almost heartbroken by the death of his wife, he retired
+to a Benedictine monastery with the purpose of taking holy orders.
+But the art-passion of his life was too strong, and he made in his
+cloister-prison twelve instruments, on which he lavished the most
+jealous care and attention. These were presented to the twelve Electors
+of Germany, and their extraordinary merit has caused them to rank high
+among the great violins of the world. A volume might be easily compiled
+of anecdotes concerning violins and violin-makers. The vicissitudes
+and changes of ownership through which many celebrated instruments have
+passed are full of romantic interest. Each instrument of the greatest
+makers has a pedigree, as well authenticated as those of the great
+masterpieces of painting, though there have been instances where a Strad
+or a Guarnerius has been picked up by some strange accident for a mere
+trifle at an auction. There have been many imitations of the genuine
+Cremonas palmed off, too, on the unwary at a high price, but the
+connoisseur rarely fails to identify the great violins almost instantly.
+For, aside from their magical beauty of tone, they are made with the
+greatest beauty of form, color, and general detail. So much has been
+said concerning the greatest violin-makers, in view of the fact that
+coincident with the growth of a great school of art-manufacture in
+violins there also sprang up a grand school of violin-playing; for,
+indeed, the one could hardly have existed without the other.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+The first great performer on the violin whose career had any special
+significance, in its connection with the modern world of musical art,
+was Archangelo Corelli, who was born at Fusignano, in the territory of
+Bologna, in the year 1653. Corelli's compositions are recognized to-day
+as types of musical purity and freshness, and the great number of
+distinguished pupils who graduated from his teaching relate him closely
+with all the distinguished violinists even down to the present day. In
+Corelli's younger days the church had a stronger claim on musicians
+than the theatre or concert-room. So we find him getting his earliest
+instruction from the Capuchin Simonelli, who devoted himself to the
+ecclesiastical style. The pupil, however, yielded to an irresistible
+instinct, and soon put himself under the care of a clever and skillful
+teacher, the well-known Bassani. Under this tuition the young musician
+made rapid advancement, for he labored incessantly in the practice of
+his instrument. At the age of twenty Corelli followed that natural bent
+which carried him to Paris, then, as now, a great art capital; and we
+are told, on the authority of Fetis, that the composer Lulli became
+so jealous of his extraordinary skill that he obtained a royal mandate
+ordering Corelli to quit Paris, on pain of the Bastille.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1680 he paid a visit to Germany, and was specially well received,
+and was so universally admired, that he with difficulty escaped the
+importunate invitations to settle at various courts as chief musician.
+After a three years' absence from his native land he returned and
+published his first sonatas. The result of his assiduous labor was that
+his fame as a violinist had spread all over Europe, and pupils came from
+distant lands to profit by his instruction. We are told of his style as
+a solo player that it was learned and elegant, the tone firm and even,
+that his playing was frequently impressed with feeling, but that during
+performance "his countenance was distorted, his eyes red as fire, and
+his eyeballs rolled as if he were in agony." For about eighteen years
+Corelli was domiciled at Rome, under the patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni.
+As leader of the orchestra at the opera, he introduced many reforms,
+among them that of perfect uniformity of bowing. By the violin sonatas
+composed during this period, it is claimed that Corelli laid the
+foundation for the art of violin-playing, though it is probable that he
+profited largely by those that went before him. It was at the house of
+Cardinal Ottoboni that Corelli met Handel, when the violent temper
+of the latter did not hesitate to show itself. Corelli was playing a
+sonata, when the imperious young German snatched the violin from his
+hand, to show the greatest virtuoso of the age how to play the music.
+Corelli, though very amiable in temper, knew how to make himself
+respected. At one of the private concerts at Cardinal Ottoboni's, he
+observed his host and others talking during his playing. He laid his
+violin down and joined the audience, saying he feared his music might
+interrupt the conversation.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1708, according to Dubourg, Corelli accepted a royal invitation
+from Naples, and took with him his second violin, Matteo, and a
+violoncellist, in case he should not be well accompanied by the
+Neapolitan orchestra. He had no sooner arrived than he was asked to play
+some of his concertos before the king. This he refused, as the whole of
+his orchestra was not with him, and there was no time for a rehearsal.
+However, he soon found that the Neapolitan musicians played the
+orchestral parts of his concertos as well as his own accompanists did
+after some practice; for, having at length consented to play the first
+of his concertos before the court, the accompaniment was so good
+that Corelli is said to have exclaimed to Matteo: "<i>Si suona a
+Napoli!</i>"&mdash;"They <i>do</i> play at Naples!" This performance being quite
+successful, he was presented to the king, who afterward requested him
+to perform one of his sonatas; but his Majesty found the adagio "so
+long and so dry that he got up and <i>left the room</i> (!), to the great
+mortification of the eminent virtuoso." As the king had commanded the
+piece, the least he could have done would have been to have waited
+till it was finished. "If they play at Naples, they are not very polite
+there," poor Corelli must have thought! Another unfortunate mishap also
+occurred to him there, if we are to believe the dictum of Geminiani,
+one of Corelli's pupils, who had preceded him at Naples. It would appear
+that he was appointed to lead a composition of Scarlatti's, and on
+arriving at an air in C minor he led off in C major, which mistake he
+twice repeated, till Scarlatti came on the stage and showed him the
+difference. This anecdote, however, is so intrinsically improbable
+that it must be taken with several "grains of salt." In 1712 Corelli's
+concertos were beautifully engraved at Amsterdam, but the composer only
+survived the publication a few weeks. A beautiful statue, bearing the
+inscription "<i>Corelli princeps musicorum</i>," was erected to his memory,
+adjacent that honoring the memory of Raffaelle in the Pantheon. He
+accumulated a considerable fortune, and left a valuable collection of
+pictures. The solos of Corelli have been adopted as valuable studies by
+the most eminent modern players and teachers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Francesco Geminiani was the most remarkable of Corelli's pupils. Born at
+Lucca in 1680, he finished his studies under Corelli at Rome, and spent
+several years with great musical <i>éclat</i> at Naples. In 1714 he went
+to England, in which country he spent many years. His execution was of
+great excellence, but his compositions only achieved temporary favor.
+His life is said to have been full of romance and incident. Geminiani's
+connection with Handel has a special musical interest. The king, who
+arrived in England in September, 1714, and was crowned at Westminster a
+month later, was irritated with Handel for having left Germany, where he
+held the position of chapel-master to George, when Elector of Brunswick,
+and still more so by his having composed a <i>Te Deum</i> on the Peace of
+Utrecht, which was not favorably regarded by the Protestant princes of
+Germany. Baron Kilmanseck, a Hanoverian, and a great admirer of Handel,
+undertook to bring them together again. Being informed that the king
+intended to picnic on the Thames, he requested the composer to write
+something for the occasion. Thereupon Handel wrote the twenty-five
+little concerted pieces known under the title of "Water Music." They
+were executed in a barge which followed the royal boat. The orchestra
+consisted of four violins, one tenor, one violoncello, one double-bass,
+two hautboys, two bassoons, two French horns, two flageolets, one flute,
+and one trumpet. The king soon recognized the author of the music,
+and his resentment against Handel began to soften. Shortly after this
+Geminiani was requested to play some sonatas of his own composition in
+the king's private cabinet; but, fearing that they would lose much
+of their effect if they were accompanied in an inferior manner, he
+expressed the desire that Handel should play the accompaniments. Baron
+Kilmanseck carried the request to the king, and supported it strongly.
+The result was that peace was made, and an extra pension of two hundred
+pounds per annum settled upon Handel. Geminiani, after thirty-five
+years spent in England, went to Paris for five years, where he was most
+heartily welcomed by the musical world, but returned across the Channel
+again to spend his latter years in Dublin. It was here that Matthew
+Dubourg, whose book on "The Violin and Violinists" is a perfect
+treasure-trove of anecdote, became his pupil.
+</p>
+<p>
+Another remarkable violinist was an intimate friend of Geminiani, a
+name distinguished alike in the annals of chess-playing and music, André
+Danican Philidor. This musician was born near Paris in 1726, and was the
+grandson of the hautboy-player to the court of Louis XIII. His father
+and several of his relations were also eminent players in the royal
+orchestras of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Young Philidor was received into
+the Chapel Royal at Versailles in 1732, being then six years old, and
+when eleven he composed a motette which extorted much admiration. In
+the Chapel Royal there were about eighty musicians daily in attendance,
+violins, hautboys, violas, double-basses, choristers, etc.; and,
+cards not being allowed, they had a long table inlaid with a number of
+chess-boards, with which they amused their leisure time. When fourteen
+years old Philidor was the best chess-player in the band. Four years
+later he played at Paris two games of chess at the same time, without
+seeing the boards, and afterward extended this feat to playing five
+games simultaneously, which, though far inferior to the wonderful
+feats of Morphy, Paulsen, and others in more recent years, very much
+astonished his own generation. Philidor was an admirable violinist, and
+the composer of numerous operas which delighted the French public for
+many years. He died in London in 1759.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were several other pupils of Corelli who achieved rank in their
+art and exerted a recognizable influence on music. Locatelli displayed
+originality and genius in his compositions, and his studies, "Arte di
+Nuova Modulazione," was studied by Paganini. Another pupil, Lorenzo
+Somis, became noted as the teacher of Lecler, Pugnani (the professor of
+Viotti), and Giardini. Visconti, of Cremona, who was taught by Corelli,
+is said to have greatly assisted by his counsels the constructive genius
+of Antonius Stradiuarius in making his magnificent instruments.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+The name of Giuseppe Tartini will recur to the musical reader more
+familiarly than those previously mentioned. He was the scion of a noble
+stock, and was born in Istria in 1692. Originally intended for the law,
+he was entered at the University of Padua at the age of eighteen for
+this profession, but his time was mostly given to the study of music and
+fencing, in both of which he soon became remarkably proficient, so
+that he surpassed the masters who taught him. It may be that accident
+determined the future career of Tartini, for, had he remained at the
+university, the whole bent of his life might have been different. Eros
+exerted his potent sway over the young student, and he entered into a
+secret marriage, that being the lowest price at which he could win his
+<i>bourgeois</i> sweetheart. Tartini became an outcast from his family, and
+was compelled to fly and labor for his own living. After many hardships,
+he found shelter in a convent at Assisi, the prior of which was a family
+connection, who took compassion on the friendless youth. Here Tartini
+set to work vigorously on his violin, and prosecuted a series of
+studies which resulted in the "Sonata del Diavolo" and other remarkable
+compositions. At last he was reconciled to his family through the
+intercession of his monastic friend, and took his abode in Venice that
+he might have the benefit of hearing the playing of Veracini, a great
+but eccentric musician, then at the head of the Conservatario of that
+city. Veracini was nicknamed "Capo Pazzo," or "mad-head," on account of
+his eccentricity. Dubourg tells a curious story of this musician: Being
+at Lucca at the time of the annual festival called "Festa della Croce,"
+on which occasion it was customary for the leading artists of Italy to
+meet, Veracini put his name down for a solo. When he entered the choir,
+he found the principal place occupied by a musician of some rank named
+Laurenti. In reply to the latter's question, "Where are you going?"
+Veracini haughtily answered, "To the place of the first violinist." It
+was explained by Laurenti that he himself had been engaged to fill that
+post, but, if his interlocutor wished to play a solo, he could have
+the privilege either at high mass or at vespers. Evidently he did not
+recognize Veracini, who turned away in a rage, and took his position
+in the lowest place in the orchestra. When his turn came to play his
+concerto, he begged that instead of it he might play a solo where he
+was, accompanied on the violoncello by Lanzetti. This he did in so
+brilliant and unexpected a manner that the applause was loud and
+continued, in spite of the sacred nature of the place; and whenever he
+was about to make a close, he turned toward Laurenti and called out:
+"Cost se suona per fare il primo violino"&mdash;"This is the way to play
+first violin."
+</p>
+<p>
+Veracini played upon a fine Steiner violin. The only master he ever had
+was his uncle Antonio, of Florence; and it was by traveling all over
+Europe, and by numerous performances in public, that he formed a
+style of playing peculiar to himself, very similar to what occurred
+to Pa-ganini and the celebrated De Bériot in later years. It does not
+appear certain that Tartini ever took lessons from Veracini; but hearing
+the latter play in public had no doubt a very great effect upon him, and
+caused him to devote many years to the careful study of his instrument.
+Some say that Veracini's performance awakened a vivid emulation in
+Tartini, who was already acknowledged to be a very masterly player. Up
+to the time, however, that Tartini first heard Veracini, he had
+never attempted any of the more intricate and difficult feats of
+violin-playing, as effected by the management of the bow. An intimate
+friendship sprang up between the two artists and another clever
+musician named Marcello, and they devoted much time to the study of the
+principles of violin-playing, particularly to style and the varied kinds
+of bowing. Veracini's mind afterward gave way, and Tartini withdrew
+himself to Ancona, where in utter solitude he applied himself to working
+out the fundamental principles of the bow in the technique of the
+violin&mdash;principles which no succeeding violinist has improved or
+altered. Tartini, even while absorbed in music, did not neglect the
+study of science and mathematics, of which he was passionately fond,
+and in the pursuit of which he might have made a name not less than his
+reputation as a musician. It was at this time that Tartini made a very
+curious discovery, known as the <i>phenomenon of the third sound</i>, which
+created some sensation at the time, and has since given rise to numerous
+learned discourses, but does not appear to have led to any great
+practical result. Various memoirs or treatises were written by him, and
+that in which he develops the nature of the <i>third sound</i> is his "Tratto
+di Musica se-condo la vera scienza de l'Armonia." In this and others of
+his works, he appears much devoted to <i>theory</i>, and endeavors to place
+all his practical facts upon a thoroughly scientific basis. The effect
+known as the <i>third sound</i> consists in the sympathetic resonance of a
+third note when the two upper notes of a chord are played in perfect
+tune. "If you do not hear the bass," Tartini would say to his pupils,
+"the thirds or sixths which you are playing are not perfect in
+intonation."
+</p>
+<p>
+At Ancona, Tartini attained such reputation as a player and musician
+that he was appointed, in 1721, to the directorship of the orchestra of
+the church of St. Anthony at Padua. Here, according to Fetis, he spent
+the remaining forty-nine years of his life in peace and comfort, solely
+occupied with the labors connected with the art he loved.
+</p>
+<p>
+His great fame brought him repeated offers from the principal cities of
+Europe, even London and Paris, hat nothing could induce him to leave his
+beloved Italy. Though Tartini could not have been heard out of Italy,
+his violin school at Padua graduated many excellent players, who were
+widely known throughout the musical world. Tartini's compositions
+reached no less than one hundred and fifty works, distinguished not only
+by beauty of melody and knowledge of the violin, but by soundness
+of musical science. Some of his sonatas are still favorites in the
+concert-room. Among these, the most celebrated is the "Trille
+del Dia-volo," or "Devil's Sonata," composed under the following
+circumstances, as related by Tartini himself to his pupil Lalande:
+</p>
+<p>
+"One night in 1713," he says, "I dreamed that I had made a compact with
+the devil, who promised to be at my service on all occasions. Everything
+succeeded according to my mind; my wishes were anticipated and desires
+always surpassed by the assistance of my new servant. At last I thought
+I would offer my violin to the devil, in order to discover what kind of
+a musician he was, when, to my great astonishment, I heard him play
+a solo, so singularly beautiful and with such superior taste and
+precision, that it surpassed all the music I had ever heard or conceived
+in the whole course of my life. I was so overcome with surprise and
+delight that I lost my power of breathing, and the violence of this
+sensation awoke me. Instantly I seized my violin in the hopes of
+remembering some portion of what I had just heard, but in vain! The work
+which this dream suggested, and which I wrote at the time, is doubtless
+the best of all my compositions, and I still call it the 'Sonata del
+Diavolo'; but it sinks so much into insignificance compared with what
+I heard, that I would have broken my instrument and abandoned music
+altogether, had I possessed any other means of subsistence."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tartini died at Padua in 1770, and so much was he revered and admired
+in the city where he had spent nearly fifty years of his life, that his
+death was regarded as a public calamity. He used to say of himself that
+he never made any real progress in music till he was more than thirty
+years old; and it is curious that he should have made a great change
+in the nature of his performance at the age of fifty-two. Instead of
+displaying his skill in difficulties of execution, he learned to prefer
+grace and expression. His method of playing an adagio was regarded as
+inimitable by his contemporaries; and he transmitted this gift to his
+pupil Nardini, who was afterward called the greatest adagio player in
+the world. Another of Tartini's great <i>élevés</i> was Pugnani, who before
+coming to him had been instructed by Lorenzo Somis, the pupil of
+Corelli. So it may be said that Pugnani united in himself the schools of
+Corelli and Tartini, and was thus admirably fitted to be the instructor
+of that grand player, who was the first in date of the violin virtuosos
+of modern times, Viotti.
+</p>
+<p>
+Both as composer and performer, Pugnani was held in great esteem
+throughout Europe. His first meeting with Tartini was an incident of
+considerable interest. He made the journey from Paris to Padua expressly
+to see Tartini, and on reaching his destination he proceeded to the
+house of the great violinist.
+</p>
+<p>
+Tartini received him kindly, and evinced some curiosity to hear him
+play. Pugnani took up his instrument and commenced a well-known solo,
+but he had not played many bars before Tartini suddenly seized his arm,
+saying, "Too loud, my friend, too loud!" The Piedmontese began again,
+but at the same passage Tartini stopped him again, exclaiming this time,
+"Too soft, my good friend, too soft!" Pugnani therefore laid down the
+violin, and begged of Tartini to give him some lessons. He was at
+once received among Tartini's pupils, and, though already an excellent
+artist, began his musical education almost entirely anew. Many anecdotes
+have been foisted upon Pugnani, some evidently the creation of rivals,
+and not worth repeating. Others, on the contrary, tend to enlighten us
+upon the character of the man. Thus, when playing, he was so completely
+absorbed in the music, that he has been known, at a public concert, to
+walk about the platform during the performance of a favorite cadenza,
+imagining himself alone in the room. Again, at the house of Madame
+Denis, when requested to play before Voltaire, who had little or no
+music in his soul, Pugnani stopped short, when the latter had the bad
+taste to continue his conversation, remarking in a loud, clear voice,
+"M. de Voltaire is very clever in making verses, but as regards music
+he is devilishly ignorant." Pugnani's style of play is said to have been
+very broad and noble, "characterized by that commanding sweep of the
+bow, which afterward formed so grand a feature in the performance of
+Viotti." He was distinguished as a composer as well as a player, and
+among his numerous works are some seven or eight operas, which were very
+successful for the time being on the Italian stage.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0006" id="h2H_4_0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    VIOTTI.
+</h2>
+<p>
+Viotti, the Connecting Link between the Early and Modern Violin
+Schools.&mdash;His Immense Superiority over his Contemporaries and
+Predecessors.&mdash;Other Violinists of his Time, Giornowick and
+Boccherini.&mdash;Viotti's Early Years&mdash;His Arrival in Paris, and the
+Sensation he made&mdash;His Reception by the Court.&mdash;Viotti's Personal Pride
+and Dignity.&mdash;His Rebuke to Princely Impertinence.&mdash;The Musical Circles
+of Paris.&mdash;Viotti's Last Publie Concert in Paris.&mdash;He suddenly departs
+for London.&mdash;Becomes Director of the King's Theatre.&mdash;Is compelled to
+leave the Country as a Suspected Revolutionist.&mdash;His Return to England,
+and Metamorphosis into a Vintner.&mdash;The French Singer, Garat, finds him
+out in his London Obscurity.&mdash;Anecdote of Viotti's Dinner Party.&mdash;He
+quits the Wine Trade for his own Profession.&mdash;Is made Director of the
+Paris Grand Opéra.&mdash;Letter from Rossini.&mdash;Viotti's Account of the
+"Ranz des Vaches."&mdash;Anecdotes of the Great Violinist.&mdash;Dies in London in
+1824.&mdash;Viotti's Place as a Violinist, and Style of Playing.&mdash;The Tourté
+Bow first invented during his Time.&mdash;An Indispensable Factor in Great
+Playing on the Violin.&mdash;Viotti's Pupils, and his Influence on the
+Musical Art.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+In the person of the celebrated Viotti we recognize the link connecting
+the modern school of violin-playing with the schools of the past. He
+was generally hailed as the leading violinist of his time, and his
+influence, not merely on violin music but music in general, was of a
+very palpable order. In him were united the accomplishments of the great
+virtuoso and the gifts of the composer. At the time that Viotti's star
+shot into such splendor in the musical horizon, there were not a few
+clever violinists, and only a genius of the finest type could have
+attained and perpetuated such a regal sway among his contemporaries. At
+the time when Viotti appeared in Paris the popular heart was completely
+captivated by Giornowick, whose eccentric and quarrelsome character as
+a man cooperated with his artistic excellence to keep him constantly
+in the public eye. Giornowick was a Palermitan, born in 1745, and his
+career was thoroughly artistic and full of romantic vicissitudes. His
+style was very graceful and elegant, his tone singularly pure. One of
+the most popular and seductive tricks in his art was the treating of
+well-known airs as rondos, returning ever and anon to his theme after
+a variety of brilliant excursions in a way that used to fascinate his
+hearers, thus anticipating some of his brilliant successors.
+</p>
+<p>
+Michael Kelly heard him at Vienna. "He was a man of a certain age," he
+tells us, "but in the full vigor of talent. His tone was very powerful,
+his execution most rapid, and his taste, above all, alluring. No
+performer in my remembrance played such pleasing music." Dubourg relates
+that on one occasion, when Giornowick had announced a concert at Lyons,
+he found the people rather retentive of their money, so he postponed the
+concert to the following evening, reducing the price of the tickets to
+one half. A crowded company was the result. But the bird had flown! The
+artist had left Lyons without ceremony, together with the receipts from
+sales of tickets.
+</p>
+<p>
+In London, where he was frequently heard between 1792 and 1796, he once
+gave a concert which was fully attended, but annoying to the player
+on account of the indifference of the audience and the clatter of
+the tea-cups; for it was then the custom to serve tea during the
+performance, as well as during the intervals. Giornowick turned to the
+orchestra and ordered them to cease playing. "These people," said he,
+"know nothing about music; anything is good enough for drinkers of warm
+water. I will give them something suited to their taste." Whereupon he
+played a very trivial and commonplace French air, which he disguised
+with all manner of meretricious flourishes, and achieved a great
+success. When Viotti arrived in Paris in 1779, Giornowick started on
+his travels after having heard this new rival once.
+</p>
+<p>
+A distinguished virtuoso and composer, with whom Viotti had already been
+thrown into contact, though in a friendly rather than a competitive way,
+was Boccherini, who was one of the most successful early composers of
+trios, quartets, and quintets for string instruments. During the latter
+part of Boccherini's life he basked in the sunlight of Spanish royalty,
+and composed nine works annually for the Royal Academy of Madrid, in
+which town he died in 1806, aged sixty-six. A very clever saying is
+attributed to him. The King of Spain, Charles IV, was fond of playing
+with the great composer, and was very ambitious of shining as a great
+violinist; his cousin, the Emperor of Austria, was also fond of the
+violin, and played tolerably well. One day the latter asked Boccherini,
+in a rather straightforward manner, what difference there was between
+his playing and that of his cousin Charles IV. "Sire," replied
+Boccherini, without hesitating for a moment, "Charles IV plays like a
+king, and your Majesty plays like an emperor."
+</p>
+<p>
+Giovanni Battista Viotti was born in a little Piedmontese village called
+Fontaneto, in the year 1755. The accounts of his early life are
+too confused and fragmentary to be trustworthy. It is pretty well
+established, however, that he studied under Pugnani at Turin, and that
+at the age of twenty he was made first violin at the Chapel Royal of
+that capital. After remaining three years, he began his career as a
+solo player, and, after meeting with the greatest success at Berlin and
+Vienna, directed his course to Paris, where he made his <i>debut</i> at the
+"Concerts Spirituels."
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+Fetis tells us that the arrival of Viotti in Paris produced a sensation
+difficult to describe. No performer had yet been heard who had attained
+so high a degree of perfection, no artist had possessed so fine a tone,
+such sustained elegance, such fire, and so varied a style. The fancy
+which was developed in his concertos increased the delight he produced
+in the minds of his auditory. His compositions for the violin were
+as superior to those which had previously been heard as his execution
+surpassed that of all his predecessors and contemporaries. Giornowick's
+style was full of grace and suave elegance; Viotti was characterized
+by a remarkable beauty, breadth, and dignity. Lavish attentions were
+bestowed on him from the court circle. Marie Antoinette, who was an
+ardent lover and most judicious patron of music, sent him her commands
+to play at Versailles. The haughty artistic pride of Viotti was signally
+displayed at one of these concerts before royalty. A large number of
+eminent musicians had been engaged for the occasion, and the audience
+was a most brilliant one. Viotti had just begun a concerto of his own
+composition, when the arrogant Comte d'Artois made a great bustle in
+the room, and interrupted the music by his loud whispers and utter
+indifference to the comfort of any one but himself. Viotti's dark eyes
+flashed fire as he stared sternly at this rude scion of the blood royal.
+At last, unable to restrain his indignation, he deliberately placed his
+violin in the case, gathered up his music from the stand, and withdrew
+from the concert-room without ceremony, leaving the concert, her
+Majesty, and his Royal Highness to the reproaches of the audience.
+This scene is an exact parallel of one which occurred at the house
+of Cardinal Ottoboni, when Corelli resented in similar fashion the
+impertinence of some of his auditors.
+</p>
+<p>
+Everywhere in artistic and aristocratic circles at the French capital
+Viotti's presence was eagerly sought. Private concerts were so much the
+vogue in Paris that musicians of high rank found more profit in these
+than in such as were given to the miscellaneous public. A delightful
+artistic rendezvous was the hôtel of the Comte de Balck, an enthusiastic
+patron and friend of musicians. Here Viotti's friend, Garat, whose voice
+had so great a range as to cover both the tenor and barytone registers,
+was wont to sing; and here young Orfila, the brilliant chemist,
+displayed his magnificent tenor voice in such a manner as to attract the
+most tempting offers from managers that he should desert the laboratory
+for the stage. But the young Portuguese was fascinated with science,
+and was already far advanced in the career which made him in his day
+the greatest of all authorities on toxicological chemistry. The most
+brilliant and gifted men and women of Paris haunted these reunions,
+and Viotti always appeared at his best amid such surroundings.
+Another favorite resort of his was the house of Mme. Montegerault at
+Montmorency, a lady who was a brilliant pianist. Sometimes she would
+seat herself at her instrument and begin an improvisation, and Viotti,
+seizing his violin, would join in the performance, and in a series of
+extemporaneous passages display his great powers to the delight of all
+present.
+</p>
+<p>
+He evinced the greatest distaste for solo playing at public concerts,
+and, aside from charity performances, only consented once to such an
+exhibition of his talents. A singular concert was arranged to take place
+on the fifth story of a house in Paris, the apartment being occupied
+by a friend of Viotti, who was also a member of the Government. "I will
+play," he said, on being urged, "but only on one condition, and that
+is, that the audience shall come up here to us&mdash;we have long enough
+descended to them; but times are changed, and now we may compel them to
+rise to our level"; or something to that effect. It took place in due
+course, and was a very brilliant concert indeed. The only ornament was a
+bust of Jean Jacques Rousseau. A large number of distinguished artists,
+both instrumental and vocal, were present, and a most aristocratic
+audience. A good deal of Boccherini's music was performed that evening,
+and though many of the titled personages had mounted to the fifth floor
+for the first time in their lives, so complete was the success of the
+concert that not one descended without regret, and all were warm in
+their praise of the performances of the distinguished violinist.
+</p>
+<p>
+What the cause of Viotti's sudden departure from Paris in 1790 was,
+it is difficult to tell. Perhaps he had offended the court by the
+independence of his bearing; perhaps he had expressed his political
+opinions too bluntly, for he was strongly democratic in his views;
+perhaps he foresaw the terrible storm which was gathering and was soon
+to break in a wrack of ruin, chaos, and blood. Whatever the cause, our
+violinist vanished from Paris with hardly a word of farewell to his most
+intimate friends, and appeared in London at Salomon's concerts with the
+same success which had signalized his Parisian <i>début</i>. Every one
+was delighted with the originality and power of his playing, and the
+exquisite taste that modified the robustness and passion which entered
+into the substance of his musical conceptions.
+</p>
+<p>
+Viotti was one of the artistic celebrities of London for several years,
+but his eccentric and resolute nature did not fail to involve him in
+several difficulties with powerful personages. He became connected with
+the management of the King's Theatre, and led the music for two years
+with signal ability. But he suddenly received an order from the
+British Government to leave England without delay. His sharp tongue and
+outspoken language were never consistent with courtly subserviency. We
+can fancy our musician shrugging his shoulders with disdain on receiving
+his order of banishment, for he was too much of a cosmopolite to be
+disturbed by change of country. He took up his residence at Schönfeld,
+Holland, in a beautiful and splendid villa, and produced there several
+of his most celebrated compositions, as well as a series of studies of
+the violin school.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+The edict which had sent Viotti from England was revoked in 1801, and
+he returned with commercial aspirations, for he entered into the wine
+trade. It could not be said of him, as of another well-known composer,
+who attempted to conduct a business in the vending of sweet sounds and
+the juice of the grape simultaneously, that he composed his wines and
+imported his music; for Viotti seems to have laid music entirely aside
+for the nonce, and we have no reason to suspect that his port and sherry
+were not of the best. Attention to business did not keep him from losing
+a large share of his fortune, however, in this mercantile venture, and
+for a while he was so completely lost in the London Babel as to have
+passed out of sight and mind of his old admirers. The French singer,
+Garat, tells an amusing story of his discovery of Viotti in London, when
+none of his Continental friends knew what had become of him.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the very zenith of his powers and height of his reputation, the
+founder of a violin school which remains celebrated to this day, Viotti
+had quitted Paris suddenly, and since his departure no one had received,
+either directly or indirectly, any news of him. According to Garat, some
+vague indications led him to believe that the celebrated violinist
+had taken up his residence in London, but, for a long time after his
+(Garat's) arrival in the metropolis, all his attempts to find him were
+fruitless. At last, one morning he went to a large export house for
+wine. It had a spacious courtyard, filled with numbers of large barrels,
+among which it was not easy to move toward the office or counting-house.
+On entering the latter, the first person who met his gaze was Viotti
+himself. Viotti was surrounded by a legion of employees, and so absorbed
+in business that he did not notice Garat. At last he raised his head,
+and, recognizing his old friend, seized him by the hand, and led him
+into an adjoining room, where he gave him a hearty welcome. Garat could
+not believe his senses, and stood motionless with surprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see you are astonished at the metamorphosis," said Viotti; "it is
+certainly <i>drôle</i>&mdash;unexpected; but what <i>could</i> you expect? At Paris
+I was looked upon as a ruined man, lost to all my friends; it was
+necessary to do something to get a living, and here I am, making my
+fortune!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," interrupted Garat, "have you taken into consideration all the
+drawbacks and annoyances of a profession to which you were not brought
+up, and which must be opposed to your tastes?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I perceive," continued Viotti, "that you share the error which so many
+indulge in. Commercial enterprise is generally considered a most prosaic
+undertaking, but it has, nevertheless, its seductions, its prestige, its
+poetical side. I assure you no musician, no poet, ever had an existence
+more full of interesting and exciting incidents than those which cause
+the heart of the merchant to throb. His imagination, stimulated by
+success, carries him forward to new conquests; his clients increase, his
+fortune augments, the finest dreams of ambition are ever before him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But art!" again interrupted his friend; "the art of which you are one
+of the finest representatives&mdash;you can not have entirely abandoned it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Art will lose nothing," rejoined Viotti, "and you will find that I
+can conciliate two things without interfering with either, though you
+doubtless consider them irreconcilable. We will continue this subject
+another time; at present I must leave you; I have some pressing business
+to transact this afternoon. But come and dine with me at six o'clock,
+and be sure you do not disappoint me."
+</p>
+<p>
+Garat, who relates this conversation, tells us that at the appointed
+time he returned to the house. All the barrels and wagons that had
+encumbered the courtyard were cleared away, and in their place were
+coroneted carriages, with footmen and servants. A lackey in brilliant
+livery conducted the visitor to the drawing-room on the first floor.
+The apartments were magnificently furnished, and glittered with
+mirrors, candelabra, gilt ornaments, and the most quaint and costly
+<i>bric-ŕ-brac</i>. Viotti received his guests at the head of the staircase,
+no longer the plodding man of business, but the courtly, high-bred
+gentleman. Garat's amazement was still further increased when he heard
+the names of the other guests, all distinguished men. After an admirably
+cooked dinner, there was still more admirable music, and Viotti proved
+to the satisfaction of his French friend that he was still the same
+great artist who had formerly delighted his listeners in Paris.
+</p>
+<p>
+The wine business turned out so badly for our violinist that he was fain
+to return to his old and legitimate profession. Through the intervention
+of powerful friends in Paris, he was appointed director of the Grand
+Opéra, but he became discontented in a very onerous and irritating
+position, and was retired at his own request with a pension. An
+interesting letter from the great Italian composer Rossini, who was then
+first trying his fortune in the French metropolis, written to Viotti
+in 1821, is pleasant proof of the estimate placed on his talents and
+influence:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Most esteemed Sir: You will be surprised at receiving a letter from an
+individual who has not the honor of your personal acquaintance, but I
+profit by the liberality of feeling existing among artists to address
+these lines to you through my friend Hérold, from whom I have learned
+with the greatest satisfaction the high, and, I fear, somewhat
+undeserved opinion you have of me. The oratorio of 'Moďse,' composed by
+me three years ago, appears to our mutual friend susceptible of dramatic
+adaptation to French words; and I, who have the greatest reliance on
+Hérold's taste and on his friendship for me, desire nothing more than to
+render the entire work as perfect as possible, by composing new airs in
+a more religious style than those which it at present contains, and
+by endeavoring to the best of my power that the result shall neither
+disgrace the composer of the partition, nor you, its patron and
+protector. If M. Viotti, with his great celebrity, will consent to
+be the Mecćnas of my name, he may be assured of the gratitude of his
+devoted servant,
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gioacchino Rossini.
+</p>
+<p>
+"P.S.&mdash;In a month's time I will forward you the alterations of the drama
+'Moďse,' in order that you may judge if they are conformable to the
+operatic style. Should they not be so, you will have the kindness to
+suggest any others better adapted to the purpose."
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+Viotti, though in many respects proud, resolute, and haughty in
+temperament, was simple-hearted and enthusiastic, and a passionate lover
+of nature. M. Eymar, one of his intimate friends, said of him, "Never
+did a man attach so much value to the simplest gifts of nature, and
+never did a child enjoy them more passionately." A modest flower growing
+in the grass of the meadow, a charming bit of landscape, a rustic
+<i>fęte</i>, in short, all the sights and sounds of the country, filled him
+with delight. All nature spoke to his heart, and his finest compositions
+were suggested and inspired by this sympathy. He has left the world a
+charming musical picture of the feelings experienced in the mountains
+of Switzerland. It was there he heard, under peculiar circumstances,
+and probably for the first time, the plaintive sound of a mountain-horn,
+breathing forth the few notes of a kind of "Ranz des Vaches."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The 'Ranz des Vaches' which I send you," he says in one of his letters,
+"is neither that with which our friend Jean Jacques has presented us,
+nor that of which M. De la Bord speaks in his work on music. I can
+not say whether it is known or not; all I know is, that I heard it
+in Switzerland, and, once heard, I have never forgotten it. I was
+sauntering along, toward the decline of day, in one of those sequestered
+spots.... Flowers, verdure, streamlets, all united to form a picture
+of perfect harmony. There, without being fatigued, I seated myself
+mechanically on a fragment of rock, and fell into so profound a reverie
+that I seemed to forget that I was upon earth. While sitting thus,
+sounds broke on my ear which were sometimes of a hurried, sometimes of
+a prolonged and sustained character, and were repeated in softened tones
+by the echoes around. I found they proceeded from a mountain-horn; and
+their effect was heightened by a plaintive female voice. Struck as if
+by enchantment, I started from my dreams, listened with breathless
+attention, and learned, or rather engraved upon my memory, the 'Ranz des
+Vaches' which I send you. In order to understand all its beauties, you
+ought to be transplanted to the scene in which I heard it, and to
+feel all the enthusiasm that such a moment inspired." It was a similar
+delightful experience which, according to Rossini's statement, first
+suggested to that great composer his immortal opera, "Guillaume Tell."
+</p>
+<p>
+Among many interesting anecdotes current of Viotti, and one which
+admirably shows his goodness of heart and quickness of resource, is one
+narrated by Ferdinand Langlé to Adolph Adam, the French composer. The
+father of the former, Marie Langlé, a professor of harmony in the French
+Conservatoire, was an intimate friend of Viotti, and one charming summer
+evening the twain were strolling on the Champs Élysées. They sat down on
+a retired bench to enjoy the calmness of the night, and became buried
+in reverie. But they were brought back to prosaic matters harshly by a
+babel of discordant noises that grated on the sensitive ears of the two
+musicians. They started from their seats, and Viotti said:
+</p>
+<p>
+"It can't be a violin, and yet there is some resemblance to one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor a clarionet," suggested Langlé, "though it is something like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+The easiest manner of solving the problem was to go and see what it was.
+They approached the spot whence the extraordinary tones issued, and saw
+a poor blind man standing near a miserable-looking candle and playing
+upon a violin&mdash;but the latter was an instrument made of tin-plate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fancy!" exclaimed Viotti, "it is a violin, but a violin of tin-plate!
+Did you ever dream of such a curiosity?" and, after listening a while,
+he added, "I say, Langlé, I must possess that instrument. Go and ask the
+old blind man what he will sell it for."
+</p>
+<p>
+Langlé approached and asked the question, but the old man was
+disinclined to part with it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we will give you enough for it to enable you to purchase a better,"
+he added; "and why is not your violin like others?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The aged fiddler explained that, when he got old and found himself
+poor, not being able to work, but still able to scrape a few airs upon a
+violin, he had endeavored to procure one, but in vain. At last his good,
+kind nephew Eustache, who was apprenticed to a tinker, had made him one
+out of a tin-plate. "And an excellent one, too," he added; "and my poor
+boy Eustache brings me here in the morning when he goes to work, and
+fetches me away in the evening when he returns, and the receipts are
+not so bad sometimes&mdash;as, when he was out of work, it was I who kept the
+house going."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Viotti, "I will give you twenty francs for your violin. You
+can buy a much better one for that price; but let me try it a little."
+</p>
+<p>
+He took the violin in his hands, and produced some extraordinary
+effects from it. A considerable crowd gathered around, and listened
+with curiosity and astonishment to the performance. Langlé seized on
+the opportunity, and passed around the hat, gathering a goodly amount of
+chink from the bystanders, which, with the twenty francs, was handed to
+the astonished old beggar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Stay a moment," said the blind man, recovering a little from his
+surprise; "just now I said I would sell the violin for twenty francs,
+but I did not know it was so good. I ought to have at least double for
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Viotti had never received a more genuine compliment, and he did not
+hesitate to give the old man two pieces of gold instead of one, and then
+immediately retired from the spot, passing through the crowd with the
+tin-plate instrument under his arm. He had scarcely gone forty yards
+when he felt some one pulling at his sleeve; it was a workman, who
+politely took off his cap, and said:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir, you have paid too dear for that violin; and if you are an amateur,
+as it was I who made it, I can supply you with as many as you like at
+six francs each."
+</p>
+<p>
+This was Eustache; he had just come in time to hear the conclusion of
+the bargain, and, little dreaming that he was so clever a violin-maker,
+wished to continue a trade that had begun so successfully. However,
+Viotti was quite satisfied with the one sample he had bought. He never
+parted with that instrument; and, when the effects of Viotti were sold
+in London after his death, though the tin fiddle only brought a few
+shillings, an amateur of curiosities sought out the purchaser, and
+offered him a large sum if he could explain how the strange instrument
+came into the possession of the great violinist.
+</p>
+<p>
+After resigning his position as director of the Grand Opéra, Viotti
+returned to London, which had become a second home to him, and spent his
+remaining days there. He died on the 24th of March, 1824.
+</p>
+<center>
+V.
+</center>
+<p>
+Viotti established and settled for ever the fundamental principles of
+violin-playing. He did not attain the marvelous skill of technique, the
+varied subtile and dazzling effects, with which his successor, Paganini,
+was to amaze the world, but, from the accounts transmitted to us, his
+performance must have been characterized by great nobility, breadth, and
+beauty of tone, united with a fire and agility unknown before his time.
+Viotti was one of the first to use the Tourté bow, that indispensable
+adjunct to the perfect manipulation of the violin. The value of this
+advantage over his predecessors cannot be too highly estimated.
+</p>
+<p>
+The bows used before the time of François Tourté, who lived in the
+latter years of the last century in Paris, were of imperfect shape and
+make. The Tourté model leaves nothing to be desired in all the qualities
+required to enable the player to follow out every conceivable manner of
+tone and movement&mdash;lightness, firmness, and elasticity. Tartini had made
+the stick of his bow elastic, an innovation from the time of Corelli,
+and had thus attained a certain flexibility and brilliancy in his bowing
+superior to his predecessors. But the full development of all the powers
+of the violin, or the practice of what we now call virtuosoism on this
+instrument, was only possible with the modern bow as designed by Tourté,
+of Paris. The thin, bent, elastic stick of the bow, with its greater
+length of sweep, gives the modern player incalculable advantages over
+those of an earlier age, enabling him to follow out the slightest
+gradations of tone from the fullest <i>forte</i> to the softest <i>piano</i>,
+to mark all kinds of strong and gentle accents, to execute staccato,
+legato, saltato, and arpeggio passages with the greatest ease and
+certainty. The French school of violin-playing did not at first avail
+itself of these advantages, and even Viotti and Spohr did not fully
+grasp the new resources of execution. It was left for Paganini to open
+a new era in the art. His daring and subtile genius perceived and seized
+the wonderful resources of the modern bow at one bound. He used freely
+every imaginable movement of the bow, and developed the movement of the
+wrist to that high perfection which enabled him to practice all kinds
+of bowing with celerity. Without the Tourté bow, Paganini and the modern
+school of virtuosos, which has followed so splendidly from his example,
+would have been impossible. To many of our readers an amplification of
+this topic may be of interest. While the left hand of the violin-player
+fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already
+done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of
+his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the
+action of the right hand, the bowing, which, analogous to the pianist's
+touch, makes the sound spring into life. It is through the medium of
+the bow that the player embodies his ideas and feelings. It is therefore
+evident that herein rests one of the most important and difficult
+elements of the art of violin-playing, and that the excellence of a
+player, or even of a whole school of playing, depends to a great extent
+on its method of bowing. It would have been even better for the art
+of violin-playing as practiced to-day that the perfect instruments of
+Stradiuarius and Guarnerius should not have been, than that the Tourté
+bow should have been uninvented.
+</p>
+<p>
+The long, effective sweep of the bow was one of the characteristics
+of Viotti's playing, and was alike the admiration and despair of his
+rivals. His compositions for the violin are classics, and Spohr was
+wont to say that there could be no better test of a fine player than
+his execution of one of the Viotti sonatas or concertos. Spohr regretted
+deeply that he could not finish his violin training under this
+great master, and was wont to speak of him in terms of the greatest
+admiration. Viotti had but few pupils, but among them were a number of
+highly gifted artists. Rode, Robrechts, Cartier, Mdlle. Gerbini, Alday,
+La-barre, Pixis, Mari, Mme. Paravicini, and Vacher are well-known names
+to all those interested in the literature of the violin. The influence
+of Viotti on violin music was a very deep one, not only in virtue of his
+compositions, but in the fact that he molded the style not only of many
+of the best violinists of his own day, but of those that came after him.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0007" id="h2H_4_0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    LUDWIG SPOHR.
+</h2>
+<p>
+Birth and Early Life of the Violinist Spohr.&mdash;He is presented with his
+First Violin at six.&mdash;The French <i>Emigré</i> Dufour uses his Influence with
+Dr. Spohr, Sr., to have the Boy devoted to a Musical Career.&mdash;Goes
+to Brunswick for fuller Musical Instruction.&mdash;Spohr is appointed
+<i>Kammer-musicus</i> at the Ducal Court.&mdash;He enters under the Tuition of
+and makes a Tour with the Violin Virtuoso Eck.&mdash;Incidents of the Russian
+Journey and his Return.&mdash;Concert Tour in Germany.&mdash;Loses his Fine
+Guarnerius Violin.&mdash;Is appointed Director of the Orchestra at Gotha.&mdash;He
+marries Dorette Schiedler, the Brilliant Harpist.&mdash;Spohr's Stratagem to
+be present at the Erfurt Musical Celebration given by Napoleon in
+Honor of the Allied Sovereigns.&mdash;Becomes Director of Opera in
+Vienna.&mdash;Incidents of his Life and Production of Various Works.&mdash;First
+Visit to England.&mdash;He is made Director of the Cassel Court
+Oratorios.&mdash;He is retired with a Pension.&mdash;Closing Years of his
+Life.&mdash;His Place as Composer and Executant.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+"The first singer on the violin that ever appeared!" Such was the
+verdict of the enthusiastic Italians when they heard one of the greatest
+of the world's violinists, who was also a great composer. The modern
+world thinks of Spohr rather as the composer of symphony, opera, and
+oratorio than as a wonderful executant on the violin; but it was in
+the latter capacity that he enjoyed the greatest reputation during the
+earlier part of his lifetime, which was a long one, extending from the
+year 1784 to 1859. The latter half of Spohr's life was mostly devoted
+to the higher musical ambition of creating, but not until he had
+established himself as one of the greatest of virtuosos, and founded
+a school of violin-playing which is, beyond all others, the most
+scientific, exhaustive, and satisfactory. All of the great contemporary
+violinists are disciples of the Spohr school of execution. Great as a
+composer, still greater as a player, and widely beloved as a man&mdash;there
+are only a few names in musical art held in greater esteem than his,
+though many have evoked a deeper enthusiasm.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ludwig Spohr was born at Brunswick, April 5, 1784, of parents both of
+whom possessed no little musical talent. His father, a physician
+of considerable eminence, was an excellent flutist, and his mother
+possessed remarkable talent both as a pianist and singer. To the family
+concerts which he heard at home was the rapid development of the boy's
+talents largely due. Nature had given him a very sensitive ear and a
+fine clear voice, and at the age of four or five he joined his mother
+in duets at the evening gatherings. From the very first he manifested
+a taste for the instrument for which he was destined to become
+distinguished. He so teased his father that, at the age of six, he was
+presented with his first violin, and his joy on receiving his treasure
+was overpowering. The violin was never out of his hand, and he
+continually wandered about the house trying to play his favorite
+melodies. Spohr tells us in his "Autobiography": "I still recollect
+that, after my first lesson, in which I had learned to play the G-sharp
+chord upon all four strings, in my rapture at the harmony, I hurried to
+my mother, who was in the kitchen, and played the chord so incessantly
+that she was obliged to order me out."
+</p>
+<p>
+Young Spohr was placed under the tuition of Dufour, a French <i>emigré</i> of
+the days of '91, who was an excellent player, though not a professional,
+then living at the town of Seesen, the home of the Spohr family; and
+under him the boy made very rapid progress. It was Dufour who, by
+his enthusiastic representations, overcame the opposition of Ludwig's
+parents to the boy's devoting himself to a life of music, for the notion
+of the senior Spohr was that the name musician was synonymous with that
+of a tavern fiddler, who played for dancers. In Germany, the land <i>par
+excellence</i> of music, there was a general contempt among the educated
+classes, during the latter years of the eighteenth century, for the
+musical profession. Spohr remained under the care of Dufour until he was
+twelve years old, and devoted himself to his work with great sedulity.
+Though he as yet knew but little of counterpoint and composition, his
+creative talent already began to assert itself, and he produced several
+duos and trios, as well as solo compositions, which evinced great
+promise, though crude and faulty in the extreme. He was then sent
+to Brunswick, that he might have the advantage of more scientific
+instruction, and to this end was placed under the care of Kunisch,
+an excellent violin teacher, and under Hartung for harmony and
+counterpoint. The latter was a sort of Dr. Dryasdust, learned, barren,
+acrid, but an efficient instructor. When young Spohr showed him one of
+his compositions, he growled out, "There's time enough for that; you
+must learn something first." It may be said of Spohr, however, that his
+studies in theory were for the most part self-taught, for he was a most
+diligent student of the great masters, and was gifted with a keenly
+analytic mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the age of fourteen young Spohr was an effective soloist, and, as his
+father began to complain of the heavy expense of his musical education,
+the boy determined to make an effort for self-support. After revolving
+many schemes, he conceived the notion of applying to the duke, who was
+known as an ardent patron of music. He managed to place himself in the
+way of his Serene Highness, while the latter was walking in his garden,
+and boldly preferred his request for an appointment in the court
+orchestra. The duke was pleased to favor the application, and young
+Spohr was permitted to display his skill at a court concert, in which he
+acquitted himself so admirably as to secure the cordial patronage of the
+sovereign. Said the duke: "Be industrious and well behaved, and, if you
+make good progress, I will put you under the tuition of a great master."
+So Louis Spohr was installed as a <i>Kammer-musicus</i>, and his patron
+fulfilled his promise in 1802 by placing his <i>protégé</i> under the charge
+of Francis Eck, one of the finest violinists then living. Under the
+tuition of this accomplished instructor, the young virtuoso made such
+rapid advance in the excellence of his technique, that he was soon
+regarded as worthy of accompanying his master on a grand concert tour
+through the principal cities of Germany and Russia.
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+This concert expedition of the two violinists, as narrated in Spohr's
+"Autobiography," was full of interesting and romantic episodes. Both
+master and pupil were of amorous and susceptible temperaments, and
+their affairs were rarely regulated by a common sense of prudence. Spohr
+relates with delightful <i>naivete</i> the circumstances under which he fell
+successively in love, and the rapidity with which he recovered from
+these fitful spasms of the tender passion. Herr Eck, in addition to his
+tendency to intrigues with the fairer half of creation, was also of
+a quarrelsome and exacting disposition, and the general result was
+ceaseless squabbling with authorities and musical societies in nearly
+every city they visited. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the
+two violinists gained both in fame and purse, and were everywhere well
+received. If Herr Eck carried off the palm over the boyish Spohr as a
+mere executant, the impression everywhere gained ground that the latter
+was by far the superior in real depth of musical science, and many of
+his own violin concertos were received with the heartiest applause. The
+concert tour came to an end at St. Petersburg in a singular way. Eck
+fell in love with a daughter of a member of the imperial orchestra, but
+the idea of marriage did not enter into his project. As the young lady
+soon felt the unfortunate results of her indiscretion, her parents
+complained to the Empress, at whose instance Eck was given the choice of
+marrying the girl or taking an enforced journey to Siberia. He chose the
+former, and determined to remain in St. Petersburg, where he was offered
+the first violin of the imperial orchestra. Poor Eck found he had
+married a shrew, and, between matrimonial discords and ill health
+brought on by years of excess, he became the victim of a nervous fever,
+which resulted in lunacy and confinement in a mad-house.
+</p>
+<p>
+Spohr returned to his native town in July, 1803, and his first meeting
+with his family was a curious one. "I arrived," he says, "at two o'clock
+in the morning. I landed at the Petri gate, crossed the Ocker in a boat,
+and hastened to my grandmother's garden, but found that the house
+and garden doors were locked. As my knocking didn't arouse any one, I
+climbed over the garden wall and laid myself down in a summer-house at
+the end of the garden. Wearied by the long journey, I soon fell asleep,
+and, notwithstanding my hard couch, would probably have slept for a
+long while had not my aunts in their morning walk discovered me. Much
+alarmed, they ran and told my grandmother that a man was asleep in the
+summer-house. Returning together, the three approached nearer, and,
+recognizing me, I was awakened amid joyous expressions, embraces, and
+kisses. At first, I did not recollect where I was, but soon recognized
+my dear relations, and rejoiced at being once again in the home and
+scenes of my childhood."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spohr was most graciously received by the duke, who was satisfied
+with the proofs of industry and ambition shown by his <i>protege</i>. The
+celebrated Rode, Viotti's most brilliant pupil, was at that time in
+Brunswick, and Spohr, who conceived the most enthusiastic admiration
+of his style, set himself assiduously to the study and imitation of
+the effects peculiar to Rode. On Rode's departure, Spohr appeared in a
+concert arranged for him, in which he played a new concerto dedicated to
+his ducal patron, and created an enthusiasm hardly less than that made
+by Rode himself. He was warmly congratulated by the duke and the court,
+and appointed first court-violinist, with a salary more than sufficient
+for the musician's moderate wants. Shortly after this he undertook
+another concert tour in conjunction with the violoncellist, Benike,
+through the principal German cities, which added materially to
+his reputation. But no amount of world's talk or money could fully
+compensate him for the loss of his magnificent violin, one of the
+<i>chefs-d'ouvre</i> of Guarnerius del Gesů when that great maker was at his
+best. This instrument he had brought from Russia, and it was an imperial
+gift. A concert was announced for Gôttingen, and Spohr, with his
+companion, was about to enter the town by coach, when he asked one of
+the soldiers at the guard-house if the trunk, which had been strapped to
+the back of the carriage, and which contained his precious instrument,
+was in its place. "There is no trunk there," was the reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With one bound," says Spohr, "I was out of the carriage, and rushed
+out through the gate with a drawn hunting-knife. Had I, with more
+reflection, listened a while, I might have heard the thieves running out
+through a side path. But in my blind rage I had far overshot the place
+where I had last seen the trunk, and only discovered my overhaste when I
+found myself in the open field. Inconsolable for my loss, I turned
+back. While my fellow-traveler looked for the inn, I hastened to the
+post-office, and requested that an immediate search might be made in the
+garden houses outside the gate. With astonishment and vexation, I was
+informed that the jurisdiction outside the gate belonged to Weende, and
+that I must prefer my request there. As Weende was half a league from
+Gottingen, I was compelled to abandon for that evening all further steps
+for the recovery of my things. That these would prove fruitless on the
+following morning I was well assured, and I passed a sleepless night in
+a state of mind such as in my hitherto fortunate career had been unknown
+to me. Had I not lost my splendid Guarneri violin, the exponent of all
+the artistic success I had so far attained, I could have lightly borne
+the loss of clothes and money." The police recovered an empty trunk
+and the violin-case despoiled of its treasure, but still containing a
+magnificent Tourté bow, which the thieves had left behind. Spohr managed
+to borrow a Steiner violin, with which he gave his concert, but he did
+not for years cease to lament the loss of his grand Guarneri fiddle.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1805 Spohr was quietly settled in his avocation at Brunswick as
+composer and chief <i>Kam-mer-musicus</i> of the ducal court, when he
+received an offer to compete for the direction of the orchestra at
+Gotha, then one of the most magnificent organizations in Europe, to be
+at the head of which would give him an international fame. The offer
+was too tempting to be refused, and Spohr was easily victorious. His
+new duties were not onerous, consisting of a concert once a week, and
+in practicing and rehearsing the orchestra. The annual salary was five
+hundred thalers.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the most interesting incidents of Spohr's life now occurred. The
+susceptible heart, which had often been touched, was firmly enslaved
+by the charms of Dorette Schiedler, the daughter of the principal court
+singer, and herself a fine virtuoso on the harp. Dorette was a woman
+whose personal loveliness was an harmonious expression of her beauty
+of character and artistic talent, and Spohr accepted his fate with
+joy. This girl of eighteen was irresistible, for she was accomplished,
+beautiful, tender, as good as an angel, and with the finest talent for
+music, for she played admirably, not only on the harp, but on the piano
+and violin. Spohr had reason to hope that the attachment was mutual, and
+was eager to declare his love. One night they were playing together at a
+court concert, and Spohr after the performance noticed the duchess, with
+an arch look at him, whispering some words to Dorette which covered her
+cheeks with blushes. That night, as the lovers were returning home in
+the carriage, Spohr said to her, "Shall we thus play together for life?"
+Dorette burst into tears, and sank into her lover's arms. The compact
+was sealed by the joyous assent of the mother, and the young couple were
+united in the ducal chapel, in the presence of the duchess and a large
+assemblage of friends, on the 2d of February, 1806.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+In the following year Spohr and his young wife set out on a musical
+tour, "by which," he says, "we not only reaped a rich harvest of
+applause, but saved a considerable sum of money." On his return to Gotha
+he was met by a band of pupils, who unharnessed the horses from the
+coach and drew him through the streets in triumph. He now devoted
+himself to composition largely, and produced his first opera, "Alruna,"
+which is said to have been very warmly received, both at Gotha and
+Weimar, in which latter city it was produced under the superintendence
+of the poet Goethe, who was intendant of the theatre. Spohr, however,
+allowed it to disappear, as his riper judgment condemned its faults more
+than it favored its excellences. Among his amusing adventures, one which
+he relates in his "Autobiography" as having occurred in 1808 is worth
+repeating. He tells us: "In the year 1808 took place the celebrated
+Congress of Sovereigns at Erfurt, on which occasion Napoleon entertained
+his friend Alexander of Russia and the various kings and princes of
+Germany. The lovers of sights and the curious of the whole country round
+poured in to see the magnificence displayed. In the company of some
+of my pupils, I made a pedestrian excursion to Erfurt, less to see the
+great ones of the earth than to see and admire the great ones of the
+French stage, Talma and Mars. The Emperor had sent to Paris for his
+tragic performers, who played every evening in the classic works of
+Corneille and Racine. I and my companions had hoped to have seen one
+such representation, but unfortunately I was informed that they took
+place for the sovereigns and their suites alone, and that everybody
+else was excluded from them." In this dilemma Spohr had recourse to
+stratagem. He persuaded four musicians of the orchestra to vacate their
+places for a handsome consideration, and he and his pupils engaged to
+fill the duties. But one of the substitutes must needs be a horn-player,
+and the four new players could only perform on violin and 'cello. So
+there was nothing to be done but for Spohr to master the French horn at
+a day's notice. At the expense of swollen and painful lips, he managed
+this sufficiently to play the music required with ease and precision.
+"Thus prepared," he writes, "I and my pupils joined the other musicians,
+and, as each carried his instrument under his arm, we reached our place
+without opposition. We found the saloon in which the theatre had been
+erected already brilliantly lit up and filled with the numerous suites
+of the sovereigns. The seats for Napoleon and his guests were right
+behind the orchestra. Shortly after, the most able of my pupils, to whom
+I had assigned the direction of the music, and under whose leadership I
+had placed myself as a new-fledged hornist, had tuned up the orchestra,
+the high personages made their appearance, and the overture began. The
+orchestra, with their faces turned to the stage, stood in a long row,
+and each was strictly forbidden to turn around and look with curiosity
+at the sovereigns. As I had received notice of this beforehand, I had
+provided myself secretly with a small looking-glass, by the help of
+which, as soon as the music was ended, I was enabled to obtain in
+succession a good view of those who directed the destinies of Europe.
+Nevertheless, I was soon so engrossed with the magnificent acting of the
+tragic artists that I abandoned my mirror to my pupils, and directed my
+whole attention to the stage. But at every succeeding <i>entr'acte</i> the
+pain of my lips increased, and at the close of the performance they
+had become so much swollen and blistered that in the evening I could
+scarcely eat any supper. Even the next day, on my return to Gotha,
+my lips had a very negro-like appearance, and my young wife was not a
+little alarmed when she saw me. But she was yet more nettled when I told
+her that it was from kissing to such excess the pretty Erfurt women.
+When I had related, however, the history of my lessons on the horn, she
+laughed heartily at my expense."
+</p>
+<p>
+In October, 1809, Spohr and his wife started on an art journey to
+Russia, but they were recalled by the court chamberlain, who said that
+the duchess could not spare them from the court concerts, but would
+liberally indemnify them for the loss. Spohr returned and remained at
+home for nearly three years, during which time he composed a number of
+important works for orchestra and for the violin. In 1812 a visit to
+Vienna, during which he gave a series of concerts, so delighted the
+Viennese that Spohr was offered the direction of the Ander Wien theatre
+at a salary three times that received at Gotha, besides valuable
+emoluments. This, and the assurance of Count Palffy, the imperial
+intendant, that he meant to make the orchestra the finest in Europe,
+induced Spohr to accept the offer.
+</p>
+<p>
+When it became necessary for our musician to search for a domicile
+in Vienna, he met with another piece of good fortune. One morning
+a gentleman waited on him, introducing himself as a wealthy clock
+manufacturer and a passionate lover of music. The stranger made an
+eccentric proposition. Spohr should hand over to him all that he should
+compose or had composed for Vienna during the term of three years, the
+original scores to be his sole property during that time, and Spohr not
+even to retain a copy. "But are they not to be performed during that
+time?" "Oh, yes! as often as possible; but each time on my lending them
+for that purpose, and when I can be present myself." The bargain was
+struck, and the ardent connoisseur agreed to pay thirty ducats for a
+string quartet, five and thirty for a quintet, forty for a sextet, etc.,
+according to the style of composition. Two works were sold on the spot,
+and Spohr said he should devote the money to house-furnishing. Herr Von
+Tost undertook to provide the furniture complete, and the two made a
+tour among the most fashionable shops. When Spohr protested against
+purchasing articles of extreme beauty and luxury, Von Tost said, "Make
+yourself easy, I shall require no cash settlement. You will soon
+square all accounts with your manuscripts." So the Spohr domicile
+was magnificently furnished from kitchen to attic, more fitly, as the
+musician said, for a royal dignitary or a rich merchant than for a poor
+artist. Von Tost claimed he would gain two results: "First, I wish to be
+invited to all the concerts and musical circles in which you will
+play your compositions, and to do this I must have your scores in my
+possession; secondly, in possessing such treasures of art, I hope upon
+my business journeys to make a large acquaintance among the lovers of
+music, which I may turn to account in my manufacturing interests." Let
+us hope that this commercial enthusiast found his calculations verified
+by results.
+</p>
+<p>
+Spohr soon gave two important new works to the musical world, the opera
+of "Faust," and the cantata, "The Liberation of Germany," neither of
+which, however, was immediately produced. Weber brought out "Faust" at
+Prague in 1816, and the cantata was first performed at Franken-hausen in
+1815, at a musical festival on the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic,
+a battle which turned the scale of Napoleon's career. The same year
+(1815) also witnessed the quarrel between Spohr and Count Palffy, which
+resulted in the rupture of the former's engagement. Spohr determined to
+make a long tour through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Before shaking
+the dust of Vienna from his feet, he sold the Von Tost household at
+auction, and the sum realized was even larger than what had been paid
+for it, so vivid were the public curiosity and interest in view of the
+strange bargain under which the furniture had been bought. On the 18th
+of March, 1815, Louis Spohr, with his beloved Dorette and young family,
+which had increased with truly German fecundity, bade farewell to
+Vienna.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two years of concert-giving and sight-seeing swiftly passed, to the
+great augmentation of the German violinist's fame. On Spohr's return
+home he was invited to become the opera and music director of the
+Frankfort Theatre, and for two years more he labored arduously at this
+post. He produced the opera of "Zemire and Azar" (founded on the fairy
+fable of "Beauty and the Beast" ) during this period among other works,
+and it was very enthusiastically received by the public. This opera was
+afterward given in London, in English, with great success, though the
+opinion of the critics was that it was too scientific for the English
+taste.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+Louis Spohr's first visit to England was in 1820, whither he went on
+invitation of the Philharmonic Society. He gives an amusing account of
+his first day in London, on the streets of which city he appeared in
+a most brilliantly colored shawl waistcoat, and narrowly escaped being
+pelted by the enraged mob, for the English people were then in mourning
+for the death of George III, which had recently occurred, and Spohr's
+gay attire was construed as a public insult. He played several of his
+own works at the opening Philharmonic concert, and the brilliant veteran
+of the violin, Viotti, to become whose pupil had once been Spohr's
+darling but ungratified dream, expressed the greatest admiration of the
+German virtuoso's magnificent playing. The "Autobiography" relates an
+amusing interview of Spohr with the head of the Rothschild's banking
+establishment, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction from the
+Frankfort Rothschild, as well as a letter of credit. "After Rothschild
+had taken both letters from me and glanced hastily over them, he said
+to me, in a subdued tone of voice, 'I have just read (pointing to
+the "Times") that you manage your business very efficiently; but I
+understand nothing of music. This is my music (slapping his purse); they
+understand that on the exchange.' Upon which with a nod of the head he
+terminated the audience. But just as I had reached the door he called
+after me, 'You can come out and dine with me at my country house.' A few
+days afterward Mme. Rothschild also invited me to dinner, but I did not
+go, though she repeated the invitation."
+</p>
+<p>
+While in London on this visit Spohr composed his B flat Symphony,
+which was given by the Philharmonic Society under the direction of the
+composer himself, and, as he tells us in his "Autobiography," it was
+played better than he ever heard it afterward. His English reception, on
+the whole, was a very cordial one, and he secured a very high place
+in public estimation, both as a violinist and orchestral composer. On
+returning to Germany, Spohr gave a series of concerts, during which time
+he produced his great D minor violin concerto, making a great sensation
+with it. He had not yet visited Paris in a professional way, and in the
+winter of 1821 he turned his steps thitherward, in answer to a pressing
+invitation from the musicians of that great capital. On January 20th he
+made his <i>début</i> before a French audience, and gave a programme mostly
+of his own compositions. Spohr asserts that the satisfaction of the
+audience was enthusiastically expressed, but the fact that he did not
+repeat the entertainment would suggest a suspicion that the impression
+he made was not fully to his liking. It may be he did not dare take
+the risk in a city so full of musical attractions of every description.
+Certainly he did not like the French, though his reception from the
+artists and literati was of the most friendly sort. He was disgusted
+"with the ridiculous vanity of the Parisians." He writes: "When one or
+other of their musicians plays anything, they say, 'Well! can you
+boast of that in Germany?' Or when they introduce to you one of their
+distinguished artists, they do not call him the first in Paris, but at
+once the first in the world, although no nation knows less what other
+countries possess than they do, in their&mdash;for their vanity's sake most
+fortunate&mdash;ignorance."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spohr's appointment to the directorship of the court theatre at Cassel
+occurred in the winter of 1822, and he confesses his pleasure in the
+post, as he believed he could make its fine orchestra one of the most
+celebrated in Germany. He remained in this position for about thirty
+years, and during that time Cassel became one of the greatest musical
+centers of the country. His labors were assiduous, for he had the
+true tireless German industry, and he soon gave the world his opera
+of "Jessonda," which was first produced on July 28, 1823, with marked
+success. "Jessonda" has always kept its hold on the German stage, though
+it was not received with much favor elsewhere. Another opera, "Der Berg
+Geist" ("The Mountain Spirit"), quickly followed, the work having been
+written to celebrate the marriage of the Princess of Hesse with the Duke
+of Saxe-Meiningen. One of his most celebrated compositions, the oratorio
+"Die Letzten Dinge" ("The Last Judgment"), which is more familiar
+to English-speaking peoples than any other work of Spohr, was first
+performed on Good Friday, 1826, and was recognized from the first as
+a production of masterly excellence. Spohr's ability as a composer of
+sacred music would have been more distinctly accepted, had it not been
+that Handel, Haydn, and, in more recent years, Mendelssohn, raised the
+ideal of the oratorio so high that only the very loftiest musical genius
+is considered fit to reign in this sphere. The director of the Cassel
+theatre continued indefatigable in producing works of greater or less
+excellence, chamber-music, symphonies, and operas. Among the latter,
+attention may be called to "Pietro Albano" and the "Alchemist," clever
+but in no sense brilliant works, though, as it became the fashion in
+Germany to indulge in enthusiasm over Spohr, they were warmly praised
+at home. The best known of his orchestral works, "Die Weihe der Tone
+" ("The Power of Sound"), a symphony of unquestionable greatness, was
+produced in 1832. We are told that Spohr had been reading a volume of
+poems which his deceased friend Pfeiffer had left behind him, when he
+alighted on "Die Weihe der Tone," and the words delighted him so much
+that he thought of using them as the basis of a cantata. But he changed
+his purpose, and finally decided to delineate the subject of the poem
+in orchestral composition. The finest of all Spohr's symphonies was the
+outcome, a work which ranks high among compositions of this class. His
+toil on the new oratorio of "Calvary" was sadly interrupted by the death
+of his beloved wife Dorette, who had borne him a large family, and had
+been his most sympathetic and devoted companion. Spohr was so broken
+down by this calamity that it was several months before he could resume
+his labors, and it was because Dorette during her illness had felt such
+a deep interest in the progress of the work that the desolate husband
+so soon plucked heart to begin again. When the oratorio was produced on
+Good Friday, 1835, Spohr records in his diary: "The thought that my wife
+did not live to listen to its first performance sensibly lessened the
+satisfaction I felt at this my most successful work." This oratorio was
+not given in England till 1839, at the Norwich festival, Spohr being
+present to conduct it. The zealous and narrow-minded clergy of the day
+preached bitterly against it as a desecration, and one fierce bigot
+hurled his diatribes against the composer, when the latter was present
+in the cathedral. A journal of the day describes the scene: "We now see
+the fanatical zealot in the pulpit, and sitting right opposite to him
+the great composer, with ears happily deaf to the English tongue, but
+with a demeanor so becoming, with a look so full of pure good-will, and
+with so much humility and mildness in the features, that his countenance
+alone spoke to the heart like a good sermon. Without intending it, we
+make a comparison, and can not for a moment doubt in which of the two
+dwelt the spirit of religion which denoted the true Christian."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spohr had been two years a widower when he became enamored of one of
+the daughters of Court Councilor Pfeiffer. He tells us he had long been
+acquainted "with the high and varied intellectual culture of the two
+sisters, and so I became fully resolved to sue for the hand of the
+elder, Marianne, whose knowledge of music and skill in pianoforte
+playing I had already observed when she sometimes gave her assistance
+at the concerts of the St. Cecilia Society. As I had not the courage
+to propose to her by word of mouth, there being more than twenty years
+difference in our ages, I put the question to her in writing, and added,
+in excuse for my courtship, the assurance that I was as yet perfectly
+free from the infirmities of age." The proposition was accepted, and
+they were married without delay on January 3, 1836. The bridal couple
+made a long journey through the principal German cities, and were
+universally received with great rejoicings. Musical parties and banquets
+were everywhere arranged for them, at which Spohr and his young
+wife delighted every one by their splendid playing. The "Historical"
+symphony, descriptive of the music and characteristics of different
+periods, was finished in 1839, and made a very favorable impression both
+in Germany and England. Spohr had now become quite at home in England,
+where his music was much liked, and during different years went to the
+country, where oratorio music is more appreciated than anywhere else
+in the musical world, to conduct the Norwich festival. One of his most
+successful compositions of this description, "The Fall of Babylon," was
+written expressly for the festival of 1842. When it was given the next
+year in London under Spohr's own direction, the president of the Sacred
+Harmonic Society presented the composer at the close of the performance
+with a superb silver testimonial in the name of the society.
+</p>
+<center>
+V.
+</center>
+<p>
+Louis Spohr had now become one of the patriarchs of music, for his life
+spanned a longer arch in the history of the art than any contemporary
+except Cherubini. He was seven years old when Mozart died, and before
+Haydn had departed from this life Spohr had already begun to acquire
+a name as a violinist and composer. He lived to be the friend of
+Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Liszt, and Wagner. Everywhere he was held in
+veneration, even by those who did not fully sympathize with his musical
+works, for his career had been one of great fecundity in art. In
+addition to his rank as one of the few very great violin virtuosos, he
+had been indefatigable in the production of compositions in nearly all
+styles, and every country of Europe recognized his place as a musician
+of supereminent talent, if not of genius, one who had profoundly
+influenced contemporary music, even if he should not mold the art of
+succeeding ages. Testimonials of admiration and respect poured in on him
+from every quarter.
+</p>
+<p>
+He composed the opera of "The Crusaders" in 1845, and he was invited
+to conduct the first performance in Berlin. He relates two pleasing
+incidents in his "Autobiography." He had been invited to a select dinner
+party given at the royal palace, and between the king and Spohr, who
+was seated opposite, there intervened an ornamental centerpiece
+of considerable height in the shape of a flower vase. This greatly
+interfered with the enjoyment by the king of Spohr's conversation. At
+last his Majesty, growing impatient, removed the impediment with his own
+hands, so that he had a full view of Spohr.
+</p>
+<p>
+The other incident was a pleasing surprise from his colleagues in art.
+He was a guest of the Wickmann family, and they were all gathered in the
+illuminated garden saloon, when there entered through the gloom of the
+garden a number of dark figures swiftly following each other, who proved
+to be the members of the royal orchestra, with Meyerbeer and Taubert at
+their head. The senior member then presented Spohr with a beautifully
+executed gold laurel-wreath, while Meyerbeer made a speech full of
+feeling, in which he thanked him for his enthusiastic love of German
+art, and for all the grand and beautiful works which he had created,
+specially "The Crusaders." The twenty-fifth anniversary of Spohr's
+connection with the court theatre of Cassel occurred in 1847, and was
+to have been celebrated with a great festival. The death of Felix
+Bartholdy Mendelssohn cast a great gloom over musical Germany that
+year, so the festival was held not in honor of Spohr, but as a solemn
+memorial of the departed genius whose name is a household word among all
+those who love the art he so splendidly illustrated.
+</p>
+<p>
+Spohr's next production was the fine symphony known as "The Seasons,"
+one of the most picturesque and expressive of his orchestral works, in
+which he depicts with rich musical color the vicissitudes of the year
+and the associations clustering around them. This symphony was followed
+by his seventh quintet, in G minor, another string quartet, the
+thirty-second, and a series of pieces for the violin and piano, and in
+1852 we find the indefatigable composer busy in remodeling his opera of
+"Faust" for production by Mr. Gye, in London. It was produced with great
+splendor in the English capital, and conducted by Spohr himself; but
+it did not prove a great success, a deep disappointment to Spohr, who
+fondly believed this work to be his masterpiece. "On this occasion,"
+writes a very competent critic, <i>ŕ propos</i> of the first performance,
+"there was a certain amount of heaviness about the performance which
+told very much against the probability of that opera ever becoming
+a favorite with the Royal Italian Opera subscribers. Nothing could
+possibly exceed the poetical grace of Eonconi in the title rôle, or
+surpass the propriety and expression of his singing. Mme. Castellan's
+<i>Cunegonda</i> was also exceedingly well sung, and Tamberlik outdid himself
+by his thorough comprehension of the music, the splendor of his voice,
+and the refinement of his vocalization in the character of <i>Ugo</i>....
+The <i>Mephistopheles</i> of Herr Formes was a remarkable personation, being
+truly demoniacal in the play of his countenance, and as characteristic
+as any one of Retsch's drawings of Goethe's fiend-tempter. His singing
+being specially German was in every way well suited to the occasion." In
+spite of the excellence of the interpretation, Spohr's "Faust" did not
+take any hold on the lovers of music in England, and even in Germany,
+where Spohr is held in great reverence, it presents but little
+attraction. The closing years of Spohr's active life as a musician were
+devoted to that species of composition where he showed indubitable
+title to be considered a man of genius, works for the violin and chamber
+music. He himself did not recognize his decadence of energy and musical
+vigor; but the veteran was more than seventy years old, and his royal
+master resolved to put his baton in younger and fresher hands. So he was
+retired from service with an annual pension of fifteen hundred thalers.
+Spohr felt this deeply, but he had scarcely reconciled himself to the
+change when a more serious casualty befell him. He fell and broke his
+left arm, which never gained enough strength for him to hold the beloved
+instrument again. It had been the great joy and solace of his life to
+play, and, now that in his old age he was deprived of this comfort, he
+was ready to die. Only once more did he make a public appearance. In the
+spring of 1859 he journeyed to Meiningen to direct a concert on behalf
+of a charitable fund. An ovation was given to the aged master. A
+colossal bust of himself was placed on the stage, arched with festoons
+of palm and laurel, and the conductor's stand was almost buried in
+flowers. He was received with thunders of welcome, which were again and
+again reiterated, and at the close of the performance he could hardly
+escape for the eager throng who wished to press his hand. Spohr died on
+October 22, 1859, after a few days' illness, and in his death Germany at
+least recognized the loss of one of its most accomplished and versatile
+if not greatest composers.
+</p>
+<center>
+VI.
+</center>
+<p>
+Dr. Ludwig Spohr's fame as a composer has far overshadowed his
+reputation as a violin virtuoso, but the most capable musical critics
+unite in the opinion that that rare quality, which we denominate genius,
+was principally shown in his wonderful power as a player, and his works
+written for the violin. Spohr was a man of immense self-assertion, and
+believed in the greatness of his own musical genius as a composer in the
+higher domain of his art. His "Autobiography," one of the most fresh,
+racy, and interesting works of the kind ever written, is full of varied
+illustrations of what Chorley stigmatizes his "bovine self-conceit." His
+fecund production of symphony, oratorio, and opera, as well as of the
+more elaborate forms of chamber music, for a period of forty years or
+more, proves how deep was his conviction of his own powers. Indeed, he
+half confesses himself that he is only willing to be rated a little
+less than Beethoven. Spohr was singularly meager, for the most part, in
+musical ideas and freshness of melody, but he was a profound master of
+the orchestra; and in that variety and richness of resources which
+give to tone-creations the splendor of color, which is one of the great
+charms of instrumental music, Spohr is inferior only to Wagner among
+modern symphonists. Spohr's more pretentious works are a singular union
+of meagerness of idea with the most polished richness of manner; but, in
+imagination and thought, he is far the inferior of those whose knowledge
+of treating the orchestra and contrapuntal skill could not compare with
+his. There are more vigor and originality in one of Schubert's greater
+symphonies than in all the multitudinous works of the same class ever
+written by Spohr. In Spohr's compositions for the violin as a solo
+instrument, however, he stands unrivaled, for here his true <i>genre</i> as a
+man of creative genius stamps itself unmistakably.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before the coming of Spohr violin music had been illustrated by a
+succession of virtuosos, French and Italian, who, though melodiously
+charming, planned in their works and execution to exhibit the effects
+and graces of the players themselves instead of the instrument. Paganini
+carried this tendency to its most remarkable and fascinating extreme,
+but Spohr founded a new style of violin playing, on which the greatest
+modern performers who have grown up since his prime have assiduously
+modeled themselves. Mozart had written solid and simple concertos in
+which the performer was expected to embroider and finish the composer's
+sketch. This required genius and skill under instant command, instead
+of merely phenomenal execution. Again, Beethoven's concertos were so
+written as to make the solo player merely one of the orchestra, chaining
+him in bonds only to set him free to deliver the cadenza. This species
+of self-effacement does not consort with the purpose of solo playing,
+which is display, though under that display there should be power,
+mastery, and resource of thought, and not the trickery of the
+accomplished juggler. Spohr in his violin music most felicitously
+accomplished this, and he is simply incomparable in his compromise
+between what is severe and classical, and what is suave and delightful,
+or passionately exciting. In these works the musician finds nerve,
+sparkle, <i>elan</i>, and brightness combined with technical charm and
+richness of thought. Spohr's unconscious and spontaneous force in this
+direction was the direct outcome of his remarkable power as a solo
+player, or, more properly, gathered its life-like play and strength from
+the latter fact. It may be said of Spohr that, as Mozart raised opera to
+a higher standard, as Beethoven uplifted the ideal of the orchestra, as
+Clementi laid a solid foundation for piano-playing, so Spohr's creative
+force as a violinist and writer for the violin has established
+the grandest school for this instrument, to which all the foremost
+contemporary artists acknowledge their obligations.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dr. Spohr's style as a player, while remarkable for its display of
+technique and command of resource, always subordinated mere display to
+the purpose of the music. The Italians called him "the first singer on
+the violin," and his profound musical knowledge enabled him to produce
+effects in a perfectly legitimate manner, where other players had
+recourse to meretricious and dazzling exhibition of skill. His title to
+recollection in the history of music will not be so much that of a great
+general composer, but that of the greatest of composers for the violin,
+and the one who taught violinists that height of excellence as an
+excutant should go hand in hand with good taste and self-restraint, to
+produce its most permanent effects and exert its most vital influence.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0008" id="h2H_4_0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    NICOLO PAGANINI.
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Birth of the Greatest of Violinists.&mdash;His Mother's
+Dream&mdash;Extraordinary Character and Genius.&mdash;Heine's Description of his
+Playing.&mdash;Leigh Hunt on Paganini.&mdash;Superstitious Rumors current
+during his Life.&mdash;He is believed to be a Demoniac.&mdash;His Strange
+Appearance.&mdash;Early Training and Surroundings.&mdash;Anecdotes of his
+Youth.&mdash;Paganini's Youthful Dissipations.&mdash;His Passion for Gambling.&mdash;He
+acquires his Wonderful Guarnerius Violin.&mdash;His Reform from
+the Gaming-table.&mdash;Indefatigable Practice and Work as a Young
+Artist.&mdash;Paganini as a <i>Preux Chevalier</i>.&mdash;His Powerful Attraction for
+Women.&mdash;Episode with a Lady of Rank.&mdash;Anecdotes of his Early Italian
+Concertizing.&mdash;The Imbroglio at Ferrant.&mdash;The Frail Health of
+Paganini.&mdash;Wonderful Success at Milan, where he first plays One of
+the Greatest of his Compositions, "Le Streghe."&mdash;Duel with
+Lafont.&mdash;Incidents and Anecdotes.&mdash;His First Visit to Germany.&mdash;Great
+Enthusiasm of his Audiences.&mdash;Experiences at Vienna, Berlin, and other
+German Cities.&mdash;Description of Paganini, in Paris, by Castil-Blaze and
+Fetis.&mdash;His English Reception and the Impression made.&mdash;Opinions of the
+Critics.&mdash;Paganini not pleased with England.&mdash;Settles in Paris for Two
+Years, and becomes the Great Musical Lion.&mdash;Simplicity and Amiability
+of Nature.&mdash;Magnificent Generosity to Hector Berlioz.&mdash;The Great
+Fortune made by Paganini.&mdash;His Beautiful Country Seat near Parma.&mdash;An
+Unfortunate Speculation in Paris.&mdash;The Utter Failure of his
+Health.&mdash;His Death at Nice.&mdash;Characteristics and Anecdotes.&mdash;Interesting
+Circumstances of his Last Moments.&mdash;The Peculiar Genius of Paganini, and
+his Influence on Art.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+In the latter part of the last century an Italian woman of Genoa had a
+dream which she thus related to her little son: "My son, you will be a
+great musician. An angel radiant with beauty appeared to me during the
+night and promised to accomplish any wish that I might make. I asked
+that you should become the greatest of all violinists, and the angel
+granted that my desire should be fulfilled." The child who was thus
+addressed became that incomparable artist, Paganini, whose name now,
+a glorious tradition, is used as a standard by which to estimate the
+excellence of those who have succeeded him.
+</p>
+<p>
+No artist ever lived who so piqued public curiosity, and invested
+himself with a species of weird romance, which compassed him as with a
+cloud. The personality of the individual so unique and extraordinary,
+the genius of the artist so transcendant in its way, the mystery which
+surrounded all the movements of the man, conspired to make him an
+object of such interest that the announcement of a concert by him in
+any European city made as much stir as some great public event. Crowds
+followed his strange figure in the streets wherever he went, and, had
+the time been the mediaeval ages, he himself a celebrated magician or
+sorcerer, credited with power over the spirits of earth and air, his
+appearance could not have aroused a thrill of attention more absorbing.
+Over men of genius, as well as the commonplace herd, he cast the same
+spell, stamping himself as a personage who could be compared with no
+other.
+</p>
+<p>
+The German poet Heine thus describes his first acquaintance with this
+paragon of violinists:
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was in the theatre at Hamburg that I first heard Paganini's violin.
+Although it was fast-day, all the commercial magnates of the town were
+present in the front boxes, the goddesses Juno of Wandrahm, and the
+goddesses Aphrodite of Dreckwall. A religious hush pervaded the whole
+assembly; every eye was directed toward the stage, every ear was
+strained for hearing. At last a dark figure, which seemed to ascend from
+the under world, appeared on the stage. It was Paganini in full evening
+dress, black coat and waistcoat cut after a most villainous pattern,
+such as is perhaps in accordance with the infernal etiquette of the
+court of Proserpine, and black trousers fitting awkwardly to his thin
+legs. His long arms appeared still longer as he advanced, holding in one
+hand his violin, and in the other the bow, hanging down so as almost
+to touch the ground&mdash;all the while making a series of extraordinary
+reverences. In the angular contortions of his body there was something
+so painfully wooden, and also something so like the movements of a droll
+animal, that a strange disposition to laughter overcame the audience;
+but his face, which the glaring footlights caused to assume an even
+more corpse-like aspect than was natural to it, had in it something so
+appealing, something so imbecile and meek, that a strange feeling
+of compassion removed all tendency to laughter. Had he learned these
+reverences from an automaton or a performing dog? Is this beseeching
+look the look of one who is sick unto death, or does there lurk behind
+it the mocking cunning of a miser? Is that a mortal who in the agony
+of death stands before the public in the art arena, and, like a dying
+gladiator, bids for their applause in his last convulsions? or is it
+some phantom arisen from the grave, a vampire with a violin, who comes
+to suck, if not the blood from our hearts, at least the money from our
+pockets? Questions such as these kept chasing each other through the
+brain while Paganini continued his apparently interminable series of
+complimentary bows; but all such questionings instantly take flight the
+moment the great master puts his violin to his chin and began to play.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then were heard melodies such as the nightingale pours forth in the
+gloaming when the perfume of the rose intoxicates her heart with sweet
+forebodings of spring! What melting, sensuously languishing notes of
+bliss! Tones that kissed, then poutingly fled from another, and at last
+embraced and became one, and died away in the ecstasy of union! Again,
+there were heard sounds like the song of the fallen angels, who,
+banished from the realms of bliss, sink with shame-red countenance to
+the lower world. These were sounds out of whose bottomless depth gleamed
+no ray of hope or comfort; when the blessed in heaven hear them, the
+praises of God die away upon their pallid lips, and, sighing, they veil
+their holy faces." Leigh Hunt, in one of his essays, thus describes the
+playing of this greatest of all virtuosos: "Paganini, the first time
+I saw and heard him, and the first moment he struck a note, seemed
+literally to strike it, to <i>give</i> it a blow. The house was so crammed
+that, being among the squeezers in the standing room at the side of the
+pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arms
+akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of
+frame for it; and there on the stage through that frame, as through a
+perspective glass, were the face, the bust, and the raised hand of
+the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his chin, just going to
+begin, and looking exactly as I describe him in the following lines:
+</p>
+<pre>
+    "His hand, Loading the air with dumb expectancy,
+     Suspended, ere it fell, a nation's breath.
+     He <i>smote</i>; and clinging to the serious chords
+     With Godlike ravishment drew forth a breath,
+     So deep, so strong, so fervid, thick with love&mdash;
+     Blissful, yet laden as with twenty prayers&mdash;
+     That Juno yearned with no diviner soul
+     To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.
+     The exceeding mystery of the loveliness
+     Sadden'd delight; and, with his mournful look,
+     Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face
+     Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed
+     Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes
+     One that has parted from his soul for pride,
+     And in the sable secret lived forlorn.
+</pre>
+<p>
+"To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made
+on everybody, foreign or native, an Italian who stood near me said to
+himself, with a long sigh, 'O Dio!' and this had not been said long,
+when another person in the same tone uttered 'Oh Christ!' Musicians
+pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as
+possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him."
+</p>
+<p>
+The impression made by Paganini was something more than that of a great,
+even the greatest, violinist. It was as if some demoniac power lay
+behind the human, prisoned and dumb except through the agencies of
+music, but able to fill expression with faint, far-away cries of
+passion, anguish, love, and aspiration&mdash;echoes from the supernatural
+and invisible. His hearers forgot the admiration due to the wonderful
+virtuoso, and seemed to listen to voices from another world. The strange
+rumors that were current about him, Paganini seems to have been not
+disinclined to encourage, for, mingled with his extraordinary genius,
+there was an element of charlatanism. It was commonly reported that
+his wonderful execution on the G-string was due to a long imprisonment,
+inflicted on him for the assassination of a rival in love, during which
+he had a violin with one string only. Paganini himself writes that, "At
+Vienna one of the audience affirmed publicly that my performance was
+not surprising, for he had distinctly seen, while I was playing my
+variations, the devil at my elbow, directing my arm and guiding my bow.
+My resemblance to the devil was a proof of my origin." Even sensible
+people believed that Paganini had some uncanny and unlawful secret which
+enabled him to do what was impossible for other players. At Prague he
+actually printed a letter from his mother to prove that he was not the
+son of the devil. It was not only the perfectly novel and astonishing
+character of his playing, but to a large extent his ghostlike
+appearance, which caused such absurd rumors. The tall, skeleton-like
+figure, the pale, narrow, wax-colored face, the long, dark, disheveled
+hair, the mysterious expression of the heavy eye, made a weirdly strange
+<i>ensemble</i>. Heine tells us in "The Florentine Nights" that only one
+artist had succeeded in delineating the real physiognomy of Paganini: "A
+deaf and crazy painter, called Lyser, has in a sort of spiritual frenzy
+so admirably portrayed by a few touches of his pencil the head of
+Paganini that one is dismayed and moved to laughter at the faithfulness
+of the sketch! 'The devil guided my hand,' said the deaf painter to me,
+with mysterious gesticulations and a satirical yet good-natured wag of
+the head, such as he was wont to indulge in when in the midst of his
+genial tomfoolery."
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+Nicolo Paganini was born at Genoa on the night of February 18, 1784,
+of parents in humbly prosperous circumstances, his father being a
+ship-broker, and, though illiterate in a general way, a passionate lover
+of music and an amateur of some skill. The father soon perceived the
+child's talent, and caused him to study so severely that it not only
+affected his constitution, but actually made him a tolerable player at
+the age of six years. The elder Paganini's knowledge of music was not
+sufficient to carry the lad far in mastering the instrument, but the
+extraordinary precocity shown so interested Signor Corvetto, the leader
+at the Genoese theatre, that he undertook to instruct the gifted child.
+Two years later the young Paganini was transferred to the charge of
+Signor Giacomo Costa, an excellent violinist, and director of church
+music at one of the cathedrals, under whom he made rapid progress in
+executive skill, while he studied harmony and counterpoint under the
+composer Gnecco. It was at this time, Paganini not yet being nine years
+of age, that he composed his first piece, a sonata now lost. In 1793 he
+made his first appearance in public at Genoa, and played variations
+on the air "La Carmagnole," then so popular, with immense effect. This
+<i>début</i> was followed by several subsequent appearances, in which he
+created much enthusiasm. He also played a violin concerto every Sunday
+in church, an attraction which drew great throngs. This practice was
+of great use to Paganini, as it forced him continually to study fresh
+music. About the year 1795 it was deemed best to place the boy under
+the charge of an eminent professor, and Alessandro Rolla, of Parma, was
+pitched on. When the Paganinis arrived, they found the learned professor
+ill, and rather surly at the disturbance. Young Paganini, however,
+speedily silenced the complaints of the querulous invalid. The great
+player himself relates the anecdote: "His wife showed us into a room
+adjoining the bedroom, till she had spoken to the sick man. Finding on
+the table a violin and the music of Rolla's latest concerto, I took
+up the instrument and played the piece at sight. Astonished at what
+he heard, the composer asked for the name of the player, and could not
+believe it was only a young boy till he had seen for himself. He then
+told me that he had nothing to teach me, and advised me to go to Paër
+for study in composition." But, as Paër was at this time in Germany,
+Paganini studied under Ghiretti and Rolla himself while he remained in
+Parma, according to the monograph of Fetis.
+</p>
+<p>
+The youthful player had already begun to search out new effects on the
+violin, and to create for himself characteristics of tone and treatment
+hitherto unknown to players. After his return to Genoa he composed his
+first "Études," which were of such unheard-of difficulty that he was
+sometimes obliged to practice a single passage ten hours running. His
+intense study resulted not only in his acquirement of an unlimited
+execution, but in breaking down his health. His father was a harsh and
+inexorable taskmaster, and up to this time Paganini (now being fourteen)
+had remained quiescent under this tyrant's control. But the desire of
+liberty was breeding projects in his breast, which opportunity soon
+favored. He managed to get permission to travel alone for the first
+time to Lucca, where he had engaged to play at the musical festival
+in November, 1798. He was received with so much enthusiasm that he
+determined not to return to the paternal roof, and at once set off
+to fulfill engagements at Pisa and other towns. In vain the angry and
+mortified father sought to reclaim the young rebel who had slipped
+through his fingers. Nicolo found the sweets of freedom too precious
+to go back again to bondage, though he continued to send his father a
+portion of the proceeds of his playing.
+</p>
+<p>
+The youth, intoxicated with the license of his life, plunged into all
+kinds of dissipation, specially into gambling, at this time a universal
+vice in Italy, as indeed it was throughout Europe. Alternate fits of
+study and gaming, both of which he pursued with equal zeal, and the
+exhaustion of the life he led, operated dangerously on his enfeebled
+frame, and fits of illness frequently prevented his fulfillment of
+concert engagements. More than once he wasted in one evening the
+proceeds of several concerts, and was obliged to borrow money on his
+violin, the source of his livelihood, in order to obtain funds wherewith
+to pay his gambling debts. Anything more wild, debilitating, and ruinous
+than the life led by this boy, who had barely emerged from childhood,
+can hardly be imagined. On one occasion he was announced for a concert
+at Leghorn, but he had gambled away his money and pawned his violin, so
+that he was compelled to get the loan of an instrument in order to play
+in the evening. In this emergency he applied to M. Livron, a French
+gentleman, a merchant of Leghorn, and an excellent amateur performer,
+who possessed a Guarneri del Gesů violin, reputed among connoisseurs one
+of the finest instruments in the world. The generous Frenchman instantly
+acceded to the boy's wish, and the precious violin was put in his hands.
+After the concert, when Paganini returned the instrument to M. Livron,
+the latter, who had been to hear him, exclaimed, "Never will I profane
+the strings which your fingers have touched! That instrument is yours."
+The astonishment and delight of the young artist may be more easily
+imagined than described. It was upon this violin that Paganini afterward
+performed in all his concerts, and the great virtuoso left it to the
+town of Genoa, where it is now preserved in a glass case in the Museum.
+An excellent engraving of it, from a photograph, was published in 1875
+in George Hart's book on "The Violin."
+</p>
+<p>
+At this period of his life, between the ages of seventeen and twenty,
+Nicolo Paganini was surrounded by numerous admirers, and led into
+all kinds of dissipation. He was naturally amiable and witty in
+conversation, though he has been reproached with selfishness. There can
+be no doubt that he was, at this period, constantly under the combined
+influences of flattery and unbounded ambition; nevertheless, in spite
+of all his successful performances at concerts, the style of life he was
+leading kept him so poor that he frequently took in hand all kinds
+of musical work to supply the wants of the moment. It is a curious
+coincidence that the fine violin which was presented to him by M.
+Livron, as we have just seen, was the cause of his abandoning, after a
+while, the allurements of the gaming-tables. Paganini tells us himself
+that a certain nobleman was anxious to possess this instrument, and had
+offered for it a sum equivalent to about four hundred dollars; but the
+artist would not sell it even if one thousand had been offered for it,
+although he was, at this juncture, in great need of funds to pay off a
+debt of honor, and sorely tempted to accept the proffered amount. Just
+at this point Paganini received an invitation to a friend's house where
+gambling was the order of the day. "All my capital," he says, "consisted
+of thirty francs, as I had disposed of my jewels, watch, rings, etc.;
+I nevertheless resolved on risking this last resource, and, if fortune
+proved fickle, to sell my violin and proceed to St. Petersburg, without
+instrument or baggage, with the view of reestablishing my affairs. My
+thirty francs were soon reduced to three, and I already fancied myself
+on the road to Russia, when luck took a sudden turn, and I won one
+hundred and sixty francs. This saved my violin and completely set me up.
+From that day forward I gradually gave up gaming, becoming more and more
+convinced that a gambler is an object of contempt to all well-regulated
+minds."
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+Love-making was also among the diversions which Paganini began early
+to practice. Like nearly all great musicians, he was an object of great
+fascination to the fair sex, and his life had its full share of amorous
+romances. A strange episode was his retirement in the country château of
+a beautiful Bolognese lady for three years, between the years 1801
+and 1804. Here, in the society of a lovely woman, who was passionately
+devoted to him, and amid beautiful scenery, he devoted himself to
+practicing and composition, also giving much study to the guitar (the
+favorite instrument of his inamorata), on which he became a wonderful
+proficient. This charming idyl in Paganini's life reminds one of the
+retirement of the pianist Chopin to the island of Majorca in the company
+of Mme. George Sand. It was during this period of his life that Paganini
+composed twelve of his finest sonatas for violin and guitar.
+</p>
+<p>
+When our musician returned again to Genoa and active life in 1804, he
+devoted much time also to composition. He was twenty years of age,
+and wrote here four grand quartets for violin, tenor, violoncello,
+and guitar, and also some bravura variations for violin with guitar
+accompaniment. At this period he gave lessons to a young girl of Genoa,
+Catherine Calcagno, about seven years of age; eight years later, when
+only fifteen years old, this young lady astonished Italian audiences by
+the boldness of her style. She continued her artistic career till the
+year 1816, when she had attained the age of twenty-one, and all traces
+of her in the musical world appear to be lost; doubtless, at this period
+she found a husband, and retired completely from public life.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1805 Paganini accepted the position of director of music and
+conductor of the opera orchestra at Lucca, under the immediate patronage
+of the Princess Eliza, sister of Napoleon and wife of Bacciochi. The
+prince took lessons from him on the violin, and gave him whole charge of
+the court music. It was at the numerous concerts given at Lucca during
+this period of Paganini's early career that he first elaborated many of
+those curious effects, such as performances on one string, harmonic
+and pizzicato passages, which afterward became so characteristic of his
+style.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the demon of unrest would not permit Paganini to remain very long
+in one place. In 1808 he began his wandering career of concert-giving
+afresh, performing throughout northern Italy, and amassing considerable
+money, for his fame had now become so widespread that engagements poured
+on him thick and fast. The lessons of his inconsiderate past had already
+made a deep impression on his mind, and Paganini became very economical,
+a tendency which afterward developed into an almost miserly passion for
+money-getting and -saving, though, through his whole life, he performed
+many acts of magnificent generosity. He had numerous curious adventures,
+some of which are worth recording. At a concert in Leghorn he came on
+the stage, limping, from the effects of a nail which had run into his
+foot. This made a great laugh. Just as he began to play, the candles
+fell out of his music desk, and again there was an uproar. Suddenly the
+first string broke, and there was more hilarity; but, says Paganini,
+naively, "I played the piece on three strings, and the sneers quickly
+changed into boisterous applause." At Ferrara he narrowly escaped an
+enraged audience with his life. It had been arranged that a certain
+Signora Marcolini should take part in his concert, but illness prevented
+her singing, and at the last moment Paganini secured the services of
+Signora Pallerini, who, though a danseuse, possessed an agreeable voice.
+The lady was very nervous and diffident, but sang exceedingly well,
+though there were a few in the audience who were inconsiderate enough to
+hiss. Paganini was furious at this insult, and vowed to be avenged. At
+the end of the concert he proposed to amuse the audience by imitating
+the noises of various animals on his violin. After he had reproduced the
+mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog, the crowing of a cock, etc., he
+advanced to the footlights and called out, "Questo č per quelli che
+han fischiato" ("This is for those who hissed"), and imitated in an
+unmistakable way the braying of the jackass. At this the pit rose to
+a man, and charged through the orchestra, climbed the stage, and would
+have killed Paganini, had he not fled incontinently, "standing not on
+the order of his going, but going at once." The explanation of this
+sensitiveness of the audience is found in the fact that the people of
+Ferrara had a general reputation for stupidity, and the appearance of
+a Ferrarese outside of the town walls was the signal for a significant
+hee-haw. Paganini never gave any more concerts in that town.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he approached his thirtieth year his delicate and highly strung
+organization, already undermined by the excesses of his early
+youth, began to give way. He was frequently troubled with internal
+inflammation, and he was obliged to regulate his habits in the strictest
+fashion as to diet and hours of sleep. Even while comparatively well,
+his health always continued to be very frail.
+</p>
+<p>
+Paganini composed his remarkable variations called "Le Streghe" ("The
+Witches") at Milan in 1813. In this composition, the air of which was
+taken from a ballet by Sussmayer, called "Il Noce de Benevento," at the
+part where the witches appear in the piece as performed on the stage,
+the violinist introduced many of his most remarkable effects. He played
+this piece for the first time at La Scala theatre, and he was honored
+with the most tumultuous enthusiasm, which for a long time prevented the
+progress of the programme. Paganini always had a predilection for Milan
+afterward, and said he enjoyed giving concerts there more than at any
+other city in Europe. He gave no less than thirty-seven concerts here
+in 1813. In this city, three years afterward, occurred his interesting
+musical duel with Lafont, the well-known French violinist. Paganini
+was then at Genoa, and, hearing of Lafont's presence at Milan, at
+once hastened to that city to hear him play. "His performance," said
+Pagani-ni, "pleased me exceedingly." When the Italian violinist, a week
+later, gave a concert at La Scala, Lafont was in the audience, and the
+very next day he proposed that Paganini and himself should play together
+at the same concert. "I excused myself," said Paganini, "alleging that
+such experiments were impolitic, as the public invariably looked upon
+these matters as duels, in which there must be a victim, and that it
+would be so in this case; for, as he was acknowledged to be the best of
+the French violinists, so the public indulgently considered me to be
+the best player in Italy. Lafont not looking at it in this light, I was
+obliged to accept the challenge. I allowed him to arrange the programme.
+We each played a concerto of our own composition, after which we played
+together a duo concertante by Kreutzer. In this I did not deviate in the
+least from the composer's text while we played together, but in the solo
+parts I yielded freely to my own imagination, and introduced several
+novelties, which seemed to annoy my adversary. Then followed a 'Russian
+Air,' with variations, by Lafont, and I finished the concert with my
+variations called 'Le Streghe.' Lafont probably surpassed me in tone;
+but the applause which followed my efforts convinced me that I did not
+suffer by comparison." There seems to be no question that the victory
+remained with Paganini. A few years later Paganini played in a similar
+contest with the Polish violinist Lipinski, at Placentia. The two
+artists, however, were intimate friends, and there was not a spark
+of rivalry or jealousy in their generous emulation. In fact,
+Paganini appears to have been utterly without that conceit in his own
+extraordinary powers which is so common in musical artists. Heine gives
+an amusing illustration of this. He writes: "Once, after listening to a
+concert by Paganini, as I was addressing him with the most impassioned
+eulogies on his violin-playing, he interrupted me with the words, 'But
+how were you pleased to-day with my compliments and reverences?'" The
+musician thought more of his genuflexions than of his musical talent.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+In the year 1817 Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Paganini were at Rome during
+Carnival time, and the trio determined on a grand frolic. Rossini had
+composed a very clever part-song, "Carnavale, Carnavale," known in
+English as "We are Poor Beggars," and the three great musicians, having
+disguised themselves as beggars, sang it with great effect through the
+streets. Rossini during this Carnival produced his "Cenerentola," and
+Paganini gave a series of concerts which excited great enthusiasm.
+Shortly after this, Paganini's health gave way completely at Naples, and
+the landlord of the hotel where he was stopping got the impression that
+his sickness was infectious. In the most brutal manner he turned the
+sick musician into the street. Fortunately, at this moment a violoncello
+player, Ciandelli, who knew Paga-nini well, was passing by, and came to
+the rescue, and his anger was so great, when he saw what had happened
+to the great violinist, that he belabored the barbarous landlord
+unmercifully with a stick, and conveyed the invalid to a comfortable
+lodging where he was carefully attended to. Some time subsequently
+Paganini had an opportunity of repaying this kindness, for he gave
+Ciandelli some valuable instruction, which enabled him in the course of
+a few years to become transformed from a very indifferent performer into
+an artist of considerable eminence.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the age of thirty-six Paganini again found himself at Milan, and
+there organized a society of musical amateurs, called "Gli Orfei." He
+conducted several of their concerts. But either the love of a roving
+life or the necessity of wandering in order to fill his exchequer kept
+him constantly on the move; and, though during these travels he is said
+to have met with many extraordinary adventures, very little reliance can
+be placed upon the accounts that have come down to us, the more so
+when we consider that Paga-nini's mode of life was, as we shall see
+presently, become by this time extremely sober. It was not until he
+was forty-four years old that he finally quitted Italy to make himself
+better known in foreign countries. He had been encouraged to visit
+Vienna by Prince Metternich, who had heard and admired his playing at
+Rome in 1817, and had repeatedly made plans to visit Germany, but his
+health had been so wretched as to prevent his departure from his native
+country. But a sojourn in the balmy climate of Sicily for a few months
+had done him so much good that in 1828 he put his long-deferred
+plans into execution. The first concert in March of that year made an
+unparalleled sensation. He gave a great number of concerts in Vienna,
+among them several for the poor. A fever seized all classes of society.
+The shop windows were crowded with goods <i>ŕ la Paganini</i>; a good stroke
+at billiards was called <i>un coup ŕ la Paganini</i>; dishes Avere named
+after him; his portrait was enameled on snuff-boxes, and the Viennese
+dandies carried his bust on the head of their walking-sticks. A cabman
+wheedled out of the reluctant violinist permission to print on his cab,
+<i>Cabriolet de Paganini</i>. By this cunning device, Jehu so augmented his
+profits that he was able to rent a large house and establish a hotel, in
+which capacity Paganini found him when he returned again to Vienna.
+</p>
+<p>
+Among the pleasant stories told of him is one similar to an incident
+previously related of Viotti. One day, as he was walking in Vienna,
+Paganini saw poor little Italian boy scraping some Neapolitan songs
+before the windows of a large house. A celebrated composer who
+accompanied the artist remarked to him, "There is one of your
+compatriots." Upon which Paganini evinced a desire to speak to the lad,
+and went across the street to him for that purpose. After ascertaining
+that he was a poor beggar-boy from the other side of the Alps, and that
+he supported his sick mother, his only relative, by his playing, the
+great violinist appeared touched. He literally emptied his pockets into
+the boy's hand, and, taking the violin and bow from him, began the
+most grotesque and extraordinary performance possible. A crowd soon
+collected, the great virtuoso was at once recognized by the bystanders,
+and when he brought the performance to an end, amid the cheers and
+shouts of all assembled, he handed round the boy's hat, and made a
+considerable collection of coin, in which silver pieces were very
+conspicuous. He then handed the sum to the young Italian, saying, "Take
+that to your mother," and, rejoining his companion, walked off with him,
+saying, "I hope I've done a good turn to that little animal." At
+Berlin, where he soon afterward astonished his crowded audiences by his
+marvelous playing, the same fanatical enthusiasm ensued; and, with
+the exception of Palermo, Naples (where he seems to have had many
+detractors), and Prague, his visits to the various cities of Europe were
+one continued triumph. People tried in vain to explain his method of
+playing, professors criticised him, and pamphlets were published which
+endeavored to make him out a quack or a charlatan. It was all to no
+purpose. Nothing could arrest his onward course; triumph succeeded
+triumph wherever he appeared; and, though no one could understand him,
+every one admired him, and he had only to touch his violin to enchant
+thousands. A curious scene occurred at Berlin, at a musical evening
+party to which Paganini was invited. A young and presumptuous professor
+of the violin performed there several pieces with very little effect; he
+was not aware of the presence of the Genoese giant, whom he did not know
+even by sight. Others, however, quickly recognized him, and he was asked
+to play, which he at first declined, but finally consented to do after
+urgent solicitation. Purposely he played a few variations in wretchedly
+bad style, which caused a suppressed laugh from those ignorant of his
+identity. The young professor came forward again and played another
+selection in a most pretentious and pointed way, as if to crush the
+daring wretch who had ventured to compete with him. Paganini again took
+up the instrument, and played a short piece with such touching pathos
+and astonishing execution, that the audience sat breathless till the
+last dying cadence wakened them into thunders of applause, and hearts
+thrilled as the name "Paganini" crept from mouth to mouth. The young
+professor had already vanished from the room, and was never again seen
+in the house where he had received so severe a lesson.
+</p>
+<p>
+Paganini repeated his triumphs again the following year, performing
+in Vienna and the principal cities of Germany, and everywhere arousing
+similar feelings of admiration. Orders and medals were bestowed on him,
+and his progress was almost one of royalty. His first concert in Paris
+was given on March 9, 1831, at the opera-house. He was then forty-seven
+years old, and Castil-Blaze described him as being nearly six feet
+in height, with a long, pallid face, brilliant eyes, like those of an
+eagle, long curling black hair, which fell down over the collar of his
+coat, a thin and cadaverous figure&mdash;altogether a personality so gaunt
+and delicate as to be more like a shadow than a man. The eyes sparkled
+with a strange phosphorescent gleam, and the long bony fingers were so
+flexible as to be likened only to "a handkerchief tied to the end of a
+stick." Petis describes the impression he created at his first concert
+as amounting to a "positive and universal frenzy." Being questioned as
+to why he always performed his own compositions, he replied "that, if he
+played other compositions than his own, he was obliged to arrange them
+to suit his own peculiar style, and it was less trouble to write a piece
+of his own." Indeed, whenever he attempted to interpret the works of
+other composers, he failed to produce the effects which might have been
+expected of him. This was especially the case in the works of Beethoven.
+</p>
+<center>
+V.
+</center>
+<p>
+When Paganini appeared in England, of course there was a prodigious
+curiosity to see and hear the great player. All kinds of rumors were
+in the public mouth about him, and many of the lower classes really
+believed that he had sold himself to the evil one. The capacious area
+of the opera-house was densely packed, and the prices of admission were
+doubled on the opening night. The enthusiasm awakened by the performance
+can best be indicated by quoting from some of the contemporary accounts.
+The concert opened with Beethoven's Second Symphony, performed by
+the Philharmonic Society, and it was followed by Lablache, who sang
+Rossini's "Largo al factotum." "A breathless silence then ensued,"
+writes Mr. Gardiner, an amateur of Leicester, who at the peril of his
+ribs had been struggling in the crowd for two hours to get admission,
+"and every eye watched the action of this extraordinary violinist as he
+glided from the side scenes to the front of the stage. An involuntary
+cheering burst from every part of the house, many persons rising from
+their seats to view the specter during the thunder of this unprecedented
+applause, his gaunt and extraordinary appearance being more like that
+of a devotee about to suffer martyrdom than one to delight you with
+his art. With the tip of his bow he set off the orchestra in a grand
+military movement with a force and vivacity as surprising as it was
+new. At the termination of this introduction, he commenced with a soft,
+streamy note of celestial quality, and with three or four whips of his
+bow elicited points of sound that mounted to the third heaven, and as
+bright as stars.... Immediately an execution followed which was equally
+indescribable. A scream of astonishment and delight burst from the
+audience at the novelty of this effect.... etc." This <i>naive</i> account
+may serve to show the impression created on the minds of those not
+trained to guard their words with moderation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing can be more intense in feeling," said a contemporary critic,
+"than his conception and delivery of an adagio passage. His tone is,
+perhaps, not quite so full and round as that of a De Bériot or Baillot,
+for example; it is delicate rather than strong, but this delicacy was
+probably never possessed equally by another player." "There is no trick
+in his playing," writes another critic; "it is all fair scientific
+execution, opening to us a new order of sounds.... All his passages
+seem free and unpremeditated, as if conceived on the instant. One has no
+impression of their having cost him either forethought or labor....
+The word difficulty has no place in his vocabulary.... etc." Paganini's
+lengthened tour through London and the provinces was everywhere attended
+with the same success, and brought him in a golden harvest, for his
+reputation had now grown so portentous that he could exact the greatest
+terms from managers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Paganini avowed himself as not altogether pleased with England, but,
+under the surface of such complaints as the following, one detects the
+ring of gratified vanity. He writes in a MS. letter, dated from London
+in 1831, of the excessive and noisy admiration to which he was subjected
+in the London streets, which left him no peace, and actually blocked his
+passage to and from the theatre. "Although the public curiosity to see
+me," says he, "is long since satisfied; though I have played in public
+at least thirty times, and my likeness has been reproduced in all
+possible styles and forms, yet I can never leave my home without being
+mobbed by people who are not content with following and jostling me, but
+actually get in front of me, and prevent my going either way, address me
+in English of which I don't know a word, and even feel me as if to find
+out if I am made of flesh and blood. And this is not only among the
+common people, but among the upper classes." Paganini repeated his visit
+to England during the next season, playing his final farewell concert at
+the Victoria Theatre, London, June 17, 1832. The two following years
+our artist lived in Paris, and was the great lion of musical and
+social circles. People professed to be as much charmed with his lack of
+pretension, his <i>naive</i> and simple manners, as with his musical genius.
+Yet no man was more exacting of his rights as an artist. One day a court
+concert was announced at the Tuilleries, at which Paganini was asked
+to play. He consented, and went to examine the room the day before. He
+objected to the numerous curtains, so hung as to deaden the sound,
+and requested the superintendent to see that they were changed. The
+supercilious official ignored the artist's wish, and the offended
+Paganini determined not to play. When the hour of the concert arrived,
+there was no violinist. The royalties and their attendants were all
+seated; murmurs arose, but still no Paganini. At last an official was
+sent to the hotel of the artist, only to be informed that <i>the great
+violinist had not gone out, but that he went to bed very early</i>. It was
+during his residence in Paris in the winter of 1834 that he proposed
+to Berlioz, for whom he had the most cordial esteem and admiration,
+to write a concerto for his Stradiuarius violin, which resulted in the
+famous symphony "Harold en Italie." Four years after this he bestowed
+the sum of twenty thousand francs on Berlioz, who was then in pressing
+need, delicately disguising the donation as a testimonial of his
+admiration for the "Symphonie Fantastique." Though the eagerness of
+Paganini to make money urged him to labor for years while his health was
+exceedingly frail, and though he was justly stigmatized as penurious
+in many ways, he was capable of princely generosity on occasions which
+appealed strongly to the ardent sympathies which lay at the bottom of
+his nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+Paganini made a great fortune by the exercise of his art, and in 1834
+purchased, among other property in his native country, a charming
+country seat called Villa Gajona, near Parma. Here he spent two years
+in comparative quiet, though still continuing to give concerts. At this
+period and for some time previous many music-sellers had striven to buy
+the copyright of his works. But Paganini put a price on it which
+was prescriptive, the probability being that he did not wish his
+compositions to pass out of his hands till he had given up his career on
+the concert stage. He was willing that they should be arranged for the
+piano, but not published as violin music.
+</p>
+<p>
+After his return to Italy Paganini gave several most successful
+concerts, among others, one for the poor at Placentia, on the 14th of
+November, 1834, and another at the court of the Duchess of Parma, in the
+December following. But his health was already giving way most visibly.
+Phthisis of the larynx, which rendered him a mere shadow of his former
+self, and sometimes almost deprived him of speech, had been gaining
+ground since his return to his native climate. In 1836, however, he was
+better, and some unscrupulous Parisian speculators induced him to lend
+his name to a joint-stock undertaking, a sort of gambling-room and
+concert-hall, which they called the Casino Paganini. This was duly
+opened in a fashionable part of Paris in 1837; but, as the Government
+would not allow the establishment to be used as a gambling-house, and
+the concerts did not pay the expenses, it became a great failure, and
+the illustrious artist actually suffered loss by it to the extent of
+forty thousand francs.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of his last, if not his very last, concert was given with the
+guitar-player, Signor Legnani, at Turin, on the 9th of June, 1837,
+for the benefit of the poor. He was then on his way to fulfill his
+engagements at the fatal Parisian casino, which opened with much
+splendor in the November following. But his health had again broken
+down, and the fatigue of the journey had told upon him so much that he
+was unable to appear at the casino. When the enterprise was found to
+be a failure, a pettifogging lawsuit was carried on against him, and,
+according to Fetis, who is very explicit on this subject, the French
+judges condemned him to pay the aforesaid forty thousand francs, and to
+be deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid&mdash;all this without
+hearing his defense!
+</p>
+<p>
+The career of Paganini was at this critical period fast drawing to a
+close. His medical advisers recommended him to return at once to the
+South, fearing that the winter would kill him in Paris. He died at Nice
+on May 27, 1840, aged fifty-six years. He left to his legitimized son
+Achille, the offspring of his <i>liaison</i> with the singer Antonia Bianchi,
+a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, and the title of baron, of which he
+had received the patent in Germany. His beautiful Guarnerius violin, the
+vehicle of so many splendid artistic triumphs, he bequeathed to the town
+of Genoa, where he was born. Though Paganini was superstitious, and died
+a son of Holy Church, he did not leave any money in religious bequests,
+nor did he even receive the last sacraments. The authorities of Rome
+raised many difficulties about the funeral, and it was only after an
+enormous amount of trouble and expense that Achille was able to have a
+solemn service to the memory of his father performed at Parma. It was
+five years after Paganini's death that this occurred, and permission
+was obtained to have the body removed to holy ground in the village
+churchyard near the Villa Gajona. During this long period the dishonored
+remains of the illustrious musician were at the hospital of Nice, where
+the body had been embalmed, and afterward at a country place near Genoa,
+belonging to the family. The superstitious peasantry believed that
+strange noises were heard about the grave at night&mdash;the wailings of
+the unsatisfied spirit of Paganini over the unsanctified burial of its
+earthly shell. It was to end these painful stories that the young
+baron made a final determined effort to placate the ecclesiastical
+authorities.
+</p>
+<center>
+VI.
+</center>
+<p>
+The singular personality of Paganini displayed itself in his private no
+less than in his artistic life, and a few out of the many anecdotes told
+of him will be of interest, as throwing fresh light on the man. Paganini
+was accused of being selfish and miserly, of caring little even for his
+art, except as a means of accumulating money. While there is much in his
+life to justify such an indictment, it is no less true that he on many
+occasions displayed great generosity. He was always willing to give
+concerts for the benefit of his fellow-artists and for other charitable
+purposes, and on more than one occasion bestowed large sums of money for
+the relief of distress. We may assume that he was niggardly by habit
+and generous by impulse. Utterly ignorant of everything except the art
+of music, bred under the most unfortunate and demoralizing conditions,
+the fact that his character was, on the whole, so <i>naive</i> and upright,
+speaks eloquently for the native qualities of his disposition. His
+eccentricities, perhaps, justified the unreasoning vulgar in believing
+that he was slightly crazed. His appearance and manner on the platform
+were fantastic in the extreme, and rarely failed to provoke ridicule,
+till his magic bow turned all other emotions into one of breathless
+admiration. He talked to himself continually when alone, a habit
+which was partly responsible for the popular belief that he was always
+attended by a familiar demon. When a stranger was introduced to him, his
+corpse-like face became galvanized into a ghastly smile, which produced
+a singular impression, half fascinating, half repulsive. He was taciturn
+in society, except among his intimates, when his buoyant spirits bubbled
+out in the most amusing jokes and anecdotes expressed in a polyglot
+tongue, for he never knew any language well except his own. Naturally
+irritable, his quick temper was inflamed by intestinal disease, which
+racked him with a suffering that was aggravated by a nostrum, in the use
+of which he indulged freely. Indeed, it was said by his friends that his
+death was accelerated by his devotion to medical quackery, from a belief
+in which no arguments could wean him.
+</p>
+<p>
+To his fellow-artists he was always polite and attentive, though they
+annoyed him by their persistent curiosity as to the means by which he
+produced his unrivaled effects&mdash;effects which the established technique
+of violin-playing could not explain. An Englishman named George Harris,
+who was an <i>attache</i> of the Hanoverian court, attended Paganini for a
+year as his private secretary, and he asserts that Paganini was never
+seen to practice a single note of music in private. His astonishing
+dexterity was kept up to its pitch by the numerous concerts which he
+gave, and by his exquisitely delicate organization. He was accustomed to
+say that his whole early life had been one of prodigious and continual
+study, and that he could afford to repose in after years. Paganini's
+knowledge of music was profound and exact, and the most difficult music
+was mere child's play to him. Pasini, a well-known painter, living at
+Parma, did not believe the stories told of Paganini's ability to play
+the most difficult music at sight. Being the possessor of a valuable
+Stradiuarius violin, he challenged our artist to play, at first hand, a
+manuscript concerto which he placed before him. "This instrument
+shall be yours," he said, "if you can play, in a masterly manner, that
+concerto at first sight." The Genoese took the violin in his hand,
+saying, "In that case, my friend, you may bid adieu to it at once," and
+he immediately threw Pasini into ecstatic admiration by his performance
+of the piece. There is little doubt that this is the Stradiuarius
+instrument left by Paganini to his son, and valued at about six hundred
+pounds sterling.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of Antonia Bianchi, the mother of his son Achille, Paganini tells us
+that, after many years of a most devoted life, the lady's temper became
+so violent that a separation was necessary. "Antonia was constantly
+tormented," he says, "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 pianiste, and, when she read the few amiable words I had composed
+in honor of the artist to whom the book belonged, she tore it from my
+hands, demolished it on the spot, and, so fearful was her rage, would
+have assassinated me."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was very fond of his little son Achille. A French gentleman tells
+us that he called once to take Paganini to dine with him. He found the
+artist's room in great disorder. A violin on the table with manuscript
+music, another upon a chair, a snuff-box on the bed along with his
+child's toys, music, money, letters, articles of dress&mdash;all <i>pęle-męle</i>;
+nor were the tables and chairs in their proper places. Everything was in
+the most conspicuous confusion. The child was out of temper; something
+had vexed him; he had been told to wash his hands; and, while the little
+one gave vent to the most violent bursts of temper, the father stood
+as calm and quiet as the most accomplished of nurses. He merely turned
+quietly to his visitor, and said, in melancholy accents: "The poor child
+is cross; I do not know what to do to amuse him; I have played with him
+ever since morning, and I can not stand it any longer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was rather amusing," says the same writer, "to see Paganini in his
+slippers doing battle with his child, who came about up to his knees.
+The little one advanced boldly with his wooden sword, while the father
+retired, crying out, 'Enough, enough! I am already wounded.' But it was
+not enough; the young Achilles was never satisfied until his father,
+completely vanquished, fell heavily on the bed."
+</p>
+<p>
+In the early part of the present century the facilities for travel
+were far less convenient than at the present time, and it was always an
+arduous undertaking to one in Paganini's frail condition of health. He
+was, however, generally cheerful while jolting along in the post-chaise,
+and chatted incessantly as long as his voice held out. Harris tells us
+that the artist was in the habit of getting out when the horses
+were changed, to stretch his long limbs after the confinement of the
+carriage. Often he extended his promenades when he became interested in
+the town through which he was passing, and would not return till
+long after the fresh horses had been harnessed, thereby causing much
+annoyance to the driver. On one occasion Jehu swore, if it occurred
+again, he would drive on, and leave his passenger behind, to get along
+as best he could. The secretary, Harris, was enjoying a nap, and the
+driver was true to his resolution at the next stopping-place, leaving
+Paganini behind. This made much trouble, and a special coach had to be
+sent for the enraged artist, who was found sputtering oaths in half a
+dozen languages. Paganini refused to pay for the carriage, and it was
+only by force of law that he reluctantly settled the bill.
+</p>
+<p>
+His baggage was always of the plainest description; in fact, ludicrously
+simple. A shabby box contained his precious Guarnerius fiddle, and
+served also as a portmanteau wherein to pack his jewelry, his linen, and
+sundry trifles. In addition to this he carried a small traveling-bag and
+a hat-box. Mr. Harris tolls us that Paganini was in eating and drinking
+exceedingly frugal. Table indulgence was forbidden him by the condition
+of his health, as any deviation from the strictest diet resulted in
+great suffering. He was a thorough Italian in all his habits and ideas.
+Among other traits was a great disdain for the lower classes, though
+he was by no means subservient to people of rank and wealth. It was
+his habit, when an inferior addressed him, to inquire of his companion,
+"What does this animal want with me?" If he was pleased with his
+coachman, he would say, "That animal drives well." This seemed not so
+much the vulgar arrogance of a small nature, elevated above the class in
+life from which it sprang, as that pride of great gifts which made the
+freemasonry of genius the measure by which he judged all others, noble
+and simple. Like all men of highly nervous constitution, he was keenly
+susceptible to both enjoyment and suffering. He was so sensitive
+to atmospheric changes that his irritability was excessive during a
+thunderstorm. He would then remain silent for hours together, while his
+eyes rolled and his limbs twitched convulsively. Such fragile, nervous,
+highly sensitive organizations are not unfrequently characteristic of
+men of great genius, and in the great Italian violinist it was developed
+in an abnormal degree.
+</p>
+<p>
+The circumstances accompanying the last scenes of Paganini's life are
+very interesting. He had been intimate with most of the great people
+of Europe, among them Lord Byron, Sir Clifford Constable, Lord Holland,
+Rossini, Ugo Fascolo, Monti, Prince Jerome, the Princess Eliza, and most
+of the great painters, poets, and musicians of his age. For Lord Byron
+he had a most ardent and exaggerated admiration. Paganini had stopped at
+Nice on his way from Paris, detained by extreme debility, for his
+last hours were drawing near. Under the blue sky and balmy air of
+this Mediterranean paradise the great musician somewhat recovered his
+strength at first. One night he sat by his bedroom window, surrounded by
+a circle of intimate friends, watching the glories of the Italian sunset
+that emblazoned earth, air, and sky, with the richest dyes of nature's
+palette. A soft breeze swept into the room, heavy with the perfumes of
+flowers, and the twittering of the birds in the green foliage mingled
+with the hum of talk from the throngs of gay promenaders sauntering on
+the beach. For a while Paganini sat silently absorbed in watching the
+joyous scene, when suddenly his eyes turned on the picture of Lord Byron
+that hung on the wall. A flash of enthusiasm lightened his face, as if
+a great thought were struggling to the surface, and he seized his violin
+to improvise. The listeners declared that this "swan song" was the
+most remarkable production of his life. He illustrated the stormy and
+romantic career of the English poet in music. The accents of doubt,
+irony, and despair mingled with the cry of liberty and the tumult of
+triumph. Paganini had scarcely finished this wonderful musical picture
+when the bow fell from the icy fingers that refused any longer to
+perform their function, and the player sank into a dead swoon.
+</p>
+<p>
+The shock had been too great, and Paganini never quitted his bed
+afterward. The day before his death he seemed a little better, and
+directed his servant to buy a pigeon for him, as he had a slight return
+of appetite. On the last evening of his life he seemed very tranquil,
+and ordered the curtains to be drawn that he might look out of the
+window at the beautiful night. The full moon was sailing through the
+skies, flooding everything with splendor. Paganini gazed eagerly, gave a
+long sigh of pleasure, and fell back on his pillow dead.
+</p>
+<center>
+VII.
+</center>
+<p>
+Paganini was the first to develop the full resources of the violin as
+a solo instrument. He departed entirely from the traditions of
+violin-playing as practiced by earlier masters, as he believed that
+great fame could never be acquired in pursuing their methods. A work of
+Locatelli, one of the cleverest pupils of Corelli, and a great master
+of technique, first seems to have inspired him with a conception of
+the more brilliant possibilities of the violin. What further favored
+Paganini's new departure was that he lived in an age when the artistic
+mind, as well as thought in other directions, felt the desire of
+innovation. The French Revolution stirred Europe to its deepest roots,
+intellectually as well as politically. At a very early date in his
+career Paganini seems to have begun experimenting with the new effects
+for which he became famous, though these did not reach their full
+fruitage until just before he left Italy on his first general tour.
+Fetis says: "In adopting the ideas of his predecessors, in resuscitating
+forgotten effects, in superadding what his genius and perseverance gave
+birth to, he arrived at that distinctive character of performance which
+contributed to his ultimate greatness. The diversity of sounds, the
+different methods of tuning his instrument, the frequent employment
+of harmonics, single and double, the simultaneous pizzicato and bow
+passages, the various staccato effects, the use of double and even
+triple notes, a prodigious facility in executing wide intervals with
+unerring precision, together with an extraordinary knowledge of all
+styles of bowing&mdash;such were the principal features of Paganini's talent,
+rendered all the more perfect by his great execution, exquisitely
+nervous sensibility, and his deep musical feeling." In a word, Paganini
+possessed the most remarkable creative power in the technical treatment
+of an instrument ever given to a player. Franz Liszt as a pianist
+approaches him more nearly in this respect than any other virtuoso,
+but the field open to the violinist was far greater and wider than
+that offered to the great Hungarian pianist. It was not, however, mere
+perfection of technical power that threw Europe into such paroxysms of
+admiration; it was the irresistible power of a genius which has never
+been matched, and which almost justified the vulgar conclusion that none
+but one possessed with a demon could do such things. Paganini possessed
+the oft-quoted attribute of genius, "the power of taking infinite
+pains," but behind this there lay superlative gifts of mind, physique,
+and temperament. He completely dazzled the greatest musical artists as
+well as the masses. "His constant and daring flights," writes
+Moscheles, "his newly discovered flageolet tones, his gift of fusing
+and beautifying objects of the most diverse kinds&mdash;all these phases
+of genius so completely bewilder my musical perceptions that for days
+afterward my head is on fire and my brain reels." His tone lacked
+roundness and volume. His use of very thin strings, made necessary by
+his double harmonics and other specialties, necessarily prevented a
+broad, rich tone. But he more than compensated for this defect by the
+intense expression, "soft and melting as that of an Italian singer," to
+use the language of Moscheles again, which characterized the quality of
+sound he drew from his instrument. Spohr, a very great player, but,
+with all his polish, precision, and classical beauty of style, somewhat
+phlegmatic and conventional withal, critcised Paganini as lacking
+in good taste. He could never get in sympathy with the bent of
+individuality, the Southern passion and fire, and the exceptional gifts
+of temperament which made Paganini's idiosyncrasies of style as a player
+consummate beauties, where imitations of these effects on the part of
+others would be gross exaggeration. Spohr developed the school of Viotti
+and Rode, and in his attachment to that school could see no artistic
+beauty in any deviation. Paganini's peculiar method of treating the
+violin has never been regarded as a safe school for any other violinist
+to follow. Without Paganini's genius to give it vitality, his technique
+would justly be charged with exaggeration and charlatanism. Some of the
+modern French players, who have been strongly influenced by the great
+Italian, have failed to satisfy serious musical taste from this cause.
+On the German violinists he has had but little influence, owing to the
+powerful example of Spohr and the musical spirit of the great composers,
+which have tended to keep players within the strictly legitimate lines
+of art. Some of the principal compositions of Paganini are marked by
+great originality and beauty, and are violin classics. Schumann and
+Liszt have transcribed several of them for the piano, and Brahms for the
+orchestra. But the great glory of Paganini was as a virtuoso, not as a
+composer, and it has been generally agreed to place him on the highest
+pedestal which has yet been reached in the executive art of the violin.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0009" id="h2H_4_0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    DE BÉRIOT
+</h2>
+<p>
+De Bériot's High Place in the Art of the Violin and Violin Music.&mdash;The
+Scion of an Impoverished Noble Family.&mdash;Early Education and Musical
+Training.&mdash;He seeks the Advice of Viotti in Paris.&mdash;Becomes a Pupil of
+Kobrechts and Baillot successively.&mdash;De Bériot finishes and perfects his
+Style on his Own Model.&mdash;Great Success in England.&mdash;Artistic Travels
+in Europe.&mdash;Becomes Soloist to the King of the Netherlands.&mdash;He meets
+Malibran, the Great Cantatrice, in Paris.&mdash;Peculiar Circumstances which
+drew the Couple toward Each Other.&mdash;They form a Connection which only
+ends with Malibran's Life.&mdash;Sketch of Malibran and her Family.&mdash;The
+Various Artistic Journeys of Malibran and De Bériot.&mdash;Their Marriage
+and Mme. de Bériot's Death.&mdash;De Bériot becomes Professor in the Brussels
+Conservatoire.&mdash;His Later Life in Brussels.&mdash;His Son Charles Malibran de
+Bériot.&mdash;The Character of De Bériot as Composer and Player.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+Among the great players contemporary with Paganini, the name of Charles
+Auguste de Bériot shines in the musical horizon with the luster of a
+star of the first magnitude. His influence on music has been one of
+unmistakable import, for he has perpetuated his great talents through
+the number of gifted pupils who graduated from his teachings and
+gathered an inspiration from an artist-master, in whom were united
+splendid gifts as a player, an earnest musical spirit, depth and
+precision of science, the chivalry of high birth and breeding, and
+a width of intellectual culture which would have dignified the
+<i>litterateur</i> or scholar. De Bériot was for many years the chief of the
+violin department at the Brussels Conservatoire, where, even before the
+revolution of 1830, there was one of the finest schools of instruction
+for stringed instruments to be found in Europe. When in the full
+ripeness of his fame as a virtuoso and composer, De Bériot was called on
+to take charge of the violin section of this great institution, and his
+influence has thus been transmitted in the world of art in a degree by
+no means limited to his direct greatness as an executant.
+</p>
+<p>
+De Bériot was born at Louvain, in 1802, of a noble family, which
+had been impoverished through the crash and turmoil of the French
+Revolution. Left an orphan at the age of nine years, without inheritance
+except that of a high spirit and family pride, he would have fared badly
+in these early years, had it not been for the kindness of M. Tiby, a
+professor of music, who perceived the child's latent talent, and he
+acquired skill in playing so rapidly that he was able to play one of
+Viotti's concertos at the age of nine. His hearers, many of whom were
+connoisseurs, were delighted, and prophesied for him the great career
+which made the name of De Bériot famous. Naturally of a contemplative
+and thoughtful mind, he lost no time in studying not only the art of
+violin-playing but also acquiring proficiency in general branches of
+knowledge. His theories of an art ideal even at that early age were far
+more lofty and earnest than that which generally guides the aspirations
+of musicians. De Bériot, in after years, attributed many of the elevated
+ideas which from this time guided his life to the influence of the
+well-known scholar and philosopher Jacotot, who, though a poor musician
+himself, had very clear ideas as to the aesthetic and moral foundations
+on which art success must be built. The text-book, Jacotot's "Method,"
+fell early into the young musician's hand, and imbued him with the
+principles of self-reliance, earnestness, and patience which helped to
+model his life, and contributed to the remarkable proficiency in his
+art on which his fame rests. Two golden principles were impressed on De
+Bériot's mind from these teachings: "All obstacles yield to unwearied
+pursuit," and "We are not ordinarily willing to do all that we are
+really able to accomplish." In after years De Bériot met Jacotot, and
+had the pleasure of acknowledging the deep obligation under which he
+felt himself bound.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1821 young Charles de Bériot had attained the age of nineteen, and
+it was determined that he should leave his native town and go to Paris,
+where he could receive the teachings of the great masters of the violin.
+At this time he was a handsome youth with a strongly knit figure,
+somewhat above the middle height, with fine, dark eyes and hair, a
+florid complexion, and very gentlemanly appearance. Good blood and
+breeding displayed themselves in every movement, and ardent hope shone
+in his face. He resided for several months in Brussels, which was
+afterward to be his home, and associated with the scenes of his greatest
+usefulness, and then pursued his eager way to Paris with a letter of
+introduction to Viotti, then director of music at the Grand Opéra. De
+Bériot's ambition was to play before the veteran violinist of
+Europe, and to feed his own hopes on the great master's praise and
+encouragement.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have a fine style," said Viotti; "give yourself up to the business
+of perfecting it; hear all men of talent; profit by everything, but
+imitate nothing." There was at this time in Brussels a violinist named
+Robrechts, a former pupil of Viotti, and one of the last artists who
+derived instruction directly from the celebrated Italian. Andreas
+Robrechts was born at Brussels on the 18th of December, 1797, and made
+rapid progress as a musician under Planken, a professor, who, like the
+late M. Wéry, who succeeded him, formed many excellent pupils. He then
+entered himself at the Conservatoire of Paris in 1814, where he received
+some private lessons from Baillot, while the institution itself was
+closed during the occupation by the allied armies.
+</p>
+<p>
+Viotti, hearing the young Robrechts play, was so struck with his
+magnificent tone and broad style that he undertook to give him finishing
+lessons, with the approbation of Baillot. This was soon arranged, and
+for many years the two violinists were inseparable. He even accompanied
+Viotti in his journey to London, where they were heard more than once in
+duets. The illustrious Italian had recognized in Robrechts the pupil
+who most closely adhered to his style of playing, and one of the few who
+were likely to diffuse it in after years.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1820 Robrechts returned to Brussels, where he was elected first
+violin solo to the king, Wil-helm I. It was shortly after this that De
+Bériot took lessons from him, and he it was who gave him the letter
+of introduction to Viotti. The same excellent professor also gave
+instructions to the young Artot. He died in 1860, the last direct
+representative of the great Viotti school.
+</p>
+<p>
+It will now be seen where De Bériot acquired the first principles of
+that large, bold, and exquisitely charming style that in after life
+characterized both his performances and his compositions.
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+Arriving at Paris, and believing probably that the classical style of
+Robrechts, from whom he had had instruction in Brussels, did not lead
+him swiftly forward enough in the path he would travel, he sought
+Viotti, as we have related above, and by his advice entered himself in
+the violin class of the Conservatoire, which was directed by Baillot, an
+eminent player of the Viotti school, though never a direct pupil of the
+latter master. De Bériot, however, did not remain long in the class, but
+applied himself most assiduously to the study of the violin in his own
+way. This is what Paganini had done, and through this course had been
+able to form a style so peculiarly his own. It is not probable that De
+Bériot at this time knew much about Paganini; certainly he had
+never heard him. Paganini was at first looked on as a mere comet of
+extraordinary brilliancy, without much soundness or true genius, and
+many who afterward became his most ardent admirers began with sneering
+at his pretensions. De Bériot was in later years undoubtedly powerfully
+influenced by Paganini, but at the time of which we speak the young
+violinist appears to have been determined to evolve a style and
+character in art out of his own resources purely. He was carrying out
+Viot-ti's advice.
+</p>
+<p>
+At this time our young artist was the possessor of a very fine
+instrument by Giovanni Magini, a celebrated maker of the Brescian
+school, and a pupil of Gaspar de Salo. Many of the violins of this make
+are of an excellence hardly inferior to the Strads of the best period,
+and De Bériot seems to have preferred this violin during the whole of
+his career, though he afterward owned instruments of the most celebrated
+makers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Very soon De Bériot made his public appearance in concerts, and was
+brilliantly successful from the outset. The range of his ambition may be
+seen from the fact that he had enough confidence in his own genius from
+the very first to play his own music, and it was conceded to possess
+great freshness and originality. These early "Airs Varié" consisted of
+an introduction, a theme, followed by three or four variations, and a
+brilliant finale.
+</p>
+<p>
+The young artist preceded Paganini in London several years, as he
+made his first appearance before an English audience in 1826. It was
+fortunate, perhaps, for De Bériot that such was the case, as it is more
+than probable that, after the dazzling and electric displays of
+the Geneose player, the more sedate and simple style which then
+characterized De Bériot would have failed to please. As it was, he
+was most cordially admired, and was generally recognized by English
+connoisseurs, as well as by the general public, as one of the most
+accomplished players who had ever visited England. The pecuniary results
+of these concerts were large, and sufficient to relieve De Bériot, who
+had formerly been rather straitened in his means, from the friction and
+embarrassment which poverty so often imposes on struggling talent.
+There was a peculiar charm in De Bériot's style which was permanently
+characteristic of him, though his technical method did not always remain
+the same. In addition to very facile execution and a rich, mellow tone,
+he possessed the most refined taste. His playing impressed people less
+as that of a great professional violinist than that of the marvelously
+accomplished amateur, the gentleman of leisure and culture, who
+performed with the easy, sparkling grace of one who took no thought of
+whether he played well or not, but did great feats on his instrument
+because he could not help it. Such was also the characteristic of Mario
+as a singer, and there seems to have been many features of resemblance
+between these two fine artists, though moving in different fields of
+art.
+</p>
+<p>
+After traveling through Europe for several years, giving concerts with
+great success, he was presented to King Wilhelm of the then united
+kingdom of the Netherlands. This monarch, though quite ignorant of
+music, was an enthusiastic patron of art, and, believing that De Bériot
+was destined to be a great ornament of his native country (for he was
+born in Belgium, though his parents were from France), bestowed on the
+artist a pension of two thousand florins a year, and the title of first
+violin solo to his majesty. But this honor was soon rudely snatched
+from De Bériot's grasp. The revolution of 1830, which began with
+the excitement inflamed in Brussels by the performance of Auber's
+revolutionary opera, "La Muette di Portici," better known as
+"Masaniello," dissolved the kingdom, and Belgium parted permanently
+from Holland. It was, perhaps, owing to this apparent misfortune that
+De Bériot made an acquaintance which culminated in the most interesting
+episode of his life. He lost his official position at Brussels, but he
+met Mme. Malibran.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+De Bériot returned to Paris, where Sontag and Malibran were engaged in
+ardent artistic rivalry, about equally dividing the suffrages of the
+French public. Mlle. Sontag was a beautiful, fair-haired, blue-eyed
+woman, in the very flush of her youth, with an expression of exquisite
+sweetness and mildness. De Bériot became madly enamored of her at once,
+and pressed his suit with vehemence, but without success. Henrietta
+Sontag was already the betrothed of Count Rossi, whom she soon afterward
+married, though the engagement was then a secret. The lady's firm
+refusal of the young Belgian artist's overtures filled him with a deep
+melancholy, which he showed so unmistakably that he became an object of
+solicitude to all his friends. Among those was Mme. Malibran, whose warm
+sympathies went out to an artist whose talents she admired. Malibran,
+living apart from her husband, was obliged to be careful in her conduct,
+to avoid giving food for the scandal of a censorious world, but this
+did not prevent her from exhibiting the utmost pity and kindness in her
+demeanor toward De Bériot. The violinist was soothed by this gentle and
+delightful companion, and it was not long before a fresh affection, even
+stronger than the other, sprang up in his susceptible nature for the
+woman whose ardent Spanish frankness found it difficult to conceal the
+fact that she cherished sentiments different from mere friendship.
+</p>
+<p>
+The splendid career of Mme. Malibran shines almost without a rival in
+the records of the lyric stage, and her influence on De Bériot, first
+her lover and afterward her husband, was most marked. Maria Garcia,
+afterward Mme. Malibran, was one of a family of very eminent musicians.
+She was trained by her father, Manuel Garcia, who, in addition to being
+a tenor singer of world-wide reputation, was a composer of some repute,
+and the greatest teacher of his time. Her sister, Pauline Garcia, in
+after years became one of the greatest dramatic singers who ever lived,
+and her brother Manuel also attained considerable eminence as singer,
+song-composer, and teacher. The whole family were richly dowered with
+musical gifts, and Maria was probably one of the most versatile and
+accomplished musical artists of any age. At the age of thirteen she was
+a professed musician, and at fifteen, when she came with her parents to
+London, she obtained a complete triumph by accidentally performing in
+Rossini's "Il Barbiere," to supply the place of a prima donna who was
+unable to appear.
+</p>
+<p>
+We can not tarry here to enter into the details of her interesting life.
+Her father having taken her to America, where she fulfilled a number
+of engagements with an increasing success, she finally espoused there
+a rich merchant named Malibran, much older than herself. It was a most
+ill-advised marriage, and, to make matters worse, the merchant failed
+very soon afterward. Some go so far as to say that he foresaw this
+catastrophe before he contracted his marriage, in the hope of regaining
+his fortune by the proceeds of the singer's career. However that may be,
+a separation took place, and Mme. Malibran returned to Paris in 1827.
+Her singing in Italian opera was everywhere a source of the most
+enthusiastic ovation, and, as she rose like a star of the first
+magnitude in the world of song, so the young De Bériot was fast earning
+his laurels as one of the greatest violinists of the day. In 1830 an
+indissoluble friendship united these two kindred spirits, and in 1832 De
+Bériot, Lablache, the great basso, and Mme. Malibran set out for a tour
+in Italy, where the latter had operatic engagements at Milan, Rome,
+and Naples, and where they all three appeared in concerts with the most
+<i>éclatant</i> success&mdash;as may well be imagined.
+</p>
+<p>
+At Bologna, in 1834, it is difficult to say whether the cantatrice,
+or the violinist, or the inestimable basso, produced the greatest
+sensation; but her bust in marble was there and then placed under the
+peristyle of the Opera-house.
+</p>
+<p>
+Henceforward De Bériot never quitted her, and their affection seems to
+have increased as time wore on. In the year following she appeared in
+London, where she gave forty representations at Drury Lane, performing
+in "La Sonnambula," "The Maid of Artois," etc., for which she received
+the sum of three thousand two hundred pounds. De Bériot would not have
+made this amount probably with his violin in a year.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a second journey to Italy, in which Mme. Malibran renewed the
+enthusiasm which she had first created in the public mind, and a series
+of brilliant concerts which also added to De Bériot's prestige, they
+returned to Paris to wait for the divorce of Mme. Malibran from her
+husband, which had been dragging its way through the courts. The much
+longed for release came in 1836, and the union of hearts and
+lives, whose sincerity and devotion had more than half condoned its
+irregularity, was sanctified by the Church. The happiness of the
+artistic pair was not destined to be long. Only a month afterward Mme.
+de Bériot, who was then singing in London, had a dangerous fall from
+her horse. Always passionately fond of activity and exercise, she was an
+excellent horsewoman, and was somewhat reckless in pursuing her favorite
+pursuit. The great singer was thrown by an unruly and badly trained
+animal, and received serious internal injuries. Her indomitable spirit
+would not, however, permit her to rest. She returned to the Continent
+after the close of the London season, to give concerts, in spite of her
+weak health, and gave herself but little chance of recovery, before
+she returned again to England in September to sing at the Manchester
+festival, her last triumph, and the brilliant close of a short and very
+remarkable life. She was seized with sudden and severe illness, and died
+after nine days of suffering. During this period of trial to De Bériot,
+he never left the bedside of his dying wife, but devoted himself
+to ministering to her comfort, except once when she insisted on his
+fulfilling an important concert engagement. Racked with pain as she was,
+her greatest anxiety was as to his artistic success, fearing that his
+mental anguish would prevent his doing full justice to his talents. It
+is said that her friends informed her of the vociferous applause which
+greeted his playing, and a happy smile brightened her dying face. She
+died September 22, 1836, at the age of twenty-eight, but not too soon to
+have attained one of the most dazzling reputations in the history of
+the operatic stage. M. de Bériot was almost frantic with grief, for a
+profound love had joined this sympathetic and well-matched pair, and
+their private happiness had not been less than their public fame.*
+</p>
+<pre>
+     * For a full sketch of Mme. Malibran de Beriot's artistic and
+     personal career, the reader is referred to "Great Singers,
+     Malibran to Tietjens," Appletons' "Handy-Volume Series."
+</pre>
+<p>
+The news of this calamity to the world of music spread swiftly through
+the country, and was known in Paris the next day, where M. Mali-bran,
+the divorced husband of the dead singer, was then living. As the fortune
+which Mme. de Bériot had made by her art was principally invested in
+France, and there were certain irregularities in the French law which
+opened the way for claims of M. Malibran on her estate, De Bériot was
+obliged to hasten to Paris before his wife's funeral to take out letters
+of administration, and thus protect the future of the only child left by
+his wife, young Charles de Bériot, who afterward became a distinguished
+pianist, though never a professional musician. As the motives of this
+sudden disappearance were not known, De Bériot was charged with the
+most callous indifference to his wife. But it is now well known that
+his action was guided by a most imperative necessity, the welfare of
+his infant son, all that was left him of the woman he had loved so
+passionately. The remains of Mme. de Bériot were temporarily interred
+in the Collegiate Church in Manchester, but they were shortly afterward
+removed to Laeken, near Brussels. Over her tomb in the Laeken churchyard
+the magnificent mausoleum surmounted with her statue was erected by
+De Bériot. The celebrated sculptor Geefs modeled it, and the work is
+regarded as one of the <i>chefs-d'ouvre</i> of the artist.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+M. de Bériot did not recover from this shock for more than a year, but
+remained secluded at his country place near Brussels. It was not till
+Pauline Garcia (subsequently Mme. Viardot) made her <i>debut</i> in concert
+in 1837, that De Bériot again appeared in public before one of the most
+brilliant audiences which had ever assembled in Brussels. In honor of
+this occasion the Philharmonic Society of that city caused two medals
+to be struck for M. de Bériot and Mlle. Garcia, the molds of which were
+instantly destroyed. The violinist gave a series of concerts assisted
+by the young singer in Belgium, Germany, and France, and returned to
+Brussels again on the anniversary of their first concert, where they
+appeared in the Théâtre de la Renaissance before a most crowded and
+enthusiastic audience. Among the features of the performance which
+called out the warmest applause was Panseron's grand duo for voice and
+violin, "Le Songe de Tartini," Mlle. Garcia both singing and playing
+the piano-forte accompaniment with remarkable skill. Two years afterward
+Mile. Garcia married M. Viardot, director of the Italian Opera at Paris,
+and De Bériot espoused Mlle. Huber, daughter of a Viennese magistrate,
+and ward of Prince Dietrischten Preskau, who had adopted her at an early
+age.
+</p>
+<p>
+De Bériot became identified with the Royal Conservatory of Music at
+Brussels in the year 1840, and thenceforward his life was devoted to
+composition and the direction of the violin school. He gave much time
+and care to the education of his son Charles, who, in addition to a
+wonderful resemblance to his mother, appears to have inherited much of
+the musical endowment of both parents. Had not an ample fortune rendered
+professional labor unnecessary, it is probable that the son of Malibran
+and De Bériot would have attained a musical eminence worthy of his
+lineage; but he is even now celebrated for his admirable performances
+in private, and his musical evenings are said to be among the most
+delightful entertainments in Parisian society, gathering the most
+celebrated artists and <i>litterateurs</i> of the great capital.
+</p>
+<p>
+De Bériot ceased giving public concerts after taking charge of the
+violin classes of the Brussels Conservatoire, though he continued to
+charm select audiences in private concerts. Many of his pupils became
+distinguished players, among whom may be named Monasterio, Standish,
+Lauterbach, and, chief of all, Henri Vieuxtemps, with whose precocious
+talents he was so much pleased that he gave him lessons gratuitously.
+During his life at Brussels, and indeed during the whole of his
+career, De Bériot enjoyed the friendship and esteem of many of the
+most distinguished men of the day, among his most intimate friends and
+admirers having been Prince de Chimay, the Russian Prince Youssoupoff,
+and King Leopold I, of Belgium. The latter part of his life was not
+un-laborious in composition, but otherwise of affluent and elegant ease.
+During the last two years his eyesight failed him, and he gradually
+became totally blind. He died, April 13, 1870, at the age of
+sixty-eight, while visiting his friend Prince Youssoupoff at St.
+Petersburg, of the brain malady which had long been making fatal inroads
+on his health.
+</p>
+<p>
+In originality as a composer for the violin, probably no one can surpass
+De Bériot except Paganini, who exerted a remarkable modifying influence
+on him after he had formed his own first style. His works are full
+of grace and poetic feeling, and worked out with an intellectual
+completeness of form which gives him an honorable distinction even among
+those musicians marked by affluence of ideas. These compositions are
+likely to be among the violin classics, though some of the violinists
+of the Spohr school have criticised them for want of depth. He produced
+seven concertos, eleven <i>airs variés</i>, several books of studies,
+four trios for piano, violin, and 'cello, and, together with Osborne,
+Thalberg, and other pianists, a number of brilliant duos for piano and
+violin. His book of instruction for the violin is among the best ever
+written, though somewhat diffuse in detail. He may be considered the
+founder of the Franco-Belgian school of violinists, as distinguished
+from the classical French school founded by Viotti, and illustrated by
+Rode and Baillot. His early playing was molded entirely in this style,
+but the dazzling example of Paganini, in course of time, had its
+effect on him, as he soon adopted the captivating effects of harmonics,
+arpeggios, pizzicatos, etc., which the Genoese had introduced, though
+he stopped short of sacrificing his breadth and richness of tone. He
+combined the Paganini school with that of Viotti, and gave status to
+a peculiar <i>genre</i> of players, in which may be numbered such great
+virtuosos as Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, who successively occupied the
+same professional place formerly illustrated by De Bériot, and the
+latter of whom recently died. De Bériot's playing was noted for accuracy
+of intonation, remarkable deftness and facility in bowing, grace,
+elegance, and piquancy, though he never succeeded in creating the
+unbounded enthusiasm which everywhere greeted Paganini.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0010" id="h2H_4_0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    OLE BULL.
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Birth and Early Life of Ole Bull at Bergen, Norway.&mdash;His Family and
+Connections.&mdash;Surroundings of his Boyhood.&mdash;Early Display of his Musical
+Passion.&mdash;Learns the Violin without Aid.&mdash;Takes Lessons from an Old
+Musical Professor, and soon surpasses his Master.&mdash;Anecdotes of his
+Boyhood.&mdash;His Father's Opposition to Music as a Profession.&mdash;Competes
+for Admittance to the University at Christiania.&mdash;Is consoled
+for Failure by a Learned Professor.&mdash;"Better be a Fiddler than
+a Preacher."&mdash;Becomes Conductor of the Philharmonic Society at
+Bergen.&mdash;His first Musical Journey.&mdash;Sees Spohr.&mdash;Fights a Duel.&mdash;Visit
+to Paris.&mdash;He is reduced to Great Pecuniary Straits.&mdash;Strange Adventure
+with Vidocq, the Great Detective.&mdash;First Appearance in Concert in
+Paris.&mdash;Romantic Adventure leading to Acquaintance.&mdash;First Appearance
+in Italy.&mdash;Takes the Place of Do Bériot by Great Good Luck.&mdash;Ole Bull
+is most enthusiastically received.&mdash;Extended Concert Tour in Italy and
+France.&mdash;His <i>Début</i> and Success in England.&mdash;One Hundred and Eighty
+Concerts in Six Months.&mdash;Ole Bull's Gaspar di Salo Violin, and the
+Circumstances under which he acquired it.&mdash;His Answer to the King of
+Sweden.&mdash;First Visit and Great Success in America in 1843.&mdash;Attempt
+to establish a National Theatre.&mdash;The Norwegian Colony in
+Pennsylvania.&mdash;Latter Years of Ole Bull.&mdash;His Personal Appearance.&mdash;Art
+Characteristics.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+The life of Olaus Bull, or Ole Bull, as he is generally known to the
+world, was not only of much interest in its relation to music, but
+singularly full of vicissitude and adventure. He was born at Bergen,
+Norway, February 5, 1810, of one of the leading families of that resort
+of shippers, timber-dealers, and fishermen. His father, John Storm Bull,
+was a pharmaceutist, and among his ancestors he numbered the Norwegian
+poet Edward Storm, author of the "Sinclair Lay," an epic on the fate of
+Colonel Sinclair, who with a thousand Hebridean and Scotch pirates, made
+a descent on the Norwegian coast, thus emulating the Vikingr forefathers
+of the Norwegians themselves. The peasants slew them to a man by rolling
+rocks down on them from the fearful pass of the Gulbrands Dahl, and
+the event has been celebrated both by the poet's lay and the painter's
+brush. By the mother's side Ole Bull came of excellent Dutch stock,
+three of his uncles being captains in the army and navy, and another a
+journalist of repute. A passion for music was inherent in the family,
+and the editor had occasional quartet parties at his house, where the
+works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were given, much to the delight of
+young Ole, who was often present at these festive occasions.
+</p>
+<p>
+The romantic and ardent imagination of the boy was fed by the weird
+legends familiar to every Norwegian nursery. The Scheherezade of this
+occasion was the boy's own grandmother, who told him with hushed breath
+the fairy folk-lore of the mysterious Huldra and the Fossikal, or Spirit
+of the Waterfall, and Ole Bull, with his passion for music, was wont
+to fancy that the music of the rushing waters was the singing of the
+violins played by fairy artists. From an early age this Greek passion
+for personifying all the sights and sounds of nature manifested itself
+noticeably, but always in some way connected with music. He would fancy
+even that he could hear the bluebells and violets singing, and perfume
+and color translated themselves into analogies of sound. This poetic
+imagination grew with his years and widened with his experience,
+becoming the cardinal motive of Ole Bull's art life. For a long time the
+young boy had longed for a violin of his own, and finally his uncle who
+gave the musical parties presented him with a violin. Ole worked so hard
+in practicing on his new treasure that he was soon able to take part in
+the little concerts.
+</p>
+<p>
+There happened to be at this time in Bergen a professor of music named
+Paulsen, who also played skillfully on the violin. Originally from
+Denmark, he had come to Bergen on business, but, finding the brandy so
+good and cheap, and his musical talent so much appreciated, he postponed
+his departure so long that he became a resident. Paulsen, it was said,
+would show his perseverance in playing as long as there remained a drop
+in the brandy bottle before him, when his musical ambition came to a
+sudden close. When the old man, for he was more than sixty when young
+Ole Bull first knew him, had worn his clothes into a threadbare state,
+his friends would supply him with a fresh suit, and at intervals he gave
+concerts, which every one thought it a religious duty to attend. It
+was to this Dominie Sampson that Ole Bull was indebted for his earliest
+musical training; but it seems that the lad made such swift progress
+that his master soon had nothing further to teach him. Poor old Paulsen
+was in despair, for in his bright pupil he saw a successful rival, and,
+fearing that his occupation was gone, he left Bergen for ever.
+</p>
+<p>
+In spite of the boy's most manifest genius for music, his father was
+bent on making him a clergyman, going almost to the length of forbidding
+him to practice any longer on the dearly loved fiddle, which had now
+become a part of himself; but Ole persevered, and played at night
+softly, in constant fear that the sounds would be heard. But his mother
+and grandmother sympathized with him, and encouraged his labors of love
+in spite of the paternal frowns. The author of a recent article in an
+American magazine relates an interview with Ole Bull, in which the aged
+artist gave some interesting facts of that early period in his life.
+His father's assistant, who was musical, occasionally received musical
+catalogues from Copenhagen, and in one of these the boy first saw the
+name of Paganini, and reference to his famous "Caprices." One evening
+his father brought home some Italian musicians, and Ole Bull heard from
+them all they knew of the great player, who was then turning the musical
+world topsy-turvy with a fever of excitement. "I went to my grandmother.
+'Dear grandmother,' I said, 'can't I get some of Paganini's music?'
+'Don't tell any one,' said that dear old woman, 'but I will try and buy
+a piece of his for you if you are a good child.' And she did try, and
+I was wild when I got the Paganini music. How difficult it was, but oh,
+how beautiful! That garden-house was my refuge. Maybe&mdash;I am not so sure
+of it&mdash;the cats did not go quite so wild as some four years before. One
+day&mdash;a memorable one&mdash;I went to a quartet party. The new leader of our
+philharmonic was there, a very fine violinist, and he played for us a
+concerto of Spohr's. I knew it, and was delighted with his reading of
+it. We had porter to drink in another room, and we all drank it, but
+before they had finished I went back to the music-room, and commenced
+trying the Spohr. I was, I suppose, carried away with the music, forgot
+myself, and they heard me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'This is impudence,' said the leader. 'And do you think, boy, that you
+can play it?' 'Yes,' I said, quite honestly. I don't to this day see why
+I should have told a story about it&mdash;do you? 'Now you shall play it,'
+said somebody. 'Hear him! hear him!' cried my uncle and the rest of
+them. I did try it, and played the allegro. All of them applauded save
+the leader, who looked mad.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'You think you can play anything, then?' asked the leader. He took a
+caprice of Paganini's from a music stand. 'Now you try this,' he said,
+in a rage. 'I will try it,' I said. 'All right; go ahead.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now it just happened that this caprice was my favorite, as the cats
+well knew. I could play it by memory, and I polished it off. When I did
+that, they all shouted. The leader before had been so cross and savage,
+I thought he would just rave now. But he did not say a word. He looked
+very quiet and composed like. He took the other musicians aside, and I
+saw that he was talking to them. Not long afterward this violinist left
+Bergen. I never thought I would see him again. It was in 1840, when I
+was traveling through Sweden on a concert tour, of a snowy day, that I
+met a man in a sleigh. It was quite a picture: just near sunset, and
+the northern lights were shooting in the sky; a man wrapped up in a
+bear-skin a-tracking along the snow. As he drew up abreast of me and
+unmuffled himself, he called out to my driver to stop. It was the
+leader, and he said to me, 'Well, now that you are a celebrated
+violinist, remember that, when I heard you play Paganini, I predicted
+that your career would be a remarkable one.' 'You were mistaken,' I
+cried, jumping up; 'I did not read that Paganini at sight; I had played
+it before.' 'It makes no difference; good-by,' and he urged on his
+horse, and in a minute the leader was gone."
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+To please his father, Ole Bull studied assiduously to fit himself for
+the preliminary examination of the university, but he found time also to
+pursue his beloved music. At the age of eighteen he was entered at the
+University of Christiania as a candidate for admission, and went to that
+city somewhat in advance of the day of ordeal to finish his studies.
+He had hardly entered Christiania before he was seduced to play at a
+concert, which beginning gave full play to the music-madness beyond all
+self-restraint. As a result Ole Bull was "plucked," and at first he
+did not dare write to his father of this downfall of the hopes of the
+paternal Bull.
+</p>
+<p>
+We are told that he found consolation from one of the very professors
+who had plucked him. "It's the best thing could have happened to you,"
+said the latter, by way of encouragement.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How so?" inquired Ole.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear fellow," was the reply, "do you believe you are a fit man for
+a curacy in Finmarken or a mission among the Laps? Nature has made you a
+musician; stick to your violin, and you will never regret it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But my father, think of his disappointed hopes," said Ole Bull.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your father will never regret it either," answered the professor.
+</p>
+<p>
+As good fortune ordered for the forlorn youth, his musical friends did
+not desert him, but secured for him the temporary position of director
+of the Philharmonic Society of Christiania, the regular incumbent being
+ill. On the death of the latter shortly afterward, Ole Bull was tendered
+the place. As the new duties were very well paid, and relieved the youth
+from dependence on his father's purse, further opposition to his musical
+career was withdrawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the summer of 1829 Ole Bull made a holiday trip into Germany, and
+heard Dr. Spohr, then director of the opera at Cassel. "From this
+excursion," said one of Ole Bull's friends, "he returned completely
+disappointed. He had fancied that a violin-player like Spohr must be
+a man who, by his personal appearance, by the poetic character of his
+performance, or by the flash of genius, would enchant and overwhelm his
+hearers. Instead of this, he found in Spohr a correct teacher, exacting
+from the young Norwegian the same cool precision which characterized
+his own performance, and quite unable to appreciate the wild, strange
+melodies he brought from the land of the North." Spohr was a man of
+clock-work mechanism in all his methods and theories&mdash;young Ole Bull was
+all poetry, romance, and enthusiasm.
+</p>
+<p>
+At Minden our young violinist met with an adventure not of the
+pleasantest sort. He had joined a party of students about to give
+a concert at that place, and was persuaded to take the place of the
+violinist of the party, who had been rather free in his libations, and
+became "a victim of the rosy god." Ole Bull was very warmly applauded at
+the concert, and so much nettled was the student whose failure had made
+the vacancy for Ole Bull's talent, that the latter received a challenge
+to fight a duel, which was promptly accepted. Ole Bull proved that he
+could handle a sword as well as a fiddle-bow, for in a few passes he
+wounded and disabled his antagonist. He was advised, however, to leave
+that locality as soon as possible, and so he returned straight to
+Christiania, "feeling as if the very soil of Europe repelled him" (to
+use an expression from one of his letters).
+</p>
+<p>
+Ole Bull remained in Norway for two years, but he felt that he must
+bestir himself, and go to the great centers of musical culture if
+he would find a proper development and field for the genius which he
+believed he possessed. His friends at Christiania idolized him, and were
+loath to let him go, but nothing could stay him, so with pilgrim's staff
+and violin-case he started on his journey. Scarcely twenty-one years
+of age, nearly penniless, with no letters of introduction to people who
+could help him, but with boundless hope and resolution, he first
+set foot in Paris in 1831. The town was agog over Paganini and Mme.
+Malibran, and of course the first impulse of the young artist was to
+hear these great people. One night he returned from hearing Malibran,
+and went to bed so late that he slept till nearly noon the next day. To
+his infinite consternation, he discovered that his landlord had decamped
+during the early morning, taking away the household furniture of any
+value, and even abstracting the modest trunk which contained Ole Bull's
+clothes and his violin. After such an overwhelming calamity as this, the
+Seine seemed the only resource, and the young Norwegian, it is said,
+had nearly concluded to find relief from his troubles in its turbid
+and sin-weighted waters. But it happened that the young man had still a
+little money left, enough to support him for a week, and he concluded to
+delay the fatal plunge till the last sou was gone. It was while he was
+slowly enjoying the last dinner which he was able to pay for, that he
+made the acquaintance of a remarkable character, to whom he confided his
+misery and his determination to find a tomb in the Seine.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+Said the stranger, after pondering a few moments over the simple but sad
+story of the young violinist, in whom he had taken a sudden interest:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I will do something for you, if you have courage and five
+francs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have both."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then go to Frascate's at ten; pass through the first room, enter the
+second, where they play 'rouge-et-noir,' and when a new <i>taille</i> begins
+put your five francs on <i>rouge</i>, and leave it there."
+</p>
+<p>
+This promise of an adventure revived Ole Bull's drooping spirits, and he
+was faithful in carrying out his unknown friend's instructions. At the
+precise hour the tall stalwart figure of the young Norwegian bent over
+the table at Frascate's, while the game of "rouge-et-noir" was being
+played. He threw his five francs on red; the card was drawn&mdash;red wins,
+and the five francs were ten. Again Ole Bull bet his ten francs on
+<i>rouge</i>, and again he won; and so he continued, leaving his money on the
+same color till a considerable amount of money lay before him. By this
+time the spirit of gaming was thoroughly aroused. Should he leave the
+money and trust to red turning up again, or withdraw the pile of gold
+and notes, satisfied with the kindness of Fortune, without further
+tempting the fickle goddess? He said to a friend afterward, in relating
+his feelings on this occasion:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was in a fear&mdash;I acted as if possessed by a spirit not my own; no one
+can understand my feelings who has not been so tried&mdash;left alone in the
+world, as if on the extreme verge of an abyss yawning beneath, and at
+the same time feeling something within that might merit a saving hand at
+the last moment."
+</p>
+<p>
+Ole Bull stretched forth to grasp the money, when a white hand covered
+it before his. He seized the wrist with a fierce grasp, while the
+owner of it uttered a loud shriek, and loud threats came from the other
+players, who took sides in the matter, when a dark figure suddenly
+appeared on the scene, and spoke in a voice whose tones carried with
+them a magic authority which stilled all tumult at once. "Madame,
+leave this gold alone!"&mdash;and to Ole Bull: "Sir, take your money, if
+you please." The winner of an amount which had become very considerable
+lingered a few moments to see the further results of the play, and, much
+to his disgust, discovered that he would have possessed quite a little
+fortune had he left his pile undisturbed for one more turn of the cards.
+He was consoled, however, on arriving at his miserable lodgings, for he
+could scarcely believe that this stroke of good luck was true, and yet
+there was something repulsive in it to the fresh, unsophisticated nature
+of the man. He said in a letter to one of his friends, "What a hideous
+joy I felt&mdash;what a horrible pleasure it was to have saved one's own soul
+by the spoil of others!" The mysterious stranger who had thus befriended
+Ole Bull was the great detective Vidocq, whose adventures and exploits
+had given him a world-wide reputation. Ole Bull never saw him again.
+</p>
+<p>
+In exploring Paris for the purchase of a new violin, he accidentally
+made the acquaintance of an individual named Labout, who fancied that he
+had found the secret of the old Cremona varnish, and that, by using it
+on modern-made violins, the instruments would acquire all the tone
+and quality of the best old fiddles of the days of the Stradiuarii and
+Amati. The inventor persuaded Ole Bull to appear at a private concert
+where he proposed to test his invention, and where the Duke and Duchesse
+de Montebello were to be present. The Norwegian's playing produced
+a genuine sensation, and the duke took the young artist under his
+patronage. The result was that Ole Bull was soon able to give a concert
+on his own account, which brought him a profit of about twelve hundred
+francs, and made him talked about among the musical <i>cognoscenti</i> of
+Paris. Of course every one at the time was Paganini mad, but Ole Bull
+secured more than a respectful hearing, and opened the way toward
+getting a solid footing for himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+Among the incidents which occurred to him in Paris about this time was
+one which had a curiously interesting bearing on his life. Obliged to
+move from his lodgings on account of the death of the landlord and his
+wife of cholera, a disease then raging in Paris, Ole Bull was told of
+a noble but impoverished family who had a room to let on account of the
+recent death of the only son. The Norwegian violinist presented himself
+at the somewhat dilapidated mansion of the Comtesse de Faye, and was
+shown into the presence of three ladies dressed in deepest mourning.
+The eldest of them, on hearing his errand, haughtily declined the
+proposition, when the more beautiful of the two girls said, "Look at
+him, mother!" with such eagerness as to startle the ancient dame.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ole Bull was surprised at this. The old lady put on her spectacles, and,
+as she riveted her eyes upon him, her countenance changed suddenly. She
+had found in him such a resemblance to the son she had lost that she
+at once consented to his residing in her house. Some time afterward Ole
+Bull became her son indeed, having married the fascinating girl who had
+exclaimed, "Look at him, mother!"
+</p>
+<p>
+With the little money he had now earned he determined to go to Italy,
+provided with some letters of introduction; and he gave his first
+Italian concert at Milan in 1834. Applause was not wanting, but his
+performance was rather severely criticised in the papers. The following
+paragraph, reproduced from an Italian musical periodical, published
+shortly after this concert, probably represents very truly the state of
+his talent at that period:
+</p>
+<p>
+"M. Ole Bull plays the music of Spohr, May-seder, Pugnani, and others,
+without knowing the true character of the music he plays, and partly
+spoils it by adding a color of his own. It is manifest that this
+color of his own proceeds from an original, poetical, and musical
+individuality; but of this originality he is himself unconscious. He
+has not formed himself; in fact, he has no style; he is an uneducated
+musician. <i>Whether he is a diamond or not is uncertain; but certain it
+is that the diamond is not polished</i>."
+</p>
+<p>
+In a short time Ole Bull discovered that it was necessary to cultivate,
+more than he had done, his cantabile&mdash;this was his weakest point, and a
+most important one. In Italy he found masters who enabled him to develop
+this great quality of the violin, and from that moment his career as an
+artist was established. The next concert of any consequence in which he
+played was at Bologna under peculiar circumstances; and his reputation
+as a great violinist appears to date from that concert. De Bériot and
+Malibran were then idolized at Bologna, and just as Ole Bull arrived in
+that ancient town, De Bériot was about to fulfill an engagement to play
+at a concert given by the celebrated Philharmonic Society there. The
+engagement had been made by the Marquis di Zampieri, between whom and
+the Belgian artist there was some feeling of mutual aversion, growing
+out of a misunderstanding and a remark of the marquis which had wounded
+the susceptibilities of the other. The consequence was that on the day
+of the concert De Bériot sent a note, saying that he had a sore finger
+and could not play.
+</p>
+<p>
+Marquis Zampieri was in a quandary, for the time was short. In his
+embarrassment he took council with Mme. Colbran Rossini, who was then at
+Bologna with her husband, the illustrious composer. It happened that Ole
+Bull's lodging was in the same palazzo, and Mme. Rossini had often heard
+the tones of the young artist's violin in his daily practicing; her
+curiosity had been greatly aroused about this unknown player, and now
+was the chance to gratify it. She told the noble <i>entrepreneur</i> that she
+had discovered a violinist quite worthy of taking De Bériot's place.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who is it?" inquired the marquis.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know," answered the wife of Rossini.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are joking, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all, but I am sure there is a genius in town, and he lodges
+close by here," pointing to Ole Bull's apartment. "Take your net,"
+she added, "and catch your bird before he has flown away." The marquis
+knocked at Ole Bull's door, and the delighted young artist soon
+concluded an engagement which insured him an appearance under the best
+auspices, for Mme. Malibran would sing at the same concert.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a few hours Ole Bull was performing before a distinguished audience
+in the concert-hall of the Philharmonic Society. Among the pieces he
+played, all of his own composition, was his "Quartet for One Violin,"
+in which his great skill in double and triple harmonics was admirably
+shown. Enthusiastic applause greeted the young virtuoso, and he was
+escorted home by a torchlight procession of eager and noisy admirers.
+This was Ole Bull's first really great success, though he had played
+in France and Germany. The Italians, with their quick, generous
+appreciation, and their demonstrative manner of showing admiration, had
+given him a reception of such unreserved approval as warmed his
+artistic ambition to the very core. Mme. Malibran, though annoyed at the
+mischance which glorified another at the expense of De Bériot, was too
+just and amiable not to express her hearty congratulations to the young
+artist, and De Bériot himself, when he was shortly afterward introduced
+to Ole Bull, treated him with most brotherly kindness and cordiality.
+Prince and Princess Poniatowsky also sent their cards to the now
+successful artist, and gave him letters of introduction to distinguished
+people which wore of great use in his concert tour. His career had now
+become assured, and the world received him with open arms.
+</p>
+<p>
+The following year, 1835, contributed a catalogue of similar successes
+in various cities of Italy and France, culminating in a grand concert at
+Paris in the Opera-house, where the most distinguished musicians of the
+city gave their warmest applause in recognition of the growing fame and
+skill of Ole Bull, for he had already begun to illustrate a new field in
+music by setting the quaint poetic legends and folk-songs of his native
+land. His specialty as a composer was in the domain of descriptive
+music, his genius was for the picturesque. His vivid imagination,
+full of poetic phantasy, and saturated with the heroic traditions and
+fairy-lore of a race singularly rich in this inheritance from an earlier
+age, instinctively flowered into art-forms designed to embody this
+legendary wealth. Ole Bull's violin compositions, though dry and
+rigorous musicians object to them as lacking in depth of science,
+as shallow and sensational, are distinctly tone-pictures full of
+suggestiveness for the imagination. It was this peculiarity which early
+began to impress his audiences, and gave Ole Bull a separate place by
+himself in an age of eminent players.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+In 1836 and 1837 Ole Bull gave one hundred and eighty concerts in
+England during the space of sixteen months. By this time he had become
+famous, and a mere announcement sufficed to attract large audiences.
+Subsequently he visited successively every town of importance in Europe,
+earning large amounts of money and golden opinions everywhere. For
+a long time our artist used a fine Guarnerius violin and afterward a
+Nicholas Amati, which was said to be the finest instrument of this make
+in the world. But the violin which Ole Bull prized in latter years
+above all others was the famous Gaspar di Salo with the scroll carved
+by Benvenuto Cellini. Mr. Barnett Phillips, an American <i>littérateur</i>,
+tells the story of this noble old instrument, as related in Ole Bull's
+words:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, in 1839 I gave sixteen concerts at Vienna, and then Rhehazek was
+the great violin collector. I saw at his house this violin for the first
+time. I just went wild over it. 'Will you sell it?' I asked. 'Yes,' was
+the reply&mdash;'for one quarter of all Vienna.' Now Ehehazek was really as
+poor as a church mouse. Though he had no end of money put out in the
+most valuable instruments, he never sold any of them unless when forced
+by hunger. I invited Rhehazek to my concerts. I wanted to buy the violin
+so much that I made him some tempting offers. One day he said to
+me, 'See here, Ole Bull, if I do sell the violin, you shall have the
+preference at four thousand ducats.' 'Agreed,' I cried, though I knew it
+was a big sum.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That violin came strolling, or playing rather, through my brain for
+some years. It was in 1841. I was in Leipsic giving concerts. Liszt was
+there, and so also was Mendelssohn. One day we were all dining together.
+We were having a splendid time. During the dinner came an immense letter
+with a seal&mdash;an official document. Said Mendelssohn, 'Use no ceremony;
+open your letter.' 'What an awful seal!' cried Liszt. 'With your
+permission,' said I, and I opened the letter. It was from Bhehazek's
+son, for the collector was dead. His father had said that the violin
+should be offered to me at the price he had mentioned. I told Liszt and
+Mendelssohn about the price. 'You man from Norway, you are crazy,' said
+Liszt. 'Unheard of extravagance, which only a fiddler is capable of,'
+exclaimed Mendelssohn. 'Have you ever played on it? Have you ever tried
+it?' they both inquired. 'Never,' I answered, 'for it can not be played
+on at all just now.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never was happier than when I felt sure that the prize was mine.
+Originally the bridge was of boxwood, with two fishes carved on it&mdash;that
+was the zodiacal sign of my birthday, February&mdash;which was a good sign.
+Oh, the good times that violin and I have had! As to its history,
+Ehehazek told me that in 1809, when Innspruck was taken by the French,
+the soldiers sacked the town. This violin had been placed in the
+Innspruck Museum by Cardinal Aldobrandi at the close of the sixteenth
+century. A French soldier looted it, and sold it to Ehehazek for a
+trifle. This is the same violin that I played on, when I first came
+to the United States, in the Park Theatre. That was on Evacuation day,
+1843. I went to the Astor House, and made a joke&mdash;I am quite capable of
+doing such things. It was the day when John Bull went out and Ole Bull
+came in. I remember that at the very first concert one of my strings
+broke, and I had to work out my piece on the three strings, and it was
+supposed I did it on purpose." Ole Bull valued this instrument as beyond
+all price, and justly, for there have been few more famous violins than
+the Treasury violin of Innspruck, under which name it was known to all
+the amateurs and collectors of the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+During his various art wanderings through Europe, Ole Bull made many
+friends among the distinguished men of the world. A dominant pride
+of person and race, however, always preserved him from the slightest
+approach to servility. In 1838 he was presented to Carl Johann, king
+of Sweden, at Stockholm. The king had at that time a great feeling of
+bitterness against Norway, on account of the obstinate refusal of the
+people of that country to be united with Sweden under his rule. At the
+interview with Ole Bull the irate king let fall some sharp expressions
+relative to his chagrin in the matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sire," said the artist, drawing himself up to the fullness of his
+magnificent height, and looking sternly at the monarch, "you forget that
+I have the honor to be a Norwegian."
+</p>
+<p>
+The king was startled by this curt rebuke, and was about to make an
+angry reply, but smoothed his face and answered, with a laugh:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well! well! I know you d&mdash;d sturdy fellows." Carl Johann afterward
+bestowed on Ole Bull the order of Gustavus Vasa.
+</p>
+<center>
+V.
+</center>
+<p>
+Ole Bull's first visit to America was in 1843, and the impression
+produced by his playing was, for manifest causes, even greater than that
+created in Europe. He was the first really great violinist who had ever
+come to this country for concert purposes, and there was none other
+to measure him by. There were no great traditions of players who had
+preceded him; there were no rivals like Spohr, Paganini, and De Bériot
+to provoke comparisons. In later years artists discovered that this
+country was a veritable El Dorado, and regarded an American tour as
+indispensable to the fulfillment of a well-rounded career. But, when Ole
+Bull began to play in America, his performances were revelations, to the
+masses of those that heard him, of the possibilities of the violin. The
+greatest enthusiasm was manifested everywhere, and, during the three
+years of this early visit, he gave repeated performances in every city
+of any note in America. The writer of this little work met Ole Bull a
+few years ago in Chicago, and heard the artist laughingly say that,
+when he first entered what was destined to be such a great city, it was
+little more than a vast mudhole, a good-sized village scattered over
+a wide space of ground, and with no building of pretension except Fort
+Dearborn, a stockade fortification.
+</p>
+<p>
+Our artist returned to Europe in 1846, and for five years led a
+wandering life of concert-giving in England, France, Holland, Germany,
+Italy, and Spain, adding to his laurels by the recognition everywhere
+conceded of the increased soundness and musicianly excellence of his
+playing. It was indeed at this period that Ole Bull attained his best as
+a virtuoso. He had been previously seduced by the example of Paganini,
+and in the attempt to master the more strange and remote difficulties of
+the instrument had often laid himself open to serious criticism. But Ole
+Bull gradually formed a style of his own which was the outcome of his
+passion for descriptive and poetic playing, and the correlative of the
+mode of composition which he adopted. In still later years Ole Bull
+seems to have returned again to what might be termed claptrap and
+trickery in his art, and to have desired rather to excite wonder and
+curiosity than to charm the sensibilities or to satisfy the requirements
+of sound musical taste.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1851 Ole Bull returned home with the patriotic purpose of
+establishing a strictly national theatre. This had been for a long time
+one of the many dreams which his active imagination had conjured up as
+a part of his mission. He was one of the earliest of that school of
+reformers, of whom we have heard so much of late years, that urge the
+readoption of the old Norse language&mdash;or, what is nearest to it now,
+the Icelandic&mdash;as the vehicle of art and literature. In the attempt to
+dethrone Dansk from its preeminence as the language of the drama, Ole
+Bull signally failed, and his Norwegian theatre, established at Bergen,
+proved only an insatiable tax on money-resources earned in other
+directions.
+</p>
+<p>
+The year succeeding this, Ole Bull again visited the United States,
+and spent five years here. The return to America did not altogether
+contemplate the pursuit of music, for there had been for a good while
+boiling in his brain, among other schemes, the project of a great
+Scandinavian colony, to be established in Pennsylvania under his
+auspices. He purchased one hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of
+land on the Susquehanna, and hundreds of sturdy Norwegians flocked over
+to the land of milk and honey thus auspiciously opened to them. Timber
+was felled, ground cleared, churches, cottages, school-houses built,
+and everything was progressing desirably, when the ambitious colonizer
+discovered that the parties who sold him the land were swindlers without
+any rightful claim to it. With the unbusiness-like carelessness of the
+man of genius, our artist had not investigated the claims of others
+on the property, and he thus became involved in a most perplexing and
+expensive suit at law. He attempted to punish the rascals who so nearly
+ruined him, but they were shielded behind the quips and quirks of the
+law, and got away scot free. Ole Bull's previously ample means were so
+heavily drained by this misfortune that he was compelled to take up
+his violin again and resume concert-giving, for he had incurred heavy
+pecuniary obligations that must be met. Driven by the most feverish
+anxiety, he passed from town to town, playing almost every night, till
+he was stricken down by yellow fever in New Orleans. His powerful frame
+and sound constitution, fortified by the abstemious habits which had
+marked his whole life of queer vicissitudes, carried him through this
+danger safely, and he finally succeeded in honorably fulfilling the
+responsibility which he had assumed toward his countrymen.
+</p>
+<p>
+For many recent years Ole Bull, when not engaged in concert-giving in
+Europe or America, has resided at a charming country estate on one
+of the little islands off the coast of Norway. His numerous farewell
+concert tours are very well known to the public, and would have won
+him ridicule, had not the genial presence and brilliant talents of the
+Norwegian artist been always good for a renewed and no less cordial
+welcome. He frequently referred to the United States in latter years as
+the beloved land of his adoption. One striking proof of his preference
+was, at all events, displayed in his marriage to an American lady, Miss
+Thorpe, of Wisconsin, in 1870. One son was the fruit of this second
+marriage, and Mr. and Mrs. Ole Bull divided their time between Norway
+and the United States.
+</p>
+<p>
+The magnificent presence of Ole Bull, as if of some grand old viking
+stepped out of his armor and dressed in modern garb, made a most
+picturesque personality. Those who have seen him can never forget him.
+The great stature, the massive, stalwart form, as upright as a pine, the
+white floating locks framing the ruddy face, full of strength and genial
+humor, lit up by keen blue eyes&mdash;all these things made Ole Bull the most
+striking man in <i>personnel</i> among all the artists who have been familiar
+to our public.
+</p>
+<p>
+While Ole Bull will not be known in the history of art as a great
+scientific musician, there can be no doubt that his place as a brilliant
+and gifted solo player will stand among the very foremost. As a composer
+he will probably be forgotten, for his compositions, which made up the
+most of his concert programmes, were so radically interwoven with his
+executive art as a virtuoso that the two can not be dissevered. No one,
+unless he should be inspired by the same feelings which animated the
+breast of Ole Bull, could ever evolve from his musical tone-pictures
+of Scandinavian myth and folk-lore the weird fascination which his
+bow struck from the strings. Ole Bull, like Paganini, laid no claim to
+greatness in interpreting the violin classics. His peculiar title to
+fame is that of being, aside from brilliancy as a violin virtuoso, the
+musical exponent of his people and their traditions. He died at Bergen,
+Norway, on August 18, 1880, in the seventy-first year of his age,
+and his funeral services made one of the most august and imposing
+ceremonials held for many a long year in Norway.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0011" id="h2H_4_0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    MUZIO CLEMENTI
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Genealogy of the Piano-forte.&mdash;The Harpsichord its Immediate
+Predecessor.&mdash;Supposed Invention of the Piano-forte.&mdash;Silbermann the
+First Maker.&mdash;Anecdote of Frederick the Great.&mdash;The Piano-forte only
+slowly makes its Way as against the Clavichord and Harpsichord.&mdash;Emanuel
+Bach, the First Composer of Sonatas for the Piano-forte.&mdash;His Views
+of playing on the New Instrument.&mdash;Haydn and Mozart as Players.&mdash;Muzio
+Clementi, the Earliest Virtuoso, strictly speaking, as a Pianist.&mdash;Born
+in Rome in 1752.&mdash;Scion of an Artistic Family.&mdash;First Musical
+Training.&mdash;Rapid Development of his Talents.&mdash;Composes Contrapuntal
+Works at the Age of Fourteen.&mdash;Early Studies of the Organ and
+Harpsichord.&mdash;Goes to England to complete his Studies.&mdash;Creates
+an Unequaled Furore in London.&mdash;John Christian Bach's Opinion of
+Clementi.&mdash;Clementi's Musical Tour.&mdash;His Duel with Mozart before the
+Emperor.&mdash;Tenor of Clementi's Life in England.&mdash;Clementi's Pupils.&mdash;Trip
+to St. Petersburg.&mdash;Sphor's Anecdote of Him.&mdash;Mercantile and
+Manufacturing Interest in the Piano as Partner of Collard.&mdash;The Players
+and Composers trained under Clementi.&mdash;His Composition.&mdash;Status as
+a Player.&mdash;Character and Influence as an Artist.&mdash;Development of the
+Technique of the Piano, culminating in Clementi.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+Before touching the life of Clementi, the first of the great virtuosos
+who may be considered distinctively composers for and players on the
+pianoforte, it is indispensable to a clear understanding of the theme
+involved that the reader should turn back for a brief glance at the
+history of the piano and piano-playing prior to his time. Before the
+piano-forte came the harpsichord, prior to the latter the spinet,
+then the virginal, the clavichord, and monochord; before these, the
+clavieytherium. Before these instruments, which bring us down to modern
+civilized times, and constitute the genealogy of the piano-forte, we
+have the dulcimer and psaltery, and all the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman
+harps and lyres which were struck with a quill or plectrum. No product
+of human ingenuity has been the outcome of a steady and systematic
+growth from age to age by more demonstrable stages than this most
+remarkable of musical instruments. As it is not the intention to offer
+an essay on the piano, but only to make clearer the conditions under
+which a great school of players began to appear, the antiquities of the
+topic are not necessary to be touched.
+</p>
+<p>
+The modern piano-forte had as its immediate predecessor the harpsichord,
+the instrument on which the heroines of the novels of Fielding,
+Smollett, Richardson, and their contemporaries were wont to discourse
+sweet music, and for which Haydn and Mozart composed some delightful
+minor works. In the harpsichord the strings were set in vibration by
+points of quill or hard leather. One of these instruments looked like
+a piano, only it was provided with two keyboards, one above the other,
+related to each other as the swell and main keyboards of an organ.
+At last it occurred to lovers of music that all refinement of musical
+expression depended on touch, and that whereas a string could be plucked
+or pulled by machinery in but one way, it could be hit in a hundred
+ways. It was then that the notion of striking the strings with a hammer
+found practical use, and by the addition of this element the piano-forte
+emerged into existence. The idea appears to have occurred to three men
+early in the eighteenth century, almost simultaneously&mdash;Cristofori, an
+Italian, Marins, a Frenchman, and Schrôter, a German. For years attempts
+to carry out the new mechanism were so clumsy that good harpsichords
+on the wrong principle were preferred to poor piano-fortes on the right
+principle. But the keynote of progress had been struck, and the day
+of the quill and leather jack was swiftly drawing to a close. A small
+hammer was made to strike the string, producing a marvelously clear,
+precise, delicate tone, and the "scratch" with a sound at the end of it
+was about to be consigned to oblivion for ever and a day.
+</p>
+<p>
+Gottfried Silbermann, an ingenious musical instrument maker, of
+Freyhurg, Saxony, was the first to give the new principle adequate
+expression, about the year 1740, and his pianos excited a great deal of
+curiosity among musicians and scientific men. He followed the mechanism
+of Cristofori, the Italian, rather than of his own countrymen. Schrôter
+and his instruments appear to have been ingenious, though Sebastian
+Bach, who loved his "well-tempered clavichord" (the most powerful
+instrument of the harpsichord class) too well to be seduced from his
+allegiance, pronounced them too feeble in tone, a criticism which he
+retracted in after years. Silbermann experimented and labored with
+incessant energy for many years, and he had the satisfaction before
+dying of seeing the piano firmly established in the affection and
+admiration of the musical world. One of the most authentic of musical
+anecdotes is that of the visit of John Sebastian Bach and his son to
+Frederick the Great, at Potsdam, in 1747. The Prussian king was an
+enthusiast in music, and himself an excellent performer on the flute,
+of which, as well as of other instruments, he had a large collection. He
+had for a long time been anxious for a visit from Bach, but that great
+man was too much enamored of his own quiet musical solitude to
+run hither and thither at the beck of kings. At last, after much
+solicitation, he consented, and arrived at Potsdam late in the evening,
+all dusty and travel-stained. The king was just taking up his flute
+to play a concerto, when a lackey informed him of the coming of Bach.
+Frederick was more agitated than he ever had been in the tumult of
+battle. Crying aloud, "Gentlemen, old Bach is here!" he rushed out to
+meet the king in a loftier domain than his own, and ushered him into the
+lordly company of powdered wigs and doublets, of fair dames shining with
+jewels, satins, and velvets, of courtiers glittering in all the colors
+of the rainbow. "Old Bach" presented a shabby figure amid all this
+splendor, but the king cared nothing for that. He was most anxious to
+hear the grand old musician play on the new Silbermann piano, which was
+the latest hobby of the Prussian monarch.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not a matter of wonder that the lovers of the harpsichord and
+clavichord did not take kindly to the piano-forte at first. The keys
+needed a greater delicacy of treatment, and the very fact that the
+instrument required a new style of playing was of course sufficient to
+relegate the piano to another generation. The art of playing had at the
+time of the invention of the piano attained a high degree of efficiency.
+Such musicians as Do-menico Scarlatti in Italy and John Sebastian Bach
+in Germany had developed a wonderful degree of skill in treating the
+<i>clavecin</i>, or spinet, and the clavichord, and, if we may trust the old
+accounts, they called out ecstasies of admiration similar to those which
+the great modern players have excited. With the piano-forte, however, an
+entirely new style of expression came into existence. The power to play
+soft or loud at will developed the individual or personal feeling of the
+player, and new effects were speedily invented and put in practice. The
+art of playing ceased to be considered from the merely objective point
+of view, for the richer resources of the piano suggested the indulgence
+of individuality of expression. It was left to Emanuel Bach to make
+the first step toward the proper treatment of the piano, and to adapt
+a style of composition expressly to its requirements, though even he
+continued to prefer the clavichord. The rigorous, polyphonic style of
+his illustrious father was succeeded by the lyrical and singing
+element, which, if fantastic and daring, had a sweet, bright charm very
+fascinating. He writes in one of his treatises: "Methinks music
+ought appeal directly to the heart, and in this no performer on
+the piano-forte will succeed by merely thumping and drumming, or by
+continual arpeggio playing. During the last few years my chief endeavor
+has been to play the piano-forte, in spite of its deficiency in
+sustaining the sound, so much as possible, in a singing manner, and
+to compose for it accordingly. This is by no means an easy task, if we
+desire not to leave the ear empty or to disturb the noble simplicity of
+the cantabile by too much noise."
+</p>
+<p>
+Haydn and Mozart, who composed somewhat for the harpsichord (for until
+the closing years of the eighteenth century this instrument had
+not entirely yielded to the growing popularity of the piano-forte),
+distinguished themselves still more by their treatment of the latter
+instrument. They closely followed the maxims of Emanuel Bach. They
+aimed to please the public by sweet melody and agreeable harmony, by
+spontaneous elegance and cheerfulness, by suave and smooth simplicity.
+Their practice in writing for the orchestra and for voices modified
+their piano-forte style both as composers and players, but they never
+sacrificed that intelligible and simple charm which appeals to the
+universal heart to the taste for grand, complex, and eccentric effects,
+which has so dominated the efforts of their successors. Mozart's most
+distinguished contemporaries bear witness to his excellence as a player,
+and his great command over the piano-forte, and his own remarks on
+piano-playing are full of point and suggestion. He asserts "that the
+performer should possess a quiet and steady hand, with its natural
+lightness, smoothness, and gliding rapidity so well developed that the
+passages should flow like oil.... All notes, graces, accents, etc.,
+should be brought out with fitting taste and expression.... In passages
+[technical figures], some notes may be left to their fate without
+notice, but is that right? Three things are necessary to a good
+performer"; and he pointed significantly to his head, his heart, and
+the tips of his fingers, as symbolical of understanding, sympathy, and
+technical skill. But it was fated that Clementi should be the Columbus
+in the domain of piano-forte playing and composition. He was the father
+of the school of modern piano technique, and by far surpassed all his
+contemporaries in the boldness, vigor, brilliancy, and variety of his
+execution, and he is entitled to be called first (in respect of date)
+of the great piano-forte virtuosos, Clementi wrote solely for this
+instrument (for his few orchestral works are now dead). The piano, as
+his sole medium of expression, became a vehicle of great eloquence and
+power, and his sonatas, as pure types of piano-forte compositions, are
+unsurpassed, even in this age of exuberant musical fertility.
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+Muzio Clementi was born at Rome in the year 1752, and was the son of
+a silver worker of great skill, who was principally engaged on the
+execution of the embossed figures and vases employed in the Catholic
+worship. The boy at a very early age evinced a most decided taste
+for music, a predilection which delighted his father, himself an
+enthusiastic amateur, and caused him to bestow the utmost pains on the
+cultivation of the child's talents. The boy's first master was Buroni,
+choir-master a tone of the churches, and a relation of the family.
+Later, young Clementi took lessons in thorough bass from an eminent
+organist, Condicelli, and after a couple of years' application he was
+thought sufficiently advanced to apply for the position of organist,
+which he obtained, his age then being barely nine. He prosecuted his
+studies with great zeal under the ablest masters, and his genius for
+composition as well as for playing displayed a rapid development. By the
+time Clementi had attained the age of fourteen he had composed several
+contrapuntal works of considerable merit, one of which, a mass for four
+voices and chorus, gained great applause from the musicians and public
+of Rome.
+</p>
+<p>
+During his studies of counterpoint and the organ Clementi never
+neglected his harpsichord, on which he achieved remarkable proficiency,
+for the piano-forte at this time, though gradually coming into use, was
+looked on rather as a curiosity than an instrument of practical value.
+The turning-point of Clementi's life occurred in 1767, through his
+acquaintance with an English gentleman of wealth, Mr. Peter Beckford,
+who evinced a deep interest in the young musician's career. After much
+opposition Mr. Beckford persuaded the elder Clementi to intrust his
+son's further musical education to his care. The country seat of Mr.
+Beckford was in Dorsetshire, England, and here, by the aid of a fine
+library, social surroundings of the most favorable kind, and indomitable
+energy on his own part, he speedily made himself an adept in the English
+language and literature. The talents of Clementi made him almost an
+Admirable Crichton, for it is asserted that, in addition to the most
+severe musical studies, he made himself in a few years a proficient in
+the principal modern languages, in Greek and Latin, and in the
+whole circle of the belles-lettres. His studies in his own art were
+principally based on the works of Corelli, Alexander Scarlatti,
+Handel's harpsichord and organ music, and on the sonatas of Paradies, a
+Neapolitan composer and teacher, who enjoyed high repute in London for
+many years. Until 1770 Clementi spent his time secluded at his patron's
+country seat, and then fully equipped with musical knowledge, and with
+an unequaled command of the instrument, he burst on the town as pianist
+and composer. He had already written at this time his "Opus No. 2,"
+which established a new era for sonata compositions, and is recognized
+to-day as the basis for all modern works of this class.
+</p>
+<p>
+Clementi's attainments were so phenomenal that he carried everything
+before him in London, and met with a success so brilliant as to be
+almost without precedent. Socially and musically he was one of the
+idols of the hour, and the great Handel himself had not met with as much
+adulation. Apropos of the great sonata above mentioned, with which the
+Clementi furore began in London, it is said that John Christian Bach,
+son of Sebastian, one of the greatest executants of the time, confessed
+his inability to do it justice, and Schrôter, one of those sharing the
+honor of the invention of the piano-forte, and a leading musician of his
+age, said, "Only the devil and Clementi could play it." For seven years
+the subject of our sketch poured forth a succession of brilliant works,
+continually gave concerts, and in addition acted as conductor of the
+Italian opera, a life sufficiently busy for the most ambitious man. In
+1780 Clementi began his musical travels, and gave the first concerts
+of his tour at Paris, whither he was accompanied by the great singer
+Pacchierotti. He was received with the greatest favor by the queen,
+Marie Antoinette, and the court, and made the acquaintance of Gluck, who
+warmly admired the brilliant player who had so completely revolutionized
+the style of execution on instruments with a keyboard. Here he also met
+Viotti, the great violinist, and played a <i>duo concertante</i> with the
+latter, expressly composed for the occasion. Clementi was delighted with
+the almost frantic enthusiasm of the French, so different from the more
+temperate approbation of the English. He was wont to say jocosely that
+he hardly knew himself to be the same man. From Paris Clementi passed,
+via Strasburg and Munich, where he was most cordially welcomed,
+to Vienna, the then musical Mecca of Europe, for it contained two
+world-famed men&mdash;"Papa" Haydn and the young prodigy Mozart. The Emperor
+Joseph II, a great lover of music, could not let the opportunity slip,
+for he now had a chance to determine which was the greater player, his
+own pet Mozart or the Anglo-Italian stranger whose fame as an executant
+had risen to such dimensions. So the two musicians fought a musical
+duel, in which they played at sight the most difficult works, and
+improvised on themes selected by the imperial arbiter. The victory
+was left undecided, though Mozart, who disliked the Italians, spoke
+afterward of Clementi, in a tone at variance with his usual gentleness,
+as "a mere mechanician, without a pennyworth of feeling or taste."
+Clementi was more generous, for he couldn't say too much of Mozart's
+"singing touch and exquisite taste," and dated from this meeting a
+considerable difference in his own style of play.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the exception of occasional concert tours to Paris, Clementi
+devoted all his time up to 1802 in England, busy as conductor, composer,
+virtuoso, and teacher. In the latter capacity he was unrivaled, and
+pupils came to him from all parts of Europe. Among these pupils were
+John B. Cramer and John Field, names celebrated in music. In 1802
+Clementi took the brilliant young Irishman, John Field, to St.
+Petersburg on a musical tour, where both master and pupil were received
+with unbounded enthusiasm, and where the latter remained in affluent
+circumstances, having married a Russian lady of rank and wealth.
+Field was idolized by the Russians, and they claim his compositions
+as belonging to their music. He is now distinctively remembered as the
+inventor of that beautiful form of musical writing, the nocturne. Spohr,
+the violinist, met Clementi and Field at the Russian capital, and gives
+the following amusing account in his "Autobiography": "Clementi, a man
+in his best years, of an extremely lively disposition and very engaging
+manners, liked much to converse with me, and often invited me after
+dinner to play at billiards. In the evening I sometimes accompanied him
+to his large piano-forte warehouse, where Field was often obliged
+to play for hours to display instruments to the best advantage to
+purchasers. I have still in recollection the figure of the pale
+overgrown youth, whom I have never since seen. When Field, who had
+outgrown his clothes, placed himself at the piano, stretching out his
+arms over the keyboard, so that the sleeves shrank up nearly to the
+elbow, his whole figure appeared awkward and stiff in the highest
+degree. But, as soon as his touching instrumentation began, everything
+else was forgotten, and one became all ear. Unfortunately I could not
+express my emotion and thankfulness to the young man otherwise than
+by the pressure of the hand, for he spoke no language but his mother
+tongue. Even at that time many anecdotes of the remarkable avarice of
+the rich Clementi were related, which had greatly increased in later
+years when I again met him in London. It was generally reported that
+Field was kept on very short allowance by his master, and was obliged to
+pay for the good fortune of having his instruction by many privations.
+I myself experienced a little sample of Clementi's truly Italian
+parsimony, for one day I found teacher and pupil with upturned sleeves,
+engaged at the wash-tub, washing their stockings and other linen. They
+did not suffer themselves to be disturbed, and Clementi advised me to do
+the same, as washing in St. Petersburg was not only very expensive, but
+the linen suffered much from the method used in washing it."
+</p>
+<p>
+From the above it may be suspected that Clementi was not only player
+and composer, but man of business. He had been very successful in
+money-making in England from the start, and it was not many years before
+he accumulated a sufficient amount to buy an interest in the firm of
+Longman &amp; Broderip, "manufacturers of musical instruments, and music
+sellers to their majesties." The failure of the house, by which he
+sustained heavy losses, induced him to try his hand alone at music
+publishing and piano-forte manufacturing; and his great success (the
+firm is still extant in the person of his partner's son, Mr. Col-lard)
+proves he was an exception to the majority of artists, who rarely
+possess business talents. Clementi met many reverses in his commercial
+career. In March, 1807, the warehouses occupied by Clementi's new firm
+were destroyed by fire, entailing a loss of about forty thousand pounds.
+But the man's courage was indomitable, and he retrieved his misfortunes
+with characteristic pluck and cheerfulness. After 1810 he gave up
+playing in public, and devoted himself to composing and the conduct of
+his piano-forte business, which became very large and valuable. Himself
+an inventor and mechanician, he made many important improvements in the
+construction of the piano, some of which have never been superseded.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+Clementi numbers among his pupils more great names in the art of
+piano-forte playing than any other great master. This is partly owing
+to the fact, it may be, that he began his career in the infancy of the
+piano-forte as an instrument, and was the first to establish a solid
+basis for the technique of the instrument. In addition to John Field and
+J. B. Cramer, previously mentioned, were Zeuner, Dussek, Alex. Kleugel,
+Ludwig Berger, Kalkbrenner, Charles Mayer, and Meyerbeer. These
+musicians not only added richly to the literature of the piano-forte,
+but were splendid exponents of its powers as virtuosos. But mere
+artistic fame is transitory, and it is in Clementi's contributions to
+the permanent history of piano-forte playing that we must find his chief
+claim on the admiration of posterity. He composed not a few works for
+the orchestra, and transcriptions of opera, but these have now receded
+to the lumber closet. The works which live are his piano concertos, of
+which about sixty were written for the piano alone, and the remainder
+as duets or trios; and, <i>par excellence</i>, his "Gradus ad Parnassum," a
+superb series of one hundred studies, upon which even to-day the solid
+art of piano-forte playing rests. Clementi's works must always remain
+indispensable to the pianist, and, in spite of the fact that piano
+technique has made such advances during the last half century, there are
+several of Clementi's sonatas which tax the utmost skill of such players
+as Liszt and Von Billow, to whom all ordinary difficulty is merely a
+plaything. As Viotti was the father of modern violin-playing, Clementi
+may be considered the father of virtuosoism on the piano-forte, and he
+has left an indelible mark, both mechanically and spiritually, on
+all that pertains to piano-playing. Compared with Clementi's style in
+piano-forte composition, that of Haydn and Mozart appears poor and thin.
+Haydn and Mozart regarded execution as merely the vehicle of ideas, and
+valued technical brilliancy less than musical substance. Clementi, on
+the other hand, led the way for that class of compositions which pay
+large attention to manual skill. His works can not be said to burn with
+that sacred fire which inspires men of the highest genius, but they are
+magnificently modeled for the display of technical execution, brilliancy
+of effect, and virile force of expression. The great Beethoven, who
+composed the greatest works for the piano-forte, as also for the
+orchestra, had a most exalted estimate of Clementi, and never wearied
+of playing his music and sounding his praises. No musician has probably
+exerted more far-reaching effects in this department of his art than
+Clementi, though he can not be called a man of the highest genius,
+for this lofty attribute supposes great creative imagination and rich
+resources of thought, as well as knowledge, experience, skill, and
+transcendent aptitude for a single instrument.
+</p>
+<p>
+As far as a musician of such unique and colossal genius as Beethoven
+could be influenced by preceding or contemporary artists, his style as
+a piano-forte player and composer was more modified by Clementi than
+by any other. He was wont to say that no one could play till he
+knew Clementi by heart. He adopted many of the peculiar figures and
+combinations original with Clementi, though his musical mentality,
+incomparably richer and greater than that of the other, transfigured
+them into a new life. That Beethoven found novel means of expression
+to satisfy the importunate demands of his musical conceptions; that his
+piano works display a greater polyphony, stronger contrasts, bolder
+and richer rhythm, broader design and execution, by no means impair
+the value of his obligations to Clementi, obligations which the most
+arrogant and self-centered of men freely allowed. Beethoven's fancy was
+penetrated by all the qualities of tone which distinguish the string,
+reed, and brass instruments; his imagination shot through and through
+with orchestral color; and he succeeded in saturating his sonatas with
+these rich effects without sacrificing the specialty of the piano-forte.
+But in general style and technique he is distinctly a follower of
+Clementi. The most unique and splendid personality in music has thus
+been singled out as furnishing a vivid illustration of the influence
+exerted by Clementi in the department of the piano-forte.
+</p>
+<p>
+Clementi lived to the age of eighty, and spent the last twelve years of
+his life in London uninterruptedly, his growing feebleness preventing
+him from taking his usual musical trips to the Continent. He retained
+his characteristic energy and freshness of mind to the last, and
+was held in the highest honor by the great circle of artists who had
+centered in London, for he was the musical patriarch in England, as
+Cherubini was in France at a little later date. He was married three
+times, had children in his old age, and only a few months before
+his death, Moscheles records in his diary, he was able to arouse the
+greatest enthusiasm by the vigor and brilliancy of his playing, in spite
+of his enfeebled physical powers. He died March 9, 1832, at Eversham,
+and his funeral gathered a great convocation of musical celebrities. His
+life covered an immense arch in the history of music.
+</p>
+<p>
+At his birth Handel was alive; at his death Beethoven, Schubert,
+and Weber had found refuge in the grave from the ingratitude of a
+contemporary public. He began his career by practicing Scarlatti's
+harpsichord sonatas; he lived to be acquainted with the finest
+piano-forte works of all time. When he first used the piano, he
+practiced on the imperfect and feeble Silbermann instrument. When he
+died, the magnificent instruments of Erard, Broadwood, and Collard,
+to the latter of which his own mechanical and musical knowledge had
+contributed much, were in common vogue. Such was the career of Muzio
+Clementi, the father of piano-forte virtuosos. Had he lived later, he
+might have been far eclipsed by the great players who have since adorned
+the art of music. As Goethe says, through the mouthpiece of Wil-helm.
+Meister: "The narrowest man may be complete while he moves within the
+bounds of his own capacity and acquirements, but even fine qualities
+become clouded and destroyed if this indispensable proportion is
+exceeded. This unwholesome excess, however, will begin to appear
+frequently, for who can suffice to the swift progress and increasing
+requirements of the ever-soaring present time?" But, measured by his own
+day and age, Clementi deserves the pedestal on which musical criticism
+has placed him.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0012" id="h2H_4_0012"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    MOSCHELES.
+</h2>
+<p>
+Clementi and Mozart as Points of Departure in Piano-forte
+Playing.&mdash;Moscheles the most Brilliant Climax reached by the Viennese
+School.&mdash;His Child-Life at Prague.&mdash;Extraordinary Precocity.&mdash;Goes to
+Vienna as the Pupil of Salieri and Albrechts-burger.&mdash;Acquaintance
+with Beethoven.&mdash;Moscheles is honored with a Commission to make a Piano
+Transcription of Beethoven's "Fidelio."&mdash;His Intercourse with the Great
+Man.&mdash;Concert Tour.&mdash;Arrival in Paris.&mdash;The Artistic Circle into which
+he is received.&mdash;Pictures of Art-Life in Paris.&mdash;London and its Musical
+Celebrities.&mdash;Career as a Wandering Virtuoso.&mdash;Felix Mendelssohn becomes
+his Pupil.&mdash;The Mendelssohn Family.&mdash;Moscheles's Marriage to a
+Hamburg Lady.&mdash;Settles in London.&mdash;His Life as Teacher, Player, and
+Composer.&mdash;Eminent Place taken by Moscheles among the Musicians of
+his Age.&mdash;His Efforts soothe the Sufferings of Beethoven's
+Deathbed.&mdash;Friendship for Mendelssohn.&mdash;Moscheles becomes connected with
+the Leipzig Conservatorium.&mdash;Death in 1870.&mdash;Moscheles as Pianist
+and Composer.&mdash;Sympathy with the Old as against the New School of the
+Piano.&mdash;His Powerful Influence on the Musical Culture and Tendencies of
+his Age.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+The rivalry of Clementi and Mozart as exponents of piano-forte playing
+in their day was continued in their schools of performance. The original
+cause of this difference was largely based on the character of the
+instruments on which they played. Clementi used the English piano-forte,
+and Mozart the Viennese, and the style of execution was no less the
+outcome of the mechanical difference between the two vehicles of
+expression than the result of personal idiosyncrasies. The English
+instrument was speedily developed into the production of a richer,
+fuller, and more sonorous tone, while the Viennese piano-forte continued
+for a long time to be distinguished by its light, thin, sweet quality of
+sound, and an action so sensitive that the slightest pressure produced
+a sound from the key, so that the term "breathing on the keys" became
+a current expression, Clementi's piano favored a bold, masculine,
+brilliant style of playing, while the Viennese piano led to a rapid,
+fluent, delicate treatment. The former player founded the school which
+has culminated, through a series of great players, in the magnificent
+virtuosoism of Franz Liszt, while the Vienna school has no nearer
+representative than Tgnaz Moscheles, one of the greatest players in the
+history of the pianoforte, who, whether judged by his gifts as a
+concert performer, a composer for the instrument which he so brilliantly
+adorned, or from his social and intellectual prominence, must be set
+apart as peculiarly a representative man. There were other eminent
+players, such as Hummel, Czerny, and Herz, contemporary with Moscheles
+and belonging to the same <i>genre</i> as a pianist, but these names do not
+stand forth with the same clear and permanent luster in their relation
+to the musical art.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ignaz Moscheles was born at Prague, May 30, 1794, his parents being
+well-to-do people of Hebrew stock. His father, a cloth merchant, was
+passionately fond of music, and was accustomed to say, "One of my
+children must become a thoroughbred musician." Ignaz was soon selected
+as the one on whom the experiment should be made, and the rapid
+progress he made justified the accident of choice, for all of the family
+possessed some musical talent. The boy progressed too fast, for he
+attempted at the age of seven to play Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique."
+He was traveling on the wrong road, attempting what he could in no
+way attain, when his father took him to Dionys Weber, one of the best
+teachers of the time. "I come," said the parent, "to you as our first
+musician, for sincere truth instead of empty flattery. I want to find
+out from you if my boy has such genuine talent that you can make a
+really good musician of him." "Naturally, I was called on to play," says
+Moscheles, in his "Autobiography," "and I was bungler enough to do it
+with some conceit. My mother having decked me out in my Sunday best, I
+played my best piece, Beethoven's 'Sonata Pathétique.' But what was my
+astonishment on finding that I was neither interrupted by bravos nor
+overwhelmed by praise! and what were my feelings when Dionys Weber
+finally delivered himself thus:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Candidly speaking, the boy has talent, but is on the wrong road, for
+he makes bosh of great works which he does not understand, and to which
+he is utterly unequal. I could make something of him if you could hand
+him over to me for three years, and follow out my plan to the letter.
+The first year he must play nothing but Mozart, the second Clementi, and
+the third Bach; but only that: not a note as yet of Beethoven; and if
+he persists in using the circulating libraries, I have done with him for
+ever.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+This scheme was followed out strictly, and Moscheles at the age of
+fourteen had acquired a sufficient mastery of the piano to give a
+concert at Prague with brilliant success. The young musician continued
+to pursue his studies assiduously under Weber's direction until
+his father's death, and his mother then determined to yield to his
+oft-repeated wish to try his musical fortunes in a larger field, and win
+his own way in life. So young Ignaz, little more than a child, went to
+Vienna, where he was warmly received in the hospitable musical circles
+of that capital. He took lessons in counterpoint from Albrechts-burger,
+and in composition from Salieri, and in all ways indicated that serene,
+tireless industry which marked his whole after-career. Moscheles spent
+eight years at Vienna, continually growing in estimation as artist and
+beginning to make his mark as a composer. His own reminiscences of the
+brilliant and gifted men who clustered in Vienna are very pleasant, but
+it is to Beethoven that his admiration specially went forth. The great
+master liked his young disciple much, and proposed to him that he should
+set the numbers of "Fidelio" for the piano, a task which, it is needless
+to say, was gladly accepted. Moscheles tells us one morning, when he
+went to see Beethoven, he found him lying in bed. "He happened to be in
+remarkably good spirits, jumped up immediately, and placed himself, just
+as he was, at the window looking out on the Schotten-bastei, with the
+view of examining the 'Fidelio' numbers which I had arranged. Naturally,
+a crowd of street-boys collected under the window, when he roared out,
+'Now, what do these confounded boys want?' I laughed and pointed to his
+own figure. 'Yes, yes! You are quite right,' he said, and hastily put on
+a dressing-gown."
+</p>
+<p>
+Moscheles's associations were even at this early period with all the
+foremost people of the age, and he was cordially welcome in every
+circle. He composed a good deal, besides giving concerts and playing in
+private select circles, and was recognized as being the equal of Hummel,
+who had hitherto been accepted as the great piano virtuoso of Vienna.
+The two were very good friends in spite of their rivalry. They, as well
+as all the Viennese musicians, were bound together by a common tie, very
+well expressed in the saying of Moscheles: "We musicians, whatever we
+be, are mere satellites of the great Beethoven, the dazzling luminary."
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+In the autumn of 1816 Moscheles bade a sorrowful adieu to the imperial
+city, where he had spent so many happy years, to undertake an extended
+concert tour, armed with letters of introduction to all the courts of
+Europe from Prince Lichtenstein, Countess Hardigg, and other influential
+admirers. He proceeded directly to Leipzig, where he was warmly received
+by the musical fraternity of that city, especially by the Wiecks, of
+whose daughter Clara he speaks in highly eulogistic words. He played his
+own compositions, which already began to show that serene and finished
+beauty so characteristic of his after-writings. Ŕ similar success
+greeted him at Dresden, where, among other concerts, he gave one before
+the court. Of this entertainment Moscheles writes: "The court actually
+dined (this barbarous custom still prevails), and the royal household
+listened in the galleries, while I and the court band made music to
+them, and barbarous it really was; but, in regard to truth, I must add
+that royalty and also the lackeys kept as quiet as possible, and the
+former congratulated me, and actually condescended to admit me to
+friendly conversation." He continued his concerts in Munich, Augsburg,
+Amsterdam, Brussels, and other cities, creating the most genuine
+admiration wherever he went, and finally reached Paris in December,
+1817.
+</p>
+<p>
+Here our young artist was promptly received in the extraordinary world
+of musicians, artists, authors, wits, and social celebrities which then,
+as now, made Paris so delightful for those possessing the countersign of
+admission. Baillot, the violinist, gave a private concert in his honor,
+in which he in company with Spohr played before an audience made up of
+such artists and celebrities as Cherubini, Auber, Herold, Adam, Lesueur,
+Pacini, Paer, Habeneck, Plantade, Blangini, La-font, Pleyel, Ivan
+Muller, Viotti, Pellegrini, Boďeldieu, Schlesinger, Manuel Garcia, and
+others. These areopagites of music set the mighty seal of their approval
+on Moscheles's genius. He was invited everywhere, to dinners, balls, and
+<i>fętes</i>, and there was no <i>salon</i> in Paris so high and exclusive which
+did not feel itself honored by his presence. His public concerts were
+thronged with the best and most critical audiences, and he by no means
+shone the less that he appeared in conjunction with other distinguished
+artists. He often entertained parties of jovial artists at his lodgings,
+and music, punch, and supper enlivened the night till 3 A.M. Whoever
+could play or sing was present, and good music alternated with amusing
+tricks played on the respective instruments. "Altogether," he writes,
+"it is a happy, merry time! Certainly, at the last state dinner of
+the Rothschilds, in the presence of such notabilities as Canning
+or Narischkin, I was obliged to keep rather in the background. The
+invitation to a large, brilliant, but ceremonious ball appears a very
+questionable way of showing me attention. The drive up, the endless
+queue of carriages, wearied me, and at last I got out and walked.
+There, too, I found little pleasure." On the other hand, he praises the
+performance of Gluck's opera at the house of the Erards. The "concerts
+spirituels" delight him. "Who would not," he says, "envy me this
+enjoyment? These concerts justly enjoy a world-wide celebrity. There I
+listen with the most solemn earnestness." On the other hand, there are
+cheerful episodes, and jovial dinners with Carl Blum and Schlesinger, at
+the Restaurant Lemelle. "Yesterday," he writes, "Schlesinger quizzed me
+about my slowness in eating, and went so far as to make the stupid bet
+with me, that he would demolish three dozen oysters while I ate one
+dozen, and he was quite right. On perceiving, however, that he was on
+the point of winning, I took to making faces, made him laugh so heartily
+that he couldn't go on eating; thus I won my bet." We find the
+following notice on the 20th of March: "I spent the evening at Ciceri's,
+son-in-law of Isabey, the famous painter, where I was introduced to
+one of the most interesting circles of artists. In the first room were
+assembled the most famous painters, engaged in drawing several things
+for their own amusement. In the midst of these was Cherubini, also
+drawing. I had the honor, like every one newly introduced, of having
+my portrait taken in caricature. Bégasse took me in hand, and succeeded
+well. In an adjoining room were musicians and actors, among them
+Ponchard, Le-vasseur, Dugazon, Panseron, Mlle, de Munck, and Mme.
+Livčre, of the Théâtre Français. The most interesting of their
+performances, which I attended merely as a listener, was a vocal quartet
+by Cherubini, performed under his direction. Later in the evening, the
+whole party armed itself with larger or smaller 'mirlitons' (reed-pipe
+whistles), and on these small monotonous instruments, sometimes made
+of sugar, they played, after the fashion of Russian horn music, the
+overture to 'Demophon,' two frying-pans representing the drums." On the
+27th of March this "mirliton" concert was repeated at Ciceri's, and on
+this occasion Cherubini took an active part. Moscheles relates: "Horace
+Vernet entertained us with his ventriloquizing powers, M. Salmon with
+his imitation of a horn, and Dugazon actually with a 'mirliton' solo.
+Lafont and I represented the classical music, which, after all, held,
+its own." It was hard to tear himself from these gayeties; but he
+had not visited London, and he was anxious to make himself known at a
+musical capital inferior to none in Europe. He little thought that in
+London he was destined to find his second home. He plunged into the
+gayeties and enjoyments of the English capital with no less zest than he
+had already experienced in Paris. He found such great players as J. B.
+Cramer, Ferdinand Ries, Kalkbrenner, and Clementi in the field; but
+our young artist did not altogether lose by comparison. Among other
+distinguished musicians, Moscheles also met Kiesewetter, the violinist,
+the great singers Mara and Catalani, and Dragonetti, the greatest of
+double-bass players. Dragonetti was a most eccentric man, and of him
+Moscheles says: "In his <i>salon</i> in Liecester Square he has collected
+a large number of various kinds of dolls, among them a negress. When
+visitors are announced, he politely receives them, and says that this
+or that young lady will make room for them; he also asks his intimate
+acquaintances whether his favorite dolls look better or worse since
+their last visit, and similar absurdities. He is a terrible snuff-taker,
+helping himself out of a gigantic snuff-box, and he has an immense and
+varied collection of snuff-boxes. The most curious part of him is his
+language, a regular jargon, in which there is a mixture of his native
+Bergamese, bad French, and still worse English."
+</p>
+<p>
+During the several months of this first English visit Moscheles made
+many acquaintances which were destined to ripen into solid friendships,
+and gave many concerts in which the most distinguished artists, vocal
+and instrumental, participated. Altogether, he appears to have been
+delighted with the London art and social world little less than he had
+been with that of Paris. He returned, however, to the latter city in
+August, and again became a prominent figure in the most fashionable and
+admired concerts. During this visit to Paris he writes in his diary:
+"Young Erard took me to-day to his piano-forte factory to try the new
+invention of his uncle Sebastian. This quicker action of the hammer
+seems to me so important that I prophesy a new era in the manufacture
+of piano-fortes. I still complain of some heaviness in the touch, and,
+therefore, prefer to play on Pape's and Petzold's instruments (Viennese
+pianos). I admired the Erards, but am not thoroughly satisfied, and
+urged him to make new improvements."
+</p>
+<p>
+From 1815, when Moscheles began his career as a virtuoso in the
+production of his "Variationen fiber den Alexandermarsch," to 1826,
+he established a great reputation as a virtuoso and composer for the
+piano-forte. Though he played his own works at concerts with marked
+approbation, he also became distinguished as an interpreter of Mozart
+and Beethoven, for whom he had a reverential admiration. Moscheles often
+records his own sense of insignificance by the side of these Titans
+of music. A delightful characteristic of the man was his modesty about
+himself, and his genial appreciation of other musicians. Nowhere do
+those performers who, for example, came in active rivalry with himself,
+receive more cordial and unalloyed praise. Moscheles was entirely devoid
+of that littleness which finds vent in envy and jealousy, and was as
+frank and sympathetic in his estimate of others as he was ambitious and
+industrious in the development of his own great talents. In 1824 he gave
+piano-forte lessons to Felix Mendelssohn, then a youth of fifteen, at
+Berlin. He wrote of the Mendelssohn family: "This is a family the like
+of which I have never known. Felix, a boy of fifteen, is a phenomenon.
+What are all prodigies as compared with him? Gifted children, but
+nothing else. This Felix Mendelssohn is already a mature artist, and
+yet but fifteen years old! We at once settled down together for several
+hours, for I was obliged to play a great deal, when really I wanted to
+hear him and see his compositions, for Felix had to show me a concerto
+in C minor, a double concerto, and several motets; and all so full of
+genius, and at the same time so correct and thorough! His elder sister
+Fanny, also extraordinarily gifted, played by heart, and with admirable
+precision, fugues and passacailles by Bach. I think one may well call
+her a thorough 'Mus. Doc' (guter Musiker). Both parents give one the
+impression of being people of the highest refinement. They are far from
+overrating their children's talents; in fact, they are anxious about
+Felix's future, and to know whether his gift will prove sufficient to
+lead to a noble and truly great career. Will he not, like so many other
+brilliant children, suddenly collapse? I asserted my conscientious
+conviction that Felix would ultimately become a great master, that I
+had not the slightest doubt of his genius; but again and again I had
+to insist on my opinion before they believed me. These two are not
+specimens of the genus prodigy-parents (Wunderkinds Eltern), such as I
+most frequently endure." Moscheles soon came to the conclusion that to
+give Felix regular lessons was useless. Only a little hint from time
+to time was necessary for the marvelous youth, who had already begun to
+compose works which excited Moscheles's deepest admiration.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+In January, 1825, Moscheles, in the course of his musical wanderings,
+gave several concerts at Hamburg. Among the crowd of listeners who
+came to hear the great pianist was Charlotte Embden, the daughter of an
+excellent Hamburg family. She was enchanted by the playing of Moscheles,
+and, when she accidentally made the acquaintance of the performer at the
+house of a mutual acquaintance, the couple quickly became enamored of
+each other. A brief engagement of less than a month was followed by
+marriage, and so Moscheles entered into a relation singularly felicitous
+in all the elements which make domestic life most blessed. After a brief
+tour in the Rhenish cities, and a visit to Paris, Moscheles proceeded to
+London, where he had determined to make his home, for in no country had
+such genuine and unaffected cordiality boon shown him, and nowhere
+were the rewards of musical talent, whether as teacher, virtuoso, or
+composer, more satisfying to the man of high ambition. He made London
+his home for twenty years, and during this time became one of the most
+prominent figures in the art circles of that great city. Moscheles's
+mental accomplishments and singular geniality of nature contributed,
+with his very great abilities as a musician, to give him a position
+attained by but few artists. He gave lessons to none but the most
+talented pupils, and his services were sought by the most wealthy
+families of the English capital, though the ability to pay great prices
+was by no means a passport to the good graces of Moscheles. Among
+the pupils who early came under the charge of this great master was
+Thalberg, who even then was a brilliant player, but found in the exact
+knowledge and great experience of Moscheles that which gave the
+crowning finish to his style. Busy in teaching, composing, and public
+performance; busy in responding to the almost incessant demands made by
+social necessity on one who was not only intimate in the best circles
+of London society, but the center to whom all foreign artists of merit
+gravitated instantly they arrived in London; busy in confidential
+correspondence with all the great musicians of Europe, who discussed
+with the genial and sympathetic Moscheles all their plans and
+aspirations, and to whom they turned in their moments of trouble, he
+was indeed a busy man; and had it not been for the loving labors of his
+wife, who was his secretary, his musical copyist, and his assistant in
+a myriad of ways, he would have been unequal to his burden. Moscheles's
+diary tells the story of a man whose life, though one of tireless
+industry, was singularly serene and happy, and without those salient
+accidents and vicissitudes which make up the material of a picturesque
+life.
+</p>
+<p>
+He made almost yearly tours to the Continent for concert-giving
+purposes, and kept his friendship with the great composers of the
+Continent green by personal contact. Beethoven was the god of his
+musical idolatry, and his pilgrimage to Vienna was always delightful
+to him. When Beethoven, in the early part of 1827, was in dire distress
+from poverty, just before his death, it was to Moscheles that he applied
+for assistance; and it was this generous friend who promptly arranged
+the concert with the Philharmonic Society by which one hundred pounds
+sterling was raised to alleviate the dying moments of the great man
+whom his own countrymen would have let starve, even as they had allowed
+Schubert and Mozart to suffer the direst want on their deathbeds.
+</p>
+<p>
+An adequate record of Moscheles's life during the twenty years of his
+London career would be a pretty full record of all matters of musical
+interest occurring during this time. In 1832 he was made one of the
+directors of the Philharmonic Society, and in 1837-'38 he conducted
+with signal success Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony." When Sir Henry Bishop
+resigned, in 1845, Moscheles was made the conductor, and thereafter
+wielded the baton over this orchestra, the noblest in England. Among the
+yearly pleasures to which our pianist looked forward with the greatest
+interest were the visits of Mendelssohn, between whom and Moscheles
+there was the most tender friendship. Whole pages of his diary are given
+up to an account of Mendelssohn's doings, and to the most enthusiastic
+expression of his love and admiration for one of the greatest musical
+geniuses of modern times.
+</p>
+<p>
+We can not attempt to follow up the placid and gentle current of
+Moscheles's life, flowing on to ever-increasing honor and usefulness,
+but hasten to the period when he left England in 1846, to
+become associated with Mendelssohn in the conduct of the Leipzig
+Conservatorium, then recently organized. Mendelssohn lived but a few
+months after achieving this great monument of musical education, but
+Moscheles remained connected with it for nearly twenty years, and to his
+great zeal, knowledge, and executive skill is due in large measure the
+solid success of the institution. Mendelssohn's early death, while yet
+in the very prime of creative genius, was a stunning blow to Moscheles;
+more so, perhaps, than would have occurred from the loss of any one
+except his beloved wife, the mother of his five children. Our musician
+died himself, in Leipzig, March 10, 1870, and his passage from this
+world was as serene and quiet as his passage through had been. He lived
+to see his daughters married to men of high worth and position, and his
+sons substantially placed in life. Perhaps few distinguished musicians
+have lived a life of such monotonous happiness, unmarked by those events
+which, while they give romantic interest to a career, make the gift at
+the expense of so much personal misery.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+As a pianist Moscheles was distinguished by an incisive, brilliant
+touch, wonderfully clear, precise phrasing, and close attention to the
+careful accentuation of every phase of the composer's meaning. Of the
+younger composers for the piano, Mendelssohn and Schumann were the only
+ones with whose works he had any sympathy, though he often complains of
+the latter on account of his mysticism. His intelligence had as much
+if not more part in his art work than his emotions, and to this we may
+attribute that fine symmetry and balance in his own compositions, which
+make them equal in this respect to the productions of Mendelssohn.
+Chopin he regarded with a sense of admiration mingled with dread, for
+he could by no means enter into the peculiar conditions which make the
+works of the Polish composer so unique. He wrote of Chopin's "Études,"
+in 1838: "My thoughts and consequently my fingers ever stumble and
+sprawl at certain crude modulations, and I find Chopin's productions
+on the whole too sugared, too little worthy of a man and an educated
+musician, though there is much charm and originality in the national
+color of his motive." When he heard Chopin play in after-years, however,
+he confessed the fascination of the performance, and bewailed his own
+incapacity to produce such effects in execution, though himself one of
+the greatest pianists in the world. So, too, Moscheles, though dazzled
+by Liszt's brilliant virtuosoism and power of transforming a single
+instrument into an orchestra, shook his head in doubt over such
+performances, and looked on them as charlatanism, which, however
+magnificent as an exhibition of talent, would ultimately help to degrade
+the piano by carrying it out of its true sphere. Moscheles himself was
+a more bold and versatile player than any other performer of his school,
+but he aimed assiduously to confine his efforts within the perfectly
+legitimate and well-established channels of pianism.
+</p>
+<p>
+As an extemporaneous player, perhaps no pianist has ever lived who could
+surpass Moscheles. His improvisation on themes suggested by the audience
+always made one of the most attractive features of his concerts. His
+profound musical knowledge, his strong sense of form, the clearness and
+precision with which he instinctively clothed his ideas, as well as the
+fertility of the ideas themselves, gave his improvised pieces something
+of the same air of completeness as if they were the outcome of hours of
+laborious solitude. His very lack of passion and fire were favorable
+to this clear-cut and symmetrical expression. His last improvisation
+in public, on themes furnished by the audience, formed part of the
+programme of a concert at London, in 1865, given by Mme. Jenny Lind
+Goldschmidt, in aid of the sufferers by the war between Austria and
+Prussia, where he extemporized for half an hour on "See the Conquering
+Hero Comes," and on a theme from the andante of Beethoven's C Minor
+Symphony, in a most brilliant and astonishing style.
+</p>
+<p>
+Aside from his greatness as a virtuoso and composer for the piano-forte,
+whose works will always remain classics in spite of vicissitudes
+of public opinion, even as those of Spohr will for the violin, the
+influence of Moscheles in furtherance of a solid and true musical taste
+was very great, and worthy of special notice. Perhaps no one did more
+to educate the English mind up to a full appreciation of the greatest
+musical works. As teacher, conductor, player, and composer, the life
+of Ignaz Moscheles was one of signal and permanent worth, and its
+influences fertilized in no inconsiderable streams the public thought,
+not only of his own times, but indirectly of the generation which has
+followed. It is not necessary to attribute to him transcendent genius,
+but lie possessed, what was perhaps of equal value to the world, an
+intellect and temperament splendidly balanced to the artistic needs of
+his epoch. The list of Moscheles's numbered compositions reaches Op.
+142, besides a large number of ephemeral productions which he did not
+care to preserve.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0013" id="h2H_4_0013"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
+</h2>
+<p>
+Robert Schumann's Place as a National Composer.&mdash;Peculiar Greatness as
+a Piano-forte Composer.&mdash;Born at Zwickau in 1810.&mdash;His Father's
+Aversion to his Musical Studies.&mdash;Becomes a Student of Jurisprudence
+in Leipzig.&mdash;Makes the Acquaintance of Clara Wieck.&mdash;Tedium of his Law
+Studies.&mdash;Vacation Tour to Italy.&mdash;Death of his Father, and Consent
+of his Mother to Schumann adopting the Profession of Music.&mdash;Becomes
+Wieck's Pupil.&mdash;Injury to his Hand which prevents all Possibilities of
+his becoming a Great Performer.&mdash;Devotes himself to Composition.&mdash;The
+Child, Clara Wieck&mdash;Remarkable Genius as a Player.&mdash;Her Early
+Training.&mdash;Paganini's Delight in her Genius.&mdash;Clara Wieck's
+Concert Tours.&mdash;Schumann falls deeply in Love with her, and Wieck's
+Opposition.&mdash;His Allusions to Clara in the "Neue Zeitschrift."&mdash;Schumann
+at Vienna.&mdash;His Compositions at first Unpopular, though played by Clara
+Wieck and Liszt.&mdash;Schumann's Labors as a Critic.&mdash;He Marries Clara
+in 1840.&mdash;His Song Period inspired by his Wife.&mdash;Tour to Russia, and
+Brilliant Reception given to the Artist Pair.&mdash;The "Neue Zeitschrift"
+and its Mission.&mdash;The Davidsbund.&mdash;Peculiar Style of Schumann's
+Writing.&mdash;He moves to Dresden.&mdash;Active Production in Orchestral
+Composition.&mdash;Artistic Tour in Holland.&mdash;He is seized with
+Brain Disease.&mdash;Characteristics as a Man, as an Artist, and as a
+Philosopher.&mdash;Mme. Schumann as her Husband's Interpreter.&mdash;Chopin
+a Colaborer with Schumann.&mdash;Schumann on Chopin again.&mdash;Chopin's
+Nativity.&mdash;Exclusively a Piano-forte Composer.&mdash;His <i>Genre</i> as Pianist
+and Composer.&mdash;Aversion to Concert-giving.&mdash;Parisian Associations.&mdash;New
+Style of Technique demanded by his Works.&mdash;Unique Treatment of the
+Instrument.&mdash;Characteristics of Chopin's Compositions.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+Robert Schumann shares with Weber the honor of giving the earliest
+impulse to what may be called the romantic school of music, which has
+culminated in the operatic creations of Richard Wagner. Greatly to the
+gain of the world, his early aspirations as a mere player were crushed
+by the too intense zeal through which he attempted to perfect his
+manipulation, the mechanical contrivance he used having had the
+effect of paralyzing the muscular power of one of his hands. But this
+department of art work was nobly borne by his gifted wife, <i>nee</i> Clara
+Wieck, and Schumann concentrated his musical ambition in the higher
+field of composition, leaving behind him works not only remarkable for
+beauty of form, but for poetic richness of thought and imagination.
+Schumann composed songs, cantatas, operas, and symphonies, but it is in
+his works for the piano-forte that his idiosyncrasy was most strikingly
+embodied, and in which he has bequeathed the most precious inheritance
+to the world of art. All his powers were swept impetuously into one
+current, the poetic side of art, and alike as critic and composer he
+stands in a relation to the music of the pianoforte which places him on
+a pinnacle only less lofty than that of Beethoven.
+</p>
+<p>
+Robert Schumann was born in the small Saxon town of Zwickau in the
+year 1810, and was designed by his father, a publisher and author
+of considerable reputation, for the profession of the law. The elder
+Schumann, though a man of talent and culture, had a deep distaste for
+his son's clearly displayed tendencies to music, and though he permitted
+him to study something of the science in the usual school-boy way (for
+music has always been a part of the educational course in Germany), he
+discouraged in every way Robert's passion. The boy had quickly become a
+clever player, and even at the age of eight had begun to put his ideas
+on paper. We are told by his biographers that he was accustomed
+to extemporize at school, and had such a knack in portraying the
+characteristics of his school-fellows in music as to make his purpose
+instantly recognizable. His father died when Schumann was only
+seventeen, and his mother, who was also bent on her son becoming a
+jurist, became his guardian. It was a severe battle between taste
+and duty, but love for his widowed mother conquered, and young Robert
+Schumann entered the University of Leipzig as a law student. It was with
+a feeling almost of despair that he wrote at this time, "I have decided
+upon law as my profession, and will work at it industriously, however
+cold and dry the beginning may be." Previously, however, he had spent a
+year in the household of Frederick Wieck, the distinguished teacher of
+music. So much he had exacted before succumbing to maternal pleading.
+At this time he first made the acquaintance of a charming and precocious
+child, Clara Wieck, who played such an important part in his future
+life.
+</p>
+<p>
+Robert Schumann's law studies were inexpressibly tedious to him, and so
+he told his sympathetic professor, the learned Thibaut, author of the
+treatise "On the Purity of Music," in a characteristic manner. He went
+to the piano and played Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," commenting on
+the different passages: "Now she speaks&mdash;that's the love prattle; now
+he speaks&mdash;that's the man's earnest voice; now both the lovers speak
+together "; concluding with the remark, "Isn't all that better far than
+anything that jurisprudence can utter?" The young student became quite
+popular in society as a pianist, heard Ernst and Paganini for the first
+time, and composed several works, among them the Toccata in D major.
+The genius for music would come to the fore in spite of jurisprudence.
+A vacation trip to Italy which the young man made gave fresh fuel to
+the flame, and he began to write the most passionate pleas to his
+mother that she should con sent to his adoption of a musical career. The
+distressed woman wrote to Wieck to know what he thought, and the answer
+was favorable to Robert's aspirations. Robert was intoxicated with his
+mother's concession, and he poured out his enthusiasm to Wieck: "Take
+me as I am, and, above all, bear with me. No blame shall depress me, no
+praise make me idle. Pails upon pails of very cold theory can not hurt
+me, and I will work at it without the least murmur."
+</p>
+<p>
+Taking lodgings at the house of Wieck, Schumann devoted himself to
+piano-forte playing with intense ardor; but his zeal outran prudence.
+To hasten his proficiency and acquire an independent action for each
+finger, he contrived a mechanical apparatus which held the third
+finger of the right hand immovable, while the others went through their
+evolutions. The result was such a lameness of the hand that it was
+incurable, and young Schumann's career as a virtuoso was for ever
+checked. His deep sorrow, however, did not unman him long, for he turned
+his attention to the study of composition and counterpoint under Kupsch,
+and, afterward, Heinrich Dorn. He remained for three years under Wieck's
+roof, and the companionship of the child Clara, whose marvelous musical
+powers were the talk of Leipzig, was a sweet consolation to him in his
+troubles and his toil, though ten years his junior. The love, which
+became a part of his life, had already begun to flutter into unconscious
+being in his feeling for a shy and reserved little girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+Schumann tells us that the year 1834 was the most important one of his
+life, for it witnessed the birth of the "N'eue Zeitschrift fur Musik,"
+a journal which was to embody his notions of ideal music, and to be the
+organ of a clique of enthusiasts in lifting the art out of Philistinism
+and commonplace. The war-cry was "Reform in art," and never-ending
+battle against the little and conventional ideas which were believed
+then to be the curse of German music. Among the earlier contributors
+were Wieck, Schumke, Knorr, Banck, and Schumann himself, who wrote
+under the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius. Between his new journal and
+composing, Schumann was kept busy, but he found time to persuade himself
+that he was in love with Frâulein Ernestine von Fricken, a beautiful but
+somewhat frivolous damsel, who became engaged to the young composer and
+editor. Two years cooled off this passion, and a separation was mutually
+agreed on. Perhaps Schumann recognized something, in the lovely child
+who was swiftly blooming into maidenhood, which made his own inner soul
+protest against any other attachment.
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+It would have been very strange indeed if two such natures as Clara
+Wieck and Robert Schumann had not gravitated toward each other during
+the almost constant intercourse between them which took place between
+1835 and 1838. Clara, born in 1820, had been her father's pupil from her
+tenderest childhood, but the development of her musical gifts was not
+forced in such a way as to interfere with her health and the exuberance
+of her spirits. The exacting teacher was also a tender father and a
+man of ripe judgment, and he knew the bitter price which mere mental
+precocity so frequently has to pay for its existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the young girl's gifts were so extraordinary, and withal her
+character so full of childish simplicity and gayety, that it was
+difficult to think of her as of the average child phenomenon. At the age
+of nine she could play Mozart's concertos, and Hummel's A minor Concerto
+for the orchestra, one of the most difficult of compositions. A year
+later she began to compose, and improvised without difficulty, for her
+lessons in counterpoint and harmony had kept pace with her studies of
+pianoforte technique. Paganini visited Leipzig at this period, and was
+so astonished at the little Clara's precocious genius that he insisted
+on her presence at all his concerts, and addressed her with the deepest
+respect as a fellow-artist. She first appeared in public concert at
+the age of eleven, in Leipzig, Weimar, and other places, playing Pixis,
+Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin. The latter of these
+composers was then almost unknown in Germany, and Clara Wieck, young
+as she was, contributed largely to making him popular. A year later she
+visited Paris in company with her father, and heard Chopin, Liszt, and
+Kalkbrenner, who on their part were delighted with the little artist,
+who, beneath the delicacy and timidity of the child, indicated
+extraordinary powers. Society received her with the most flattering
+approbation, and when her father allowed her to appear in concert her
+playing excited the greatest delight and surprise. Her improvisation
+specially displayed a vigor of imagination, a fine artistic taste, and
+a well-defined knowledge which justly called out the most enthusiastic
+recognition.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Clara Wieck returned home, she gave herself up to work with fresh
+ardor, studying composition under Heinrich Dorn, singing under the
+celebrated Mieksch, and even violin-playing, so great was her ambition
+for musical accomplishments. From 1836 to 1838 she made an extended
+musical tour through Germany, and was welcomed as a musico-poetic ideal
+by the enthusiasts who gathered around her. The poet Grillparzer spoke
+of her as "the innocent child who first unlocked the casket in which
+Beethoven buried his mighty heart," and it must be confessed that Clara
+Wieck, even as a young girl, did more than any other pianist to develop
+a love of and appreciation for the music of the Titan of composers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Long before Schumann distinctly contemplated the image of Clara as
+the beloved one, the half of his soul, he had divined her genius, and
+expressed his opinion of her in no stinted terms of praise. When she was
+as yet only thirteen, he had written of her in his journal: "As I
+know people who, having but just heard Clara, yet rejoice in their
+anticipation of their next occasion of hearing her, I ask, What sustains
+this continual interest in her? Is it the 'wonder child' herself, at
+whose stretches of tenths people shake their heads while they are amazed
+at them, or the most difficult difficulties which she sportively flings
+toward the public like flower garlands? Is it the special pride of
+the city with which a people regards its own natives? Is it that she
+presents to us the most interesting productions of recent art in as
+short a time as possible? Is it that the masses understand that art
+should not depend on the caprices of a few enthusiasts, who would direct
+us back to a century over whose corpse the wheels of time are hastening?
+I know not; I only feel that here we are subdued by genius, which men
+still hold in respect. In short, we here divine the presence of a power
+of which much is spoken, while few indeed possess it.... Early she
+drew the veil of Isis aside. Serenely the child looks up; older eyes,
+perhaps, would have been blinded by that radiant light.... To Clara
+we dare no longer apply the measuring scale of age, but only that of
+fulfillment.... Clara Wieck is the first German artist.... Pearls do not
+float on the surface; they must be sought for in the deep, often with
+danger. But Clara is an intrepid diver."
+</p>
+<p>
+The child whose genius he admired ripened into a lovely young woman, and
+Schumann became conscious that there had been growing in his heart for
+years a deep, ardent love. He had fancied himself in love more
+than once, but now he felt that he could make no mistake as to the
+genuineness of his feelings. In 1836 he confessed his feelings to the
+object of his affections, and discovered that he not only loved but
+was loved, for two such gifted and sympathetic natures could hardly be
+thrown together for years without the growth of a mutual tenderness.
+The marriage project was not favored by Papa Wieck, much as he liked the
+young composer who had so long been his pupil and a member of his family
+circle. The father of Clara looked forward to a brilliant artistic
+career for his daughter, perhaps hoped to marry her to some serene
+highness, and Schumann's prospects were as yet very uncertain. So he
+took Clara on a long artistic journey through Germany, with a view of
+quenching this passion by absence and those public adulations which he
+knew Clara's genius would command. But nothing shook the devotion of
+her heart, and she insisted on playing the compositions of the young
+composer at her concerts, as well as those of Beethoven, Liszt, and
+Chopin, the latter two of whom were just beginning to be known and
+admired.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hoping to overcome Papa Wieck's opposition by success, Schumann took
+his new journal to Vienna, and published it in that city, carrying on
+simultaneously with his editorial duties active labors in composition.
+The attempt to better his fortunes in Vienna, however, did not prove
+very successful, and after six months he returned again to Leipzig.
+Schumann's generous sympathy with other great musicians was signally
+shown in his very first Vienna experiences, for he immediately made
+a pious pilgrimage to the Währing cemetery to offer his pious gift of
+flowers on the graves of Beethoven and Schubert. On Beethoven's grave
+he found a steel pen, which he preserved as a sacred treasure, and used
+afterward in writing his own finest musical fancies. He remembered, too,
+that the brother of Schubert, Ferdinand, was still living in a suburb
+of Vienna. "He knew me," Schumann says, "from my admiration for his
+brother, as I had publicly expressed it, and showed me many things. At
+last he let me look at the treasures of Franz Schubert's compositions,
+which he still possesses. The wealth that lay heaped up made me shudder
+with joy, what to take first, where to cease. Among other things, he
+also showed me the scores of several symphonies, of which many had never
+been heard, while others had been tried, but put back, on the score of
+their being too difficult and bombastic." One of these symphonies, that
+in C major, the largest and grandest in conception, Schumann chose
+and sent to Leipzig, where it was soon afterward produced under
+Mendelssohn's direction at one of the Ge-wandhaus concerts, and produced
+an immediate and profound sensation. For the first time the world
+witnessed, in a more expanded sphere, the powers of a composer the very
+beauties of whose songs had hitherto been fatal to his general success.
+During this period of Schumann's life the most important works he
+composed were the "Études Symphoniques," the famous "Carnival" dedicated
+to Liszt, the "Scenes of Childhood," the "Fantasia" dedicated to Liszt,
+the "Novellettes," and "Kreisleriana." As he writes to Heinrich Dorn:
+"Much music is the result of the contest I am passing through for
+Clara's sake." Schumann's compositions had been introduced to the public
+by the gifted interpretation of Clara Wieck, with whom it was a labor of
+love, and also by Franz Liszt, then rising almost on the top wave of his
+dazzling fame as a virtuoso. Liszt was a profound admirer of the less
+fortunate Schumann, and did everything possible to make him a favorite
+with the public, but for a long time in vain. Liszt writes of this as
+follows: "Since my first knowledge of his compositions I had played many
+of them in private circles at Milan and Vienna, without having succeeded
+in winning the approbation of my hearers. These works were, fortunately
+for them, too far above the then trivial level of taste to find a home
+in the superficial atmosphere of popular applause. The public did not
+fancy them, and few players understood them. Even in Leipzig, where I
+played the 'Carnival' at my second Gewandhaus concert, I did not
+obtain my customary applause. Musicians, even those who claimed to be
+connoisseurs also, carried too thick a mask over their ears to be able
+to comprehend that charming 'Carnival,' harmoniously framed as it is,
+and ornamented with such rich variety of artistic fancy. I did not
+doubt, however, but that this work would eventually win its place in
+general appreciation beside Beethoven's thirty-three variations on a
+theme by Diabelli (which work it surpasses, according to my opinion, in
+melody, richness, and inventiveness)." Both as a composer and writer on
+music, Schumann embodied his deep detestation of the Philistinism and
+commonplace which stupefied the current opinions of the time, and he
+represented in Germany the same battle of the romantic in art against
+what was known as the classical which had been carried on so fiercely in
+France by Berlioz, Liszt, and Chopin.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+The year 1840 was one of the most important in Schumann's life. In
+February he was created Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Jena,
+and, still more precious boon to the man's heart, Wieck's objections to
+the marriage with Clara had been so far melted away that he consented,
+though with reluctance, to their union. The marriage took place quietly
+at a little church in Schônfeld, near Leipzig. This year was one of the
+most fruitful of Schumann's life. His happiness burst forth in lyric
+forms. He wrote the amazing number of one hundred and thirty-eight
+songs, among which the more famous are the set entitled "Myrtles," the
+cycles of song from Heine, dedicated to Pauline Viardot, Chamisso's
+"Woman's Love and Life," and Heine's "Poet Love." Schumann as a
+song-writer must be called indeed the musical reflex of Heine, for his
+immortal works have the same passionate play of pathos and melancholy,
+the sharp-cut epigrammatic form, the grand swell of imagination,
+impatient of the limits set by artistic taste, which characterize the
+poet themes. Schumann says that nearly all the works composed at this
+time were written under Clara's inspiration solely. Blest with the
+continual companionship of a woman of genius, as amiable as she was
+gifted, who placed herself as a gentle mediator between Schumann's
+intellectual life and the outer world, he composed many of his finest
+vocal and instrumental compositions during the years immediately
+succeeding his marriage; among them the cantata "Paradise and the
+Peri," and the "Faust" music. His own connection with public life
+was restricted to his position as teacher of piano-forte playing,
+composition, and score playing at the Leipzig Conservatory, while the
+gifted wife was the interpreter of his beautiful piano-forte works as an
+executant. A more perfect fitness and companionship in union could not
+have existed, and one is reminded of the married life of the poet pair,
+the Brownings. After four years of happy and quiet life, in which mental
+activity was inspired by the most delightful of domestic surroundings,
+an artistic tour to St. Petersburg was undertaken by Robert and Clara
+Schumann. Our composer did not go without reluctance. "Forgive me," he
+writes to a friend, "if I forbear telling you of my unwillingness to
+leave my quiet home." He seems to have had a melancholy premonition that
+his days of untroubled happiness were over. A genial reception awaited
+them at the Russian capital. They were frequently invited to the Winter
+Palace by the emperor and empress, and the artistic circles of the city
+were very enthusiastic over Mme. Schumann's piano-forte playing. Since
+the days of John Field, Clementi's great pupil, no one had raised such
+a furore among the music-loving Russians. Schumann's music, which it was
+his wife's dearest privilege to interpret, found a much warmer welcome
+than among his own countrymen at that date. In the Sclavonic nature
+there is a deep current of romance and mysticism, which met with
+instinctive sympathy the dreamy and fantastic thoughts which ran riot in
+Schumann's works.
+</p>
+<p>
+On returning from the St. Petersburg tour, Schumann gave up the "Neue
+Zeitschrift," the journal which he had made such a powerful organ of
+musical revolution, and transferred it to Oswald Lorenz. Schumann's
+literary work is so deeply intertwined with his artistic life and
+mission that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate the two.
+He had achieved a great work&mdash;he had planted in the German mind the
+thought that there was such a thing as progress and growth; that
+stagnation was death; and that genius was for ever shaping for itself
+new forms and developments. He had taught that no art is an end to
+itself, and that, unless it embodies the deep-seated longings and
+aspirations of men ever striving toward a loftier ideal, it becomes
+barren and fruitless&mdash;the mere survival of a truth whose need had
+ceased. He was the apostle of the musico-poetical art in Germany, and,
+both as author and composer, strove with might and main to educate his
+countrymen up to a clear understanding of the ultimate outcome of the
+work begun by Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber.
+</p>
+<p>
+Schumann as a critic was eminently catholic and comprehensive. Deeply
+appreciative of the old lights of music, he received with enthusiasm all
+the fresh additions contributed by musical genius to the progress of
+his age. Eschewing the cold, objective, technical form of criticism,
+his method of approaching the work of others was eminently subjective,
+casting on them the illumination which one man of genius gives
+to another. The cast of his articles was somewhat dramatic and
+conversational, and the characters represented as contributing
+their opinions to the symposium of discussion were modeled on actual
+personages. He himself was personified under the dual form of Florestan
+and Eusebius, the "two souls in his breast"&mdash;the former, the fiery
+iconoclast, impulsive in his judgments and reckless in attacking
+prejudices; the latter, the mild, genial, receptive dreamer. Master
+Raro, who stood for Wieck, also typified the calm, speculative side of
+Schumann's nature. Chiara represented Clara Wieck, and personified the
+feminine side of art. So the various personages were all modeled after
+associates of Schumann, and, aside from the freshness and fascination
+which this method gave his style, it enabled him to approach his
+subjects from many sides. The name of the imaginary society was the
+Davids-bund, probably from King David and his celebrated harp, or
+perhaps in virtue of David's victories over the Philistines of his day.
+</p>
+<p>
+As an illustration of Schumann's style and method of treating musical
+subjects, we can not do better than give his article on Chopin's "Don
+Juan Fantasia": "Eusebius entered not long ago. You know his pale face
+and the ironical smile with which he awakens expectation. I sat with
+Florestan at the piano-forte. Florestan is, as you know, one of
+those rare musical minds that foresee, as it were, coming novel or
+extraordinary things. But he encountered a surprise today. With the
+words 'Off with your hats, gentlemen! a genius,' Eusebius laid down a
+piece of music. We were not allowed to see the title-page. I turned over
+the music vacantly; the veiled enjoyment of music which one does not
+hear has something magical in it. And besides this, it seems that every
+composer has something different in the note forms. Beethoven looks
+differently from Mozart on paper; the difference resembles that between
+Jean Paul's and Goethe's prose. But here it seemed as if eyes, strange,
+were glancing up to me&mdash;flower eyes, basilisk eyes, peacock's eyes,
+maiden's eyes; in many places it looked yet brighter. I thought I
+saw Mozart's 'La ci darem la mano' wound through a hundred chords.
+<i>Leporello</i> seemed to wink at me, and <i>Don Juan</i> hurried past in his
+white mantle. 'Now play it,' said Florestan. Eusebius consented, and we,
+in the recess of a window, listened. Eusebius played as though he were
+inspired, and led forward countless forms filled with the liveliest,
+warmest life; it seemed that the inspiration of the moment gave to his
+fingers a power beyond the ordinary measure of their cunning. It is true
+that Florestan's whole applause was expressed in nothing but a happy
+smile, and the remark that the variations might have been written by
+Beethoven or Franz Schubert, had either of these been a piano virtuoso;
+but how surprised he was when, turning to the title-page, he read 'La ci
+darem la mano, varié pour le piano-forte, par Frederic Chopin, Ouvre 2,'
+and with what astonishment we both cried out, 'An Opus 2!' How our faces
+glowed as we wondered, exclaiming, 'That is something reasonable once
+more! Chopin? I never heard of the name&mdash;who can he be? In any case, a
+genius. Is not that <i>Zerlina's</i> smile, And <i>Leporello</i>, etc' I could not
+describe the scene. Heated with wine, Chopin, and our own enthusiasm,
+we went to Master Raro, who with a smile, and displaying but little
+curiosity for Chopin, said, 'Bring me the Chopin! I know you and your
+enthusiasm.' We promised to bring it the next day. Eusebius soon bade us
+good-night. I remained a short time with Master Raro. Florestan, who had
+been for some time without a habitation, hurried to my house through the
+moonlit streets. 'Chopin's variations,' he began, as if in a dream,
+'are constantly running through my head; the whole is so dramatic
+and Chopin-like; the introduction is so concentrated. Do you remember
+<i>Leporello's</i> springs in thirds? That seems to me somewhat unfitted
+to the theme; but the theme&mdash;why did he write that in A flat? The
+variations, the finale, the adagio, these are indeed something; genius
+burns through every measure. Naturally, dear Julius, <i>Don Juan, Zerlina,
+Leporello, Massetto</i>, are the <i>dramatis persona; Zerlina's</i> answer in
+the theme has a sufficiently enamored character; the first variation
+expresses, a kind of coquettish coveteousness: the Spanish Grandee
+flirts amiably with the peasant girl in it. This leads of itself to the
+second, which is at once confidential, disputative, and comic, as though
+two lovers were chasing each other and laughing more than usual about
+it. How all this is changed in the third! It is filled with fairy music
+and moonshine; <i>Masetto</i> keeps at a distance, swearing audibly, but
+without any effect on <i>Don Juan</i>. And now the fourth&mdash;what do you
+think of it? Eusebius played it altogether correctly. How boldly, how
+wantonly, it springs forward to meet the man! though the adagio (it
+seems quite natural to me that Chopin repeats the first part) is in
+B flat minor, as it should be, for in its commencement it presents a
+beautiful moral warning to <i>Don Juan</i>. It is at once so mischievous
+and beautiful that <i>Leporello</i> listens behind the hedge, laughing and
+jesting that oboes and clarionettes enchantingly allure, and that the
+B flat major in full bloom correctly designates the first kiss of love.
+But all this is nothing compared to the last (have you any more wine,
+Julius?). That is the whole of Mozart's finale, popping champagne corks,
+ringing glasses, <i>Leporello's</i> voice between, the grasping, torturing
+demons, the fleeing <i>Don Juan</i>&mdash;and then the end, that beautifully
+soothes and closes all.' Florestan concluded by saying that he had never
+experienced feelings similar to those awakened by the finale. When the
+evening sunlight of a beautiful day creeps up toward the highest peaks,
+and when the last beam vanishes, there comes a moment when the white
+Alpine giants close their eyes. We feel that we have witnessed a
+heavenly apparition. 'And now awake to new dreams, Julius, and sleep.'
+'Dear Flores-tan,' I answered, 'these confidential feelings, are perhaps
+praiseworthy, although somewhat subjective; but as deeply as yourself I
+bend before Chopin's spontaneous genius, his lofty aim, his mastership;
+and after that we fell asleep.'" This article was the first journalistic
+record of Chopin's genius.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+When Schumann gave up his journal in 1845 he moved to Dresden, and he
+began to suffer severely from the dreadful disorder to which he fell a
+victim twelve years later. This disease&mdash;an abnormal formation of
+bone in the brain&mdash;afflicted him with excruciating pains in the head,
+sleeplessness, fear of death, and strange auricular delusions. A sojourn
+at Parma, where he had complete repose and a course of sea-bathing,
+partially restored his health, and he gave himself up to musical
+composition again. During the next three years, up to 1849, Schumann
+wrote some of his finest works, among which may be mentioned his opera
+"Genoviva," his Second symphony, the cantata "The Rose's Pilgrimage,"
+more beautiful songs, much piano-forte and concerted music, and the
+musical illustrations of Byron's "Manfred," which latter is one of his
+greatest orchestral works.
+</p>
+<p>
+During the years 1850 to 1854 Schumann composed his "Rhenish Symphony,"
+the overtures to the "Bride of Messina" and "Hermann and Dorothea,"
+and many vocal and piano-forte works. He accepted the post of musical
+director at Dűsseldorf in 1850, removed to that city with his wife and
+children, and, on arriving, the artistic pair were received with a
+civic banquet. The position was in many respects agreeable, but the
+responsibilities were too great for Schumann's declining health, and
+probably hastened his death. In 1853 Robert and Clara Schumann made
+a grand artistic tour through Holland, which resembled a triumphal
+procession, so great was the musical enthusiasm called out. When they
+returned Schumann's malady returned with double force, and on February
+27, 1854, he attempted to end his misery by jumping into the Rhine.
+Madness had seized him with a clutch which was never to be released,
+except at short intervals. Every possible care was lavished on him by
+his heartbroken and devoted wife, and the assiduous attention of the
+friends who reverenced the genius now for ever quenched. The last two
+years of his life were spent in the private insane asylum at Endenich,
+near Bonn, where he died July 20, 1856. Schumann possessed a wealth of
+musical imagination which, if possibly equaled in a few instances, is
+nowhere surpassed in the records of his art. For him music possessed
+all the attributes inherent in the other arts&mdash;absolute color and
+flexibility of form. That he attempted to express these phases of art
+expression, with an almost boundless trust in their applicability to
+tone and sound, not unfrequently makes them obscure to the last degree,
+but it also gave much of his composition a richness, depth, and subtilty
+of suggestive power which place them in a unique niche, and will
+always preserve them as objects of the greatest interest to the musical
+student. There is no doubt that his increasing mental malady is evident
+in the chaotic character of some of his later orchestral compositions,
+but, in those works composed during his best period, splendor of
+imagination goes hand in hand with genuine art treatment. This is
+specially noticeable in the songs and the piano-forte works. Schumann
+was essentially lyrical and subjective, though his intellectual breadth
+and culture (almost unrivaled among his musical compeers) always kept
+him from narrowness as a composer. He led the van in the formation of
+that pictorial and descriptive style of music which has asserted itself
+in German music, but his essentially lyric personality in his attitude
+to the outer world presented the external thoroughly saturated and
+modified by his own moods and feelings.
+</p>
+<p>
+In his piano-forte works we find his most complete and satisfactory
+development as the artist composer. Here the world, with its myriad
+impressions, its facts, its purposes, its tendencies, met the man and
+commingled in a series of exquisite creations, which are true tone
+pictures. In this domain Beethoven alone was worthy to be compared with
+him, though the animus and scheme of the Beethoven piano-forte works
+grew out of a totally different method.
+</p>
+<p>
+In personal appearance Schumann bore the marks of the man of genius. As
+he reached middle age we are told of him that his figure was of middle
+height, inclined to stoutness, that his bearing was dignified, his
+movements slow. His features, though irregular, produced an agreeable
+impression; his forehead was broad and high, the nose heavy, the eyes
+excessively bright, though generally veiled and downcast, the mouth
+delicately cut, the hair thick and brown, his cheeks full and ruddy. His
+head was squarely formed, of an intensely powerful character, and the
+whole expression of his face sweet and genial. Even when young he was
+distinguished by a kind of absent-mindedness that prevented him from
+taking much part in conversation. Once, it is said, he entered a lady's
+drawing-room to call, played a few chords on the piano, and smilingly
+left without speaking a word. But, among intimate friends, he could be
+extraordinarily fluent and eloquent in discussing an interesting topic.
+He was conscious of his own shyness, and once wrote to a friend: "I
+shall be very glad to see you here. In me, however, you must not expect
+to find much. I scarcely ever speak except in the evening, and most in
+playing the piano." His wife was the crowning blessing of his life. She
+was not only his consoler, but his other intellectual life, for she,
+with her great powers as a virtuoso, interpreted his music to the world,
+both before and after his death. It has rarely been the lot of an artist
+to see his most intimate feelings and aspirations embodied to the world
+by the genius of the mother of his children. Well did Ferdinand Hiller
+write of this artist couple: "What love beautified his life! A woman
+stood beside him, crowned with the starry circlet of genius, to whom he
+seemed at once the father to his daughter, the master to the scholar,
+the bridegroom to the bride, the saint to the disciple."
+</p>
+<p>
+Clara Schumann still lives, though becoming fast an old woman in years,
+if still young in heart, and still able to win the admiration of the
+musical world by her splendid playing. Berlioz, who heard her in her
+youth, pronounced her the greatest virtuoso in Germany, in one of his
+letters to Heine; and while she was little more than a child she had
+gained the heartiest admiration in England, France, and Germany. Henry
+Chorley heard her at Leipzig in 1839, and speaks of "the organ-playing
+on the piano of Mme. Schumann (better known in England under the name of
+Clara Wieck), who commands her instrument with the enthusiasm of a sibyl
+and the grasp of a man." Since Schumann's death, Mme. Schumann has been
+known as the exponent of her husband's works, which she has performed in
+Germany and England with an insight, a power of conception, and a beauty
+of treatment which have contributed much to the recognition of his
+remarkable genius.
+</p>
+<center>
+V.
+</center>
+<p>
+The name of Frederic Francis Chopin is so closely linked in the minds
+of musical students with that of Schumann in that art renaissance which
+took place almost simultaneously in France and Germany, when so many
+daring and original minds broke loose from the petrifactions of custom
+and tradition, that we shall not venture to separate them here. Chopin
+was too timid and gentle to be a bold aggressor, like Berlioz, Liszt,
+and Schumann, but his whole nature responded to the movement, and his
+charming and most original compositions, which glow with the fire of a
+genius perhaps narrow in its limits, have never been surpassed for their
+individuality and poetic beauty. The present brief sketch of Chopin
+does not propose to consider his life biographically, full of pathos and
+romance as that life may be.*
+</p>
+<pre>
+     * See article Chopin, in "Great German Composers."
+</pre>
+<p>
+Schumann, in his "N'eue Zeitschrift," sums up the characteristics of the
+Polish composer admirably; "Genius creates kingdoms, the smaller states
+of which are again divided by a higher hand among talents, that these
+may organize details which the former, in its thousand-fold activity,
+would be unable to perfect. As Hummel, for example, followed the call
+of Mozart, clothing the thoughts of that master in a flowing, sparkling
+robe, so Chopin followed Beethoven. Or, to speak more simply, as Hummel
+imitated the style of Mozart in detail, rendering it enjoyable to the
+virtuoso on one particular instrument, so Chopin led the spirit of
+Beethoven into the concert-room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Chopin did not make his appearance accompanied by an orchestral army,
+as great genius is accustomed to do; he only possessed a small cohort,
+but every soul belongs to him to the last hero.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is the pupil of the first masters&mdash;Beethoven, Schubert, Field. The
+first formed his mind in boldness, the second his heart in tenderness,
+the third his hand to its flexibility. Thus he stood well provided with
+deep knowledge in his art, armed with courage in the full consciousness
+of his power, when in the year 1830 the great voice of the people arose
+in the West. Hundreds of youths had waited for the moment; but Chopin
+was the first on the summit of the wall, behind which lay a cowardly
+renaissance, a dwarfish Philistinism, asleep. Blows were dealt right
+and left, and the Philistines awoke angrily, crying out, 'Look at the
+impudent one!' while others behind the besieger cried, 'The one of noble
+courage.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Besides this, and the favorable influence of period and condition, fate
+rendered Chopin still more individual and interesting in endowing him
+with an original pronounced nationality; Polish, too, and because this
+nationality wanders in mourning robes in the thoughtful artist, it
+deeply attracts us. It was well for him that neutral Germany did not
+receive him too warmly at first, and that his genius led him straight
+to one of the great capitals of the world, where he could freely poetize
+and grow angry. If the powerful autocrat of the North knew what a
+dangerous enemy threatens him in Chopin's works in the simple melodies
+of his mazurkas, he would forbid music. Chopin's works are cannons
+buried in flowers.... He is the boldest, proudest poet soul of to-day."
+</p>
+<p>
+But Schumann could have said something more than this, and added that
+Chopin was a musician of exceptional attainments, a virtuoso of the very
+highest order, a writer for the piano pure and simple preeminent beyond
+example, and a master of a unique and perfect style.
+</p>
+<p>
+Chopin was born of mixed French and Polish parentage, February 8,
+1810, at Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw. He was educated at the Warsaw
+Conservatory, and his eminent genius for the piano shone at this time
+most unmistakably. He found in the piano-forte an exclusive organ for
+the expression of his thoughts. In the presence of this confidential
+companion he forgot his shyness and poured forth his whole soul.
+A passionate lover of his native country, and burning with those
+aspirations for freedom which have made Poland since its first partition
+a volcano ever ready to break forth, the folk-themes of Poland are
+at the root of all of Chopin's compositions, and in the waltzes and
+mazurkas bearing his name we find a passionate glow and richness of
+color which make them musical poems of the highest order.
+</p>
+<p>
+Chopin's art position, both as a pianist and composer, was a unique one.
+He was accustomed to say that the breath of the concert-room stifled
+him, whereas Liszt, his intimate friend and fellow-artist, delighted in
+it as a war-horse delights in the tumult of battle. Chopin always shrank
+from the display of his powers as a mere executant. To exhibit his
+talents to the public was an offense to him, and he only cared for his
+remarkable technical skill as a means of placing his fanciful original
+poems in tone rightly before the public. It was with the greatest
+difficulty that his intimate friends, Liszt, Meyerbeer, Nourrit,
+Delacroix, Heine, Mme. George Sand, Countess D'Agoult, and others, could
+persuade him to appear before large mixed audiences. His genius only
+shone unconstrained as a player in the society of a few chosen intimate
+friends, with whom he felt a perfect sympathy, artistic, social, and
+intellectual. Exquisite, fastidious, and refined, Chopin was loss an
+aristocrat from political causes, or even by virtue of social caste,
+than from the fact that his art nature, which was delicate, feminine,
+and sensitive, shrank from all companions except those molded of the
+finest clay. We find this sense of exclusiveness and isolation in all
+of the Chopin music, as in some quaint, fantastic, ideal world, whose
+master would draw us up to his sphere, but never descend to ours.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the treatment of the technical means of the piano-forte, he entirely
+wanders from the old methods. Moscheles, a great pianist in an age of
+great players, gave it up in despair, and confessed that he could not
+play Chopin's music. The latter teaches the fingers to serve his own
+artistic uses, without regard to the notions of the schools. It is said
+that M. Kalkbrenner advised Chopin to attend his classes at the Paris
+Conservatoire, that the latter might learn the proper fingering. Chopin
+answered his officious adviser by placing one of his own "Études" before
+him, and asking him to play it. The failure of the pompous professor
+was ludicrous, for the old-established technique utterly failed to do it
+justice. Chopin's end as a player was to faithfully interpret the poetry
+of his own composition. His genius as a composer taught him to make
+innovations in piano-forte effects. He was thus not only a great
+inventor as a composer, but as regards the technique of the piano-forte.
+He not only told new things well worth hearing which the world would not
+forget, but devised new ways of saying them, and it mattered but little
+to him whether his more forcible and passionate dialectic offended what
+Schumann calls musical Philistinism or no. Chopin formed a school of his
+own which was purely the outcome of his genius, though as Schumann, in
+the extract previously quoted, justly says: "He was molded by the
+deep poetic spirit of Beethoven, with whom form only had value as it
+expressed truthfully and beautifully symmetry of conception."
+</p>
+<p>
+The forms of Chopin's compositions grew out of the keyboard of the
+piano, and their <i>genre</i> is so peculiar that it is nearly impracticable
+to transpose them for any other instrument. Some of the noted
+contemporary violinists have attempted to transpose a few of the
+Nocturnes and Études, but without success. Both Schumann and Liszt
+succeeded in adapting Paganini's most complex and difficult violin works
+for the piano-forte, but the compositions of Chopin are so essentially
+born to and of the one instrument that they can not be well suited to
+any other. The cast of the melody, the matchless beauty and swing of the
+rhythm, his ingenious treatment of harmony, and the chromatic changes
+and climaxes through which the motives are developed, make up a new
+chapter in the history of the piano-forte.
+</p>
+<p>
+Liszt, in his life of Chopin, says of him: "His character was indeed
+not easily understood. A thousand subtile shades, mingling, crossing,
+contradicting, and disguising each other, rendered it almost
+undecipherable at first view; kind, courteous, affable, and almost
+of joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret convulsions which
+agitated him to be ever suspected. His works, concertos, waltzes,
+sonatas, ballades, polonaises, mazurkas, nocturnes, scherzi, all reflect
+a similar enigma in a most poetical and romantic form."
+</p>
+<p>
+Chopin's moral nature was not cast in an heroic mold, and he lacked the
+robust intellectual marrow which is essential to the highest forms of
+genius in art as well as in literature and affairs, though it is not
+safe to believe that he was, as painted by George Sand and Liszt, a
+feeble youth, continually living at death's door in an atmosphere of
+moonshine and sentimentality. But there can be no question that the
+whole bent of Chopin's temperament and genius was melancholy, romantic,
+and poetic, and that frequently he gives us mere musical moods and
+reveries, instead of well-defined and well-developed ideas. His music
+perhaps loses nothing, for, if it misses something of the clear,
+inspiring, vigorous quality of other great composers, it has a subtile,
+dreamy, suggestive beauty all its own.
+</p>
+<p>
+The personal life of Chopin was singularly interesting. His long and
+intimate connection with George Sand; the circumstances under which it
+was formed; the blissful idyl of the lovers in the isle of Majorca; the
+awakening from the dream, and the separation&mdash;these and other striking
+circumstances growing out of a close association with what was best in
+Parisian art and life, invest the career of the man, aside from his art,
+with more than common charm to the mind of the reader. Having touched
+on these phases of Chopin's life at some length in a previous volume of
+this series, we must reluctantly pass them by.
+</p>
+<p>
+In closing this imperfect review of the Polish composer, it is enough to
+say that the present generation has more than sustained the judgment
+of his own as to the unique and wonderful beauty of his compositions.
+Hardly any concert programme is considered complete without one or more
+numbers selected from his works; and though there are but few pianists,
+even in a day when Chopin as a stylist has been a study, who can do
+his subtile and wonderful fancies justice, there is no composer for the
+piano-forte who so fascinates the musical mind.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0014" id="h2H_4_0014"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    THALBERG AND GOTTSCHALK.
+</h2>
+<p>
+Thalberg one of the Greatest of Executants.&mdash;Bather a Man of Remarkable
+Talents than of Genius.&mdash;Moscheles's Description of him.&mdash;The
+Illegitimate Son of an Austrian Prince.&mdash;Early Introduction to
+Musical Society in London and Vienna.&mdash;Beginning of his Career as a
+Virtuoso.&mdash;The Brilliancy of his Career.&mdash;Is appointed Court Pianist to
+the Emperor of Austria.&mdash;His Marriage.&mdash;Visits to America.&mdash;Thalborg's
+Artistic Idiosyncrasy.&mdash;Robert Schumann on his Playing.&mdash;His Appearance
+and Manner.&mdash;Characterization by George William Curtis.&mdash;Thalberg's
+Style and Worth as an Artist.&mdash;His Pianoforte Method, and Place as a
+Composer for the Piano.&mdash;Gott-schalk's Birth and Early Years.&mdash;He is
+sent to Paris for Instruction.&mdash;Successful <i>Début</i> and Public
+Concerts in Paris and Tour through the French Cities.&mdash;Friendship with
+Berlioz.&mdash;Concert Tour to Spain.&mdash;Romantic Experiences.&mdash;Berlioz on
+Gottschalk.&mdash;Reception of Gottschalk in America.&mdash;Criticism of his
+Style.&mdash;Remarkable Success of his Concerts.&mdash;His Visit to the West
+Indies, Mexico, and Central America.&mdash;Protracted Absence.&mdash;Gottschalk
+on Life in the Tropics.&mdash;Return to the United States.&mdash;Three Brilliant
+Musical Years.&mdash;Departure for South America.&mdash;Triumphant Procession
+through the Spanish-American Cities.&mdash;Death at Rio Janeiro.&mdash;Notes on
+Gottschalk as Man and Artist.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+One of the most remarkable of the great piano-forte virtuosos was
+unquestionably Sigismond Thalberg, an artist who made a profound
+sensation in two hemispheres, and filled a large space in the musical
+world for more than forty-five years. Originally a disciple of the
+Viennese school of piano-forte playing, a pupil of Mosche-les, and a
+rigid believer in making the instrument which was the medium of his
+talent sufficient unto itself, wholly indifferent to the daring and
+boundless ambition which made his great rival, Franz Liszt, pile Pelion
+on Ossa in his grasp after new effects, Thalberg developed virtuoso-ism
+to its extreme degree by a mechanical dexterity which was perhaps
+unrivaled. But the fingers can not express more than rests in the heart
+and brain to give to their skill, and Thalberg, with all his immense
+talent, seems to have lacked the divine spark of genius. It goes without
+saying, to those who are familiar with the current cant of criticism,
+that the word genius is often applied in a very loose and misleading
+manner. But, in all estimates of art and artists, where there are two
+clearly defined factors, imagination or formative power and technical
+dexterity, it would seem that there should not be any error in deciding
+on the propriety of such a word as a measure of the quality of an
+artist's gifts. The lack of the creative impulse could not be mistaken
+in Thalberg's work, whether as player or composer. But the ability to
+execute all that came within the scope of his sympathies or intelligence
+was so prodigious that the world was easily dazzled into forgetting
+his deficiencies in the loftier regions of art. Trifles are often very
+significant. What, for example, could more vividly portray an artist's
+tendencies than the description of Thalberg by Moscheles, who knew him
+more thoroughly than any other contemporary, and felt a keener sympathy
+with his <i>genre</i> as an artist than with the more striking originality of
+Chopin and Liszt. Moscheles writes:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I find his introduction of harp effects on the piano quite original.
+His theme, which lies in the middle part, is brought out clearly in
+relief with an accompaniment of complicated arpeggios which reminds me
+of a harp. The audience is amazed. He himself sits immovably calm;
+his whole bearing as he sits at the piano is soldierlike; his lips are
+tightly compressed and his coat buttoned closely. He told me he acquired
+this attitude of self-control by smoking a Turkish pipe while practicing
+his piano-forte exercises: the length of the tube was so calculated as
+to keep him erect and motionless." This exact discipline and mechanism
+were not merely matters of technical culture; they were the logical
+outcome of the man and surely a part of himself. But within his limits,
+fixed as these were, Thalberg was so great that he must be conceded to
+be one of the most striking and brilliant figures of an age fecund in
+fine artists.
+</p>
+<p>
+Thalberg was born at Geneva, January 7,1812, and was the natural son of
+Prince Dietrichstein, an Austrian nobleman, temporarily resident in that
+city. His talent for music, inherited from both sides, for his mother
+was an artist and his father an amateur of no inconsiderable skill,
+became obvious at a very tender age, following the law which so
+generally holds in music that superior gifts display themselves at an
+early period. These indications of nature were not ignored, for the boy
+was placed under instruction before he had completed his sixth year. It
+is a little singular that his first teacher was not a pianist, though a
+very superior musician. Mittag was one of the first bassoonists of
+his times, and, in addition to his technical skill, a thoroughly
+accomplished man in the science of his profession. Thalberg was
+accustomed to attribute the wonderfully rich and mellow tone which
+characterized his playing to the influence and training of Mittag. From
+this instructor the future great pianist passed to the charge of the
+distinguished Hummel, who was not only one of the greatest virtuosos of
+the age, but ranked by his admirers as only a little less than Beethoven
+himself in his genius for pianoforte compositions, though succeeding
+generations have discredited his former fame by estimating him merely
+a "dull classic." Contemporaneously with his pupilage under Hummel,
+he studied the theory of music with Simon Sechter, an eminent
+contrapuntist. Even at this early age, for Thalberg must have been
+less than ten years old, he impressed all by the great precision of
+his fingering and the instinctive ease with which he mastered the most
+difficult mechanism of the art of playing. At the age of fourteen young
+Thalberg went to London in the household of his father, who had been
+appointed imperial ambassador to England, and the youth was then placed
+under the instruction of the great pianist Moscheles. The latter speaks
+of Thalberg as the most distinguished of his pupils, and as being, even
+at that age, already an artist of distinction and mark. It was a source
+of much pleasure to Moscheles that his brilliant scholar, who played
+much at private soirées, was not only recognized by the <i>dilletante</i>
+public generally, but by such veteran artists as Clementi and Cramer.
+Moscheles, in his diary, speaks of the wonderful brilliancy of a grand
+fancy dress ball given by Thalberg's princely father at Covent Garden
+Theatre. Pit, stalls, and proscenium were formed into one grand room,
+in which the crowd promenaded. The costumes were of every conceivable
+variety, and many of the most gorgeous description. The spectators, in
+full dress, sat in the boxes; on the stage was a court box, occupied by
+the royal family; and bands played in rooms adjoining for small parties
+of dancers. "You will have some idea," wrote Mme. Moscheles, in a
+letter, "of the crowd at this ball, when I tell you that we left the
+ballroom at two o'clock and did not get to the prince's carriage till
+four." One of the interesting features of this ball was that the
+boy Thalberg played in one of the smaller rooms before the most
+distinguished people present, including the royal family, all crowding
+in to hear the youthful virtuoso, whose tacit recognition by his father
+had already opened to him the most brilliant drawing-rooms in London.
+</p>
+<p>
+Thalberg did not immediately begin to perform in public, but, on
+returning to Vienna in 1827, played continually at private soirées,
+where he had the advantage of being heard and criticised by the foremost
+amateurs and musicians of the Austrian capital. It had some time since
+become obvious to the initiated that another great player was about to
+be launched on his career. The following year the young artist tried his
+hand at composition, for he published variations on themes from Weber's
+"Euryanthe," which were well received. Thalberg in after-years spoke of
+all his youthful productions with disdain, but his early works displayed
+not a little of the brilliant style of treatment which subsequently gave
+his fantasias a special place among compositions for the piano-forte.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not till 1830 that young Thalberg fairly began his career as
+a traveling player. The cities of Germany received him with the most
+<i>éclatant</i> admiration, and his feats of skill as a performer were
+trumpeted by the newspapers and musical journals as something
+unprecedented in the art of pianism. From Germany Thalberg proceeded to
+France and England, and his audiences were no less pronounced in their
+recognition. Liszt had already been before him in Paris, and Chopin
+arrived about the same time. Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller, and
+Field were playing, but the splendid, calm beauty of Thalberg's style
+instantly captivated the public, and elicited the most extravagant
+and delighted applause not only from the public, but from enlightened
+connoisseurs.
+</p>
+<p>
+To follow the course of Thalberg's pianoforte achievements in his
+musical travels through Europe would be merely to repeat a record of
+uninterrupted successes. He disarmed envy and criticism everywhere, and
+even those disposed to withhold a frank and generous acknowledgment of
+his greatness did not dare to question powers of execution which
+seemed without a technical flaw. During his travels Thalberg composed
+a concerto for piano and orchestra, to play at his concerts. But this
+species of composition was so obviously unsuited to his abilities that
+he quickly forsook it, and thenceforward devoted his efforts exclusively
+to the instrument of which he was such an eminent master. A more
+extensive ambition had been rebuked in more ways than one. He composed
+two operas, "Fiorinda" and "Christine," and of course easily yielded to
+the entreaties of his admirers to have them produced. But it was clearly
+evident that his musical idiosyncrasy, though magnificent of its kind,
+was limited in range, and after the failure of his operas and attempts
+at orchestral writing Thalberg calmly accepted the situation.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the year 1834 Thalberg was appointed pianist of the Imperial Chamber
+to the court of Austria, and accompanied the Emperor Ferdinand to
+Toplitz, where a convocation of the European sovereigns took place. His
+performances were warmly received by the assembled monarchs, and he was
+overwhelmed with presents and congratulations. Thalberg's way throughout
+the whole of his life was strewn with roses, and, though his career did
+not present the same romantic incidents which make the life of Franz
+Liszt so picturesque, it was attended by the same lavish favors of
+fortune. From one patron he received the gift of a fine estate, from
+another a magnificent city mansion in Vienna, and testimonials, like
+snuff-boxes set with diamonds, jeweled court-swords, superbly set
+portraits of his royal and imperial patrons, and costly jewelry, poured
+in on him continually. Imperial orders from Austria and Russia were
+bestowed on him, and hardly any mark of favor was denied him by that
+good fortune which had been auspicious to him from his very birth. In
+1845, while still in the service of the Austrian emperor, though he did
+not intermit his musical tours through the principal European cities,
+Thalberg married the charming widow, whom he had known and admired
+before her marriage, the daughter of the great singer Lablache, Mme.
+Bouchot, whose first husband had been the distinguished French painter
+of that name. The marriage was a happy one, though scandal, which loves
+to busy itself about the affairs of musical celebrities, did not fail
+to associate Thalberg's name with several of the most beautiful women of
+his time. Mile. Thalberg, a daughter of this marriage, made her <i>début</i>
+with considerable success in London, in 1874.
+</p>
+<p>
+Thalberg's first visit to America was in 1853, and he came again in
+1857, to more than repeat the enthusiastic reception with which he was
+greeted by music-loving Americans. Musical culture at that time had not
+attained the refinement and knowledge which now make an audience in
+one of our greater cities as fastidious and intelligent as can be found
+anywhere in the world. But Thalberg's wonderful playing, though lacking
+in the fire, glow, and impetuosity which would naturally most arouse the
+less cultivated musical sense, created a <i>furore</i>, which has never been
+matched since, among those who specially prided themselves on being good
+judges. He extended both tours to Cuba, Mexico, and South America, and
+it is said took away with him larger gains than he had ever made during
+the same period in Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+During the latter years of Thalberg's life he spent much of his time
+in elegant ease at his fine country estate near Naples, only giving
+concerts at some few of the largest European capitals, like London and
+Paris. He became an enthusiastic wine-grower, and wine from his estate
+gained a medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1867. Many of his best
+piano-forte compositions date from the period when he had given up the
+active pursuit of virtuosoism. His works comprise a concerto, three
+sonatas, many nocturnes, rondos, and études, about thirty fantasias, two
+operas, and an instruction series, which latter has been adopted by many
+of the best teachers, and has been the means of forming a number of able
+pupils. This fine artist died at his Neapolitan estate, April 27, 1871.
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+Thalberg had but little sympathy with the dreamy romanticism which
+found such splendid exponents, while he was yet in his early youth,
+in Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt. Imagination in its higher functions he
+seemed to lack. A certain opulence and picturesqueness of fancy united
+in his artistic being with an intelligence both lucid and penetrating,
+and a sense of form and symmetry almost Greek in its fastidiousness. The
+sweet, vague, passionate aspiration^, the sensibility that quivers
+with every breath of movement from the external world, he could not
+understand. Placidity, grace, and repose he had in perfection. Yet he
+was very highly appreciated by those who had little in common with his
+artistic nature. As, for example, Robert Schumann writes of Thalberg and
+his playing, on the occasion of a charity concert, given in Leipzig in
+1841: "In his passing flight the master's pinions rested here awhile,
+and, as from the angel's pinions in one of Rucker's poems, rubies and
+other precious stones fell from them and into indigent hands, as the
+master ordained it. It is difficult to say anything new of one who has
+been so praise beshow-ered as he has. But every earnest virtuoso is glad
+to hear one thing said at any time&mdash;that he has progressed in his
+art since he last delighted us. This best of all praise we are
+conscientiously able to bestow on Thalberg; for, during the last two
+years that we have not heard him, he has made astonishing additions to
+his acquirements, and, if possible, moves with greater boldness, grace,
+and freedom than ever. His playing seemed to have the same effect on
+every one, and the delight that he probably feels in it himself was
+shared by all. True virtuosity gives us something more than mere
+flexibility and execution: aman may mirror his own nature in it, and in
+Thalberg's playing it becomes clear to all that he is one of the favored
+ones of fortune, one accustomed to wealth and elegance. Accompanied
+by happiness, bestowing pleasure, he commenced his career; under such
+circumstances he has so far pursued it, and so he will probably continue
+it. The whole of yesterday evening and every number that he played gave
+us a proof of this. The public did not seem to be there to judge, but
+only to enjoy; they were as certain of enjoyment as the master was of
+his art."
+</p>
+<p>
+Thalberg in his appearance had none of the traditional wild
+picturesqueness of style and manner which so many distinguished artists,
+even Liszt himself, have thought it worth while to carry perhaps to
+the degree of affectation. Smoothly shaven, quiet, eminently
+respectable-looking, his handsome, somewhat Jewish-looking face composed
+in an expression of unostentatious good breeding, he was wont to
+seat himself at the piano with all the simplicity of one doing any
+commonplace thing. He had the air of one who respected himself, his art,
+and the public. His performance was in an exquisitely artistic sense
+that of the gentleman, perfect, polished, and elaborately wrought. The
+distinguished American litterateur, Mr. George William Curtis, who heard
+him in New York in 1857, thus wrote of him: "He is a proper artist in
+this, that he comprehends the character of his instrument. He neither
+treats it as a violoncello nor a full orchestra. Those who in private
+have enjoyed the pleasure of hearing&mdash;or, to use a more accurate
+epithet, of seeing&mdash;Strepitoso, that friend of mankind, play the piano,
+will understand what we mean when we speak of treating the piano as if
+it were an orchestra. Strepitoso storms and slams along the keyboard
+until the tortured instrument gives up its musical soul in despair
+and breaks its heart of melody by cracking all its strings.... Every
+instrument has its limitations, but Strepitoso will tolerate no such
+theory. He extracts music from his piano, not as if he were sifting the
+sands for gold, but as if he were raking oysters.... Now, Thalberg's
+manner is different from Strepitoso's. He plays the piano; that is the
+phrase which describes his performance. He plays it quietly and suavely.
+You could sit upon the lawn on a June night and hear with delight
+the sounds that trickled through the moonlight from the piano of this
+master. They would not melt your soul in you; they would not touch those
+longings that, like rays of starry light, respond to the rays of the
+stars; they would not storm your heart with the yearning passion
+of their strains, but you would confess it was a good world as you
+listened, and be glad you lived in it&mdash;you would be glad of your home
+and all that made it homelike; the moonlight as you listened would melt
+and change, and your smiling eyes would seem to glitter in cheerful
+sunlight as Thalberg ended."
+</p>
+<p>
+Thalberg's style was, perhaps, the best possible illustration of the
+legitimate effects of the pianoforte carried to the highest by as
+perfect a technique as could possibly be attained by human skill.
+</p>
+<p>
+That he lacked poetic fire and passion, that the sense of artistic
+restraint and a refined fastidiousness chilled and fettered him, is
+doubtlessly true. Whether the absence of the imaginative warmth and
+vigor which suffuse a work of art with the glow of something that can
+not be fully expressed, and kindle the thoughts of the hearer to take
+hitherto unknown flights, is fully compensated for by that repose and
+symmetry of style which know exactly what it wishes to express, and,
+being perfect master of the means of expression, puts forth an exact
+measure of effort and then stops as if shut down by an iron wall&mdash;this
+is an open question, and must be answered according to one's art
+theories. The exquisite modeling of a Benvenuto Cellini vase, wrought
+with patient elaboration into a thing of unsurpassable beauty, does not
+invoke as high a sense of pleasure as an heroic statue or noble painting
+by some great master, but of its kind the pleasure is just as complete.
+Apart from Thalberg's power as a player, however, there was something
+captivating in the quality of his talent, which, though not creative,
+was gifted with the power of seizing the very essence of the music to
+be interpreted. A striking example of this is shown in the fantasias he
+composed on the different operas, a form of writing which reached its
+perfection in him. His own contribution is simply a most delightful
+setting of the melodies of his subject, and the whole is steeped in the
+very atmosphere and feeling of the original, as if the master himself
+had done the work.
+</p>
+<p>
+A good example is the fantasia on Mozart's "Don Giovanni." The little,
+wild, unformed melodies rustle in quick gusts along the keys as if
+wavering shadows, yet with all the familiar rhythm and family likeness,
+filling the mind of the hearer with the atmosphere and necessity of what
+is to follow, while gradually the full harmonies unfold themselves. The
+introduction of the minuet is one of the most striking portions. The
+scene of the minuet in the opera is a vision of rural loveliness and
+repose, whispering of flowers, fields, and happy flying hours. All this
+becomes poetized, and the music seems to imply rich reaches of odorous
+garden and moonlight, whispering foliage, and nightingales mad with the
+delight of their own singing, and a palace on the lawn sounding with
+riotous mirth. The player-composer weaves the glamour of such a dream,
+and the hearer finds himself strolling in imagination through the
+moonlit garden, listening to the birds, the waters, and the rustling
+leaves, while the stately beat of the minuet comes throbbing through
+it all, calling up the vision of gayly dressed cavaliers and beautiful
+ladies fantastically moving to the tune. Such poetic sentiment as
+this of the purely picturesque sort was in large measure Thalberg's
+possession, but he could never understand that turbulent ground-swell of
+passion which music can also powerfully express, and by which the
+soul is lifted up to the heights of ecstasy or plunged in depths of
+melancholy. Music as a vehicle for such meanings was mere Egyptian
+hieroglyphic, utterly beyond his limitation, absolute bathos and
+absurdity.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is doubtful whether any player ever possessed a more wonderfully
+trained mechanism; the smallest details were polished and finished with
+the utmost care, the scales marvels of evenness, the shakes rivaling the
+trill of a canary bird. His arpeggios at times rolled like the waves
+of the sea, and at others resembled folds of transparent lace floating
+airily with the movements of the wearer. The octaves were wonderfully
+accurate, and the chords appeared to be struck by steel mallets instead
+of fingers. He was called the Bayard of pianists, "le Chevalier sans
+peur et sans reproche." His tone was noble, yet mellow and delicate, and
+the gradations between his forte and piano were traced most exquisitely.
+In a word, technical execution could go no further. It is said that
+he never played a piece in public till he had absolutely made it the
+property of his fingers. He was the first to divide the melody between
+the two hands, making the right hand perform a brilliant figure in the
+higher register, while the left hand exhibited a full and rich bass
+part, supplementing it with an accompaniment in chords. It was this
+characteristic which made his fantasias so unique and interesting, in
+spite of their lack of originality of motive, as compositions. Almost
+all writers for the piano have since adopted this device, even the great
+Mendelssohn using it in some of his concertos and "Songs without Words";
+and in many cases it has been transformed into a mere trick of arrant
+musical charlatanism, designed to cover up with a sham glitter the utter
+absence of thought and motive. No better suggestion of the dominant
+characteristic of Thal-berg as a pianist can be found than a critical
+word of his friend Moscheles: "The proper ground for finger gymnastics
+is to be found in Thalberg's latest compositions; for mind [Geist], give
+me Schumann."
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+During Thalberg's first visit to America he had an active and dangerous
+rival in the young and brilliant pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk,
+who was as fresh to New York audiences as Thalberg himself, though the
+latter had the advantage over his young competitor in a fame which
+was almost world-wide. Of American pianists Louis Gottschalk stands
+confessedly at the head by virtue of remarkable native gifts, which, had
+they been assisted by greater industry and ambition, might easily have
+won him a very eminent rank in Europe as well as in his own country. An
+easy, pleasure-loving, tropical nature, flexible, facile, and disposed
+to sacrifice the future to the present, was the only obstacle to the
+attainment to a place level with the foremost artists of his age.
+</p>
+<p>
+Edward Gottschalk, who came to America in his young manhood and settled
+in New Orleans, and his wife, a French Creole lady, had five children,
+of whom the future pianist was the eldest, born in 1829. His feeling for
+music manifested itself when he was three years old by his ability to
+play a melody on the piano which he had heard. Instantly he was strong
+enough, he was placed under the instruction of a good teacher, and no
+pains were spared to develop his precocious talent. At the age of six he
+had made such progress on the piano that he was also instructed on
+the violin, and soon was able to play pieces of more than ordinary
+difficulty with taste and expression. We are told that the lad gave
+a benefit concert at the age of eight to assist an unfortunate
+violin-player, with considerable success, and was soon in great request
+at evening parties as a child phenomenon. The propriety of sending
+the little Louis to Paris had long been discussed, and it was finally
+accomplished in 1842.
+</p>
+<p>
+On reaching Paris he was first put under the teaching of Charles Halle,
+but, as the latter master was a little careless, he was replaced by M.
+Camille Stamaty, who had the reputation of being the ablest professor
+in the city. The following year he began the study of harmony and
+counterpoint with M. Malidan, and the rapid progress he evinced in his
+studies was of a kind to justify his parents in their wish to devote him
+to the career of a pianist.
+</p>
+<p>
+Young Louis Gottschalk was much petted in the aristocratic salons of
+Paris, to which he had admission through his aunts, the Comtesse de
+Lagrange and the Comtesse de Bourjally. His remarkable musical gifts,
+and more especially his talent for improvisation, excited curiosity and
+admiration, even in a city where the love of musical novelty had been
+sated by a continual supply of art prodigies. Young as he was, he wrote
+at this time not a few charming compositions, which were in after-years
+occasional features of his concerts. His delicate constitution succumbed
+under hard work, and for a while a severe attack of typhoid fever
+interrupted his studies. On his recovery, our young artist spent a few
+months in the Ardennes. On returning to Paris, he became the pupil of
+Hector Berlioz, who felt a deep interest in the young American, as an
+art prodigy from a land of savages in harmony, and devoted himself so
+assiduously to the study that he declined an invitation from the Spanish
+queen to become a guest of the court at Madrid.
+</p>
+<p>
+An amusing incident occurred in a pedestrian trip which he made to the
+Vosges in 1846. He had forgotten his passport, and, on arriving at a
+small town, was arrested by a gendarme and taken before the maire. The
+latter official was reading a newspaper containing a notice of his last
+concert, and through this means he assured the worthy functionary of his
+identity, and was cordially welcomed to the hospitality of the official
+residence.
+</p>
+<p>
+His friend Berlioz, who was ever on the alert to help the American pupil
+who promised to do him so much credit, arranged a series of concerts
+for him at the Italian Opéra in the winter of 1846-'47, and these proved
+brilliantly successful, not merely in filling the young artist's purse,
+but in augmenting his fast-growing reputation. Steady labor in study and
+concert-giving, many of his public performances being for charity, made
+two years pass swiftly by. A musical tour through France in 1849 was
+highly successful, and the young American returned to Paris, loaded
+down with gifts, and rich in the sense of having justly earned the
+congratulations which showered on him from all his friends. A second
+invitation now came from Spain, and Louis Gottschalk on arriving at
+Madrid was made a guest at the royal palace. From the king he received
+two orders, the diamond cross of Isabella la Catholique and that of
+Leon d'Holstein, and from the Duke de Montpensier he received a sword of
+honor. We are told that at one of the private court concerts Gottschalk
+played a duet with Don Carlos, the father of the recent pretender to the
+Spanish throne.
+</p>
+<p>
+Among the romantic incidents narrated of this visit of Gottschalk to
+Madrid, one is too characteristic to be overlooked, as showing the
+tender, generous nature of the artist. An imaginative Spanish girl,
+whose fancy had been excited by the public enthusiasm about Gottschalk,
+but was too ill to attend his concerts, had a passionate desire to hear
+him play, and pined away in the fret-fulness of ungratified desire. Her
+family were not able to pay Gottschalk for the trouble of giving such an
+exclusive concert, but, to satisfy the sick girl, made the circumstances
+known to the artist. Gottschalk did not hesitate a moment, but ordered
+his piano to be conveyed to the humble abode of the patient. Here by her
+bedside he played for hours to the enraptured girl, and the strain of
+emotion was so great that her life ebbed away before he had finished the
+final chords. Gottschalk remained in Spain for two years, and it was not
+till the autumn of 1852 that he returned to Paris, to give a series of
+farewell concerts before returning again to America, where his father
+and brothers were anxiously awaiting him.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+Before Gottschalk's departure from Paris, Hector Berlioz thus wrote of
+his <i>protégé</i>, for whom we may fancy he had a strong bias of liking; and
+no judge is so generous in estimation as one artist of another, unless
+the critic has personal cause of dislike, and then no judge is so
+sweepingly unjust: "Gottschalk is one of the very small number who
+possess all the different elements of a consummate pianist, all the
+faculties which surround him with an irresistible prestige, and give him
+a sovereign power. He is an accomplished musician; he knows just how far
+fancy may be indulged in expression. He knows the limits beyond which
+any freedom taken with the rhythm produces only confusion and disorder,
+and upon these limits he never encroaches. There is an exquisite grace
+in his manner of phrasing sweet melodies and throwing off light touches
+from the higher keys. The boldness, brilliancy, and originality of his
+play at once dazzle and astonish, and the infantile <i>naivete</i> of his
+smiling caprices, the charming simplicity with which he renders simple
+things, seem to belong to another individuality, distinct from that
+which marks his thundering energy. Thus the success of M. Gottschalk
+before an audience of musical cultivation is immense."
+</p>
+<p>
+But even this enthusiastic praise was pale in comparison with the
+eulogiums of some of the New York journals, after the first concert of
+Gottschalk at Niblo's Garden Theatre. One newspaper, which arrogated
+special strength and good judgment in its critical departments,
+intimated that after such a revelation it was useless any longer to
+speak of Beethoven! Whether Beethoven as a player or Beethoven as a
+composer was meant was left unknown. Gottschalk at his earlier concerts
+played many of his own compositions, made to order for the display
+of his virtuosoism, and their brilliant, showy style was very well
+calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of the general public. Perhaps the
+most sound and thoughtful opinion of Gottschalk expressed during the
+first enthusiasm created by his playing was that of a well-known musical
+journal published in Boston:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, at the concert, which, by the way, did not half fill the Boston
+Music Hall, owing partly, we believe, to the one-dollar price, and
+partly, we <i>hope</i>, to distrust of an artist who plays wholly his own
+compositions, our expectation was confirmed. There was, indeed, most
+brilliant execution; we have heard none more brilliant, but are not yet
+prepared to say that Jaell's was less so. Gottschalk's touch is the most
+clear and crisp and beautiful that we have ever known. His play is
+free and bold and sure, and graceful in the extreme; his runs pure and
+liquid; his figures always clean and perfectly denned; his command of
+rapid octave passages prodigious; and so we might go through with all
+the technical points of masterly execution. It <i>was</i> great execution.
+But what is execution, without some thought and meaning in the
+combinations to be executed?... Skillful, graceful, brilliant,
+wonderful, we own his playing was. But players less wonderful have given
+us far deeper satisfaction. We have seen a criticism upon that concert,
+in which it was regretted that his music was too fine for common
+apprehension, 'too much addressed to the <i>reasoning</i> faculties,' etc.
+To us the want was, that it did <i>not</i> address the reason; that it seemed
+empty of ideas, of inspiration; that it spake little to the mind or
+heart, excited neither meditation nor emotion, but simply dazzled by the
+display of difficult feats gracefully and easily achieved. But of
+what use were all these difficulties? ('Difficult! I wish it was
+<i>impossible</i>,' said Dr. Johnson.) Why all that rapid tossing of handfuls
+of chords from the middle to the highest octaves, lifting the hand with
+such conscious appeal to our eyes? To what end all those rapid octave
+passages? since in the intervals of easy execution, in the seemingly
+quiet impromptu passages, the music grew so monotonous and commonplace:
+the same little figure repeated and repeated, after listless pauses, in
+a way which conveyed no meaning, no sense of musical progress, but only
+the appearance of fastidiously critical scale-practicing."
+</p>
+<p>
+In the series of concerts given by Gottschalk throughout the United
+States, the public generally showed great enthusiasm and admiration,
+and the young pianist sustained himself very successfully against the
+memories of Jaell, Henri Herz, and Leopold de Meyer, as well as the
+immediate rivalry of Thalberg, who appealed more potently to a select
+few. The hold the American pianist had secured on his public did not
+lessen during the five years of concert-giving which succeeded. No
+player ever displayed his skill before American audiences who had in so
+large degree that peculiar quality of geniality in his style which so
+endears him to the public. This characteristic is something apart from
+genius or technical skill, and is peculiarly an emanation from the
+personality of the man.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the spring of 1837 Gottschalk found himself in Havana, whither he had
+gone to make the beginning of a musical tour through the West Indies.
+His first concert was given at the Tacon Theatre, which Mr. Maretzek,
+who was giving operatic representations then in Havana, yielded to
+him for the occasion. The Cubans gave the pianist a tropical warmth of
+welcome, and Gott-schalk's letters from the old Spanish city are full
+of admiration for the climate, the life, and the people, with whom there
+was something strongly sympathetic in his own nature. The artist had not
+designed to protract his musical wanderings in the beautiful island of
+the Antilles for any considerable period, but his success was great,
+and the new experiences admirably suited his dreaming, sensuous,
+pleasure-loving temperament. Everywhere the advent of Gottschalk at
+a town was made the occasion of a festival, and life seemed to be one
+continued gala-day with him.
+</p>
+<center>
+V.
+</center>
+<p>
+In the early months of 1860 the young pianist, Arthur Napoleon, joined
+Gottschalk at Havana, and the two gave concerts throughout the West
+Indies, which were highly successful. The early summer had been designed
+for a tour through Central America and Venezuela, but a severe attack of
+illness prostrated Gottschalk, and he was not able to sail before August
+for his new field of musical conquest. Our artist did not return to New
+York till 1862, after an absence of five years, though his original plan
+had only contemplated a tour of two years. It must not be supposed that
+Gottschalk devoted his time continually to concert performances and
+composition, though he by no means neglected the requirements of
+musical labor. As he himself confesses, the balmy climate, the glorious
+landscapes, the languid <i>dolce far niente</i>, which tended to enervate
+all that came under their magic spell, wrought on his susceptible
+temperament with peculiar effect. A quotation from an article written by
+Gottschalk, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly," entitled "Notes of
+a Pianist," will furnish the reader a graphic idea of the influence
+of tropical life on such an imaginative and voluptuous character,
+passionately fond of nature and outdoor life: "Thus, in succession, I
+have visited all the Antilles&mdash;Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Swedish,
+and Danish; the Guianas, and the coasts of Para. At times, having become
+the idol of some obscure <i>pueblo</i>, whose untutored ears I had charmed
+with its own simple ballads, I would pitch my tent for five, six, eight
+months, deferring my departure from day to day, until finally I began
+seriously to entertain the idea of remaining there for evermore.
+Abandoning myself to such influences, I lived without care, as the bird
+sings, as the flower expands, as the brook flows, oblivious of the past,
+reckless of the future, and sowed both my heart and my purse with the
+ardor of a husbandman who hopes to reap a hundred ears for every grain
+he confides to the earth. But, alas! the fields where is garnered the
+harvest of expended doubloons, and where vernal loves bloom anew, are
+yet to be discovered; and the result of my prodigality was that, one
+fine morning, I found myself a bankrupt in heart, with my purse
+at ebb-tide. Suddenly disgusted with the world and myself, weary,
+discouraged, mistrusting men (ay, and women too), I fled to a desert on
+the extinct volcano of M&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, where, for several months, I lived the
+life of a cenobite, with no companion but a poor lunatic whom I had met
+on a small island, and who had attached himself to me. He followed me
+everywhere, and loved me with that absurd and touching constancy of
+which dogs and madmen alone are capable. My friend, whose insanity was
+of a mild and harmless character, fancied himself the greatest genius in
+the world. He was, moreover, under the impression that he suffered from
+a gigantic, monstrous tooth. Of the two idiosyncrasies, the latter alone
+made his lunacy discernible, too many individuals being affected with
+the other symptom to render it an anomalous feature of the human mind.
+My friend was in the habit of protesting that this enormous tooth
+increased periodically, and threatened to encroach upon his entire jaw.
+Tormented, at the same time, with the desire of regenerating humanity,
+he divided his leisure between the study of dentistry, to which he
+applied himself in order to impede the progress of his hypothetical
+tyrant, and a voluminous correspondence which he kept up with the Pope,
+his brother, and the Emperor of the French, his cousin. In the latter
+occupation he pleaded the interests of humanity, styled himself 'the
+Prince of Thought,' and exalted me to the dignity of his illustrious
+friend and benefactor. In the midst of the wreck of his intellect, one
+thing still survived&mdash;his love of music. He played the violin; and,
+strange as it may appear, although insane, he could not understand the
+so-called <i>music of the future</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My hut, perched on the verge of the crater, at the very summit of the
+mountain, commanded a view of all the surrounding country. The rock
+upon which it was built projected over a precipice whose abysses were
+concealed by creeping plants, cactus, and bamboos. The species
+of table-rock thus formed had been encircled with a railing, and
+transformed into a terrace on a level with the sleeping-room, by my
+predecessor in this hermitage. His last wish had been to be buried
+there; and from my bed I could see his white tombstone gleaming in the
+moonlight a few steps from my window. Every evening I rolled my piano
+out upon the terrace; and there, facing the most incomparably beautiful
+landscape, all bathed in the soft and limpid atmosphere of the tropics,
+I poured forth on the instrument, and for myself alone, the thoughts
+with which the scene inspired me. And what a scene! Picture to yourself
+a gigantic amphitheatre hewn out of the mountains by an army of Titans;
+right and left, immense virgin forests full of those subdued and distant
+harmonies which are, as it were, the voices of Silence; before me,
+a prospect of twenty leagues marvelously enhanced by the extreme
+transparency of the air; above, the azure of the sky: beneath, the
+creviced sides of the mountain sweeping down to the plain; afar, the
+waving savannas; beyond them, a grayish speck (the distant city); and,
+encompassing them all, the immensity of the ocean closing the horizon
+with its deep-blue line. Behind me was a rock on which a torrent of
+melted snow dashed its white foam, and there, diverted from its course,
+rushed with a mad leap and plunged headlong into the gulf that yawned
+beneath my window.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Amid such scenes I composed 'Réponds-moi la Marche des Gibaros,'
+'Polonia,' 'Columbia,' 'Pastorella e Cavaličre,' 'Jeunesse,' and many
+other unpublished works. I allowed my fingers to run over the keys,
+wrapped up in the contemplation of these wonders; while my poor friend,
+whom I heeded but little, revealed to me with a childish loquacity the
+lofty destiny he held in reserve for humanity. Can you conceive the
+contrast produced by this shattered intellect expressing at random its
+disjointed thoughts, as a disordered clock strikes by chance any
+hour, and the majestic serenity of the scene around me? I felt it
+instinctively. My misanthropy gave way. I became indulgent toward myself
+and mankind, and the wounds of my heart closed once more. My despair was
+soothed; and soon the sun of the tropics, which tinges all things with
+gold&mdash;dreams as well as fruits&mdash;restored me with new confidence and
+vigor to my wanderings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I relapsed into the manners and life of these primitive countries:
+if not strictly virtuous, they are at all events terribly attractive.
+Existence in a tropical wilderness, in the midst of a voluptuous and
+half-civilized race, bears no resemblance to that of a London cockney, a
+Parisian lounger, or an American Quaker. Times there were, indeed, when
+a voice was heard within me that spoke of nobler aims. It reminded me
+of what I once was, of what I yet might be; and commanded imperatively a
+return to a healthier and more active life. But I had allowed myself to
+be enervated by this baneful languor, this insidious <i>far niente</i>; and
+my moral torpor was such that the mere thought of reappearing before
+a polished audience struck me as superlatively absurd. 'Where was the
+object?' I would ask myself. Moreover, it was too late; and I went on
+dreaming with open eyes, careering on horseback through the savannas,
+listening at break of day to the prattle of the parrots in the
+guava-trees, at nightfall to the chirp of the <i>grillos</i> in the
+cane-fields, or else smoking my cigar, taking my coffee, rocking myself
+in a hammock&mdash;in short, enjoying all the delights that are the very
+heart-blood of a <i>guajiro</i>, and out of the sphere of which he can see
+but death, or, what is worse to him, the feverish agitation of our
+Northern society. Go and talk of the funds, of the landed interest, of
+stock-jobbing, to this Sybarite lord of the wilderness, who can live all
+the year round on luscious bananas and delicious cocoa-nuts which he
+is not even at the trouble of planting; who has the best tobacco in
+the world to smoke; who replaces today the horse he had yesterday by a
+better one, chosen from the first <i>calallada</i> he meets; who requires no
+further protection from the cold than a pair of linen trousers, in that
+favored clime where the seasons roll on in one perennial summer; who,
+more than all this, finds at eve, under the rustling palm-trees, pensive
+beauties, eager to reward with their smiles the one who murmurs in their
+ears those three words, ever new, ever beautiful, 'Yo te quiero.'"
+</p>
+<center>
+VI.
+</center>
+<p>
+Mr. Gottschalk's return to America in February, 1862, was celebrated by
+a concert in Irving Hall, on the anniversary of his <i>début</i> in New York.
+This was the beginning of another brilliant musical series, in pursuance
+of which he appeared in every prominent city of the country. While
+many found fault with Gottschalk for descending to pure "claptrap" and
+bravura playing, for using his great powers to merely superficial and
+unworthy ends, he seemed to retain as great a hold as ever over the
+masses of concert-goers. Gottschalk himself, with his epicurean,
+easy-going nature, laughed at the lectures read him by the critics and
+connoisseurs, who would have him follow out ideals for which he had no
+taste. It was like asking the butterfly to live the life of the bee.
+Great as were the gifts of the artist, it was not to be expected that
+these would be pursued in lines not consistent with the limitations
+of his temperament. Gottschalk appears to have had no desire except to
+amuse and delight the world, and to have been foreign to any loftier
+musical aspiration, if we may judge by his own recorded words. He passed
+through life as would a splendid wild singing-bird, making music
+because it was the law of his being, but never directing that talent
+with conscious energy to some purpose beyond itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1863 family misfortunes and severe illness of himself cooperated to
+make the year vacant of musical doings, but instantly he recovered he
+was engaged by M. Strakosch to give another series of concerts in the
+leading Eastern cities. Without attempting to linger over his career for
+the next two years, let us pass to his second expedition to the tropics
+in 1865. Four years were spent in South America, each country that he
+visited vieing with the other in doing him honor. Magnificent gifts were
+heaped on him by his enthusiastic Spanish-American admirers, and life
+was one continual ovation. In Peru he gave sixty concerts, and was
+presented with a costly decoration of gold, diamond, and pearl. In Chili
+the Government voted him a grand gold medal, which the board of public
+schools, the board of visitors of the hospitals, and the municipal
+government of Valparaiso supplemented by gold medals, in recognition
+of Gottschalk's munificence in the benefit concerts he gave for various
+public and humane institutions. The American pianist, through the whole
+of his career, had shown the traditional benevolence of his class in
+offering his services to the advancement of worthy objects. A similar
+reception awaited Gottschalk in Montevideo, where the artist became
+doubly the object of admiration by the substantial additions he made
+to the popular educational fund. While in this city he organized and
+conducted a great musical festival in which three hundred musicians
+engaged, exclusive of the Italian Opera company then at Montevideo.
+</p>
+<p>
+The spring of 1869 brought Gottschalk to the last scene of his musical
+triumphs, for the span of his career was about to close over him. Rio
+Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, gave Gottschalk an ardent reception,
+which made this city properly the culmination of his toils and triumphs.
+Gottschalk wrote that his performances created such a <i>furore</i> that
+boxes commanded a premium of seventy-five dollars, and single seats
+fetched twenty-five. He was frequently entertained by Dom Pedro at the
+palace; in every way the Brazilians testified their lavish admiration of
+his artistic talents. In the midst of his success Gottschalk was seized
+with yellow fever, and brought very low. Indeed, the report came back
+to New York that he was dead, a report, however, which his own letters,
+written from the bed of convalescence, soon contradicted.
+</p>
+<p>
+In October of 1869 Gottschalk was appointed by the emperor to take the
+leadership of a great festival, in which eight hundred performers in
+orchestra and chorus would take part. Indefatigable labor, in rehearsing
+his musicians and organizing the almost innumerable details of such an
+affair, acted on a frame which had not yet recovered its strength from a
+severe attack of illness. With difficulty he dragged himself through the
+tedious preparation, and when he stood up to conduct the first concert
+of the festival, on the evening of November 26, he was so weak that he
+could scarcely stand. The next day he was too ill to rise, and, though
+he forced himself to go to the opera-house in the evening, he was so
+weak as to be unable to conduct the music, and he had to be driven back
+to his hotel. The best medical skill watched over him, but his hour had
+come, and after three weeks of severe suffering he died, December 18,
+1869. The funeral solemnities at the Cathedral of Rio were of the most
+imposing character, and all the indications of really heart-felt sorrow
+were shown among the vast crowd of spectators, for Gottschalk had
+quickly endeared himself to the public both as man and artist. At the
+time of Gott-schalk's death, it was his purpose to set sail for Europe
+at the earliest practicable moment, to secure the publication of some of
+his more important works, and the production of his operas, of which he
+had the finished scores of not less than six.
+</p>
+<p>
+Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an artist and composer whose gifts were
+never more than half developed; for his native genius as a musician was
+of the highest order. Shortly before he died, at the age of forty, he
+seemed to have ripened into more earnest views and purposes, and, had
+he lived to fulfill his prime, it is reasonable to hazard the conjecture
+that he would have richly earned a far loftier niche in the pantheon
+of music than can now be given him. A rich, pleasure-loving, Oriental
+temperament, which tended to pour itself forth in dreams instead of
+action; vivid emotional sensibilities, which enabled him to exhaust
+all the resources of pleasure where imagination stimulates sense; and
+a thorough optimism in his theories, which saw everything at its best,
+tended to blunt the keen ambition which would otherwise inevitably have
+stirred the possessor of such artistic gifts. Gottschalk fell far short
+of his possibilities, though he was the greatest piano executant ever
+produced by our own country. He might have dazzled the world even as he
+dazzled his own partial countrymen.
+</p>
+<p>
+His style as a pianist was sparkling, dashing, showy, but, in the
+judgment of the most judicious, he did not appear to good advantage in
+comparison with Thalberg, in whom a perfect technique was dominated by
+a conscious intellectualism, and a high ideal, passionless but severely
+beautiful.
+</p>
+<p>
+Gottschalk's idiosyncrasy as a composer ran in parallel lines with
+that of the player. Most of the works of this musician are brilliant,
+charming, tender, melodious, full of captivating excellence, but
+bright with the flash of fancy, rather than strong with the power
+of imagination. We do not find in his piano-forte pieces any of that
+subtile soul-searching force which penetrates to the deepest roots
+of thought and feeling. Sundry musical cynics were wont to crush
+Gottschalk's individuality into the coffin of a single epigram. "A
+musical bonbon to tickle the palates of sentimental women." But this
+falls as far short of justice as the enthusiasm of many of his admirers
+overreaches it. The easy and genial temperament of the man, his ability
+to seize the things of life on their bright side, and a naive indolence
+which indisposed the artist to grapple with the severest obligations of
+an art life, prevented Gottschalk from attaining the greatness possible
+to him, but they contributed to make him singularly lovable, and to
+justify the passionate attachment which he inspired in most of those
+who knew him well. But, with all of Gottschalk's limitations, he must
+be considered the most noticeable and able of pianists and composers for
+the piano yet produced by the United States.
+</p>
+<a name="h2H_4_0015" id="h2H_4_0015"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    FRANZ LISZT.
+</h2>
+<p>
+The Spoiled Favorite of Fortune.&mdash;His Inherited Genius.&mdash;Birth and
+Early Training.&mdash;First Appearance in Concert.&mdash;Adam Liszt and his Son
+in Paris.&mdash;Sensation made by the Boy's Playing.&mdash;His Morbid Religious
+Sufferings.&mdash;Franz Liszt thrown on his own Resources.&mdash;The Artistic
+Circle in Paris.&mdash;Liszt in the Banks of Romanticism.&mdash;His Friends and
+Associates.&mdash;Mme. D'Agoult and her Connection with Franz
+Liszt.&mdash;He retires to Geneva.&mdash;Is recalled to Paris by the Thalberg
+<i>Furore</i>.&mdash;Rivalry between the Artists, and their Factions.&mdash;He
+commences his Career as Traveling Virtuoso.&mdash;The Blaze of Enthusiasm
+throughout Europe.&mdash;Schumann on Liszt as Man and Artist.&mdash;He ranks the
+Hungarian Virtuoso as the Superior of Thalberg.&mdash;Liszt's Generosity to
+his own Countrymen.&mdash;The Honors paid to him in Pesth.&mdash;Incidents of
+his Musical Wanderings.&mdash;He loses the Proceeds of Three Hundred
+Concerts.&mdash;Contributes to the Completion of the Cologne Cathedral.&mdash;His
+Connection with the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, and the Celebration of
+the Unveiling.&mdash;Chorley on Liszt.&mdash;Berlioz and Liszt.&mdash;Character of the
+Enthusiasm called out by Liszt as an Artist.&mdash;Remarkable Personality
+as a Man.&mdash;Berlioz characterizes the Great Virtuoso in a Letter.&mdash;Liszt
+erases his Life as a Virtuoso, and becomes Chapel-Master and Court
+Conductor at Weimar.&mdash;Avowed Belief in the New School of Music, and
+Production of Works of this School.&mdash;Wagner's Testimony to Liszt's
+Assistance.&mdash;Liszt's Resignation of his Weimar Post after Ten
+Years.&mdash;His Subsequent Life.&mdash;He takes Holy Orders.&mdash;Liszt as a Virtuoso
+and Composer.&mdash;Entitled to be placed among tire most Remarkable Men of
+his Age.
+</p>
+<center>
+I.
+</center>
+<p>
+There are but few names in music more interesting than that of Franz
+Liszt, the spoiled favorite of Europe for more than half a century, and
+without question the greatest piano-forte virtuoso that ever lived. His
+life has passed through the sunniest regions of fortune and success,
+and from his cradle upward the gods have showered on him their richest
+gifts. His career as an artist and musician has been most remarkable,
+his personal life full of romance, and his connection with some of
+the most vital changes in music which have occurred during the century
+interesting and significant. From his first appearance in public, at the
+age of twelve, his genius was acknowledged with enthusiasm throughout
+the whole republic of art, from Beethoven down to the obscurest
+<i>dilletante</i>, and it may be asserted that the history of music knows
+no instance of success approaching that achieved by the performances
+of this great player in every capital of Europe, from Madrid to St.
+Petersburg. When he wearied of the fame of the virtuoso, and became
+a composer, not only for the piano-forte, but for the orchestra, his
+invincible energy soon overcame all difficulties in his path, and he has
+lived to see himself accepted as one of the greatest of living musical
+thinkers and writers.
+</p>
+<p>
+The life of Liszt is so crowded with important incidents that it is
+difficult to condense into the brief limits of a sketch any fairly
+adequate statement of his career. He was born October 22, 1811, in the
+village of Raiding, in Hungary, and it is said that his father Adam
+Liszt, who was in the service of the Prince Esterhazy, was firmly
+convinced that the child would become distinguished on account of the
+appearance of a remarkable comet during the year. Adam Liszt himself was
+a fine pianist, gifted indeed with a talent which might have made him
+eminent had he pursued it. All his ambition and hope, however, centered
+in his son, in whom musical genius quickly declared itself; and the
+father found teaching this gifted child not only a labor of love, but
+a task smoothed by the extraordinary aptness of the pupil. He was
+accustomed to say to the young Franz: "My son, you are destined to
+realize the glorious ideal that has shone in vain before my youth. In
+you that is to reach its fulfillment which I have myself but faintly
+conceived. In you shall my genius grow up and bear fruit; I shall renew
+my youth in you even after I am laid in the grave." Such prophetic words
+recall the vision of the Genoese woman, who foresaw the future greatness
+of the little Nicolo Paganini, a genius who resembled in many ways the
+phenomenal musical force embodied in Franz Liszt. When the lad was very
+young, perhaps not more than six, he read the "Kené" of Chateaubriand,
+and it made such an indelible impression on his mind that he in after
+years spoke of it as having been one of the most potent influences of
+his life, since it stimulated the natural melancholy of his character
+when his nature was most flexible and impressible.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the age of nine he made his first appearance in public at Odenburg,
+playing Bies's concerto in three flats, and improvising a fantasia so
+full of melodic ideas, striking rhythms, and well-arranged harmony as to
+strike the audience with surprise and admiration. Among the hearers was
+Prince Esterhazy, who was so pleased with the precocious talent shown
+that he put a purse of fifty ducats in the young musician's hand. Soon
+after this Adam Liszt went to Pres-burg to live, and several noblemen,
+among whom were Prince Esterhazy, and the Counts Amadée and Szapary, all
+of them enthusiastic patrons of music, determined to bear the burden of
+the boy's musical education. To this end they agreed to allow him six
+hundred florins a year for six years. Young Liszt was placed at Vienna
+under the tutelage of the celebrated pianist and teacher Czerny, and
+soon made such progress that he was able to play such works as those
+even of Beethoven and Hummel at first sight. When Liszt did this for
+one of Hummel's most difficult concertos, at the rooms of the music
+publisher one day, it created a great sensation in Vienna, and he
+quickly became one of the lions of the drawing-rooms of the capital.
+Czerny himself was so much delighted with the genius of his charge
+that he refused to accept the three hundred florins stipulated for his
+lessons, saying he was but too well repaid by the success of the pupil.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though toiling with incessant industry in musical study and practice,
+for the boy was working at composition with Salieri and Randhartinger,
+as well as the piano-forte with Czerny, he found time to indulge in
+those strange, mystical, and fantastic dreams which have molded his
+whole life, oscillating between pietistic delirium, wherein he saw
+celestial visions and felt the call to a holy life, and the most
+voluptuous images and aspirations for earthly pleasures. Franz Liszt
+at this early age had a sensibility so delicate, and an imagination so
+quickly kindled, that he himself tells us no one can guess the extremes
+of ecstasy and despair through which he alternately passed. These
+spiritual experiences were perhaps fed by the mysticism of Jacob Boehme,
+whose works came into his possession, and furnished a most delusive and
+dangerous guide for the young enthusiast's fancy. But, dream and suffer
+as he might, nothing was allowed to quench the ardor of his musical
+studies.
+</p>
+<p>
+Eighteen months were passed in diligent labor under the guidance of the
+masters, who found teaching almost unnecessary, as the wonderful lad
+needed but a hint to work out for himself the most difficult problems,
+and he toiled so incessantly that he often became conscious of the
+change of day into night only by the failure of the light and the coming
+of the candles. Finally, by advice of Salieri, after eighteen months of
+labor, he determined to appear in concert in Vienna. On this occasion
+the audience was composed of the most distinguished people of Vienna,
+drawn thither to hear the young musical wonder of whom every one talked.
+Among the hearers was Beethoven, who after the concert gave the proud
+boy the most cordial praise, and prophesied a great career for him.
+</p>
+<p>
+The elder Liszt was already in Paris, and it was determined that
+Franz should go to that city, to avail himself of the instructions of
+Cherubini, at the Conservatoire, who as a teacher of counterpoint had
+no equal in Europe. The Prince Metternich sent letters of the warmest
+recommendation, but they were of no avail, for Cherubini, who was
+singularly whimsical and obstinate in his notions, refused to accept
+the new candidate, on account of the rule of the Conservatoire excluding
+pupils of foreign birth, a plea which the famous director did not
+hesitate to break when he chose. Franz, however, continued his studies
+under Reicha and Paer, and, while the gates of the Conservatoire were
+closed, all the salons of Paris opened to receive him. Everywhere he was
+feted, courted, caressed. This fair-haired, blue-eyed lad, with the seal
+of genius burning on his face, had made the social world mad over him.
+The young adventurer was sailing in a treacherous channel, full of
+dangerous reefs. Would he, in the homage paid to him, an unmatured
+youth, by scholars, artists, wealth, beauty, and rank, forgot in mere
+self-love and vanity his high obligations to his art and the sincere
+devotion which alone could wrest from art its richest guerdon? This
+problem seems to have troubled his father, for he determined to take his
+young Franz away from the palace of Circe. The boy had already made an
+attempt at composition in the shape of an operetta, in one act, "Don
+Sanche," which was very well received at the Académie Royale. Adolph
+Nourrit, the great singer, had led the young composer on the stage,
+where he was received with thunders of applause by the audience, and
+was embraced with transport by Rudolph Kreutzer, the director of the
+orchestra.
+</p>
+<p>
+Adam Liszt and his son went to England, and spent about six months in
+giving concerts in London and other cities. Franz was less than
+fourteen years old, but the pale, fragile, slender boy had, in the deep
+melancholy which stamped the noble outline of his face, an appearance
+of maturity that belied his years. English audiences everywhere received
+him with admiration, but he seemed to have lost all zest for the
+intoxicating wine of public favor. A profound gloom stole over him,
+and we even hear of hints at an attempt to commit suicide. Adam Liszt
+attributed it to the sad English climate, which Hein-rich Heine cursed
+with such unlimited bitterness, and took his boy back again to sunnier
+France. But the dejection darkened and deepened, threatening even
+to pass into epilepsy. It assumed the form of religious enthusiasm,
+alternating with fits of remorse as of one who had committed the
+unpardonable sin, and sometimes expressed itself in a species of frenzy
+for the monastic life. These strange experiences alarmed the father,
+and, in obedience to medical advice, he took the ailing, half-hysterical
+lad to Boulogne-sur-Mer, for sea-bathing.
+</p>
+<center>
+II.
+</center>
+<p>
+While by the seaside Franz Liszt lost the father who had loved him
+with the devotion of father and mother combined. This fresh stroke of
+affliction deepened his dejection, and finally resulted in a fit of
+severe illness. When he was convalescent new views of life seemed
+to inspire him. He was now entirely thrown on his own resources for
+support, for Adam Liszt had left his affairs so deeply involved that
+there was but little left for his son and widow. A powerful nature,
+turned awry by unhealthy broodings, is often rescued from its own mental
+perversities by the sense of some new responsibility suddenly imposed on
+it. Boy as Liszt was, the Titan in him had already shown itself in
+the agonies and struggles which he had undergone, and, now that the
+necessity of hard work suddenly came, the atmosphere of turmoil and
+gloom began to clear under the imminent practical burden of life. He set
+resolutely to work composing and giving concerts. The religious mania
+under which he had rested for a while turned his thoughts to sacred
+music, and most of his compositions were masses. But the very effort of
+responsible toil set, as it were, a background against which he could
+appoint the true place and dimensions of his art work. There was another
+disturbance, however, which now stirred up his excitable mind. He fell
+madly in love with a lady of high rank, and surrendered his young heart
+entirely to this new passion. The unfortunate issue of this attachment,
+for the lady was much older than himself, and laughed with a gentle
+mockery at the infatuation of her young adorer, made Liszt intensely
+unhappy and misanthropical, but it did not prevent him from steady
+labor. Indeed, work became all the more welcome, as it served to
+distract his mind from its amorous pains, and his fantastic musings,
+instead of feeding on themselves, expressed themselves in his art.
+Certainly no healthier sign of one beginning to clothe himself in his
+right mind again can easily be imagined.
+</p>
+<p>
+Liszt was now twenty years of age, and had regularly settled in Paris.
+He became acquainted intimately with the leaders of French literature,
+and was an habitué of the brilliant circles which gathered these great
+minds night after night. Lamartine and Chateaubriand were yielding
+place to a young and fiery school of writers and thinkers, but cordially
+clasped hands with the successors whom they themselves had made
+possible. Mme. George Sand, Balzac, Dumas, Victor Hugo, and others were
+just then beginning to stir in the mental revolution which they made
+famous. Liszt felt a deep interest in the literary and scientific
+interests of the day, and he threw himself into the new movement with
+great enthusiasm, for its strong wave moved art as well as letters with
+convulsive throes. The musician found in this fresh impulse something
+congenial to his own fiery, restless, aspiring nature. He entered
+eagerly into all the intellectual movements of the day. He became a
+St. Simonian and such a hot-headed politician that, had he not been an
+artist, and as such considered a harmless fanatic, he would perhaps have
+incurred some penalties. Liszt has left us, in his "Life of Chopin," and
+his letters, some very vivid portraitures of the people and the events,
+the fascinating literary and artistic reunions, and the personal
+experiences which made this part of his life so interesting; but,
+tempting as it is, we can not linger. There can be no question that this
+section of his career profoundly colored his whole life, and that
+the influence of Victor Hugo, Balzac, and Mme. George Sand is very
+perceptible in his compositions not merely in their superficial tone
+and character, but in the very theory on which they are built. Liszt
+thenceforward cut loose from all classic restraints, and dared to fling
+rules and canons to the winds, except so far as his artistic taste
+approved them. The brilliant and daring coterie, defying conventionality
+and the dull decorum of social law, in which our artist lived, wrought
+also another change in his character. Liszt had hitherto been almost
+austere in his self-denial, in restraint of passion and license, in
+a religious purity of life, as if he dwelt in the cold shadow of the
+monastery, not knowing what moment he should disappear within its gates.
+There was now to be a radical change.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the brilliant members of the coterie in which he lived a life of
+such keen mental activity was Countess D'Agoult, who afterward became
+famous in the literary world as "Daniel Stern." Beautiful, witty,
+accomplished, imaginative, thoroughly in sympathy with her friend
+George Sand in her views of love and matrimony, and not less daring
+in testifying to her opinion by actions, the name of Mme. D'Agoult had
+already been widely bruited abroad in connection with more than one
+romantic escapade. In the powerful personality of young Franz Liszt,
+instinct with an artistic genius which aspired like an eagle, vital with
+a resolute, reckless will, and full of a magnetic energy that overflowed
+in everything&mdash;looks, movements, talk, playing&mdash;the somewhat fickle
+nature of Mme. D'Agoult was drawn to the artist like steel to a magnet.
+Liszt, on the other hand, easily yielded to the refined and delicious
+sensuousness of one of the most accomplished women of her time, who to
+every womanly fascination added the rarest mental gifts and high social
+place.
+</p>
+<p>
+The mutual passion soon culminated in a tie which lasted for many years,
+and was perhaps as faithfully observed by both parties as could be
+expected of such an irregular connection. Three children were the
+offspring of this attachment, a son who died, and two daughters, one of
+whom became the wife of M. Ollivier, the last imperial prime minister of
+France, and the other successively Mme. Von Bűlow and Mme. Wagner, under
+which latter title she is still known. The <i>chroniques scandaleuses</i>
+of Paris and other great cities of Europe are full of racy scandals
+purporting to connect the name of Liszt with well-known charming and
+beautiful women, but, aside from the uncertainty which goes with such
+rumors, this is not a feature of Liszt's life on which it is our purpose
+to dilate. The errors of such a man, exposed by his temperament and
+surroundings to the fiercest breath of temptation, should be rather
+veiled than opened to the garish day. Of the connection with Mme.
+D'Agoult something has been briefly told, because it had an important
+influence on his art career. Though the Church had never sanctioned the
+tie, there is every reason to believe that the lady's power over Liszt
+was consistently used to restrain his naturally eccentric bias, and to
+keep his thoughts fixed on the loftiest art ideals.
+</p>
+<center>
+III.
+</center>
+<p>
+Soon after Liszt's connection with Mme. D'Agoult began, he retired with
+his devoted companion to Geneva, Switzerland, a city always celebrated
+in the annals of European literature and art. In the quiet and charming
+atmosphere of this city our artist spent two years, busy for the most
+part in composing. He had already attained a superb rank as a pianist,
+and of those virtuosos who had then exhibited their talents in Paris
+no one was considered at all worthy to be compared with Liszt except
+Chopin. Aside from the great mental grasp, the opulent imagination, the
+fire and passion, the dazzling technical skill of the player, there was
+a vivid personality in Liszt as a man which captivated audiences. This
+element dominated his slightest action. He strode over the concert
+stage with the haughty step of a despot who ruled with a sway not to be
+contested. Tearing his gloves from his fingers and hurling them on
+the piano, he would seat himself with a proud gesture, run his fingers
+through his waving blonde locks, and then attack the piano with the
+vehemence of a conqueror taking his army into action. Much of this
+manner was probably the outcome of natural temperament, something the
+result of affectation; but it helped to add to the glamour with which
+Liszt always held his audiences captive. When he left Paris for a
+studious retirement at Geneva, the throne became vacant. By and by there
+came a contestant for the seat, a player no less remarkable in many
+respects than Liszt himself, Sigismond Thalberg, whose performances
+aroused Paris, alert for a new sensation, into an enthusiasm which
+quickly mounted to boiling heat. Humors of the danger threatened to his
+hitherto acknowledged ascendancy reached Liszt in his Swiss retreat. The
+artist's ambition was stirred to the quick; he could not sleep at night
+with the thought of this victorious rival who was snatching his laurels,
+and he hastened back to Paris to meet Thalberg on his own ground.
+The latter, however, had already left Paris, and Liszt only felt the
+ground-swell of the storm he had raised. There was a hot division of
+opinion among the Parisians, as there had been in the days of Gluck and
+Piccini. Society was divided into Lisztians and Thalbergians, and to
+indulge in this strife was the favorite amusement of the fashionable
+world. Liszt proceeded to reestablish his place by a series of
+remarkable concerts, in which he introduced to the public some of the
+works wrought out during his retirement, among them transcriptions from
+the songs of Schubert and the symphonies of Beethoven, in which the most
+free and passionate poetic spirit was expressed through the medium of
+technical difficulties in the scoring before unknown to the art of the
+piano-forte. There can be no doubt that the influence of Thalberg's
+rivalry on Liszt's mind was a strong force, and suggested new
+combinations. Without having heard Thalberg, our artist had already
+divined the secret of his effects, and borrowed from them enough to give
+a new impulse to an inventive faculty which was fertile in expedients
+and quick to assimilate all things of value to the uses of its own
+insatiable ambition.
+</p>
+<p>
+Franz Liszt's career as a traveling virtuoso commenced in 1837, and
+lasted for twelve years. Hitherto he had resisted the impulsion to
+such a course, all his desires rushing toward composition, but the
+extraordinary rewards promised cooperated with the spur of rivalry to
+overcome all scruples. The first year of these art travels was made
+memorable by the great inundation of the Danube, which caused so much
+suffering at Pesth. Thousands of people were rendered homeless, and
+the scene was one that appealed piteously to the humanitarian mind. The
+heart of Franz Liszt burned with sympathy, and he devoted the proceeds
+of his concerts for nearly two months to the alleviation of the woes of
+his countrymen. A princely sum was contributed by the artist, which went
+far to assist the sufferers. The number of occasions on which Liszt
+gave his services to charity was legion. It is credibly stated that the
+amount of benefactions contributed by his benefit concerts, added to the
+immense sums which he directly disbursed, would have made him several
+times a millionaire.
+</p>
+<p>
+The blaze of enthusiasm which Liszt kindled made his track luminous
+throughout the musical centers of Europe. Cćsar-like, his very arrival
+was a victory, for it aroused an indescribable ferment of agitation,
+which rose at his concerts to wild excesses. Ladies of the highest rank
+tore their gloves to strips in the ardor of their applause, flung
+their jewels on the stage instead of bouquets, shrieked in ecstasy and
+sometimes fainted, and made a wild rush for the stage at the close of
+the music to see Liszt, and obtain some of the broken strings of the
+piano, which the artist had ruined in the heat of his play, as precious
+relics of the occasion. The stories told of the Liszt craze among the
+ladies of Germany and Russia are highly amusing, and have a value as
+registering the degree of the effect he produced on impressible minds.
+Even sober and judicious critics who knew well whereof they spoke
+yielded to the contagion. Schumann writes of him, <i>apropos</i> of his
+Dresden and Leipzig concerts in 1840: "The whole audience greeted his
+appearance with an enthusiastic storm of applause, and then he began to
+play. I had heard him before, but an artist is a different thing in the
+presence of the public compared with what he appears in the presence of
+a few. The fine open space, the glitter of light, the elegantly dressed
+audience&mdash;all this elevates the frame of mind in the giver and receiver.
+And now the demon's power began to awake; he first played with the
+public as if to try it, then gave it something more profound, until
+every single member was enveloped in his art; and then the whole mass
+began to rise and fall precisely as he willed it. I never found any
+artist except Paga-nini to possess in so high a degree this power of
+subjecting, elevating, and leading the public. It is an instantaneous
+variety of wildness, tenderness, boldness, and airy grace; the
+instrument glows under the hand of its master.... It is most easy to
+speak of his outward appearance. People have often tried to picture
+this by comparing Liszt's head to Schiller's or Napoleon's; and the
+comparison so far holds good, in that extraordinary men possess certain
+traits in common, such as an expression of energy and strength of will
+in the eyes and mouth. He has some resemblance to the portraits of
+Napoleon as a young general, pale, thin, with a remarkable profile,
+the whole significance of his appearance culminating in his head. While
+listening to Liszt's playing, I have often almost imagined myself as
+listening to one I heard long before. But this art is scarcely to be
+described. It is not this or that style of piano-forte playing; it is
+rather the outward expression of a daring character, to whom Fate has
+given as instruments of victory and command, not the dangerous weapon of
+war, but the peaceful ones of art. No matter how many and great artists
+we possess or have seen pass before us of recent years, though some of
+them equal him in single points, all must yield to him in energy and
+boldness. People have been very fond of placing Thalberg in the lists
+beside him, and then drawing comparisons. But it is only necessary to
+look at both heads to come to a conclusion. I remember the remark of
+a Viennese designer who said, not inaptly, that his countryman's head
+resembled that of a handsome countess with a man's nose, while of Liszt
+he observed that he might sit to every painter for a Grecian god. There
+is a similar difference in their art. Chopin stands nearer to Liszt as a
+player, for at least he loses nothing beside him in fairy-like grace and
+tenderness; next to him Paganini, and, among women, Mme. Malibran; from
+these Liszt himself says he has learned the most.... Liszt's most genial
+performance was yet to come, Weber's 'Concert-stuck,' which he played
+at the second performance. Virtuoso and public seemed to be in the
+freshest mood possible on that evening, and the enthusiasm during and
+after his playing almost exceeded anything hitherto known here. Although
+Liszt grasped the piece from the begin-ing with such force and grandeur
+that an attack on the battle-field seemed to be in question, yet he
+carried this on with continually increasing power, until the passage
+where the player seems to stand at the summit of the orchestra, leading
+it forward in triumph. Here, indeed, he resembled that great commander
+to whom he has been compared, and the tempestuous applause that greeted
+him was not unlike an adoring 'Vive l'Empereur.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+Flattering to his pride, however, as were the universal honors bestowed
+on the artist, none were so grateful as those from his own countrymen.
+The philanthropy of his conduct had made a deep impression on the
+Hungarians. Two cities, Pesth and Odenburg, created him an honorary
+citizen; a patent of nobility was solicited for him by the <i>comitat</i> of
+Odenburg; and the "sword of honor," according to Hungarian custom, was
+presented to him with due solemnities. A brief account from an Hungarian
+journal of the time is of interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The national feeling of the Magyars is well known; and proud are they
+of that star of the first magnitude which arose out of their nation.
+Over the countries of Europe the fame of the Hungarian Liszt came to
+them before they had as yet an opportunity of admiring him. The Danube
+was swollen by rains, Pesth was inundated, thousands were mourning
+the loss of friends and relations or of all their property. During
+his absence in Milan Liszt learned that many of his countrymen were
+suffering from absolute want. His resolution was taken. The smiling
+heaven of Italy, the <i>dolce far niente</i> of Southern life, could not
+detain him. The following morning he had quitted Milan and was on his
+way to Vienna. He performed for the benefit of those who had suffered
+by the inundation at Pesth. His art was the horn of plenty from which
+streamed forth blessings for the afflicted. Eighteen months afterward he
+came to Pesth, not as the artist in search of pecuniary advantage,
+but as a Magyar. He played for the Hungarian national theatre, for the
+musical society, for the poor of Pesth and of Odenburg, always before
+crowded houses, and the proceeds, fully one hundred thousand francs,
+were appropriated for these purposes. Who can wonder that admiration
+and pride should arise to enthusiasm in the breasts of his grateful
+countrymen? He was complimented by serenades, garlands were thrown
+to him; in short, the whole population of Pesth neglected nothing to
+manifest their respect, gratitude, and affection. But these honors,
+which might have been paid to any other artist of high distinction, did
+not satisfy them. They resolved to bind him for ever to the Hungarian
+nation from which he sprang. The token of manly honor in Hungary is
+a sword, for every Magyar has the right to wear a sword, and avails
+himself of that right. It was determined that their celebrated
+countryman should be presented with the Hungarian sword of honor. The
+noblemen appeared at the theatre, in the rich costume they usually wear
+before the emperor, and presented Liszt, midst thunders of applause from
+the whole assembled people, with a costly sword of honor." It was also
+proposed to erect a bronze statue of him in Pesth, but Liszt persuaded
+his countrymen to give the money to a struggling young artist instead.
+</p>
+<center>
+IV.
+</center>
+<p>
+In the autumn of 1840 Liszt went from Paris, at which city he had been
+playing for some time, to the north of Germany, where he at first found
+the people colder than he had been wont to experience. But this soon
+disappeared before the magic of his playing, and even the Hamburgers,
+notorious for a callous, bovine temperament, gave wild demonstrations
+of pleasure at his concerts. He specially pleased the worthy citizens
+by his willingness to play off-hand, without notes, any work which they
+called for, a feat justly regarded as a stupendous exercise of memory.
+From Hamburg he went to London, where he gave nine concerts in a
+fortnight, and stormed the affections and admiration of the English
+public as he had already conquered the heart of Continental Europe.
+While in London a calamity befell him. A rascally agent in whom he
+implicitly trusted disappeared with the proceeds of three hundred
+concerts, an enormous sum, amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds
+sterling. Liszt bore this reverse with cheerful spirits and scorned
+the condolences with which his friends sought to comfort him, saying he
+could easily make the money again, that his wealth was not in money, but
+in the power of making money.
+</p>
+<p>
+The artist's musical wanderings were nearly without ceasing. His
+restless journeying carried him from Italy to Denmark, and from the
+British Islands to Russia, and everywhere the art and social world bowed
+at his feet in recognition of a genius which in its way could only be
+designated by the term "colossal." It seems cumbersome and monotonous to
+repeat the details of successive triumphs; but some of them are attended
+by features of peculiar interest. He offered, in the summer of 1841,
+to give the proceeds of a concert to the completion of the Cathedral
+of Cologne (who that loves music does not remember Liszt's setting of
+Heine's song "Im Rhein," where he translates the glory of the Cathedral
+into music?). Liszt was then staying at the island of Nonneworth, near
+Bonn, and a musical society, the Liedertafel, resolved to escort him
+up to Cologne with due pomp, and so made a grand excursion with a great
+company of invited guests on a steamboat hired for the purpose. A fine
+band of music greeted Liszt on landing, and an extensive banquet was
+then served, at which Liszt made an eloquent speech, full of wit and
+feeling. The artist acceded to the desire of the great congregation of
+people who had gathered to hear him play; and his piano was brought
+into the ruined old chapel of the ancient nunnery, about which so many
+romantic Rhenish legends cluster. Liszt gave a display of his wonderful
+powers to the delighted multitude, and the long-deserted hall of
+Nonneworth chapel, which for many years had only heard the melancholy
+call of the owl, resounded with the most magnificent music. Finally
+the procession with Liszt at the head marched to the steamboat, and the
+vessel glided over the bosom of the Rhine amid the dazzling glare of
+fireworks and to the music of singing and instruments. All Cologne was
+assembled to meet them, and Liszt was carried on the shoulders of his
+frantic admirers to his hotel.
+</p>
+<p>
+In common with all other great musicians, Liszt has throughout life been
+a reverential admirer of the genius of Beethoven, an isolated force
+in music without peer or parallel. In his later years Liszt bitterly
+reproached himself because, in the vanity and impetuosity of his youth,
+he had dared to take liberties with the text of the Beethoven sonatas.
+Many interesting facts in Liszt's life connect themselves, directly
+or indirectly, with Beethoven. Among these is worthy of mention our
+artist's part in the Beethoven festival at Bonn in 1845, organized to
+celebrate the erection of a colossal bronze statue. The enterprise had
+been languishing for a long time, when Liszt promptly declared he
+would make up the deficiency single-handed, and this he did with great
+celerity. In an incredibly short time the money was raised, and the
+commission put in the hands of the sculptor Hilbnel, of Dresden, one of
+the foremost artists of Germany.
+</p>
+<p>
+The programme for the celebration was drawn up by Liszt and Dr. Spohr,
+who were to be the joint conductors of the festival music. A thousand
+difficulties intervened to embarrass the organization of the affair,
+the jealousies of prominent singers, who revolted against the
+self-effacement they would needs undergo, a certain truly German
+parsimony in raising the money for the expenses, and the envious
+littleness of certain great composers and musicians, who feared that
+Liszt would reap too much glory from the prominence of the part he
+had taken in the affair, But Liszt's energy had surmounted all these
+obstacles, when finally, only a month before the festival, which was
+to take place in August, it was discovered that there was no suitable
+Pesthalle in Bonn. The committee said, "What if the affair should not
+pay expenses? would they not be personally saddled with the debt?" Liszt
+promptly answered that, if the proceeds were not sufficient, he himself
+would pay the cost of the building. The architect of the Cologne
+Cathedral was placed at the head of the work, a waste plot of ground
+selected, the trees grubbed up, timber fished up from one of the great
+Rhine rafts, and the Festhalle rose with the swiftness of Aladdin's
+palace. The erection of the statue of Beethoven at his birthplace,
+and the musical celebration thereof in August, 1845, one of the most
+interesting events of its kind that ever occurred, must be, for the most
+part, attributed to the energy and munificence of Franz Liszt. Great
+personages were present from all parts of Europe, among them King
+William of Prussia and Queen Victoria of England. Henry Chorley, who
+has given a pretty full description of the festival, says that Liszt's
+performance of Beethoven's concerto in E flat was the crowning glory
+of the festival, in spite of the richness and beauty of the rest of the
+programme. "I must lastly commemorate, as the most magnificent piece of
+piano-forte playing I ever heard, Dr. Liszt's delivery of the concerto
+in E flat.... Whereas its deliverer restrained himself within all the
+limits that the most sober classicist could have prescribed, he still
+rose to a loftiness, in part ascribable to the enthusiasm of time and
+place, in part referable to a nature chivalresque, proud, and poetic in
+no common degree, which I have heard no other instrumentalist attain....
+The triumph in the mind of the executant sustained the triumph in the
+idea of the compositions without strain, without spasm, but with a
+breadth and depth and height such as made the genius of the executant
+approach the genius of the inventor.... There are players, there are
+poets; and as a poet Liszt was possibly never so sublimely or genuinely
+inspired as in that performance, which remains a bright and precious
+thing in the midst of all the curiously parti-colored recollections of
+the Beethoven festival at Bonn."
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1846, among Liszt's other musical experiences, he played in concerts
+with Berlioz throughout Austria and Southern Germany. The impetuous
+Osechs and Magyars showed their hot Tartar blood in the passion of
+enthusiasm they displayed. Berlioz relates that, at his first concert at
+Pesth, he performed his celebrated version of the "Rákóczy March," and
+there was such a furious explosion of excitement that it wellnigh put an
+end to the concert. At the end of the performance Berlioz was wiping the
+perspiration from his face in the little room off the stage, when the
+door burst open, and a shabbily dressed man, his face glowing with a
+strange fire, rushed in, throwing himself at Berlioz's feet, his eyes
+brimming with tears. He kissed the composer over and over again, and
+sobbed out brokenly: "Ah, sir! Me Hungarian... poor devil... not
+speak French... <i>un, poco l'taliano</i>.... Pardon... my ecstasy... Ah!
+understand your cannon... Yes! yes! the great battle... Germans, dogs!"
+Then, striking great blows with his fists on his chest, "In my heart I
+carry you... A Frenchman, revolutionist... know how to write music for
+revolutions." At a supper given after the performance, Berlioz tells
+us Liszt made an inimitable speech, and got so gloriously be-champagned
+that it was with great difficulty that he could be restrained from
+pistolling a Bohemian nobleman, at two o'clock in the morning, who
+insisted that he could carry off more bottles under his belt than Liszt.
+But the latter played at a concert next day at noon "assuredly as he had
+never played before," says Berlioz.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before passing from that period of Liszt's career which was distinctly
+that of the virtuoso, it is proper to refer to the unique character of
+the enthusiasm which everywhere followed his track like the turmoil of
+a stormy sea. Europe had been familiar with other great players, many of
+them consummate artists, like Hummel, Henri Herz, Czerny, Kalkbrenner,
+Field, Moscheles, and Thalberg, the most brilliant name of them all. But
+the feeling which these performers aroused was pale and passionless
+in comparison with that evoked by Franz Liszt. This was not merely the
+outcome of Liszt as a player and musician, but of Liszt as a man. The
+man always impressed people as immeasurably bigger than what he did,
+great as that was. His nature had a lavishness that knew no bounds. He
+lived for every distinguished man and beautiful woman, and with every
+joyous thing. He had wit and sympathy to spare for gentle and simple,
+and his kindliness was lavished with royal profusion on the scum as well
+as the salt of the earth. This atmosphere of personal grandeur radiated
+from him, and invested his doings, musical and otherwise, with something
+peculiarly fine and fascinating. And then as a player Liszt rose above
+his mates as something of a different genius, a different race, a
+different world, to every one else who has ever handled a piano. He is
+not to be considered among the great composers, also pianists, who have
+merely treated their instrument as an interpreting medium, but as a
+poet, who executively employed the piano as his means of utterance and
+material for creation. In mere mechanical skill, after every one else
+has ended, Liszt had still something to add, carrying every man's
+discovery further. If he was surpassed by Thalberg in richness of sound,
+he surpassed Thalberg by a variety of tone of which the redoubtable
+Viennese player had no dream. He had his delicate, light, freakish
+moods in which he might stand for another Chopin in qualities of fancy,
+sentiment, and faëry brilliancy. In sweep of hand and rapidity of
+finger, in fire and fineness of execution, in that interweaving of
+exquisite momentary fancies where the work admits, in a memory so vast
+as to seem almost superhuman; in that lightning quickness of view,
+enabling him to penetrate instantaneously the meaning of a new
+composition, and to light it up properly with its own inner spirit (some
+touch of his own brilliancy added); briefly, in a mastery, complete,
+spontaneous, enjoying and giving enjoyment, over every style and school
+of music, all those who have heard Liszt assert that he is unapproached
+among players and the traditions of players.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a letter from Berlioz to Liszt, the writer gives us a vivid idea of
+the great virtuoso's playing and its effects. Berlioz is complaining of
+the difficulties which hamper the giving of orchestral concerts.
+After rehearsing his mishaps, he says: "After all, of what use is such
+information to you? You can say with confidence, changing the mot of
+Louis XIV, '<i>L'orchestre, c'est moi; le chour, c'est moi; le chef
+c'est encore moi</i>.' My piano-forte sings, dreams, explodes, resounds;
+it defies the flight of the most skillful forms; it has, like the
+orchestra, its brazen harmonies; like it, and without the least
+preparation, it can give to the evening breeze its cloud of fairy chords
+and vague melodies. I need neither theatre, nor box scene, nor much
+staging. I have not to tire myself out at long rehearsals. I want
+neither a hundred, fifty, nor twenty players. I do not even need any
+music. A grand hall, a grand pianoforte, and I am master of a grand
+audience. I show myself and am applauded; my memory awakens, dazzling
+fantasies grow beneath my fingers. Enthusiastic acclamations answer
+them. I sing Schubert's "Ave Maria," or Beethoven's "Adelaida" on the
+piano, and all hearts tend toward me, all breasts hold their breath....
+Then come luminous bombs, the banquet of this grand firework, and the
+cries of the public, and the flowers and the crowns that rain around
+the priest of harmony, shuddering on his tripod; and the young beauties,
+who, all in tears, in their divine confusion kiss the hem of his
+cloak; and the sincere homage drawn from serious minds and the feverish
+applause torn from many; the lofty brows that bow down, and the narrow
+hearts, marveling to find themselves expanding '.... It is a dream, one
+of those golden dreams one has when one is called Liszt or Paganini."
+</p>
+<p>
+That such a man as this, brilliant in wit, extravagant in habit and
+opinion, courted for his personal fascination by every one greatest in
+rank and choicest in intellect from his prodigious youth to his ripe
+manhood, should suddenly cease from display at the moment when his
+popularity was at its highest, when no rival was in being, is a
+remarkable trait in Dr. Franz Liszt's remarkable life. But this he did
+in 1849, by settling in Weimar as conductor of the court theatre, his
+age then being thirty-eight years.
+</p>
+<center>
+V.
+</center>
+<p>
+Liszt closed his career as a virtuoso, and accepted a permanent
+engagement at Weimar, with the distinct purpose of becoming identified
+with the new school of music which was beginning to express itself so
+remarkably through Richard Wagner. His new position enabled him to bring
+works before the world which would otherwise have had but little chance
+of seeing the light of day, and he rapidly produced at brief intervals
+eleven works, either for the first time, or else revived from what had
+seemed a dead failure. Among these works were "Lohengrin," "Rienzi," and
+"Tannhâuser" by Wagner, "Benvenuto Cellini" by Berlioz, and Schumann's
+"Genoveva," and music to Byron's "Manfred." Liszt's new departure
+and the extraordinary band of artists he drew around him attracted
+the attention of the world of music, and Weimar became a great musical
+center, even as in the days of Goethe it had been a visiting shrine for
+the literary pilgrims of Europe. Thus a nucleus of bold and enthusiastic
+musicians was formed whose mission it was to preach the gospel of the
+new musical faith.
+</p>
+<p>
+Richard Wagner says that, after the revolution of 1849, when he was
+compelled to fly for his life, he was thoroughly disheartened as an
+artist, and that all thought of musical creativeness was dead within
+him. From this stagnation he was rescued by a friend, and that friend
+was Franz Liszt. Let us tell the story in Wagner's own words:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I met Liszt for the first time during my earliest stay in Paris, at
+a period when I had renounced the hope, nay, even a wish of a Paris
+reputation, and, indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the
+artistic life which I found there. At our meeting he struck me as the
+most perfect contrast to my own being and situation. In this world into
+which it had been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt
+had grown up from his earliest age so as to be the object of general
+love and admiration at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness
+and want of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him with suspicion.
+I had no opportunity of disclosing my being and working to him, and
+therefore the reception I met with on his part was of a superficial
+kind, as was indeed natural in a man to whom every day the most
+divergent impressions claimed access. But I was not in a mood to look
+with unprejudiced eyes for the natural cause of this behavior, which,
+though friendly and obliging in itself, could not but wound me in the
+then state of my mind. I never repeated my first call on Liszt, and,
+without knowing or even wishing to know him, I was prone to look on
+him as strange and adverse to my nature. My repeated expression of this
+feeling was afterward told to him, just at the time when my "Rienzi"
+at Dresden was attracting general attention. He was surprised to find
+himself misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely
+known, and whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to him. I am
+still moved when I think of the repeated and eager attempts he made to
+change my opinion of him, even before he knew any of my works. He acted
+not from any artistic sympathy, but led by the purely human wish of
+discontinuing a casual disharmony between himself and another being;
+perhaps he also felt an infinitely tender misgiving of having really
+hurt me unconsciously. He who knows the selfishness and terrible
+insensibility of our social life, and especially of the relations
+of modern artists to each other, can not be struck with wonder, nay,
+delight, with the treatment I received from this remarkable man.... At
+Weimar I saw him for the last time, when I was resting for a few days in
+Thuringia, uncertain whether the threatening persecution would compel me
+to continue my flight from Germany. The very day when my personal
+danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conducting a rehearsal of my
+'Tannhouser,' and was astonished at recognizing my second self in
+his achievement. What I had felt in inventing this music, he felt in
+performing it; what I had wanted to express in writing it down, he
+expressed in making it sound. Strange to say, through the love of this
+rarest friend, I gained, at the very moment of becoming homeless, a real
+home for my art which I had hitherto longed for and sought for in
+the wrong place.... At the end of my last stay in Paris, when, ill,
+miserable, and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on
+the score of my 'Lohengrin,' which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I
+felt something like compassion that this music should never sound from
+off the death-pale paper. Two words I wrote to Liszt; the answer was
+that preparation was being made for the performance on the grandest
+scale which the limited means of Weimar permitted. Everything that
+man or circumstances could do was done to make the work understood....
+Errors and misconceptions impeded the desired success. What was to be
+done to supply what was wanted, so as to further the true understanding
+on all sides and, with it, the ultimate success of the work? Liszt saw
+it at once, and did it. He gave to the public his own impression of the
+work in a manner the convincing eloquence and overpowering efficacy of
+which remain unequaled. Success was his reward, and with this success he
+now approaches me, saying, 'Behold, we have come so far! Now create us a
+new work, that we may go still farther.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+Liszt remained at Weimar for ten years, when he resigned his place
+on account of certain narrow jealousies and opposition offered to his
+plans. Since 1859 he has lived at Weimar, Pesth, and Rome, always
+the center of a circle of pupils and admirers, and, though no longer
+occupying an active place in the world, full of unselfish devotion to
+the true interests of music and musicians. In 1868 he took minor orders
+in the Roman priesthood. Since his early youth Liszt had been the
+subject of strong paroxysms of religious feeling, which more than once
+had nearly carried him into monastic life, and thus his brilliant career
+would have been lost to the world and to art. After he had gained every
+reward that can be lavished on genius, and tasted to the very dregs
+the wine of human happiness, so far as that can come of a splendid
+prosperity and the adoration of the musical world for nearly half a
+century, a sudden revulsion seems to have recalled again to the surface
+that profound religious passion which the glory and pleasure of his busy
+life had never entirely suppressed. It was by no means astonishing to
+those who knew Liszt's life best that he should have taken holy orders.
+</p>
+<p>
+Abbé Liszt lives a portion of each year with the Prince-Cardinal
+Hohenlohe, in the well-known Villa d'Esté, near Rome, a château with
+whose history much romance is interwoven. He is said to be very zealous
+in his religious devotions, and to spend much time in reading and
+composing. He rarely touches the piano, unless inspired by the presence
+of visitors whom he thoroughly likes, and even in such cases less for
+his own pleasure than for the gratification of his friends. Even his
+intimate friends would hardly venture to ask Liszt to play. His summer
+months are divided between Pesth and Weimar, where his advent always
+makes a glad commotion among the artistic circles of these respective
+cities. Of the various pupils who have been formed by Liszt, Hans von
+Bulow, who married his daughter Cosima, is the most distinguished,
+and shares with Rubenstein the honor of being the first of European
+pianists, now that Liszt has for so long a time withdrawn himself from
+the field of competition.
+</p>
+<center>
+VI.
+</center>
+<p>
+Liszt has been a very industrious and prolific writer, his works
+numbering thirty-one compositions for the orchestra; seven for the
+piano-forte and orchestra; two for piano and violin; nine for the organ;
+thirteen masses, psalms, and other sacred music; two oratorios;
+fifteen cantatas and chorals; sixty-three songs; and one hundred
+and seventy-nine works for the piano-forte proper. The bulk of these
+compositions, the most important of them at least, were produced in
+the first forty years of his life, and testify to enormous energy and
+capacity for work, as they came into being during his active period as
+a virtuoso. In addition to his musical works, Liszt has shown
+distinguished talent in letters, and his articles and pamphlets, notably
+the monographs on Robert Franz, Chopin, and the Music of the Gypsies,
+indicate that, had he not chosen to devote himself to music, he might
+have made himself an enviable name in literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps no better characterization of Liszt could be made than to call
+him the musical Victor Hugo of his age. In both these great men we find
+the same restless and burning imagination, a quickness of sensibility
+easily aroused to vehemence, a continual reaching forward toward the new
+and untried and impatience of the old, the same great versatility, the
+same unequaled command of all the resources of their respective crafts,
+and, until within the last twenty years, the same ceaseless fecundity.
+Of Liszt as a player it is not necessary to speak further. Suffice it
+that he is acknowledged to have been, while pursuing the path of the
+virtuoso, not only great, but the greatest in the records of art, with
+the possible exception of Paganini. To the possession of a technique
+which united all the best qualities of other players, carrying each
+a step further, he added a powerful and passionate imagination which
+illuminated the work before him. Wagner wrote of him: "He who has had
+frequent opportunities, particularly in a friendly circle, of hearing
+Liszt play, for instance, Beethoven, must have understood that this
+was not mere reproduction, but production. The actual point of division
+between these two things is not so easily determined as most people
+believe, but so much I have ascertained without a doubt, that, in order
+to reproduce Beethoven, one must produce with him." It was this quality
+which made Liszt such a vital interpreter of other composers, as well as
+such a brilliant performer of his own works. As a composer for the piano
+Franz Liszt has been accused of sacrificing substantial charm of motive
+for the creation of the most gigantic technical difficulties, designed
+for the display of his own skill. This charge is best answered by a
+study of his transcriptions of songs and symphonies, which, difficult in
+an extreme degree, are yet rich in no less excess with musical thought
+and fullness of musical color. He transcribed the "Etudes" of Pa-ganini,
+it is true, as a sort of "tour deforce", and no one has dared to attempt
+them in the concert room but himself; but for the most part Liszt's
+piano-forte writings are full of substance in their being as well as
+splendid elaboration in their form. This holds good no less of the
+purely original compositions, like the concertos and "Rhapsodies
+Hongroises," than of the transcriptions and paraphrases of the <i>Lied</i>,
+the opera, and symphony.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a composer for the orchestra Liszt has spent the ripest period of his
+life, and attained a deservedly high rank. His symphonies belong to what
+has been called, for want of a better name, "programme music," or music
+which needs the key of the story or legend to explain and justify the
+composition. This classification may yet be very misleading. Liszt does
+not, like Berlioz, refer every feature of the music to a distinct event,
+emotion, or dramatic situation, but concerns himself chiefly with
+the pictorial and symbolic bearings of his subject. For example, the
+"Mazeppa" symphony, based on Victor Hugo's poem, gets its significance,
+not in view of its description of Mazeppa's peril and rescue, but
+because this famous ride becomes the symbol of man: "<i>Lie vivant sur
+la croupe fatale, Genie, ardent Coursier</i>." The spiritual life of this
+thought burns with subtile suggestions throughout the whole symphony.
+</p>
+<p>
+Liszt has not been merely a devoted adherent of the "Music of the
+Future" as expressed in operatic form, but he has embodied his belief
+in the close alliance of poetry and music in his symphonies and
+transcriptions of songs. Anything more pictorial, vivid, descriptive,
+and passionate can not easily be fancied. It is proper also to say in
+passing that the composer shows a command over the resources of the
+orchestra similar to his mastery of the piano, though at times a
+tendency to violent and strident effects offends the ear. Franz Liszt,
+take him for all in all, must be regarded as one of the most remarkable
+men of the last half century, a personality so stalwart, picturesque,
+and massive as to be not only a landmark in music, but an imposing
+figure to those not specially characterized by their musical sympathies.
+His influence on his art has been deep and widespread; his connection
+with some of the most important movements of the last two generations
+well marked; and his individuality a fact of commanding force in the
+art circles of nearly every country of Europe, where art bears any vital
+connection with social and public life.
+</p>
+<center>
+THE END.
+</center>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Great Violinists And Pianists, by George T. Ferris
+
+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: Great Violinists And Pianists
+
+Author: George T. Ferris
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2006 [EBook #17463]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS
+
+By George T. Ferris
+
+
+Copyright, 1881, By D. Appleton and Company.
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+The title of this little book may be misleading to some of its readers,
+in its failure to include sketches of many eminent artists well worthy
+to be classed under such a head. There has been no attempt to cover
+the immense field of executive music, but only to call attention to the
+lives of those musical celebrities who are universally recognized as
+occupying the most exalted places in the arts of violin and pianoforte
+playing; who stand forth as landmarks in the history of music. To do
+more than this, except in a merely encyclopedic fashion, within the
+allotted space, would have been impossible. The same necessity of limits
+has also compelled the writer to exclude consideration of the careers
+of noted living performers; as it was thought best that discrimination
+should be in favor of those great artists whose careers have been
+completely rounded and finished.
+
+An exception to the above will be noted in the case of Franz Liszt; but,
+aside from the fact that this greatest of piano-forte virtuosos, though
+living, has practically retired from the held of art, to omit him from
+such a volume as this would be an unpardonable omission. In connection
+with the personal lives of the artists sketched in this volume, the
+attempt has been made, in a general, though necessarily imperfect,
+manner, to trace the gradual development of the art of playing from its
+cruder beginnings to the splendid virtuosoism of the present time.
+The sources from which facts have been drawn are various, and, it
+is believed, trustworthy, including French, German, and English
+authorities, in some cases the personal reminiscences of the artists
+themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+THE VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.
+
+The Ancestry of the Violin.--The Origin of the Cremona School of
+Violin-Making.--The Amatis and Stradiuarii.--Extraordinary Art
+Activity of Italy at this Period.--Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph
+Guarnerius.--Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers
+of the World.--Corelli, the First Great Violinist.--His Contemporaries
+and Associates.--Anecdotes of his Career.--Corelli's
+Pupil, Geminiani.--Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and
+Chess-Player.--Giuseppe Tartini.--Becomes an Outcast from his Family
+on Account of his Love of Music.--Anecdote of the Violinist
+Vera-cini.--Tartini's Scientific Discoveries in Music.--His Account of
+the Origin of the "Devil's Trill."--Tartini's Pupils.
+
+
+VIOTTI.
+
+Viotti, the Connecting Link between the Early and Modern Violin
+Schools.--His Immense Superiority over his Contemporaries and
+Predecessors.--Other Violinists of his Time, Giornowick and
+Boccherini.--Viotti's Early Years.--His Arrival in Paris, and the
+Sensation he made.--His Reception by the Court.--Viotti's Personal Pride
+and Dignity.--His Rebuke to Princely Impertinence.--The Musical Circles
+of Paris.--Viotti's Last Public Concert in Paris.--He suddenly departs
+for London.--Becomes Director of the King's Theatre.--Is compelled to
+leave the Country as a Suspected Revolutionist.--His Return to England,
+and Metamorphosis into a Vintner.--The French Singer, Garat, finds him
+out in his London Obscurity.--Anecdote of Viotti's Dinner Party.--He
+quits the Wine Trade for his own Profession.--Is made Director of the
+Paris Grand Opera.--Letter from Rossini.--Viotti's Account of the "Ranz
+des Vaches."--Anecdotes of the Great Violinist.--Dies in London in
+1824.--Viotti's Place as a Violinist, and Style of Playing.--The Tourte
+Bow first invented during his Time.--An Indispensable Factor in Great
+Playing on the Violin.--Viotti's Pupils, and his Influence on the
+Musical Art.
+
+
+LUDWIG SPOHR.
+
+Birth and Early Life of the Violinist Spohr.--He is presented with his
+First Violin at six.--The French _Emigre_ Dufour uses his Influence with
+Dr. Spohr, Sr., to have the Boy devoted to a Musical Career.--Goes
+to Brunswick for fuller Musical Instruction.--Spohr is appointed
+_Kammer-musicus_ at the Ducal Court.--He enters under the Tuition of
+and makes a Tour with the Violin Virtuoso Eck.--Incidents of the Russian
+Journey and his Return.--Concert Tour in Germany.--Loses his Fine
+Guarnerius Violin.--Is appointed Director of the Orchestra at Gotha.--He
+marries Dorette Schiedler, the Brilliant Harpist.--Spohr's Stratagem to
+be present at the Erfurt Musical Celebration given by Napoleon in
+Honor of the Allied Sovereigns.--Becomes Director of Opera in
+Vienna.--Incidents of his Life and Production of Various Works.--First
+Visit to England.--He is made Director of the Cassel Court
+Oratorios.--He is retired with a Pension.--Closing Years of his
+Life.--His Place as Composer and Executant.
+
+
+NICOLO PAGANINI.
+
+The Birth of the Greatest of Violinists.--His Mother's
+Dream.--Extraordinary Character and Genius.--Heine's Description of his
+Playing.--Leigh Hunt on Paganini.--Superstitious Rumors current
+during his Life.--He is believed to be a Demoniac.--His Strange
+Appearance.--Early Training and Surroundings.--Anecdotes of
+his Youth.--Paga-nini's Youthful Dissipations.--His Passion for
+Gambling.--He acquires his Wonderful Guarnerius Violin.--His Reform
+from the Gaming-table.--Indefatigable Practice and Work as a Young
+Artist.--Paganini as a _Preux Chevalier_.--His Powerful Attraction for
+Women.--Episode with a Lady of Rank.--Anecdotes of his Early Italian
+Concertizing.--The Imbroglio at Ferrara.--The Frail Health of
+Paganini.--Wonderful Success at Milan where he first plays One of
+the Greatest of his Compositions, "Le Streghe."--Duel with
+Lafont.--Incidents and Anecdotes.--His First Visit to Germany.--Great
+Enthusiasm of his Audiences.--Experiences at Vienna, Berlin, and other
+German Cities.--Description of Paganini, in Paris, by Castil-Blaze and
+Fetis.--His English Reception and the Impression made.--Opinions of the
+Critics.--Paganini not pleased with England.--Settles in Paris for Two
+Years, and becomes the Great Musical Lion.--Simplicity and Amiability
+of Nature.--Magnificent Generosity to Hector Berlioz.--The Great
+Fortune made by Paganini.--His Beautiful Country Seat near Parma.--An
+Unfortunate Speculation in Paris.--The Utter Failure of his
+Health.--His Death at Nice.--Characteristics and Anecdotes.--Interesting
+Circumstances of his Last Moments.--The Peculiar Genius of Paganini, and
+his Influence on Art.
+
+
+DE BERIOT.
+
+De Beriot's High Place in the Art of the Violin and Violin Music.--The
+Scion of an Impoverished Noble Family.--Early Education and Musical
+Training.--He seeks the Advice of Viotti in Paris.--Becomes a Pupil of
+Robrechts and Baillot successively.--De Beriot finishes and perfects his
+Style on his Own Model.--Great Success in England.--Artistic Travels
+in Europe.--Becomes Soloist to the King of the Netherlands.--He meets
+Malibran, the Great Cantatrice, in Paris.--Peculiar Circumstances which
+drew the Couple toward Each Other.--They form a Connection which only
+ends with Malibran's Life.--Sketch of Malibran and her Family.--The
+Various Artistic Journeys of Malibran and De Beriot.--Their Marriage
+and Mme. de Beriot's Death.--De Beriot becomes Professor in the Brussels
+Conservatoire.--His Later Life in Brussels.--His Son Charles Malibran de
+Beriot.--The Character of De Beriot as Composer and Player.
+
+
+OLE BULL.
+
+The Birth and Early Life of Ole Bull at Bergen, Norway.--His Family and
+Connections.--Surroundings of his Boyhood.--Early Display of his Musical
+Passion.--Learns the Violin without Aid.--Takes Lessons from an Old
+Musical Professor, and soon surpasses his Master.--Anecdotes of his
+Boyhood.--His Father's Opposition to Music as a Profession.--Competes
+for Admittance to the University at Christiania.--Is consoled
+for Failure by a Learned Professor.--"Better be a Fiddler than
+a Preacher."--Becomes Conductor of the Philharmonic Society at
+Bergen.--His first Musical Journey.--Sees Spohr.--Fights a Duel.--Visit
+to Paris.--He is reduced to Great Pecuniary Straits.--Strange Adventure
+with Vidocq, the Great Detective.--First Appearance in Concert in
+Paris.--Romantic Adventure leading to Acquaintance.--First Appearance
+in Italy.--Takes the Place of De Beriot by Great Good Luck.--Ole Bull
+is most enthusiastically received.--Extended Concert Tour in Italy and
+France.--His _Debut_ and Success in England.--One Hundred and Eighty
+Concerts in Six Months.--Ole Bull's Gaspar di Salo Violin, and the
+Circumstances under which he acquired it.--His Answer to the King of
+Sweden.--First Visit and Great Success in America in 1848.--Attempt
+to establish a National Theatre.--The Norwegian Colony in
+Pennsylvania.--Latter Years of Ole Bull.--His Personal Appearance.--Art
+Characteristics.
+
+
+MUZIO CLEMENTI.
+
+The Genealogy of the Piano-forte.--The Harpsichord its Immediate
+Predecessor.--Supposed Invention of the Piano-forte.--Silbermann the
+First Maker.--Anecdote of Frederick the Great.--The Piano-forte only
+slowly makes its Way as against the Clavichord and Harpsichord.--Emanuel
+Bach, the First Composer of Sonatas for the Piano-forte.--His Views
+of playing on the New Instrument.--Haydn and Mozart as Players.--Muzio
+Clementi, the Earliest Virtuoso, strictly speaking, as a Pianist.--Born
+in Rome in 1752.--Scion of an Artistic Family.--First Musical
+Training.--Rapid Development of his Talents.--Composes Contrapuntal
+Works at the Age of Fourteen.--Early Studies of the Organ and
+Harpsichord.--Goes to England to complete his Studies.--Creates
+an Unequaled Furore in London.--John Christian Bach's Opinion of
+Clementi.--Clementi's Musical Tour.--His Duel with Mozart before the
+Emperor.--Tenor of Clementi's Life in England.--Clementi's Pupils.--Trip
+to St. Petersburg.--Sphor's Anecdote of Him.--Mercantile and
+Manufacturing Interest in the Piano as Partner of Collard.--The Players
+and Composers trained under Clementi.--His Composition.--Status as
+a Player.--Character and Influence as an Artist.--Development of the
+Technique of the Piano, culminating in Clementi.
+
+
+MOSCHELES.
+
+Clementi and Mozart as Points of Departure in Piano-forte
+Playing.--Moscheles the most Brilliant Climax reached by the Viennese
+School.--His Child-Life at Prague.--Extraordinary Precocity.--Goes to
+Vienna as the Pupil of Salieri and Albrechtsburger.--Acquaintance with
+Beethoven.--Moscheles is honored with a Commission to make a Piano
+Transcription of Beethoven's "Fidelio."--His Intercourse with the Great
+Man.--Concert Tour.--Arrival in Paris.--The Artistic Circle into which
+he is received.--Pictures of Art-Life in Paris.--London and its Musical
+Celebrities.--Career as a Wandering Virtuoso.--Felix Mendelssohn becomes
+his Pupil.--The Mendelssohn Family.--Moseheles's Marriage to a
+Hamburg Lady.--Settles in London.--His Life as Teacher, Player, and
+Composer.--Eminent Place taken by Moscheles among the Musicians of
+his Age.--His Efforts soothe the Sufferings of Beethoven's
+Death-bed.--Friendship for Mendelssohn.--Moscheles becomes connected
+with the Leipzig Conservatorium.--Death in 1870.--Moscheles as Pianist
+and Composer.--Sympathy with the Old as against the New School of the
+Piano.--His Powerful Influence on the Musical Culture and Tendencies of
+his Age.
+
+
+THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
+
+Robert Schumann's Place as a National Composer.--Peculiar Greatness as
+a Piano-forte Composer.--Born at Zwickau in 1810.--His Father's
+Aversion to his Musical Studies.--Becomes a Student of Jurisprudence
+in Leipzig.--Makes the Acquaintance of Clara Wieck.--Tedium of his Law
+Studies.--Vacation Tour to Italy.--Death of his Father, and Consent
+of his Mother to Schumann adopting the Profession of Music.--Becomes
+Wieck's Pupil.--Injury to his Hand which prevents all Possibilities of
+his becoming a Great Performer.--Devotes himself to Composition.--The
+Child, Clara Wieck--Remarkable Genius as a Player.--Her Early
+Training.--Paganini's Delight in her Genius.--Clara Wieck's
+Concert Tours.--Schumann falls deeply in Love with her, and
+Wieck's Opposition.--His Allusions to Clara in the "Neue
+Zeit-schrift."--Schumann at Vienna.--His Compositions at first
+Unpopular, though played by Clara Wieck and Liszt.--Schumann's Labors
+as a Critic.--He marries Clara in 1840.--His Song Period inspired by
+his Wife.--Tour to Russia, and Brilliant Reception given to the
+Artist Pair.--The "Neue Zeitschrift" and its Mission.--The
+Davidsbund.--Peculiar Style of Schumann's Writing.--He moves to
+Dresden.--Active Production in Orchestral Composition.--Artistic Tour in
+Holland.--He is seized with Brain Disease.--Characteristics as a Man,
+as an Artist, and as a Philosopher.--Mme. Schumann as her Husband's
+Interpreter.--Chopin a Colaborer with Schumann.--Schumann on Chopin
+again.--Chopin's Nativity.--Exclusively a Piano-forte Composer.--His
+Genre as Pianist and Composer.--Aversion to Concert-giving.--Parisian
+Associations.--New Style of Technique demanded by his Works.--Unique
+Treatment of the Instrument.--Characteristics of Chopin's Compositions.
+
+
+THALBERG AND GOTTSCHALK.
+
+Thalberg one of the Greatest of Executants.--Rather a Man of Remarkable
+Talents than of Genius.--Moseheles's Description of him.--The
+Illegitimate Son of an Austrian Prince.--Early Introduction to
+Musical Society in London and Vienna.--Beginning of his Career as a
+Virtuoso.--The Brilliancy of his Career.--Is appointed Court Pianist to
+the Emperor of Austria.--His Marriage.--Visits to America.--Thalberg's
+Artistic Idiosyncrasy.--Robert Schumann on his Playing.--His Appearance
+and Manner.--Characterization by George William Curtis.--Thalberg's
+Style and Worth as an Artist.--His Piano-forte Method, and Place as a
+Composer for the Piano.--Gottschalk's Birth and Early Years.--He is sent
+to Paris for Instruction.--Successful _Debut_ and Publie Concerts
+in Paris and Tour through the French Cities.--Friendship with
+Berlioz.--Concert Tour to Spain.--Romantic Experiences.--Berlioz on
+Gottschalk.--Reception of Gottschalk in America.--Criticism of his
+Style.--Remarkable Success of his Concerts.--His Visit to the West
+Indies, Mexico, and Central America.--Protracted Absence.--Gottschalk
+on Life in the Tropics.--Return to the United States.--Three Brilliant
+Musical Years.--Departure for South America.--Triumphant Procession
+through the Spanish-American Cities.--Death at Rio Janeiro.--Notes on
+Gottschalk as Man and Artist.
+
+
+FRANZ LISZT.
+
+The Spoiled Favorite of Fortune.--His Inherited Genius.--Birth and
+Early Training.--First Appearance in Concert.--Adam Liszt and his Son
+in Paris.--Sensation made by the Boy's Playing.--His Morbid Religious
+Sufferings.--Franz Liszt thrown on his own Resources.--The Artistic
+Circle in Paris.--Liszt in the Ranks of Romanticism.--His Friends and
+Associates.--Mme. D'Agoult and her Connection with Franz
+Liszt.--He retires to Geneva.--Is recalled to Paris by the Thalberg
+_Furore_.--Rivalry between the Artists and their Factions.--He commences
+his Career as Traveling Virtuoso.--The Blaze of Enthusiasm throughout
+Europe.--Schumann on Liszt as Man and Artist.--He ranks the Hungarian
+Virtuoso as the Superior of Thalberg.--Liszt's Generosity to his own
+Countrymen.--The Honors paid to him in Pesth.--Incidents of his
+Musical Wanderings.--He loses the Proceeds of Three Hundred
+Concerts.--Contributes to the Completion of the Cologne Cathedral.--His
+Connection with the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, and the Celebration of
+the Unveiling.--Chorley on Liszt.--Berlioz and Liszt.--Character of the
+Enthusiasm called out by Liszt as an Artist.--Remarkable Personality
+as a Man.--Berlioz characterizes the Great Virtuoso in a Letter.--Liszt
+ceases his Life as a Virtuoso, and becomes Chapel-Master and Court
+Conductor at Weimar.--Avowed Belief in the New School of Music, and
+Production of Works of this School.--Wagner's Testimony to Liszt's
+Assistance.--Liszt's Resignation of his Weimar Post after Ten
+Years.--His Subsequent Life.--He takes Holy Orders.--Liszt as a Virtuoso
+and Composer.--Entitled to be placed among the most Remarkable Men of
+his Age.
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS.
+
+
+
+
+THE VIOLIN AND EARLY VIOLINISTS.
+
+The Ancestry of the Violin.--The Origin of the Cremona School of
+Violin-Making.--The Amatis and Stradiuarii.--Extraordinary Art
+Activity of Italy at this Period.--Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph
+Guarnerius.--Something about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers
+of the World.--Corelli, the First Great Violinist.--His Contemporaries
+and Associates.--Anecdotes of his Career.--Corelli's
+Pupil, Geminiani.--Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and
+Chess-Player.--Giuseppe Tartini.--Becomes an Outcast from his Family
+on Account of his Love of Music.--Anecdote of the Violinist
+Veracini.--Tartini's Scientific Discoveries in Music.--His Account of
+the Origin of the "Devil's Trill."--Tartini's Pupils.
+
+
+I.
+
+The ancestry of the violin, considering this as the type of stringed
+instruments played with a bow, goes back to the earliest antiquity; and
+innumerable passages might be quoted from the Oriental and classical
+writers illustrating the important part taken by the forefathers of the
+modern violin in feast, festival, and religious ceremonial, in the fiery
+delights of battle, and the more dulcet enjoyments of peace. But it
+was not till the fifteenth century, in Italy, that the art of making
+instruments of the viol class began to reach toward that high perfection
+which it speedily attained. The long list of honored names connected
+with the development of art in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
+centuries is a mighty roll-call, and among these the names of the great
+violin-makers, beginning with Gaspard de Salo, of Brescia, who first
+raised a rude craft to an art, are worthy of being included. From
+Brescia came the masters who established the Cremona school, a name not
+only immortal in the history of music, but full of vital significance;
+for it was not till the violin was perfected, and a distinct school of
+violin-playing founded, that the creation of the symphony, the highest
+form of music, became possible.
+
+The violin-makers of Cremona came, as we have said, from Brescia,
+beginning with the Ama-tis. Though it does not lie within the province
+of this work to discuss in any special or technical sense the history of
+violin-making, something concerning the greatest of the Cremona masters
+will be found both interesting and valuable as preliminary to the
+sketches of the great players which make up the substance of the
+volume. The Amatis, who established the violin-making art at Cremona,
+successively improved, each member of the class stealing a march on
+his predecessor, until the peerless masters of the art, Antonius
+Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius del Jesu, advanced far beyond the
+rivalry of their contemporaries and successors. The pupils of the
+Amatis, Stradiuarius, and Guarnerius settled in Milan, Florence, and
+other cities, which also became centers of violin-making, but never to
+an extent which lessened the preeminence of the great Cremona makers.
+There was one significant peculiarity of all the leading artists of this
+violin-making epoch: each one as a pupil never contented himself with
+making copies of his master's work, but strove incessantly to strike
+out something in his work which should be an outcome of his own genius,
+knowledge, and investigation. It was essentially a creative age.
+
+Let us glance briefly at the artistic activity of the times when the
+violin-making craft leaped so swiftly and surely to perfection. If we
+turn to the days of Gaspard di Salo, Morelli, Magini, and the Amatis, we
+find that when they were sending forth their fiddles, Raphael, Leonardo
+da Vinci, Titian, and Tintoretto were busily painting their great
+canvases. While Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius were
+occupied with the noble instruments which have immortalized their names,
+Canaletto was painting his Venetian squares and canals, Giorgio was
+superintending the manufacture of his inimitable maiolica, and the
+Venetians were blowing glass of marvelous beauty and form. In the
+musical world, Corelli was writing his gigues and sarabandes, Geminiani
+composing his first instruction book for the violin, and Tartini
+dreaming out his "Devil's Trill"; and while Guadognini (a pupil of
+Antonius Stradiuarius), with the stars of lesser magnitude, were
+exercising their calling, Viotti, the originator of the school of modern
+violin-playing, was beginning to write his concertos, and Boccherini
+laying the foundation of chamber music.
+
+Such was the flourishing state of Italian art during the great Cremona
+period, which opened up a mine of artistic wealth for succeeding
+generations. It is a curious fact that not only the violin but violin
+music was the creature of the most luxurious period of art; for, in that
+golden age of the creative imagination, musicians contemporary with the
+great violin-makers were writing music destined to be better understood
+and appreciated when the violins then made should have reached their
+maturity.
+
+There can be no doubt that the conditions were all highly favorable
+to the manufacture of great instruments. There were many composers
+of genius and numerous orchestras scattered over Italy, Germany, and
+France, and there must have been a demand for bow instruments of a high
+order. In the sixteenth century, Palestrina and Zarlino were writing
+grand church music, in which violins bore an important part. In the
+seventeenth, lived Stradella, Lotti, Buononcini, Lulli, and Corelli. In
+the eighteenth, when violin-making Avas at its zenith, there were such
+names among the Italians as Scarlatti, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Locatelli,
+Boccherini, Tartini, Piccini, Viotti, and Nardini; while in France it
+was the epoch of Lecler and Gravinies, composers of violin music of
+the highest class. Under the stimulus of such a general art culture the
+makers of the violin must have enjoyed large patronage, and the more
+eminent artists have received highly remunerative prices for their
+labors, and, correlative to this practical success, a powerful stimulus
+toward perfecting the design and workmanship of their instruments. These
+plain artisans lived quiet and simple lives, but they bent their whole
+souls to the work, and belonged to the class of minds of which Carlyle
+speaks: "In a word, they willed one thing to which all other things were
+made subordinate and subservient, and therefore they accomplished it.
+The wedge will rend rocks, but its edge must be sharp and single; if it
+be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing."
+
+
+II.
+
+So much said concerning the general conditions under which the craft
+of violin-making reached such splendid excellence, the attention of the
+reader is invited to the greatest masters of the Cremona school.
+
+
+     "The instrument on which he played
+     Was in Cremona's workshops made,
+     By a great master of the past,
+     Ere yet was lost the art divine;
+     Fashioned of maple and of pine,
+     That in Tyrolean forests vast
+     Had rooked and wrestled with the blast.
+
+     "Exquisite was it in design,
+     A marvel of the lutist's art,
+     Perfect in each minutest part;
+     And in its hollow chamber thus
+     The maker from whose hand it came
+     Had written his unrivaled name,
+     'Antonius Stradivarius.'"
+
+
+The great artist whose work is thus made the subject of Longfellow's
+verse was born at Cremona in 1644. His renown is beyond that of all
+others, and his praise has been sounded by poet, artist, and musician.
+He has received the homage of two centuries, and his name is as little
+likely to be dethroned from its special place as that of Shakespeare
+or Homer. Though many interesting particulars are known concerning
+his life, all attempt has failed to obtain any connected record of the
+principal events of his career. Perhaps there is no need, for there
+is ample reason to believe that Antonius Stradiuarius lived a quiet,
+uncheckered, monotonous existence, absorbed in his labor of making
+violins, and caring for nothing in the outside world which did not touch
+his all-beloved art. Without haste and without rest, he labored for
+the perfection of the violin. To him the world was a mere workshop. The
+fierce Italian sun beat down and made Cremona like an oven, but it was
+good to dry the wood for violins. On the slopes of the hills grew grand
+forests of maple, pine, and willow, but he cared nothing for forest
+or hillside except as they grew good wood for violins. The vineyards
+yielded rich wine, but, after all, the main use of the grape was that it
+furnished the spirit wherewith to compound varnish. The sheep, ox, and
+horse were good for food, but still more important because from them
+came the hair of the bow, the violin strings, and the glue which held
+the pieces together. It was through this single-eyed devotion to
+his life-work that one great maker was enabled to gather up all the
+perfections of his predecessors, and stand out for all time as the
+flower of the Cremonese school and the master of the world. George
+Eliot, in her poem, "The Stradivari," probably pictures his life
+accurately:
+
+
+     "That plain white-aproned man, who stood at work,
+     Patient and accurate full fourscore years,
+     Cherished his sight and touch by temperance;
+     And since keen sense is love of perfectness,
+     Made perfect violins, the needed paths
+     For inspiration and high mastery."
+
+
+M. Fetis, in his notice of the greatest of violin-makers, summarizes his
+life very briefly. He tells us the life of Antonius Stradiuarius was
+as tranquil as his calling was peaceful. The year 1702 alone must have
+caused him some disquiet, when during the war the city of Cremona was
+taken by Marshal Villeroy, on the Imperialist side, retaken by Prince
+Eugene, and finally taken a third time by the French. That must have
+been a parlous time for the master of that wonderful workshop whence
+proceeded the world's masterpieces, though we may almost fancy the
+absorbed master, like Archimedes when the Romans took Syracuse, so
+intent on his labor that he hardly heard the din and roar of battle,
+till some rude soldier disturbed the serene atmosphere of the room
+littered with shavings and strewn with the tools of a peaceful craft.
+
+Polledro, not many years ago first violin at the Chapel Royal of Turin,
+who died at a very advanced age, declared that his master had known
+Stradiuarius, and that he was fond of talking about him. He was, he
+said, tall and thin, with a bald head fringed with silvery hair, covered
+with a cap of white wool in the winter and of cotton in the summer. He
+wore over his clothes an apron of white leather when he worked, and, as
+he was always working, his costume never varied. He had acquired what
+was regarded as wealth in those days, for the people of Cremona were
+accustomed to say "As rich as Stradiuarius." The house he occupied is
+still standing in the Piazza Roma, and is probably the principal place
+of interest in the old city to the tourists who drift thitherward.
+The simple-minded Cremonese have scarcely a conception to-day of the
+veneration with which their ancient townsman is regarded by the musical
+connoisseurs of the world. It was with the greatest difficulty that they
+were persuaded a few years ago, by the efforts of Italian and French
+musicians, to name one street Stradiuarius, and another Amati. Nicholas
+Amati, the greatest maker of his family, was the instructor of Antonius
+Stradiuarius, and during the early period of the latter artist the
+instruments could hardly be distinguished from those of Amati. But, in
+after-years, he struck out boldly in an original line of his own, and
+made violins which, without losing the exquisite sweetness of the Amati
+instruments, possessed far more robustness and volume of tone, reaching,
+indeed, a combination of excellences which have placed his name high
+above all others. It may be remarked of all the Cremona violins of the
+best period, whether Amati, Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, or Steiner,
+that they are marked no less by their perfect beauty and delicacy of
+workmanship than by their charm of tone. These zealous artisans were not
+content to imprison the soul of Ariel in other form than the lines
+and curves of ideal grace, exquisitely marked woods, and varnish as of
+liquid gold. This external beauty is uniformly characteristic of the
+Cremona violins, though shape varies in some degree with each maker.
+Of the Stradiuarius violins it may be said, before quitting the
+consideration of this maker, that they have fetched in latter years
+from one thousand to five thousand dollars. The sons and grandsons of
+Antonius were also violin-makers of high repute, though inferior to the
+chief of the family.
+
+The name of Joseph Guarnerius del Jesu is only less in estimation than
+that of Antonius Stradiuarius, of whom it is believed by many he was a
+pupil or apprentice, though of this there is no proof. Both his uncle
+Andreas and his cousin Joseph were distinguished violin-makers, but the
+Guarnerius patronymic has now its chiefest glory from that member known
+as "del Jesu." This great artist in fiddle-making was born at Cremona in
+the year 1683, and died in 1745. He worked in his native place till
+the day of his death, but in his latter years Joseph del Jesu became
+dissipated, and his instruments fell off somewhat in excellence of
+quality and workmanship. But his _chef d'oeuvres_ yield only to those
+of the great Stradiuarius in the estimation of connoisseurs. Many of the
+Guarnerius violins, it is said, were made in prison, where the artist
+was confined for debt, with inferior tools and material surreptitiously
+obtained for him by the jailer's daughter, who was in love with the
+handsome captive. These fruits of his skill were less beautiful in
+workmanship, though marked by wonderful sweetness and power of tone.
+Mr. Charles Reade, a great violin amateur as well as a novelist, says of
+these "prison" fiddles, referring to the comical grotesqueness of their
+form: "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_."
+Paganini's favorite was a Guarnerius del Jesu, though he had no less
+than seven instruments of the greatest Cremona masters. Spohr, the
+celebrated violinist and composer, offered to exchange his Strad, one
+of the finest in the world, for a Guarnerius, in the possession of Mr.
+Mawkes, an English musician.
+
+Carlo Bergonzi, the pupil of Antonius Stradiuarius, was another of the
+great Cremona makers, and his best violins have commanded extraordinary
+prices. He followed the model of his master closely, and some of his
+instruments can hardly be distinguished in workmanship and tone from
+genuine Strads. Something might be said, too, of Jacob Steiner,
+who, though a German (born about 1620), got the inspiration for his
+instruments of the best period so directly from Cremona that he ought
+perhaps to be classified with the violin-makers of this school. His
+famous violins, known as the Elector Steiners, were made under peculiar
+circumstances. Almost heartbroken by the death of his wife, he retired
+to a Benedictine monastery with the purpose of taking holy orders.
+But the art-passion of his life was too strong, and he made in his
+cloister-prison twelve instruments, on which he lavished the most
+jealous care and attention. These were presented to the twelve Electors
+of Germany, and their extraordinary merit has caused them to rank high
+among the great violins of the world. A volume might be easily compiled
+of anecdotes concerning violins and violin-makers. The vicissitudes
+and changes of ownership through which many celebrated instruments have
+passed are full of romantic interest. Each instrument of the greatest
+makers has a pedigree, as well authenticated as those of the great
+masterpieces of painting, though there have been instances where a Strad
+or a Guarnerius has been picked up by some strange accident for a mere
+trifle at an auction. There have been many imitations of the genuine
+Cremonas palmed off, too, on the unwary at a high price, but the
+connoisseur rarely fails to identify the great violins almost instantly.
+For, aside from their magical beauty of tone, they are made with the
+greatest beauty of form, color, and general detail. So much has been
+said concerning the greatest violin-makers, in view of the fact that
+coincident with the growth of a great school of art-manufacture in
+violins there also sprang up a grand school of violin-playing; for,
+indeed, the one could hardly have existed without the other.
+
+
+III.
+
+The first great performer on the violin whose career had any special
+significance, in its connection with the modern world of musical art,
+was Archangelo Corelli, who was born at Fusignano, in the territory of
+Bologna, in the year 1653. Corelli's compositions are recognized to-day
+as types of musical purity and freshness, and the great number of
+distinguished pupils who graduated from his teaching relate him closely
+with all the distinguished violinists even down to the present day. In
+Corelli's younger days the church had a stronger claim on musicians
+than the theatre or concert-room. So we find him getting his earliest
+instruction from the Capuchin Simonelli, who devoted himself to the
+ecclesiastical style. The pupil, however, yielded to an irresistible
+instinct, and soon put himself under the care of a clever and skillful
+teacher, the well-known Bassani. Under this tuition the young musician
+made rapid advancement, for he labored incessantly in the practice of
+his instrument. At the age of twenty Corelli followed that natural bent
+which carried him to Paris, then, as now, a great art capital; and we
+are told, on the authority of Fetis, that the composer Lulli became
+so jealous of his extraordinary skill that he obtained a royal mandate
+ordering Corelli to quit Paris, on pain of the Bastille.
+
+In 1680 he paid a visit to Germany, and was specially well received,
+and was so universally admired, that he with difficulty escaped the
+importunate invitations to settle at various courts as chief musician.
+After a three years' absence from his native land he returned and
+published his first sonatas. The result of his assiduous labor was that
+his fame as a violinist had spread all over Europe, and pupils came from
+distant lands to profit by his instruction. We are told of his style as
+a solo player that it was learned and elegant, the tone firm and even,
+that his playing was frequently impressed with feeling, but that during
+performance "his countenance was distorted, his eyes red as fire, and
+his eyeballs rolled as if he were in agony." For about eighteen years
+Corelli was domiciled at Rome, under the patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni.
+As leader of the orchestra at the opera, he introduced many reforms,
+among them that of perfect uniformity of bowing. By the violin sonatas
+composed during this period, it is claimed that Corelli laid the
+foundation for the art of violin-playing, though it is probable that he
+profited largely by those that went before him. It was at the house of
+Cardinal Ottoboni that Corelli met Handel, when the violent temper
+of the latter did not hesitate to show itself. Corelli was playing a
+sonata, when the imperious young German snatched the violin from his
+hand, to show the greatest virtuoso of the age how to play the music.
+Corelli, though very amiable in temper, knew how to make himself
+respected. At one of the private concerts at Cardinal Ottoboni's, he
+observed his host and others talking during his playing. He laid his
+violin down and joined the audience, saying he feared his music might
+interrupt the conversation.
+
+In 1708, according to Dubourg, Corelli accepted a royal invitation
+from Naples, and took with him his second violin, Matteo, and a
+violoncellist, in case he should not be well accompanied by the
+Neapolitan orchestra. He had no sooner arrived than he was asked to play
+some of his concertos before the king. This he refused, as the whole of
+his orchestra was not with him, and there was no time for a rehearsal.
+However, he soon found that the Neapolitan musicians played the
+orchestral parts of his concertos as well as his own accompanists did
+after some practice; for, having at length consented to play the first
+of his concertos before the court, the accompaniment was so good
+that Corelli is said to have exclaimed to Matteo: "_Si suona a
+Napoli!_"--"They _do_ play at Naples!" This performance being quite
+successful, he was presented to the king, who afterward requested him
+to perform one of his sonatas; but his Majesty found the adagio "so
+long and so dry that he got up and _left the room_ (!), to the great
+mortification of the eminent virtuoso." As the king had commanded the
+piece, the least he could have done would have been to have waited
+till it was finished. "If they play at Naples, they are not very polite
+there," poor Corelli must have thought! Another unfortunate mishap also
+occurred to him there, if we are to believe the dictum of Geminiani,
+one of Corelli's pupils, who had preceded him at Naples. It would appear
+that he was appointed to lead a composition of Scarlatti's, and on
+arriving at an air in C minor he led off in C major, which mistake he
+twice repeated, till Scarlatti came on the stage and showed him the
+difference. This anecdote, however, is so intrinsically improbable
+that it must be taken with several "grains of salt." In 1712 Corelli's
+concertos were beautifully engraved at Amsterdam, but the composer only
+survived the publication a few weeks. A beautiful statue, bearing the
+inscription "_Corelli princeps musicorum_," was erected to his memory,
+adjacent that honoring the memory of Raffaelle in the Pantheon. He
+accumulated a considerable fortune, and left a valuable collection of
+pictures. The solos of Corelli have been adopted as valuable studies by
+the most eminent modern players and teachers.
+
+Francesco Geminiani was the most remarkable of Corelli's pupils. Born at
+Lucca in 1680, he finished his studies under Corelli at Rome, and spent
+several years with great musical _eclat_ at Naples. In 1714 he went
+to England, in which country he spent many years. His execution was of
+great excellence, but his compositions only achieved temporary favor.
+His life is said to have been full of romance and incident. Geminiani's
+connection with Handel has a special musical interest. The king, who
+arrived in England in September, 1714, and was crowned at Westminster a
+month later, was irritated with Handel for having left Germany, where he
+held the position of chapel-master to George, when Elector of Brunswick,
+and still more so by his having composed a _Te Deum_ on the Peace of
+Utrecht, which was not favorably regarded by the Protestant princes of
+Germany. Baron Kilmanseck, a Hanoverian, and a great admirer of Handel,
+undertook to bring them together again. Being informed that the king
+intended to picnic on the Thames, he requested the composer to write
+something for the occasion. Thereupon Handel wrote the twenty-five
+little concerted pieces known under the title of "Water Music." They
+were executed in a barge which followed the royal boat. The orchestra
+consisted of four violins, one tenor, one violoncello, one double-bass,
+two hautboys, two bassoons, two French horns, two flageolets, one flute,
+and one trumpet. The king soon recognized the author of the music,
+and his resentment against Handel began to soften. Shortly after this
+Geminiani was requested to play some sonatas of his own composition in
+the king's private cabinet; but, fearing that they would lose much
+of their effect if they were accompanied in an inferior manner, he
+expressed the desire that Handel should play the accompaniments. Baron
+Kilmanseck carried the request to the king, and supported it strongly.
+The result was that peace was made, and an extra pension of two hundred
+pounds per annum settled upon Handel. Geminiani, after thirty-five
+years spent in England, went to Paris for five years, where he was most
+heartily welcomed by the musical world, but returned across the Channel
+again to spend his latter years in Dublin. It was here that Matthew
+Dubourg, whose book on "The Violin and Violinists" is a perfect
+treasure-trove of anecdote, became his pupil.
+
+Another remarkable violinist was an intimate friend of Geminiani, a
+name distinguished alike in the annals of chess-playing and music, Andre
+Danican Philidor. This musician was born near Paris in 1726, and was the
+grandson of the hautboy-player to the court of Louis XIII. His father
+and several of his relations were also eminent players in the royal
+orchestras of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Young Philidor was received into
+the Chapel Royal at Versailles in 1732, being then six years old, and
+when eleven he composed a motette which extorted much admiration. In
+the Chapel Royal there were about eighty musicians daily in attendance,
+violins, hautboys, violas, double-basses, choristers, etc.; and,
+cards not being allowed, they had a long table inlaid with a number of
+chess-boards, with which they amused their leisure time. When fourteen
+years old Philidor was the best chess-player in the band. Four years
+later he played at Paris two games of chess at the same time, without
+seeing the boards, and afterward extended this feat to playing five
+games simultaneously, which, though far inferior to the wonderful
+feats of Morphy, Paulsen, and others in more recent years, very much
+astonished his own generation. Philidor was an admirable violinist, and
+the composer of numerous operas which delighted the French public for
+many years. He died in London in 1759.
+
+There were several other pupils of Corelli who achieved rank in their
+art and exerted a recognizable influence on music. Locatelli displayed
+originality and genius in his compositions, and his studies, "Arte di
+Nuova Modulazione," was studied by Paganini. Another pupil, Lorenzo
+Somis, became noted as the teacher of Lecler, Pugnani (the professor of
+Viotti), and Giardini. Visconti, of Cremona, who was taught by Corelli,
+is said to have greatly assisted by his counsels the constructive genius
+of Antonius Stradiuarius in making his magnificent instruments.
+
+
+IV.
+
+The name of Giuseppe Tartini will recur to the musical reader more
+familiarly than those previously mentioned. He was the scion of a noble
+stock, and was born in Istria in 1692. Originally intended for the law,
+he was entered at the University of Padua at the age of eighteen for
+this profession, but his time was mostly given to the study of music and
+fencing, in both of which he soon became remarkably proficient, so
+that he surpassed the masters who taught him. It may be that accident
+determined the future career of Tartini, for, had he remained at the
+university, the whole bent of his life might have been different. Eros
+exerted his potent sway over the young student, and he entered into a
+secret marriage, that being the lowest price at which he could win his
+_bourgeois_ sweetheart. Tartini became an outcast from his family, and
+was compelled to fly and labor for his own living. After many hardships,
+he found shelter in a convent at Assisi, the prior of which was a family
+connection, who took compassion on the friendless youth. Here Tartini
+set to work vigorously on his violin, and prosecuted a series of
+studies which resulted in the "Sonata del Diavolo" and other remarkable
+compositions. At last he was reconciled to his family through the
+intercession of his monastic friend, and took his abode in Venice that
+he might have the benefit of hearing the playing of Veracini, a great
+but eccentric musician, then at the head of the Conservatario of that
+city. Veracini was nicknamed "Capo Pazzo," or "mad-head," on account of
+his eccentricity. Dubourg tells a curious story of this musician: Being
+at Lucca at the time of the annual festival called "Festa della Croce,"
+on which occasion it was customary for the leading artists of Italy to
+meet, Veracini put his name down for a solo. When he entered the choir,
+he found the principal place occupied by a musician of some rank named
+Laurenti. In reply to the latter's question, "Where are you going?"
+Veracini haughtily answered, "To the place of the first violinist." It
+was explained by Laurenti that he himself had been engaged to fill that
+post, but, if his interlocutor wished to play a solo, he could have
+the privilege either at high mass or at vespers. Evidently he did not
+recognize Veracini, who turned away in a rage, and took his position
+in the lowest place in the orchestra. When his turn came to play his
+concerto, he begged that instead of it he might play a solo where he
+was, accompanied on the violoncello by Lanzetti. This he did in so
+brilliant and unexpected a manner that the applause was loud and
+continued, in spite of the sacred nature of the place; and whenever he
+was about to make a close, he turned toward Laurenti and called out:
+"Cost se suona per fare il primo violino"--"This is the way to play
+first violin."
+
+Veracini played upon a fine Steiner violin. The only master he ever had
+was his uncle Antonio, of Florence; and it was by traveling all over
+Europe, and by numerous performances in public, that he formed a
+style of playing peculiar to himself, very similar to what occurred
+to Pa-ganini and the celebrated De Beriot in later years. It does not
+appear certain that Tartini ever took lessons from Veracini; but hearing
+the latter play in public had no doubt a very great effect upon him, and
+caused him to devote many years to the careful study of his instrument.
+Some say that Veracini's performance awakened a vivid emulation in
+Tartini, who was already acknowledged to be a very masterly player. Up
+to the time, however, that Tartini first heard Veracini, he had
+never attempted any of the more intricate and difficult feats of
+violin-playing, as effected by the management of the bow. An intimate
+friendship sprang up between the two artists and another clever
+musician named Marcello, and they devoted much time to the study of the
+principles of violin-playing, particularly to style and the varied kinds
+of bowing. Veracini's mind afterward gave way, and Tartini withdrew
+himself to Ancona, where in utter solitude he applied himself to working
+out the fundamental principles of the bow in the technique of the
+violin--principles which no succeeding violinist has improved or
+altered. Tartini, even while absorbed in music, did not neglect the
+study of science and mathematics, of which he was passionately fond,
+and in the pursuit of which he might have made a name not less than his
+reputation as a musician. It was at this time that Tartini made a very
+curious discovery, known as the _phenomenon of the third sound_, which
+created some sensation at the time, and has since given rise to numerous
+learned discourses, but does not appear to have led to any great
+practical result. Various memoirs or treatises were written by him, and
+that in which he develops the nature of the _third sound_ is his "Tratto
+di Musica se-condo la vera scienza de l'Armonia." In this and others of
+his works, he appears much devoted to _theory_, and endeavors to place
+all his practical facts upon a thoroughly scientific basis. The effect
+known as the _third sound_ consists in the sympathetic resonance of a
+third note when the two upper notes of a chord are played in perfect
+tune. "If you do not hear the bass," Tartini would say to his pupils,
+"the thirds or sixths which you are playing are not perfect in
+intonation."
+
+At Ancona, Tartini attained such reputation as a player and musician
+that he was appointed, in 1721, to the directorship of the orchestra of
+the church of St. Anthony at Padua. Here, according to Fetis, he spent
+the remaining forty-nine years of his life in peace and comfort, solely
+occupied with the labors connected with the art he loved.
+
+His great fame brought him repeated offers from the principal cities of
+Europe, even London and Paris, hat nothing could induce him to leave his
+beloved Italy. Though Tartini could not have been heard out of Italy,
+his violin school at Padua graduated many excellent players, who were
+widely known throughout the musical world. Tartini's compositions
+reached no less than one hundred and fifty works, distinguished not only
+by beauty of melody and knowledge of the violin, but by soundness
+of musical science. Some of his sonatas are still favorites in the
+concert-room. Among these, the most celebrated is the "Trille
+del Dia-volo," or "Devil's Sonata," composed under the following
+circumstances, as related by Tartini himself to his pupil Lalande:
+
+"One night in 1713," he says, "I dreamed that I had made a compact with
+the devil, who promised to be at my service on all occasions. Everything
+succeeded according to my mind; my wishes were anticipated and desires
+always surpassed by the assistance of my new servant. At last I thought
+I would offer my violin to the devil, in order to discover what kind of
+a musician he was, when, to my great astonishment, I heard him play
+a solo, so singularly beautiful and with such superior taste and
+precision, that it surpassed all the music I had ever heard or conceived
+in the whole course of my life. I was so overcome with surprise and
+delight that I lost my power of breathing, and the violence of this
+sensation awoke me. Instantly I seized my violin in the hopes of
+remembering some portion of what I had just heard, but in vain! The work
+which this dream suggested, and which I wrote at the time, is doubtless
+the best of all my compositions, and I still call it the 'Sonata del
+Diavolo'; but it sinks so much into insignificance compared with what
+I heard, that I would have broken my instrument and abandoned music
+altogether, had I possessed any other means of subsistence."
+
+Tartini died at Padua in 1770, and so much was he revered and admired
+in the city where he had spent nearly fifty years of his life, that his
+death was regarded as a public calamity. He used to say of himself that
+he never made any real progress in music till he was more than thirty
+years old; and it is curious that he should have made a great change
+in the nature of his performance at the age of fifty-two. Instead of
+displaying his skill in difficulties of execution, he learned to prefer
+grace and expression. His method of playing an adagio was regarded as
+inimitable by his contemporaries; and he transmitted this gift to his
+pupil Nardini, who was afterward called the greatest adagio player in
+the world. Another of Tartini's great _eleves_ was Pugnani, who before
+coming to him had been instructed by Lorenzo Somis, the pupil of
+Corelli. So it may be said that Pugnani united in himself the schools of
+Corelli and Tartini, and was thus admirably fitted to be the instructor
+of that grand player, who was the first in date of the violin virtuosos
+of modern times, Viotti.
+
+Both as composer and performer, Pugnani was held in great esteem
+throughout Europe. His first meeting with Tartini was an incident of
+considerable interest. He made the journey from Paris to Padua expressly
+to see Tartini, and on reaching his destination he proceeded to the
+house of the great violinist.
+
+Tartini received him kindly, and evinced some curiosity to hear him
+play. Pugnani took up his instrument and commenced a well-known solo,
+but he had not played many bars before Tartini suddenly seized his arm,
+saying, "Too loud, my friend, too loud!" The Piedmontese began again,
+but at the same passage Tartini stopped him again, exclaiming this time,
+"Too soft, my good friend, too soft!" Pugnani therefore laid down the
+violin, and begged of Tartini to give him some lessons. He was at
+once received among Tartini's pupils, and, though already an excellent
+artist, began his musical education almost entirely anew. Many anecdotes
+have been foisted upon Pugnani, some evidently the creation of rivals,
+and not worth repeating. Others, on the contrary, tend to enlighten us
+upon the character of the man. Thus, when playing, he was so completely
+absorbed in the music, that he has been known, at a public concert, to
+walk about the platform during the performance of a favorite cadenza,
+imagining himself alone in the room. Again, at the house of Madame
+Denis, when requested to play before Voltaire, who had little or no
+music in his soul, Pugnani stopped short, when the latter had the bad
+taste to continue his conversation, remarking in a loud, clear voice,
+"M. de Voltaire is very clever in making verses, but as regards music
+he is devilishly ignorant." Pugnani's style of play is said to have been
+very broad and noble, "characterized by that commanding sweep of the
+bow, which afterward formed so grand a feature in the performance of
+Viotti." He was distinguished as a composer as well as a player, and
+among his numerous works are some seven or eight operas, which were very
+successful for the time being on the Italian stage.
+
+
+
+
+VIOTTI.
+
+
+Viotti, the Connecting Link between the Early and Modern Violin
+Schools.--His Immense Superiority over his Contemporaries and
+Predecessors.--Other Violinists of his Time, Giornowick and
+Boccherini.--Viotti's Early Years--His Arrival in Paris, and the
+Sensation he made--His Reception by the Court.--Viotti's Personal Pride
+and Dignity.--His Rebuke to Princely Impertinence.--The Musical Circles
+of Paris.--Viotti's Last Publie Concert in Paris.--He suddenly departs
+for London.--Becomes Director of the King's Theatre.--Is compelled to
+leave the Country as a Suspected Revolutionist.--His Return to England,
+and Metamorphosis into a Vintner.--The French Singer, Garat, finds him
+out in his London Obscurity.--Anecdote of Viotti's Dinner Party.--He
+quits the Wine Trade for his own Profession.--Is made Director of the
+Paris Grand Opera.--Letter from Rossini.--Viotti's Account of the
+"Ranz des Vaches."--Anecdotes of the Great Violinist.--Dies in London in
+1824.--Viotti's Place as a Violinist, and Style of Playing.--The Tourte
+Bow first invented during his Time.--An Indispensable Factor in Great
+Playing on the Violin.--Viotti's Pupils, and his Influence on the
+Musical Art.
+
+
+I.
+
+In the person of the celebrated Viotti we recognize the link connecting
+the modern school of violin-playing with the schools of the past. He
+was generally hailed as the leading violinist of his time, and his
+influence, not merely on violin music but music in general, was of a
+very palpable order. In him were united the accomplishments of the great
+virtuoso and the gifts of the composer. At the time that Viotti's star
+shot into such splendor in the musical horizon, there were not a few
+clever violinists, and only a genius of the finest type could have
+attained and perpetuated such a regal sway among his contemporaries. At
+the time when Viotti appeared in Paris the popular heart was completely
+captivated by Giornowick, whose eccentric and quarrelsome character as
+a man cooperated with his artistic excellence to keep him constantly
+in the public eye. Giornowick was a Palermitan, born in 1745, and his
+career was thoroughly artistic and full of romantic vicissitudes. His
+style was very graceful and elegant, his tone singularly pure. One of
+the most popular and seductive tricks in his art was the treating of
+well-known airs as rondos, returning ever and anon to his theme after
+a variety of brilliant excursions in a way that used to fascinate his
+hearers, thus anticipating some of his brilliant successors.
+
+Michael Kelly heard him at Vienna. "He was a man of a certain age," he
+tells us, "but in the full vigor of talent. His tone was very powerful,
+his execution most rapid, and his taste, above all, alluring. No
+performer in my remembrance played such pleasing music." Dubourg relates
+that on one occasion, when Giornowick had announced a concert at Lyons,
+he found the people rather retentive of their money, so he postponed the
+concert to the following evening, reducing the price of the tickets to
+one half. A crowded company was the result. But the bird had flown! The
+artist had left Lyons without ceremony, together with the receipts from
+sales of tickets.
+
+In London, where he was frequently heard between 1792 and 1796, he once
+gave a concert which was fully attended, but annoying to the player
+on account of the indifference of the audience and the clatter of
+the tea-cups; for it was then the custom to serve tea during the
+performance, as well as during the intervals. Giornowick turned to the
+orchestra and ordered them to cease playing. "These people," said he,
+"know nothing about music; anything is good enough for drinkers of warm
+water. I will give them something suited to their taste." Whereupon he
+played a very trivial and commonplace French air, which he disguised
+with all manner of meretricious flourishes, and achieved a great
+success. When Viotti arrived in Paris in 1779, Giornowick started on
+his travels after having heard this new rival once.
+
+A distinguished virtuoso and composer, with whom Viotti had already been
+thrown into contact, though in a friendly rather than a competitive way,
+was Boccherini, who was one of the most successful early composers of
+trios, quartets, and quintets for string instruments. During the latter
+part of Boccherini's life he basked in the sunlight of Spanish royalty,
+and composed nine works annually for the Royal Academy of Madrid, in
+which town he died in 1806, aged sixty-six. A very clever saying is
+attributed to him. The King of Spain, Charles IV, was fond of playing
+with the great composer, and was very ambitious of shining as a great
+violinist; his cousin, the Emperor of Austria, was also fond of the
+violin, and played tolerably well. One day the latter asked Boccherini,
+in a rather straightforward manner, what difference there was between
+his playing and that of his cousin Charles IV. "Sire," replied
+Boccherini, without hesitating for a moment, "Charles IV plays like a
+king, and your Majesty plays like an emperor."
+
+Giovanni Battista Viotti was born in a little Piedmontese village called
+Fontaneto, in the year 1755. The accounts of his early life are
+too confused and fragmentary to be trustworthy. It is pretty well
+established, however, that he studied under Pugnani at Turin, and that
+at the age of twenty he was made first violin at the Chapel Royal of
+that capital. After remaining three years, he began his career as a
+solo player, and, after meeting with the greatest success at Berlin and
+Vienna, directed his course to Paris, where he made his _debut_ at the
+"Concerts Spirituels."
+
+
+II.
+
+Fetis tells us that the arrival of Viotti in Paris produced a sensation
+difficult to describe. No performer had yet been heard who had attained
+so high a degree of perfection, no artist had possessed so fine a tone,
+such sustained elegance, such fire, and so varied a style. The fancy
+which was developed in his concertos increased the delight he produced
+in the minds of his auditory. His compositions for the violin were
+as superior to those which had previously been heard as his execution
+surpassed that of all his predecessors and contemporaries. Giornowick's
+style was full of grace and suave elegance; Viotti was characterized
+by a remarkable beauty, breadth, and dignity. Lavish attentions were
+bestowed on him from the court circle. Marie Antoinette, who was an
+ardent lover and most judicious patron of music, sent him her commands
+to play at Versailles. The haughty artistic pride of Viotti was signally
+displayed at one of these concerts before royalty. A large number of
+eminent musicians had been engaged for the occasion, and the audience
+was a most brilliant one. Viotti had just begun a concerto of his own
+composition, when the arrogant Comte d'Artois made a great bustle in
+the room, and interrupted the music by his loud whispers and utter
+indifference to the comfort of any one but himself. Viotti's dark eyes
+flashed fire as he stared sternly at this rude scion of the blood royal.
+At last, unable to restrain his indignation, he deliberately placed his
+violin in the case, gathered up his music from the stand, and withdrew
+from the concert-room without ceremony, leaving the concert, her
+Majesty, and his Royal Highness to the reproaches of the audience.
+This scene is an exact parallel of one which occurred at the house
+of Cardinal Ottoboni, when Corelli resented in similar fashion the
+impertinence of some of his auditors.
+
+Everywhere in artistic and aristocratic circles at the French capital
+Viotti's presence was eagerly sought. Private concerts were so much the
+vogue in Paris that musicians of high rank found more profit in these
+than in such as were given to the miscellaneous public. A delightful
+artistic rendezvous was the hotel of the Comte de Balck, an enthusiastic
+patron and friend of musicians. Here Viotti's friend, Garat, whose voice
+had so great a range as to cover both the tenor and barytone registers,
+was wont to sing; and here young Orfila, the brilliant chemist,
+displayed his magnificent tenor voice in such a manner as to attract the
+most tempting offers from managers that he should desert the laboratory
+for the stage. But the young Portuguese was fascinated with science,
+and was already far advanced in the career which made him in his day
+the greatest of all authorities on toxicological chemistry. The most
+brilliant and gifted men and women of Paris haunted these reunions,
+and Viotti always appeared at his best amid such surroundings.
+Another favorite resort of his was the house of Mme. Montegerault at
+Montmorency, a lady who was a brilliant pianist. Sometimes she would
+seat herself at her instrument and begin an improvisation, and Viotti,
+seizing his violin, would join in the performance, and in a series of
+extemporaneous passages display his great powers to the delight of all
+present.
+
+He evinced the greatest distaste for solo playing at public concerts,
+and, aside from charity performances, only consented once to such an
+exhibition of his talents. A singular concert was arranged to take place
+on the fifth story of a house in Paris, the apartment being occupied
+by a friend of Viotti, who was also a member of the Government. "I will
+play," he said, on being urged, "but only on one condition, and that
+is, that the audience shall come up here to us--we have long enough
+descended to them; but times are changed, and now we may compel them to
+rise to our level"; or something to that effect. It took place in due
+course, and was a very brilliant concert indeed. The only ornament was a
+bust of Jean Jacques Rousseau. A large number of distinguished artists,
+both instrumental and vocal, were present, and a most aristocratic
+audience. A good deal of Boccherini's music was performed that evening,
+and though many of the titled personages had mounted to the fifth floor
+for the first time in their lives, so complete was the success of the
+concert that not one descended without regret, and all were warm in
+their praise of the performances of the distinguished violinist.
+
+What the cause of Viotti's sudden departure from Paris in 1790 was,
+it is difficult to tell. Perhaps he had offended the court by the
+independence of his bearing; perhaps he had expressed his political
+opinions too bluntly, for he was strongly democratic in his views;
+perhaps he foresaw the terrible storm which was gathering and was soon
+to break in a wrack of ruin, chaos, and blood. Whatever the cause, our
+violinist vanished from Paris with hardly a word of farewell to his most
+intimate friends, and appeared in London at Salomon's concerts with the
+same success which had signalized his Parisian _debut_. Every one
+was delighted with the originality and power of his playing, and the
+exquisite taste that modified the robustness and passion which entered
+into the substance of his musical conceptions.
+
+Viotti was one of the artistic celebrities of London for several years,
+but his eccentric and resolute nature did not fail to involve him in
+several difficulties with powerful personages. He became connected with
+the management of the King's Theatre, and led the music for two years
+with signal ability. But he suddenly received an order from the
+British Government to leave England without delay. His sharp tongue and
+outspoken language were never consistent with courtly subserviency. We
+can fancy our musician shrugging his shoulders with disdain on receiving
+his order of banishment, for he was too much of a cosmopolite to be
+disturbed by change of country. He took up his residence at Schoenfeld,
+Holland, in a beautiful and splendid villa, and produced there several
+of his most celebrated compositions, as well as a series of studies of
+the violin school.
+
+
+III.
+
+The edict which had sent Viotti from England was revoked in 1801, and
+he returned with commercial aspirations, for he entered into the wine
+trade. It could not be said of him, as of another well-known composer,
+who attempted to conduct a business in the vending of sweet sounds and
+the juice of the grape simultaneously, that he composed his wines and
+imported his music; for Viotti seems to have laid music entirely aside
+for the nonce, and we have no reason to suspect that his port and sherry
+were not of the best. Attention to business did not keep him from losing
+a large share of his fortune, however, in this mercantile venture, and
+for a while he was so completely lost in the London Babel as to have
+passed out of sight and mind of his old admirers. The French singer,
+Garat, tells an amusing story of his discovery of Viotti in London, when
+none of his Continental friends knew what had become of him.
+
+In the very zenith of his powers and height of his reputation, the
+founder of a violin school which remains celebrated to this day, Viotti
+had quitted Paris suddenly, and since his departure no one had received,
+either directly or indirectly, any news of him. According to Garat, some
+vague indications led him to believe that the celebrated violinist
+had taken up his residence in London, but, for a long time after his
+(Garat's) arrival in the metropolis, all his attempts to find him were
+fruitless. At last, one morning he went to a large export house for
+wine. It had a spacious courtyard, filled with numbers of large barrels,
+among which it was not easy to move toward the office or counting-house.
+On entering the latter, the first person who met his gaze was Viotti
+himself. Viotti was surrounded by a legion of employees, and so absorbed
+in business that he did not notice Garat. At last he raised his head,
+and, recognizing his old friend, seized him by the hand, and led him
+into an adjoining room, where he gave him a hearty welcome. Garat could
+not believe his senses, and stood motionless with surprise.
+
+"I see you are astonished at the metamorphosis," said Viotti; "it is
+certainly _drole_--unexpected; but what _could_ you expect? At Paris
+I was looked upon as a ruined man, lost to all my friends; it was
+necessary to do something to get a living, and here I am, making my
+fortune!"
+
+"But," interrupted Garat, "have you taken into consideration all the
+drawbacks and annoyances of a profession to which you were not brought
+up, and which must be opposed to your tastes?"
+
+"I perceive," continued Viotti, "that you share the error which so many
+indulge in. Commercial enterprise is generally considered a most prosaic
+undertaking, but it has, nevertheless, its seductions, its prestige, its
+poetical side. I assure you no musician, no poet, ever had an existence
+more full of interesting and exciting incidents than those which cause
+the heart of the merchant to throb. His imagination, stimulated by
+success, carries him forward to new conquests; his clients increase, his
+fortune augments, the finest dreams of ambition are ever before him."
+
+"But art!" again interrupted his friend; "the art of which you are one
+of the finest representatives--you can not have entirely abandoned it?"
+
+"Art will lose nothing," rejoined Viotti, "and you will find that I
+can conciliate two things without interfering with either, though you
+doubtless consider them irreconcilable. We will continue this subject
+another time; at present I must leave you; I have some pressing business
+to transact this afternoon. But come and dine with me at six o'clock,
+and be sure you do not disappoint me."
+
+Garat, who relates this conversation, tells us that at the appointed
+time he returned to the house. All the barrels and wagons that had
+encumbered the courtyard were cleared away, and in their place were
+coroneted carriages, with footmen and servants. A lackey in brilliant
+livery conducted the visitor to the drawing-room on the first floor.
+The apartments were magnificently furnished, and glittered with
+mirrors, candelabra, gilt ornaments, and the most quaint and costly
+_bric-a-brac_. Viotti received his guests at the head of the staircase,
+no longer the plodding man of business, but the courtly, high-bred
+gentleman. Garat's amazement was still further increased when he heard
+the names of the other guests, all distinguished men. After an admirably
+cooked dinner, there was still more admirable music, and Viotti proved
+to the satisfaction of his French friend that he was still the same
+great artist who had formerly delighted his listeners in Paris.
+
+The wine business turned out so badly for our violinist that he was fain
+to return to his old and legitimate profession. Through the intervention
+of powerful friends in Paris, he was appointed director of the Grand
+Opera, but he became discontented in a very onerous and irritating
+position, and was retired at his own request with a pension. An
+interesting letter from the great Italian composer Rossini, who was then
+first trying his fortune in the French metropolis, written to Viotti
+in 1821, is pleasant proof of the estimate placed on his talents and
+influence:
+
+"Most esteemed Sir: You will be surprised at receiving a letter from an
+individual who has not the honor of your personal acquaintance, but I
+profit by the liberality of feeling existing among artists to address
+these lines to you through my friend Herold, from whom I have learned
+with the greatest satisfaction the high, and, I fear, somewhat
+undeserved opinion you have of me. The oratorio of 'Moise,' composed by
+me three years ago, appears to our mutual friend susceptible of dramatic
+adaptation to French words; and I, who have the greatest reliance on
+Herold's taste and on his friendship for me, desire nothing more than to
+render the entire work as perfect as possible, by composing new airs in
+a more religious style than those which it at present contains, and
+by endeavoring to the best of my power that the result shall neither
+disgrace the composer of the partition, nor you, its patron and
+protector. If M. Viotti, with his great celebrity, will consent to
+be the Mecaenas of my name, he may be assured of the gratitude of his
+devoted servant,
+
+"Gioacchino Rossini.
+
+"P.S.--In a month's time I will forward you the alterations of the drama
+'Moise,' in order that you may judge if they are conformable to the
+operatic style. Should they not be so, you will have the kindness to
+suggest any others better adapted to the purpose."
+
+
+IV.
+
+Viotti, though in many respects proud, resolute, and haughty in
+temperament, was simple-hearted and enthusiastic, and a passionate lover
+of nature. M. Eymar, one of his intimate friends, said of him, "Never
+did a man attach so much value to the simplest gifts of nature, and
+never did a child enjoy them more passionately." A modest flower growing
+in the grass of the meadow, a charming bit of landscape, a rustic
+_fete_, in short, all the sights and sounds of the country, filled him
+with delight. All nature spoke to his heart, and his finest compositions
+were suggested and inspired by this sympathy. He has left the world a
+charming musical picture of the feelings experienced in the mountains
+of Switzerland. It was there he heard, under peculiar circumstances,
+and probably for the first time, the plaintive sound of a mountain-horn,
+breathing forth the few notes of a kind of "Ranz des Vaches."
+
+"The 'Ranz des Vaches' which I send you," he says in one of his letters,
+"is neither that with which our friend Jean Jacques has presented us,
+nor that of which M. De la Bord speaks in his work on music. I can
+not say whether it is known or not; all I know is, that I heard it
+in Switzerland, and, once heard, I have never forgotten it. I was
+sauntering along, toward the decline of day, in one of those sequestered
+spots.... Flowers, verdure, streamlets, all united to form a picture
+of perfect harmony. There, without being fatigued, I seated myself
+mechanically on a fragment of rock, and fell into so profound a reverie
+that I seemed to forget that I was upon earth. While sitting thus,
+sounds broke on my ear which were sometimes of a hurried, sometimes of
+a prolonged and sustained character, and were repeated in softened tones
+by the echoes around. I found they proceeded from a mountain-horn; and
+their effect was heightened by a plaintive female voice. Struck as if
+by enchantment, I started from my dreams, listened with breathless
+attention, and learned, or rather engraved upon my memory, the 'Ranz des
+Vaches' which I send you. In order to understand all its beauties, you
+ought to be transplanted to the scene in which I heard it, and to
+feel all the enthusiasm that such a moment inspired." It was a similar
+delightful experience which, according to Rossini's statement, first
+suggested to that great composer his immortal opera, "Guillaume Tell."
+
+Among many interesting anecdotes current of Viotti, and one which
+admirably shows his goodness of heart and quickness of resource, is one
+narrated by Ferdinand Langle to Adolph Adam, the French composer. The
+father of the former, Marie Langle, a professor of harmony in the French
+Conservatoire, was an intimate friend of Viotti, and one charming summer
+evening the twain were strolling on the Champs Elysees. They sat down on
+a retired bench to enjoy the calmness of the night, and became buried
+in reverie. But they were brought back to prosaic matters harshly by a
+babel of discordant noises that grated on the sensitive ears of the two
+musicians. They started from their seats, and Viotti said:
+
+"It can't be a violin, and yet there is some resemblance to one."
+
+"Nor a clarionet," suggested Langle, "though it is something like it."
+
+The easiest manner of solving the problem was to go and see what it was.
+They approached the spot whence the extraordinary tones issued, and saw
+a poor blind man standing near a miserable-looking candle and playing
+upon a violin--but the latter was an instrument made of tin-plate.
+
+"Fancy!" exclaimed Viotti, "it is a violin, but a violin of tin-plate!
+Did you ever dream of such a curiosity?" and, after listening a while,
+he added, "I say, Langle, I must possess that instrument. Go and ask the
+old blind man what he will sell it for."
+
+Langle approached and asked the question, but the old man was
+disinclined to part with it.
+
+"But we will give you enough for it to enable you to purchase a better,"
+he added; "and why is not your violin like others?"
+
+The aged fiddler explained that, when he got old and found himself
+poor, not being able to work, but still able to scrape a few airs upon a
+violin, he had endeavored to procure one, but in vain. At last his good,
+kind nephew Eustache, who was apprenticed to a tinker, had made him one
+out of a tin-plate. "And an excellent one, too," he added; "and my poor
+boy Eustache brings me here in the morning when he goes to work, and
+fetches me away in the evening when he returns, and the receipts are
+not so bad sometimes--as, when he was out of work, it was I who kept the
+house going."
+
+"Well," said Viotti, "I will give you twenty francs for your violin. You
+can buy a much better one for that price; but let me try it a little."
+
+He took the violin in his hands, and produced some extraordinary
+effects from it. A considerable crowd gathered around, and listened
+with curiosity and astonishment to the performance. Langle seized on
+the opportunity, and passed around the hat, gathering a goodly amount of
+chink from the bystanders, which, with the twenty francs, was handed to
+the astonished old beggar.
+
+"Stay a moment," said the blind man, recovering a little from his
+surprise; "just now I said I would sell the violin for twenty francs,
+but I did not know it was so good. I ought to have at least double for
+it."
+
+Viotti had never received a more genuine compliment, and he did not
+hesitate to give the old man two pieces of gold instead of one, and then
+immediately retired from the spot, passing through the crowd with the
+tin-plate instrument under his arm. He had scarcely gone forty yards
+when he felt some one pulling at his sleeve; it was a workman, who
+politely took off his cap, and said:
+
+"Sir, you have paid too dear for that violin; and if you are an amateur,
+as it was I who made it, I can supply you with as many as you like at
+six francs each."
+
+This was Eustache; he had just come in time to hear the conclusion of
+the bargain, and, little dreaming that he was so clever a violin-maker,
+wished to continue a trade that had begun so successfully. However,
+Viotti was quite satisfied with the one sample he had bought. He never
+parted with that instrument; and, when the effects of Viotti were sold
+in London after his death, though the tin fiddle only brought a few
+shillings, an amateur of curiosities sought out the purchaser, and
+offered him a large sum if he could explain how the strange instrument
+came into the possession of the great violinist.
+
+After resigning his position as director of the Grand Opera, Viotti
+returned to London, which had become a second home to him, and spent his
+remaining days there. He died on the 24th of March, 1824.
+
+
+V.
+
+Viotti established and settled for ever the fundamental principles of
+violin-playing. He did not attain the marvelous skill of technique, the
+varied subtile and dazzling effects, with which his successor, Paganini,
+was to amaze the world, but, from the accounts transmitted to us, his
+performance must have been characterized by great nobility, breadth, and
+beauty of tone, united with a fire and agility unknown before his time.
+Viotti was one of the first to use the Tourte bow, that indispensable
+adjunct to the perfect manipulation of the violin. The value of this
+advantage over his predecessors cannot be too highly estimated.
+
+The bows used before the time of Francois Tourte, who lived in the
+latter years of the last century in Paris, were of imperfect shape and
+make. The Tourte model leaves nothing to be desired in all the qualities
+required to enable the player to follow out every conceivable manner of
+tone and movement--lightness, firmness, and elasticity. Tartini had made
+the stick of his bow elastic, an innovation from the time of Corelli,
+and had thus attained a certain flexibility and brilliancy in his bowing
+superior to his predecessors. But the full development of all the powers
+of the violin, or the practice of what we now call virtuosoism on this
+instrument, was only possible with the modern bow as designed by Tourte,
+of Paris. The thin, bent, elastic stick of the bow, with its greater
+length of sweep, gives the modern player incalculable advantages over
+those of an earlier age, enabling him to follow out the slightest
+gradations of tone from the fullest _forte_ to the softest _piano_,
+to mark all kinds of strong and gentle accents, to execute staccato,
+legato, saltato, and arpeggio passages with the greatest ease and
+certainty. The French school of violin-playing did not at first avail
+itself of these advantages, and even Viotti and Spohr did not fully
+grasp the new resources of execution. It was left for Paganini to open
+a new era in the art. His daring and subtile genius perceived and seized
+the wonderful resources of the modern bow at one bound. He used freely
+every imaginable movement of the bow, and developed the movement of the
+wrist to that high perfection which enabled him to practice all kinds
+of bowing with celerity. Without the Tourte bow, Paganini and the modern
+school of virtuosos, which has followed so splendidly from his example,
+would have been impossible. To many of our readers an amplification of
+this topic may be of interest. While the left hand of the violin-player
+fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already
+done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of
+his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the
+action of the right hand, the bowing, which, analogous to the pianist's
+touch, makes the sound spring into life. It is through the medium of
+the bow that the player embodies his ideas and feelings. It is therefore
+evident that herein rests one of the most important and difficult
+elements of the art of violin-playing, and that the excellence of a
+player, or even of a whole school of playing, depends to a great extent
+on its method of bowing. It would have been even better for the art
+of violin-playing as practiced to-day that the perfect instruments of
+Stradiuarius and Guarnerius should not have been, than that the Tourte
+bow should have been uninvented.
+
+The long, effective sweep of the bow was one of the characteristics
+of Viotti's playing, and was alike the admiration and despair of his
+rivals. His compositions for the violin are classics, and Spohr was
+wont to say that there could be no better test of a fine player than
+his execution of one of the Viotti sonatas or concertos. Spohr regretted
+deeply that he could not finish his violin training under this
+great master, and was wont to speak of him in terms of the greatest
+admiration. Viotti had but few pupils, but among them were a number of
+highly gifted artists. Rode, Robrechts, Cartier, Mdlle. Gerbini, Alday,
+La-barre, Pixis, Mari, Mme. Paravicini, and Vacher are well-known names
+to all those interested in the literature of the violin. The influence
+of Viotti on violin music was a very deep one, not only in virtue of his
+compositions, but in the fact that he molded the style not only of many
+of the best violinists of his own day, but of those that came after him.
+
+
+
+
+LUDWIG SPOHR.
+
+Birth and Early Life of the Violinist Spohr.--He is presented with his
+First Violin at six.--The French _Emigre_ Dufour uses his Influence with
+Dr. Spohr, Sr., to have the Boy devoted to a Musical Career.--Goes
+to Brunswick for fuller Musical Instruction.--Spohr is appointed
+_Kammer-musicus_ at the Ducal Court.--He enters under the Tuition of
+and makes a Tour with the Violin Virtuoso Eck.--Incidents of the Russian
+Journey and his Return.--Concert Tour in Germany.--Loses his Fine
+Guarnerius Violin.--Is appointed Director of the Orchestra at Gotha.--He
+marries Dorette Schiedler, the Brilliant Harpist.--Spohr's Stratagem to
+be present at the Erfurt Musical Celebration given by Napoleon in
+Honor of the Allied Sovereigns.--Becomes Director of Opera in
+Vienna.--Incidents of his Life and Production of Various Works.--First
+Visit to England.--He is made Director of the Cassel Court
+Oratorios.--He is retired with a Pension.--Closing Years of his
+Life.--His Place as Composer and Executant.
+
+
+I.
+
+"The first singer on the violin that ever appeared!" Such was the
+verdict of the enthusiastic Italians when they heard one of the greatest
+of the world's violinists, who was also a great composer. The modern
+world thinks of Spohr rather as the composer of symphony, opera, and
+oratorio than as a wonderful executant on the violin; but it was in
+the latter capacity that he enjoyed the greatest reputation during the
+earlier part of his lifetime, which was a long one, extending from the
+year 1784 to 1859. The latter half of Spohr's life was mostly devoted
+to the higher musical ambition of creating, but not until he had
+established himself as one of the greatest of virtuosos, and founded
+a school of violin-playing which is, beyond all others, the most
+scientific, exhaustive, and satisfactory. All of the great contemporary
+violinists are disciples of the Spohr school of execution. Great as a
+composer, still greater as a player, and widely beloved as a man--there
+are only a few names in musical art held in greater esteem than his,
+though many have evoked a deeper enthusiasm.
+
+Ludwig Spohr was born at Brunswick, April 5, 1784, of parents both of
+whom possessed no little musical talent. His father, a physician
+of considerable eminence, was an excellent flutist, and his mother
+possessed remarkable talent both as a pianist and singer. To the family
+concerts which he heard at home was the rapid development of the boy's
+talents largely due. Nature had given him a very sensitive ear and a
+fine clear voice, and at the age of four or five he joined his mother
+in duets at the evening gatherings. From the very first he manifested
+a taste for the instrument for which he was destined to become
+distinguished. He so teased his father that, at the age of six, he was
+presented with his first violin, and his joy on receiving his treasure
+was overpowering. The violin was never out of his hand, and he
+continually wandered about the house trying to play his favorite
+melodies. Spohr tells us in his "Autobiography": "I still recollect
+that, after my first lesson, in which I had learned to play the G-sharp
+chord upon all four strings, in my rapture at the harmony, I hurried to
+my mother, who was in the kitchen, and played the chord so incessantly
+that she was obliged to order me out."
+
+Young Spohr was placed under the tuition of Dufour, a French _emigre_ of
+the days of '91, who was an excellent player, though not a professional,
+then living at the town of Seesen, the home of the Spohr family; and
+under him the boy made very rapid progress. It was Dufour who, by
+his enthusiastic representations, overcame the opposition of Ludwig's
+parents to the boy's devoting himself to a life of music, for the notion
+of the senior Spohr was that the name musician was synonymous with that
+of a tavern fiddler, who played for dancers. In Germany, the land _par
+excellence_ of music, there was a general contempt among the educated
+classes, during the latter years of the eighteenth century, for the
+musical profession. Spohr remained under the care of Dufour until he was
+twelve years old, and devoted himself to his work with great sedulity.
+Though he as yet knew but little of counterpoint and composition, his
+creative talent already began to assert itself, and he produced several
+duos and trios, as well as solo compositions, which evinced great
+promise, though crude and faulty in the extreme. He was then sent
+to Brunswick, that he might have the advantage of more scientific
+instruction, and to this end was placed under the care of Kunisch,
+an excellent violin teacher, and under Hartung for harmony and
+counterpoint. The latter was a sort of Dr. Dryasdust, learned, barren,
+acrid, but an efficient instructor. When young Spohr showed him one of
+his compositions, he growled out, "There's time enough for that; you
+must learn something first." It may be said of Spohr, however, that his
+studies in theory were for the most part self-taught, for he was a most
+diligent student of the great masters, and was gifted with a keenly
+analytic mind.
+
+At the age of fourteen young Spohr was an effective soloist, and, as his
+father began to complain of the heavy expense of his musical education,
+the boy determined to make an effort for self-support. After revolving
+many schemes, he conceived the notion of applying to the duke, who was
+known as an ardent patron of music. He managed to place himself in the
+way of his Serene Highness, while the latter was walking in his garden,
+and boldly preferred his request for an appointment in the court
+orchestra. The duke was pleased to favor the application, and young
+Spohr was permitted to display his skill at a court concert, in which he
+acquitted himself so admirably as to secure the cordial patronage of the
+sovereign. Said the duke: "Be industrious and well behaved, and, if you
+make good progress, I will put you under the tuition of a great master."
+So Louis Spohr was installed as a _Kammer-musicus_, and his patron
+fulfilled his promise in 1802 by placing his _protege_ under the charge
+of Francis Eck, one of the finest violinists then living. Under the
+tuition of this accomplished instructor, the young virtuoso made such
+rapid advance in the excellence of his technique, that he was soon
+regarded as worthy of accompanying his master on a grand concert tour
+through the principal cities of Germany and Russia.
+
+
+II.
+
+This concert expedition of the two violinists, as narrated in Spohr's
+"Autobiography," was full of interesting and romantic episodes. Both
+master and pupil were of amorous and susceptible temperaments, and
+their affairs were rarely regulated by a common sense of prudence. Spohr
+relates with delightful _naivete_ the circumstances under which he fell
+successively in love, and the rapidity with which he recovered from
+these fitful spasms of the tender passion. Herr Eck, in addition to his
+tendency to intrigues with the fairer half of creation, was also of
+a quarrelsome and exacting disposition, and the general result was
+ceaseless squabbling with authorities and musical societies in nearly
+every city they visited. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the
+two violinists gained both in fame and purse, and were everywhere well
+received. If Herr Eck carried off the palm over the boyish Spohr as a
+mere executant, the impression everywhere gained ground that the latter
+was by far the superior in real depth of musical science, and many of
+his own violin concertos were received with the heartiest applause. The
+concert tour came to an end at St. Petersburg in a singular way. Eck
+fell in love with a daughter of a member of the imperial orchestra, but
+the idea of marriage did not enter into his project. As the young lady
+soon felt the unfortunate results of her indiscretion, her parents
+complained to the Empress, at whose instance Eck was given the choice of
+marrying the girl or taking an enforced journey to Siberia. He chose the
+former, and determined to remain in St. Petersburg, where he was offered
+the first violin of the imperial orchestra. Poor Eck found he had
+married a shrew, and, between matrimonial discords and ill health
+brought on by years of excess, he became the victim of a nervous fever,
+which resulted in lunacy and confinement in a mad-house.
+
+Spohr returned to his native town in July, 1803, and his first meeting
+with his family was a curious one. "I arrived," he says, "at two o'clock
+in the morning. I landed at the Petri gate, crossed the Ocker in a boat,
+and hastened to my grandmother's garden, but found that the house
+and garden doors were locked. As my knocking didn't arouse any one, I
+climbed over the garden wall and laid myself down in a summer-house at
+the end of the garden. Wearied by the long journey, I soon fell asleep,
+and, notwithstanding my hard couch, would probably have slept for a
+long while had not my aunts in their morning walk discovered me. Much
+alarmed, they ran and told my grandmother that a man was asleep in the
+summer-house. Returning together, the three approached nearer, and,
+recognizing me, I was awakened amid joyous expressions, embraces, and
+kisses. At first, I did not recollect where I was, but soon recognized
+my dear relations, and rejoiced at being once again in the home and
+scenes of my childhood."
+
+Spohr was most graciously received by the duke, who was satisfied
+with the proofs of industry and ambition shown by his _protege_. The
+celebrated Rode, Viotti's most brilliant pupil, was at that time in
+Brunswick, and Spohr, who conceived the most enthusiastic admiration
+of his style, set himself assiduously to the study and imitation of
+the effects peculiar to Rode. On Rode's departure, Spohr appeared in a
+concert arranged for him, in which he played a new concerto dedicated to
+his ducal patron, and created an enthusiasm hardly less than that made
+by Rode himself. He was warmly congratulated by the duke and the court,
+and appointed first court-violinist, with a salary more than sufficient
+for the musician's moderate wants. Shortly after this he undertook
+another concert tour in conjunction with the violoncellist, Benike,
+through the principal German cities, which added materially to
+his reputation. But no amount of world's talk or money could fully
+compensate him for the loss of his magnificent violin, one of the
+_chefs-d'ouvre_ of Guarnerius del Gesu when that great maker was at his
+best. This instrument he had brought from Russia, and it was an imperial
+gift. A concert was announced for Gottingen, and Spohr, with his
+companion, was about to enter the town by coach, when he asked one of
+the soldiers at the guard-house if the trunk, which had been strapped to
+the back of the carriage, and which contained his precious instrument,
+was in its place. "There is no trunk there," was the reply.
+
+"With one bound," says Spohr, "I was out of the carriage, and rushed
+out through the gate with a drawn hunting-knife. Had I, with more
+reflection, listened a while, I might have heard the thieves running out
+through a side path. But in my blind rage I had far overshot the place
+where I had last seen the trunk, and only discovered my overhaste when I
+found myself in the open field. Inconsolable for my loss, I turned
+back. While my fellow-traveler looked for the inn, I hastened to the
+post-office, and requested that an immediate search might be made in the
+garden houses outside the gate. With astonishment and vexation, I was
+informed that the jurisdiction outside the gate belonged to Weende, and
+that I must prefer my request there. As Weende was half a league from
+Gottingen, I was compelled to abandon for that evening all further steps
+for the recovery of my things. That these would prove fruitless on the
+following morning I was well assured, and I passed a sleepless night in
+a state of mind such as in my hitherto fortunate career had been unknown
+to me. Had I not lost my splendid Guarneri violin, the exponent of all
+the artistic success I had so far attained, I could have lightly borne
+the loss of clothes and money." The police recovered an empty trunk
+and the violin-case despoiled of its treasure, but still containing a
+magnificent Tourte bow, which the thieves had left behind. Spohr managed
+to borrow a Steiner violin, with which he gave his concert, but he did
+not for years cease to lament the loss of his grand Guarneri fiddle.
+
+In 1805 Spohr was quietly settled in his avocation at Brunswick as
+composer and chief _Kam-mer-musicus_ of the ducal court, when he
+received an offer to compete for the direction of the orchestra at
+Gotha, then one of the most magnificent organizations in Europe, to be
+at the head of which would give him an international fame. The offer
+was too tempting to be refused, and Spohr was easily victorious. His
+new duties were not onerous, consisting of a concert once a week, and
+in practicing and rehearsing the orchestra. The annual salary was five
+hundred thalers.
+
+One of the most interesting incidents of Spohr's life now occurred. The
+susceptible heart, which had often been touched, was firmly enslaved
+by the charms of Dorette Schiedler, the daughter of the principal court
+singer, and herself a fine virtuoso on the harp. Dorette was a woman
+whose personal loveliness was an harmonious expression of her beauty
+of character and artistic talent, and Spohr accepted his fate with
+joy. This girl of eighteen was irresistible, for she was accomplished,
+beautiful, tender, as good as an angel, and with the finest talent for
+music, for she played admirably, not only on the harp, but on the piano
+and violin. Spohr had reason to hope that the attachment was mutual, and
+was eager to declare his love. One night they were playing together at a
+court concert, and Spohr after the performance noticed the duchess, with
+an arch look at him, whispering some words to Dorette which covered her
+cheeks with blushes. That night, as the lovers were returning home in
+the carriage, Spohr said to her, "Shall we thus play together for life?"
+Dorette burst into tears, and sank into her lover's arms. The compact
+was sealed by the joyous assent of the mother, and the young couple were
+united in the ducal chapel, in the presence of the duchess and a large
+assemblage of friends, on the 2d of February, 1806.
+
+
+III.
+
+In the following year Spohr and his young wife set out on a musical
+tour, "by which," he says, "we not only reaped a rich harvest of
+applause, but saved a considerable sum of money." On his return to Gotha
+he was met by a band of pupils, who unharnessed the horses from the
+coach and drew him through the streets in triumph. He now devoted
+himself to composition largely, and produced his first opera, "Alruna,"
+which is said to have been very warmly received, both at Gotha and
+Weimar, in which latter city it was produced under the superintendence
+of the poet Goethe, who was intendant of the theatre. Spohr, however,
+allowed it to disappear, as his riper judgment condemned its faults more
+than it favored its excellences. Among his amusing adventures, one which
+he relates in his "Autobiography" as having occurred in 1808 is worth
+repeating. He tells us: "In the year 1808 took place the celebrated
+Congress of Sovereigns at Erfurt, on which occasion Napoleon entertained
+his friend Alexander of Russia and the various kings and princes of
+Germany. The lovers of sights and the curious of the whole country round
+poured in to see the magnificence displayed. In the company of some
+of my pupils, I made a pedestrian excursion to Erfurt, less to see the
+great ones of the earth than to see and admire the great ones of the
+French stage, Talma and Mars. The Emperor had sent to Paris for his
+tragic performers, who played every evening in the classic works of
+Corneille and Racine. I and my companions had hoped to have seen one
+such representation, but unfortunately I was informed that they took
+place for the sovereigns and their suites alone, and that everybody
+else was excluded from them." In this dilemma Spohr had recourse to
+stratagem. He persuaded four musicians of the orchestra to vacate their
+places for a handsome consideration, and he and his pupils engaged to
+fill the duties. But one of the substitutes must needs be a horn-player,
+and the four new players could only perform on violin and 'cello. So
+there was nothing to be done but for Spohr to master the French horn at
+a day's notice. At the expense of swollen and painful lips, he managed
+this sufficiently to play the music required with ease and precision.
+"Thus prepared," he writes, "I and my pupils joined the other musicians,
+and, as each carried his instrument under his arm, we reached our place
+without opposition. We found the saloon in which the theatre had been
+erected already brilliantly lit up and filled with the numerous suites
+of the sovereigns. The seats for Napoleon and his guests were right
+behind the orchestra. Shortly after, the most able of my pupils, to whom
+I had assigned the direction of the music, and under whose leadership I
+had placed myself as a new-fledged hornist, had tuned up the orchestra,
+the high personages made their appearance, and the overture began. The
+orchestra, with their faces turned to the stage, stood in a long row,
+and each was strictly forbidden to turn around and look with curiosity
+at the sovereigns. As I had received notice of this beforehand, I had
+provided myself secretly with a small looking-glass, by the help of
+which, as soon as the music was ended, I was enabled to obtain in
+succession a good view of those who directed the destinies of Europe.
+Nevertheless, I was soon so engrossed with the magnificent acting of the
+tragic artists that I abandoned my mirror to my pupils, and directed my
+whole attention to the stage. But at every succeeding _entr'acte_ the
+pain of my lips increased, and at the close of the performance they
+had become so much swollen and blistered that in the evening I could
+scarcely eat any supper. Even the next day, on my return to Gotha,
+my lips had a very negro-like appearance, and my young wife was not a
+little alarmed when she saw me. But she was yet more nettled when I told
+her that it was from kissing to such excess the pretty Erfurt women.
+When I had related, however, the history of my lessons on the horn, she
+laughed heartily at my expense."
+
+In October, 1809, Spohr and his wife started on an art journey to
+Russia, but they were recalled by the court chamberlain, who said that
+the duchess could not spare them from the court concerts, but would
+liberally indemnify them for the loss. Spohr returned and remained at
+home for nearly three years, during which time he composed a number of
+important works for orchestra and for the violin. In 1812 a visit to
+Vienna, during which he gave a series of concerts, so delighted the
+Viennese that Spohr was offered the direction of the Ander Wien theatre
+at a salary three times that received at Gotha, besides valuable
+emoluments. This, and the assurance of Count Palffy, the imperial
+intendant, that he meant to make the orchestra the finest in Europe,
+induced Spohr to accept the offer.
+
+When it became necessary for our musician to search for a domicile
+in Vienna, he met with another piece of good fortune. One morning
+a gentleman waited on him, introducing himself as a wealthy clock
+manufacturer and a passionate lover of music. The stranger made an
+eccentric proposition. Spohr should hand over to him all that he should
+compose or had composed for Vienna during the term of three years, the
+original scores to be his sole property during that time, and Spohr not
+even to retain a copy. "But are they not to be performed during that
+time?" "Oh, yes! as often as possible; but each time on my lending them
+for that purpose, and when I can be present myself." The bargain was
+struck, and the ardent connoisseur agreed to pay thirty ducats for a
+string quartet, five and thirty for a quintet, forty for a sextet, etc.,
+according to the style of composition. Two works were sold on the spot,
+and Spohr said he should devote the money to house-furnishing. Herr Von
+Tost undertook to provide the furniture complete, and the two made a
+tour among the most fashionable shops. When Spohr protested against
+purchasing articles of extreme beauty and luxury, Von Tost said, "Make
+yourself easy, I shall require no cash settlement. You will soon
+square all accounts with your manuscripts." So the Spohr domicile
+was magnificently furnished from kitchen to attic, more fitly, as the
+musician said, for a royal dignitary or a rich merchant than for a poor
+artist. Von Tost claimed he would gain two results: "First, I wish to be
+invited to all the concerts and musical circles in which you will
+play your compositions, and to do this I must have your scores in my
+possession; secondly, in possessing such treasures of art, I hope upon
+my business journeys to make a large acquaintance among the lovers of
+music, which I may turn to account in my manufacturing interests." Let
+us hope that this commercial enthusiast found his calculations verified
+by results.
+
+Spohr soon gave two important new works to the musical world, the opera
+of "Faust," and the cantata, "The Liberation of Germany," neither of
+which, however, was immediately produced. Weber brought out "Faust" at
+Prague in 1816, and the cantata was first performed at Franken-hausen in
+1815, at a musical festival on the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic,
+a battle which turned the scale of Napoleon's career. The same year
+(1815) also witnessed the quarrel between Spohr and Count Palffy, which
+resulted in the rupture of the former's engagement. Spohr determined to
+make a long tour through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Before shaking
+the dust of Vienna from his feet, he sold the Von Tost household at
+auction, and the sum realized was even larger than what had been paid
+for it, so vivid were the public curiosity and interest in view of the
+strange bargain under which the furniture had been bought. On the 18th
+of March, 1815, Louis Spohr, with his beloved Dorette and young family,
+which had increased with truly German fecundity, bade farewell to
+Vienna.
+
+Two years of concert-giving and sight-seeing swiftly passed, to the
+great augmentation of the German violinist's fame. On Spohr's return
+home he was invited to become the opera and music director of the
+Frankfort Theatre, and for two years more he labored arduously at this
+post. He produced the opera of "Zemire and Azar" (founded on the fairy
+fable of "Beauty and the Beast" ) during this period among other works,
+and it was very enthusiastically received by the public. This opera was
+afterward given in London, in English, with great success, though the
+opinion of the critics was that it was too scientific for the English
+taste.
+
+
+IV.
+
+Louis Spohr's first visit to England was in 1820, whither he went on
+invitation of the Philharmonic Society. He gives an amusing account of
+his first day in London, on the streets of which city he appeared in
+a most brilliantly colored shawl waistcoat, and narrowly escaped being
+pelted by the enraged mob, for the English people were then in mourning
+for the death of George III, which had recently occurred, and Spohr's
+gay attire was construed as a public insult. He played several of his
+own works at the opening Philharmonic concert, and the brilliant veteran
+of the violin, Viotti, to become whose pupil had once been Spohr's
+darling but ungratified dream, expressed the greatest admiration of the
+German virtuoso's magnificent playing. The "Autobiography" relates an
+amusing interview of Spohr with the head of the Rothschild's banking
+establishment, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction from the
+Frankfort Rothschild, as well as a letter of credit. "After Rothschild
+had taken both letters from me and glanced hastily over them, he said
+to me, in a subdued tone of voice, 'I have just read (pointing to
+the "Times") that you manage your business very efficiently; but I
+understand nothing of music. This is my music (slapping his purse); they
+understand that on the exchange.' Upon which with a nod of the head he
+terminated the audience. But just as I had reached the door he called
+after me, 'You can come out and dine with me at my country house.' A few
+days afterward Mme. Rothschild also invited me to dinner, but I did not
+go, though she repeated the invitation."
+
+While in London on this visit Spohr composed his B flat Symphony,
+which was given by the Philharmonic Society under the direction of the
+composer himself, and, as he tells us in his "Autobiography," it was
+played better than he ever heard it afterward. His English reception, on
+the whole, was a very cordial one, and he secured a very high place
+in public estimation, both as a violinist and orchestral composer. On
+returning to Germany, Spohr gave a series of concerts, during which time
+he produced his great D minor violin concerto, making a great sensation
+with it. He had not yet visited Paris in a professional way, and in the
+winter of 1821 he turned his steps thitherward, in answer to a pressing
+invitation from the musicians of that great capital. On January 20th he
+made his _debut_ before a French audience, and gave a programme mostly
+of his own compositions. Spohr asserts that the satisfaction of the
+audience was enthusiastically expressed, but the fact that he did not
+repeat the entertainment would suggest a suspicion that the impression
+he made was not fully to his liking. It may be he did not dare take
+the risk in a city so full of musical attractions of every description.
+Certainly he did not like the French, though his reception from the
+artists and literati was of the most friendly sort. He was disgusted
+"with the ridiculous vanity of the Parisians." He writes: "When one or
+other of their musicians plays anything, they say, 'Well! can you
+boast of that in Germany?' Or when they introduce to you one of their
+distinguished artists, they do not call him the first in Paris, but at
+once the first in the world, although no nation knows less what other
+countries possess than they do, in their--for their vanity's sake most
+fortunate--ignorance."
+
+Spohr's appointment to the directorship of the court theatre at Cassel
+occurred in the winter of 1822, and he confesses his pleasure in the
+post, as he believed he could make its fine orchestra one of the most
+celebrated in Germany. He remained in this position for about thirty
+years, and during that time Cassel became one of the greatest musical
+centers of the country. His labors were assiduous, for he had the
+true tireless German industry, and he soon gave the world his opera
+of "Jessonda," which was first produced on July 28, 1823, with marked
+success. "Jessonda" has always kept its hold on the German stage, though
+it was not received with much favor elsewhere. Another opera, "Der Berg
+Geist" ("The Mountain Spirit"), quickly followed, the work having been
+written to celebrate the marriage of the Princess of Hesse with the Duke
+of Saxe-Meiningen. One of his most celebrated compositions, the oratorio
+"Die Letzten Dinge" ("The Last Judgment"), which is more familiar
+to English-speaking peoples than any other work of Spohr, was first
+performed on Good Friday, 1826, and was recognized from the first as
+a production of masterly excellence. Spohr's ability as a composer of
+sacred music would have been more distinctly accepted, had it not been
+that Handel, Haydn, and, in more recent years, Mendelssohn, raised the
+ideal of the oratorio so high that only the very loftiest musical genius
+is considered fit to reign in this sphere. The director of the Cassel
+theatre continued indefatigable in producing works of greater or less
+excellence, chamber-music, symphonies, and operas. Among the latter,
+attention may be called to "Pietro Albano" and the "Alchemist," clever
+but in no sense brilliant works, though, as it became the fashion in
+Germany to indulge in enthusiasm over Spohr, they were warmly praised
+at home. The best known of his orchestral works, "Die Weihe der Tone
+" ("The Power of Sound"), a symphony of unquestionable greatness, was
+produced in 1832. We are told that Spohr had been reading a volume of
+poems which his deceased friend Pfeiffer had left behind him, when he
+alighted on "Die Weihe der Tone," and the words delighted him so much
+that he thought of using them as the basis of a cantata. But he changed
+his purpose, and finally decided to delineate the subject of the poem
+in orchestral composition. The finest of all Spohr's symphonies was the
+outcome, a work which ranks high among compositions of this class. His
+toil on the new oratorio of "Calvary" was sadly interrupted by the death
+of his beloved wife Dorette, who had borne him a large family, and had
+been his most sympathetic and devoted companion. Spohr was so broken
+down by this calamity that it was several months before he could resume
+his labors, and it was because Dorette during her illness had felt such
+a deep interest in the progress of the work that the desolate husband
+so soon plucked heart to begin again. When the oratorio was produced on
+Good Friday, 1835, Spohr records in his diary: "The thought that my wife
+did not live to listen to its first performance sensibly lessened the
+satisfaction I felt at this my most successful work." This oratorio was
+not given in England till 1839, at the Norwich festival, Spohr being
+present to conduct it. The zealous and narrow-minded clergy of the day
+preached bitterly against it as a desecration, and one fierce bigot
+hurled his diatribes against the composer, when the latter was present
+in the cathedral. A journal of the day describes the scene: "We now see
+the fanatical zealot in the pulpit, and sitting right opposite to him
+the great composer, with ears happily deaf to the English tongue, but
+with a demeanor so becoming, with a look so full of pure good-will, and
+with so much humility and mildness in the features, that his countenance
+alone spoke to the heart like a good sermon. Without intending it, we
+make a comparison, and can not for a moment doubt in which of the two
+dwelt the spirit of religion which denoted the true Christian."
+
+Spohr had been two years a widower when he became enamored of one of
+the daughters of Court Councilor Pfeiffer. He tells us he had long been
+acquainted "with the high and varied intellectual culture of the two
+sisters, and so I became fully resolved to sue for the hand of the
+elder, Marianne, whose knowledge of music and skill in pianoforte
+playing I had already observed when she sometimes gave her assistance
+at the concerts of the St. Cecilia Society. As I had not the courage
+to propose to her by word of mouth, there being more than twenty years
+difference in our ages, I put the question to her in writing, and added,
+in excuse for my courtship, the assurance that I was as yet perfectly
+free from the infirmities of age." The proposition was accepted, and
+they were married without delay on January 3, 1836. The bridal couple
+made a long journey through the principal German cities, and were
+universally received with great rejoicings. Musical parties and banquets
+were everywhere arranged for them, at which Spohr and his young
+wife delighted every one by their splendid playing. The "Historical"
+symphony, descriptive of the music and characteristics of different
+periods, was finished in 1839, and made a very favorable impression both
+in Germany and England. Spohr had now become quite at home in England,
+where his music was much liked, and during different years went to the
+country, where oratorio music is more appreciated than anywhere else
+in the musical world, to conduct the Norwich festival. One of his most
+successful compositions of this description, "The Fall of Babylon," was
+written expressly for the festival of 1842. When it was given the next
+year in London under Spohr's own direction, the president of the Sacred
+Harmonic Society presented the composer at the close of the performance
+with a superb silver testimonial in the name of the society.
+
+
+V.
+
+Louis Spohr had now become one of the patriarchs of music, for his life
+spanned a longer arch in the history of the art than any contemporary
+except Cherubini. He was seven years old when Mozart died, and before
+Haydn had departed from this life Spohr had already begun to acquire
+a name as a violinist and composer. He lived to be the friend of
+Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Liszt, and Wagner. Everywhere he was held in
+veneration, even by those who did not fully sympathize with his musical
+works, for his career had been one of great fecundity in art. In
+addition to his rank as one of the few very great violin virtuosos, he
+had been indefatigable in the production of compositions in nearly all
+styles, and every country of Europe recognized his place as a musician
+of supereminent talent, if not of genius, one who had profoundly
+influenced contemporary music, even if he should not mold the art of
+succeeding ages. Testimonials of admiration and respect poured in on him
+from every quarter.
+
+He composed the opera of "The Crusaders" in 1845, and he was invited
+to conduct the first performance in Berlin. He relates two pleasing
+incidents in his "Autobiography." He had been invited to a select dinner
+party given at the royal palace, and between the king and Spohr, who
+was seated opposite, there intervened an ornamental centerpiece
+of considerable height in the shape of a flower vase. This greatly
+interfered with the enjoyment by the king of Spohr's conversation. At
+last his Majesty, growing impatient, removed the impediment with his own
+hands, so that he had a full view of Spohr.
+
+The other incident was a pleasing surprise from his colleagues in art.
+He was a guest of the Wickmann family, and they were all gathered in the
+illuminated garden saloon, when there entered through the gloom of the
+garden a number of dark figures swiftly following each other, who proved
+to be the members of the royal orchestra, with Meyerbeer and Taubert at
+their head. The senior member then presented Spohr with a beautifully
+executed gold laurel-wreath, while Meyerbeer made a speech full of
+feeling, in which he thanked him for his enthusiastic love of German
+art, and for all the grand and beautiful works which he had created,
+specially "The Crusaders." The twenty-fifth anniversary of Spohr's
+connection with the court theatre of Cassel occurred in 1847, and was
+to have been celebrated with a great festival. The death of Felix
+Bartholdy Mendelssohn cast a great gloom over musical Germany that
+year, so the festival was held not in honor of Spohr, but as a solemn
+memorial of the departed genius whose name is a household word among all
+those who love the art he so splendidly illustrated.
+
+Spohr's next production was the fine symphony known as "The Seasons,"
+one of the most picturesque and expressive of his orchestral works, in
+which he depicts with rich musical color the vicissitudes of the year
+and the associations clustering around them. This symphony was followed
+by his seventh quintet, in G minor, another string quartet, the
+thirty-second, and a series of pieces for the violin and piano, and in
+1852 we find the indefatigable composer busy in remodeling his opera of
+"Faust" for production by Mr. Gye, in London. It was produced with great
+splendor in the English capital, and conducted by Spohr himself; but
+it did not prove a great success, a deep disappointment to Spohr, who
+fondly believed this work to be his masterpiece. "On this occasion,"
+writes a very competent critic, _a propos_ of the first performance,
+"there was a certain amount of heaviness about the performance which
+told very much against the probability of that opera ever becoming
+a favorite with the Royal Italian Opera subscribers. Nothing could
+possibly exceed the poetical grace of Eonconi in the title role, or
+surpass the propriety and expression of his singing. Mme. Castellan's
+_Cunegonda_ was also exceedingly well sung, and Tamberlik outdid himself
+by his thorough comprehension of the music, the splendor of his voice,
+and the refinement of his vocalization in the character of _Ugo_....
+The _Mephistopheles_ of Herr Formes was a remarkable personation, being
+truly demoniacal in the play of his countenance, and as characteristic
+as any one of Retsch's drawings of Goethe's fiend-tempter. His singing
+being specially German was in every way well suited to the occasion." In
+spite of the excellence of the interpretation, Spohr's "Faust" did not
+take any hold on the lovers of music in England, and even in Germany,
+where Spohr is held in great reverence, it presents but little
+attraction. The closing years of Spohr's active life as a musician were
+devoted to that species of composition where he showed indubitable
+title to be considered a man of genius, works for the violin and chamber
+music. He himself did not recognize his decadence of energy and musical
+vigor; but the veteran was more than seventy years old, and his royal
+master resolved to put his baton in younger and fresher hands. So he was
+retired from service with an annual pension of fifteen hundred thalers.
+Spohr felt this deeply, but he had scarcely reconciled himself to the
+change when a more serious casualty befell him. He fell and broke his
+left arm, which never gained enough strength for him to hold the beloved
+instrument again. It had been the great joy and solace of his life to
+play, and, now that in his old age he was deprived of this comfort, he
+was ready to die. Only once more did he make a public appearance. In the
+spring of 1859 he journeyed to Meiningen to direct a concert on behalf
+of a charitable fund. An ovation was given to the aged master. A
+colossal bust of himself was placed on the stage, arched with festoons
+of palm and laurel, and the conductor's stand was almost buried in
+flowers. He was received with thunders of welcome, which were again and
+again reiterated, and at the close of the performance he could hardly
+escape for the eager throng who wished to press his hand. Spohr died on
+October 22, 1859, after a few days' illness, and in his death Germany at
+least recognized the loss of one of its most accomplished and versatile
+if not greatest composers.
+
+
+VI.
+
+Dr. Ludwig Spohr's fame as a composer has far overshadowed his
+reputation as a violin virtuoso, but the most capable musical critics
+unite in the opinion that that rare quality, which we denominate genius,
+was principally shown in his wonderful power as a player, and his works
+written for the violin. Spohr was a man of immense self-assertion, and
+believed in the greatness of his own musical genius as a composer in the
+higher domain of his art. His "Autobiography," one of the most fresh,
+racy, and interesting works of the kind ever written, is full of varied
+illustrations of what Chorley stigmatizes his "bovine self-conceit." His
+fecund production of symphony, oratorio, and opera, as well as of the
+more elaborate forms of chamber music, for a period of forty years or
+more, proves how deep was his conviction of his own powers. Indeed, he
+half confesses himself that he is only willing to be rated a little
+less than Beethoven. Spohr was singularly meager, for the most part, in
+musical ideas and freshness of melody, but he was a profound master of
+the orchestra; and in that variety and richness of resources which
+give to tone-creations the splendor of color, which is one of the great
+charms of instrumental music, Spohr is inferior only to Wagner among
+modern symphonists. Spohr's more pretentious works are a singular union
+of meagerness of idea with the most polished richness of manner; but, in
+imagination and thought, he is far the inferior of those whose knowledge
+of treating the orchestra and contrapuntal skill could not compare with
+his. There are more vigor and originality in one of Schubert's greater
+symphonies than in all the multitudinous works of the same class ever
+written by Spohr. In Spohr's compositions for the violin as a solo
+instrument, however, he stands unrivaled, for here his true _genre_ as a
+man of creative genius stamps itself unmistakably.
+
+Before the coming of Spohr violin music had been illustrated by a
+succession of virtuosos, French and Italian, who, though melodiously
+charming, planned in their works and execution to exhibit the effects
+and graces of the players themselves instead of the instrument. Paganini
+carried this tendency to its most remarkable and fascinating extreme,
+but Spohr founded a new style of violin playing, on which the greatest
+modern performers who have grown up since his prime have assiduously
+modeled themselves. Mozart had written solid and simple concertos in
+which the performer was expected to embroider and finish the composer's
+sketch. This required genius and skill under instant command, instead
+of merely phenomenal execution. Again, Beethoven's concertos were so
+written as to make the solo player merely one of the orchestra, chaining
+him in bonds only to set him free to deliver the cadenza. This species
+of self-effacement does not consort with the purpose of solo playing,
+which is display, though under that display there should be power,
+mastery, and resource of thought, and not the trickery of the
+accomplished juggler. Spohr in his violin music most felicitously
+accomplished this, and he is simply incomparable in his compromise
+between what is severe and classical, and what is suave and delightful,
+or passionately exciting. In these works the musician finds nerve,
+sparkle, _elan_, and brightness combined with technical charm and
+richness of thought. Spohr's unconscious and spontaneous force in this
+direction was the direct outcome of his remarkable power as a solo
+player, or, more properly, gathered its life-like play and strength from
+the latter fact. It may be said of Spohr that, as Mozart raised opera to
+a higher standard, as Beethoven uplifted the ideal of the orchestra, as
+Clementi laid a solid foundation for piano-playing, so Spohr's creative
+force as a violinist and writer for the violin has established
+the grandest school for this instrument, to which all the foremost
+contemporary artists acknowledge their obligations.
+
+Dr. Spohr's style as a player, while remarkable for its display of
+technique and command of resource, always subordinated mere display to
+the purpose of the music. The Italians called him "the first singer on
+the violin," and his profound musical knowledge enabled him to produce
+effects in a perfectly legitimate manner, where other players had
+recourse to meretricious and dazzling exhibition of skill. His title to
+recollection in the history of music will not be so much that of a great
+general composer, but that of the greatest of composers for the violin,
+and the one who taught violinists that height of excellence as an
+excutant should go hand in hand with good taste and self-restraint, to
+produce its most permanent effects and exert its most vital influence.
+
+
+
+
+NICOLO PAGANINI.
+
+
+The Birth of the Greatest of Violinists.--His Mother's
+Dream--Extraordinary Character and Genius.--Heine's Description of his
+Playing.--Leigh Hunt on Paganini.--Superstitious Rumors current
+during his Life.--He is believed to be a Demoniac.--His Strange
+Appearance.--Early Training and Surroundings.--Anecdotes of his
+Youth.--Paganini's Youthful Dissipations.--His Passion for Gambling.--He
+acquires his Wonderful Guarnerius Violin.--His Reform from
+the Gaming-table.--Indefatigable Practice and Work as a Young
+Artist.--Paganini as a _Preux Chevalier_.--His Powerful Attraction for
+Women.--Episode with a Lady of Rank.--Anecdotes of his Early Italian
+Concertizing.--The Imbroglio at Ferrant.--The Frail Health of
+Paganini.--Wonderful Success at Milan, where he first plays One of
+the Greatest of his Compositions, "Le Streghe."--Duel with
+Lafont.--Incidents and Anecdotes.--His First Visit to Germany.--Great
+Enthusiasm of his Audiences.--Experiences at Vienna, Berlin, and other
+German Cities.--Description of Paganini, in Paris, by Castil-Blaze and
+Fetis.--His English Reception and the Impression made.--Opinions of the
+Critics.--Paganini not pleased with England.--Settles in Paris for Two
+Years, and becomes the Great Musical Lion.--Simplicity and Amiability
+of Nature.--Magnificent Generosity to Hector Berlioz.--The Great
+Fortune made by Paganini.--His Beautiful Country Seat near Parma.--An
+Unfortunate Speculation in Paris.--The Utter Failure of his
+Health.--His Death at Nice.--Characteristics and Anecdotes.--Interesting
+Circumstances of his Last Moments.--The Peculiar Genius of Paganini, and
+his Influence on Art.
+
+
+I.
+
+In the latter part of the last century an Italian woman of Genoa had a
+dream which she thus related to her little son: "My son, you will be a
+great musician. An angel radiant with beauty appeared to me during the
+night and promised to accomplish any wish that I might make. I asked
+that you should become the greatest of all violinists, and the angel
+granted that my desire should be fulfilled." The child who was thus
+addressed became that incomparable artist, Paganini, whose name now,
+a glorious tradition, is used as a standard by which to estimate the
+excellence of those who have succeeded him.
+
+No artist ever lived who so piqued public curiosity, and invested
+himself with a species of weird romance, which compassed him as with a
+cloud. The personality of the individual so unique and extraordinary,
+the genius of the artist so transcendant in its way, the mystery which
+surrounded all the movements of the man, conspired to make him an
+object of such interest that the announcement of a concert by him in
+any European city made as much stir as some great public event. Crowds
+followed his strange figure in the streets wherever he went, and, had
+the time been the mediaeval ages, he himself a celebrated magician or
+sorcerer, credited with power over the spirits of earth and air, his
+appearance could not have aroused a thrill of attention more absorbing.
+Over men of genius, as well as the commonplace herd, he cast the same
+spell, stamping himself as a personage who could be compared with no
+other.
+
+The German poet Heine thus describes his first acquaintance with this
+paragon of violinists:
+
+"It was in the theatre at Hamburg that I first heard Paganini's violin.
+Although it was fast-day, all the commercial magnates of the town were
+present in the front boxes, the goddesses Juno of Wandrahm, and the
+goddesses Aphrodite of Dreckwall. A religious hush pervaded the whole
+assembly; every eye was directed toward the stage, every ear was
+strained for hearing. At last a dark figure, which seemed to ascend from
+the under world, appeared on the stage. It was Paganini in full evening
+dress, black coat and waistcoat cut after a most villainous pattern,
+such as is perhaps in accordance with the infernal etiquette of the
+court of Proserpine, and black trousers fitting awkwardly to his thin
+legs. His long arms appeared still longer as he advanced, holding in one
+hand his violin, and in the other the bow, hanging down so as almost
+to touch the ground--all the while making a series of extraordinary
+reverences. In the angular contortions of his body there was something
+so painfully wooden, and also something so like the movements of a droll
+animal, that a strange disposition to laughter overcame the audience;
+but his face, which the glaring footlights caused to assume an even
+more corpse-like aspect than was natural to it, had in it something so
+appealing, something so imbecile and meek, that a strange feeling
+of compassion removed all tendency to laughter. Had he learned these
+reverences from an automaton or a performing dog? Is this beseeching
+look the look of one who is sick unto death, or does there lurk behind
+it the mocking cunning of a miser? Is that a mortal who in the agony
+of death stands before the public in the art arena, and, like a dying
+gladiator, bids for their applause in his last convulsions? or is it
+some phantom arisen from the grave, a vampire with a violin, who comes
+to suck, if not the blood from our hearts, at least the money from our
+pockets? Questions such as these kept chasing each other through the
+brain while Paganini continued his apparently interminable series of
+complimentary bows; but all such questionings instantly take flight the
+moment the great master puts his violin to his chin and began to play.
+
+"Then were heard melodies such as the nightingale pours forth in the
+gloaming when the perfume of the rose intoxicates her heart with sweet
+forebodings of spring! What melting, sensuously languishing notes of
+bliss! Tones that kissed, then poutingly fled from another, and at last
+embraced and became one, and died away in the ecstasy of union! Again,
+there were heard sounds like the song of the fallen angels, who,
+banished from the realms of bliss, sink with shame-red countenance to
+the lower world. These were sounds out of whose bottomless depth gleamed
+no ray of hope or comfort; when the blessed in heaven hear them, the
+praises of God die away upon their pallid lips, and, sighing, they veil
+their holy faces." Leigh Hunt, in one of his essays, thus describes the
+playing of this greatest of all virtuosos: "Paganini, the first time
+I saw and heard him, and the first moment he struck a note, seemed
+literally to strike it, to _give_ it a blow. The house was so crammed
+that, being among the squeezers in the standing room at the side of the
+pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arms
+akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of
+frame for it; and there on the stage through that frame, as through a
+perspective glass, were the face, the bust, and the raised hand of
+the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his chin, just going to
+begin, and looking exactly as I describe him in the following lines:
+
+    "His hand, Loading the air with dumb expectancy,
+     Suspended, ere it fell, a nation's breath.
+     He _smote_; and clinging to the serious chords
+     With Godlike ravishment drew forth a breath,
+     So deep, so strong, so fervid, thick with love--
+     Blissful, yet laden as with twenty prayers--
+     That Juno yearned with no diviner soul
+     To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.
+     The exceeding mystery of the loveliness
+     Sadden'd delight; and, with his mournful look,
+     Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face
+     Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed
+     Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes
+     One that has parted from his soul for pride,
+     And in the sable secret lived forlorn.
+
+"To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made
+on everybody, foreign or native, an Italian who stood near me said to
+himself, with a long sigh, 'O Dio!' and this had not been said long,
+when another person in the same tone uttered 'Oh Christ!' Musicians
+pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as
+possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him."
+
+The impression made by Paganini was something more than that of a great,
+even the greatest, violinist. It was as if some demoniac power lay
+behind the human, prisoned and dumb except through the agencies of
+music, but able to fill expression with faint, far-away cries of
+passion, anguish, love, and aspiration--echoes from the supernatural
+and invisible. His hearers forgot the admiration due to the wonderful
+virtuoso, and seemed to listen to voices from another world. The strange
+rumors that were current about him, Paganini seems to have been not
+disinclined to encourage, for, mingled with his extraordinary genius,
+there was an element of charlatanism. It was commonly reported that
+his wonderful execution on the G-string was due to a long imprisonment,
+inflicted on him for the assassination of a rival in love, during which
+he had a violin with one string only. Paganini himself writes that, "At
+Vienna one of the audience affirmed publicly that my performance was
+not surprising, for he had distinctly seen, while I was playing my
+variations, the devil at my elbow, directing my arm and guiding my bow.
+My resemblance to the devil was a proof of my origin." Even sensible
+people believed that Paganini had some uncanny and unlawful secret which
+enabled him to do what was impossible for other players. At Prague he
+actually printed a letter from his mother to prove that he was not the
+son of the devil. It was not only the perfectly novel and astonishing
+character of his playing, but to a large extent his ghostlike
+appearance, which caused such absurd rumors. The tall, skeleton-like
+figure, the pale, narrow, wax-colored face, the long, dark, disheveled
+hair, the mysterious expression of the heavy eye, made a weirdly strange
+_ensemble_. Heine tells us in "The Florentine Nights" that only one
+artist had succeeded in delineating the real physiognomy of Paganini: "A
+deaf and crazy painter, called Lyser, has in a sort of spiritual frenzy
+so admirably portrayed by a few touches of his pencil the head of
+Paganini that one is dismayed and moved to laughter at the faithfulness
+of the sketch! 'The devil guided my hand,' said the deaf painter to me,
+with mysterious gesticulations and a satirical yet good-natured wag of
+the head, such as he was wont to indulge in when in the midst of his
+genial tomfoolery."
+
+
+II.
+
+Nicolo Paganini was born at Genoa on the night of February 18, 1784,
+of parents in humbly prosperous circumstances, his father being a
+ship-broker, and, though illiterate in a general way, a passionate lover
+of music and an amateur of some skill. The father soon perceived the
+child's talent, and caused him to study so severely that it not only
+affected his constitution, but actually made him a tolerable player at
+the age of six years. The elder Paganini's knowledge of music was not
+sufficient to carry the lad far in mastering the instrument, but the
+extraordinary precocity shown so interested Signor Corvetto, the leader
+at the Genoese theatre, that he undertook to instruct the gifted child.
+Two years later the young Paganini was transferred to the charge of
+Signor Giacomo Costa, an excellent violinist, and director of church
+music at one of the cathedrals, under whom he made rapid progress in
+executive skill, while he studied harmony and counterpoint under the
+composer Gnecco. It was at this time, Paganini not yet being nine years
+of age, that he composed his first piece, a sonata now lost. In 1793 he
+made his first appearance in public at Genoa, and played variations
+on the air "La Carmagnole," then so popular, with immense effect. This
+_debut_ was followed by several subsequent appearances, in which he
+created much enthusiasm. He also played a violin concerto every Sunday
+in church, an attraction which drew great throngs. This practice was
+of great use to Paganini, as it forced him continually to study fresh
+music. About the year 1795 it was deemed best to place the boy under
+the charge of an eminent professor, and Alessandro Rolla, of Parma, was
+pitched on. When the Paganinis arrived, they found the learned professor
+ill, and rather surly at the disturbance. Young Paganini, however,
+speedily silenced the complaints of the querulous invalid. The great
+player himself relates the anecdote: "His wife showed us into a room
+adjoining the bedroom, till she had spoken to the sick man. Finding on
+the table a violin and the music of Rolla's latest concerto, I took
+up the instrument and played the piece at sight. Astonished at what
+he heard, the composer asked for the name of the player, and could not
+believe it was only a young boy till he had seen for himself. He then
+told me that he had nothing to teach me, and advised me to go to Paer
+for study in composition." But, as Paer was at this time in Germany,
+Paganini studied under Ghiretti and Rolla himself while he remained in
+Parma, according to the monograph of Fetis.
+
+The youthful player had already begun to search out new effects on the
+violin, and to create for himself characteristics of tone and treatment
+hitherto unknown to players. After his return to Genoa he composed his
+first "Etudes," which were of such unheard-of difficulty that he was
+sometimes obliged to practice a single passage ten hours running. His
+intense study resulted not only in his acquirement of an unlimited
+execution, but in breaking down his health. His father was a harsh and
+inexorable taskmaster, and up to this time Paganini (now being fourteen)
+had remained quiescent under this tyrant's control. But the desire of
+liberty was breeding projects in his breast, which opportunity soon
+favored. He managed to get permission to travel alone for the first
+time to Lucca, where he had engaged to play at the musical festival
+in November, 1798. He was received with so much enthusiasm that he
+determined not to return to the paternal roof, and at once set off
+to fulfill engagements at Pisa and other towns. In vain the angry and
+mortified father sought to reclaim the young rebel who had slipped
+through his fingers. Nicolo found the sweets of freedom too precious
+to go back again to bondage, though he continued to send his father a
+portion of the proceeds of his playing.
+
+The youth, intoxicated with the license of his life, plunged into all
+kinds of dissipation, specially into gambling, at this time a universal
+vice in Italy, as indeed it was throughout Europe. Alternate fits of
+study and gaming, both of which he pursued with equal zeal, and the
+exhaustion of the life he led, operated dangerously on his enfeebled
+frame, and fits of illness frequently prevented his fulfillment of
+concert engagements. More than once he wasted in one evening the
+proceeds of several concerts, and was obliged to borrow money on his
+violin, the source of his livelihood, in order to obtain funds wherewith
+to pay his gambling debts. Anything more wild, debilitating, and ruinous
+than the life led by this boy, who had barely emerged from childhood,
+can hardly be imagined. On one occasion he was announced for a concert
+at Leghorn, but he had gambled away his money and pawned his violin, so
+that he was compelled to get the loan of an instrument in order to play
+in the evening. In this emergency he applied to M. Livron, a French
+gentleman, a merchant of Leghorn, and an excellent amateur performer,
+who possessed a Guarneri del Gesu violin, reputed among connoisseurs one
+of the finest instruments in the world. The generous Frenchman instantly
+acceded to the boy's wish, and the precious violin was put in his hands.
+After the concert, when Paganini returned the instrument to M. Livron,
+the latter, who had been to hear him, exclaimed, "Never will I profane
+the strings which your fingers have touched! That instrument is yours."
+The astonishment and delight of the young artist may be more easily
+imagined than described. It was upon this violin that Paganini afterward
+performed in all his concerts, and the great virtuoso left it to the
+town of Genoa, where it is now preserved in a glass case in the Museum.
+An excellent engraving of it, from a photograph, was published in 1875
+in George Hart's book on "The Violin."
+
+At this period of his life, between the ages of seventeen and twenty,
+Nicolo Paganini was surrounded by numerous admirers, and led into
+all kinds of dissipation. He was naturally amiable and witty in
+conversation, though he has been reproached with selfishness. There can
+be no doubt that he was, at this period, constantly under the combined
+influences of flattery and unbounded ambition; nevertheless, in spite
+of all his successful performances at concerts, the style of life he was
+leading kept him so poor that he frequently took in hand all kinds
+of musical work to supply the wants of the moment. It is a curious
+coincidence that the fine violin which was presented to him by M.
+Livron, as we have just seen, was the cause of his abandoning, after a
+while, the allurements of the gaming-tables. Paganini tells us himself
+that a certain nobleman was anxious to possess this instrument, and had
+offered for it a sum equivalent to about four hundred dollars; but the
+artist would not sell it even if one thousand had been offered for it,
+although he was, at this juncture, in great need of funds to pay off a
+debt of honor, and sorely tempted to accept the proffered amount. Just
+at this point Paganini received an invitation to a friend's house where
+gambling was the order of the day. "All my capital," he says, "consisted
+of thirty francs, as I had disposed of my jewels, watch, rings, etc.;
+I nevertheless resolved on risking this last resource, and, if fortune
+proved fickle, to sell my violin and proceed to St. Petersburg, without
+instrument or baggage, with the view of reestablishing my affairs. My
+thirty francs were soon reduced to three, and I already fancied myself
+on the road to Russia, when luck took a sudden turn, and I won one
+hundred and sixty francs. This saved my violin and completely set me up.
+From that day forward I gradually gave up gaming, becoming more and more
+convinced that a gambler is an object of contempt to all well-regulated
+minds."
+
+
+III.
+
+Love-making was also among the diversions which Paganini began early
+to practice. Like nearly all great musicians, he was an object of great
+fascination to the fair sex, and his life had its full share of amorous
+romances. A strange episode was his retirement in the country chateau of
+a beautiful Bolognese lady for three years, between the years 1801
+and 1804. Here, in the society of a lovely woman, who was passionately
+devoted to him, and amid beautiful scenery, he devoted himself to
+practicing and composition, also giving much study to the guitar (the
+favorite instrument of his inamorata), on which he became a wonderful
+proficient. This charming idyl in Paganini's life reminds one of the
+retirement of the pianist Chopin to the island of Majorca in the company
+of Mme. George Sand. It was during this period of his life that Paganini
+composed twelve of his finest sonatas for violin and guitar.
+
+When our musician returned again to Genoa and active life in 1804, he
+devoted much time also to composition. He was twenty years of age,
+and wrote here four grand quartets for violin, tenor, violoncello,
+and guitar, and also some bravura variations for violin with guitar
+accompaniment. At this period he gave lessons to a young girl of Genoa,
+Catherine Calcagno, about seven years of age; eight years later, when
+only fifteen years old, this young lady astonished Italian audiences by
+the boldness of her style. She continued her artistic career till the
+year 1816, when she had attained the age of twenty-one, and all traces
+of her in the musical world appear to be lost; doubtless, at this period
+she found a husband, and retired completely from public life.
+
+In 1805 Paganini accepted the position of director of music and
+conductor of the opera orchestra at Lucca, under the immediate patronage
+of the Princess Eliza, sister of Napoleon and wife of Bacciochi. The
+prince took lessons from him on the violin, and gave him whole charge of
+the court music. It was at the numerous concerts given at Lucca during
+this period of Paganini's early career that he first elaborated many of
+those curious effects, such as performances on one string, harmonic
+and pizzicato passages, which afterward became so characteristic of his
+style.
+
+But the demon of unrest would not permit Paganini to remain very long
+in one place. In 1808 he began his wandering career of concert-giving
+afresh, performing throughout northern Italy, and amassing considerable
+money, for his fame had now become so widespread that engagements poured
+on him thick and fast. The lessons of his inconsiderate past had already
+made a deep impression on his mind, and Paganini became very economical,
+a tendency which afterward developed into an almost miserly passion for
+money-getting and -saving, though, through his whole life, he performed
+many acts of magnificent generosity. He had numerous curious adventures,
+some of which are worth recording. At a concert in Leghorn he came on
+the stage, limping, from the effects of a nail which had run into his
+foot. This made a great laugh. Just as he began to play, the candles
+fell out of his music desk, and again there was an uproar. Suddenly the
+first string broke, and there was more hilarity; but, says Paganini,
+naively, "I played the piece on three strings, and the sneers quickly
+changed into boisterous applause." At Ferrara he narrowly escaped an
+enraged audience with his life. It had been arranged that a certain
+Signora Marcolini should take part in his concert, but illness prevented
+her singing, and at the last moment Paganini secured the services of
+Signora Pallerini, who, though a danseuse, possessed an agreeable voice.
+The lady was very nervous and diffident, but sang exceedingly well,
+though there were a few in the audience who were inconsiderate enough to
+hiss. Paganini was furious at this insult, and vowed to be avenged. At
+the end of the concert he proposed to amuse the audience by imitating
+the noises of various animals on his violin. After he had reproduced the
+mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog, the crowing of a cock, etc., he
+advanced to the footlights and called out, "Questo e per quelli che
+han fischiato" ("This is for those who hissed"), and imitated in an
+unmistakable way the braying of the jackass. At this the pit rose to
+a man, and charged through the orchestra, climbed the stage, and would
+have killed Paganini, had he not fled incontinently, "standing not on
+the order of his going, but going at once." The explanation of this
+sensitiveness of the audience is found in the fact that the people of
+Ferrara had a general reputation for stupidity, and the appearance of
+a Ferrarese outside of the town walls was the signal for a significant
+hee-haw. Paganini never gave any more concerts in that town.
+
+As he approached his thirtieth year his delicate and highly strung
+organization, already undermined by the excesses of his early
+youth, began to give way. He was frequently troubled with internal
+inflammation, and he was obliged to regulate his habits in the strictest
+fashion as to diet and hours of sleep. Even while comparatively well,
+his health always continued to be very frail.
+
+Paganini composed his remarkable variations called "Le Streghe" ("The
+Witches") at Milan in 1813. In this composition, the air of which was
+taken from a ballet by Sussmayer, called "Il Noce de Benevento," at the
+part where the witches appear in the piece as performed on the stage,
+the violinist introduced many of his most remarkable effects. He played
+this piece for the first time at La Scala theatre, and he was honored
+with the most tumultuous enthusiasm, which for a long time prevented the
+progress of the programme. Paganini always had a predilection for Milan
+afterward, and said he enjoyed giving concerts there more than at any
+other city in Europe. He gave no less than thirty-seven concerts here
+in 1813. In this city, three years afterward, occurred his interesting
+musical duel with Lafont, the well-known French violinist. Paganini
+was then at Genoa, and, hearing of Lafont's presence at Milan, at
+once hastened to that city to hear him play. "His performance," said
+Pagani-ni, "pleased me exceedingly." When the Italian violinist, a week
+later, gave a concert at La Scala, Lafont was in the audience, and the
+very next day he proposed that Paganini and himself should play together
+at the same concert. "I excused myself," said Paganini, "alleging that
+such experiments were impolitic, as the public invariably looked upon
+these matters as duels, in which there must be a victim, and that it
+would be so in this case; for, as he was acknowledged to be the best of
+the French violinists, so the public indulgently considered me to be
+the best player in Italy. Lafont not looking at it in this light, I was
+obliged to accept the challenge. I allowed him to arrange the programme.
+We each played a concerto of our own composition, after which we played
+together a duo concertante by Kreutzer. In this I did not deviate in the
+least from the composer's text while we played together, but in the solo
+parts I yielded freely to my own imagination, and introduced several
+novelties, which seemed to annoy my adversary. Then followed a 'Russian
+Air,' with variations, by Lafont, and I finished the concert with my
+variations called 'Le Streghe.' Lafont probably surpassed me in tone;
+but the applause which followed my efforts convinced me that I did not
+suffer by comparison." There seems to be no question that the victory
+remained with Paganini. A few years later Paganini played in a similar
+contest with the Polish violinist Lipinski, at Placentia. The two
+artists, however, were intimate friends, and there was not a spark
+of rivalry or jealousy in their generous emulation. In fact,
+Paganini appears to have been utterly without that conceit in his own
+extraordinary powers which is so common in musical artists. Heine gives
+an amusing illustration of this. He writes: "Once, after listening to a
+concert by Paganini, as I was addressing him with the most impassioned
+eulogies on his violin-playing, he interrupted me with the words, 'But
+how were you pleased to-day with my compliments and reverences?'" The
+musician thought more of his genuflexions than of his musical talent.
+
+
+IV.
+
+In the year 1817 Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Paganini were at Rome during
+Carnival time, and the trio determined on a grand frolic. Rossini had
+composed a very clever part-song, "Carnavale, Carnavale," known in
+English as "We are Poor Beggars," and the three great musicians, having
+disguised themselves as beggars, sang it with great effect through the
+streets. Rossini during this Carnival produced his "Cenerentola," and
+Paganini gave a series of concerts which excited great enthusiasm.
+Shortly after this, Paganini's health gave way completely at Naples, and
+the landlord of the hotel where he was stopping got the impression that
+his sickness was infectious. In the most brutal manner he turned the
+sick musician into the street. Fortunately, at this moment a violoncello
+player, Ciandelli, who knew Paga-nini well, was passing by, and came to
+the rescue, and his anger was so great, when he saw what had happened
+to the great violinist, that he belabored the barbarous landlord
+unmercifully with a stick, and conveyed the invalid to a comfortable
+lodging where he was carefully attended to. Some time subsequently
+Paganini had an opportunity of repaying this kindness, for he gave
+Ciandelli some valuable instruction, which enabled him in the course of
+a few years to become transformed from a very indifferent performer into
+an artist of considerable eminence.
+
+At the age of thirty-six Paganini again found himself at Milan, and
+there organized a society of musical amateurs, called "Gli Orfei." He
+conducted several of their concerts. But either the love of a roving
+life or the necessity of wandering in order to fill his exchequer kept
+him constantly on the move; and, though during these travels he is said
+to have met with many extraordinary adventures, very little reliance can
+be placed upon the accounts that have come down to us, the more so
+when we consider that Paga-nini's mode of life was, as we shall see
+presently, become by this time extremely sober. It was not until he
+was forty-four years old that he finally quitted Italy to make himself
+better known in foreign countries. He had been encouraged to visit
+Vienna by Prince Metternich, who had heard and admired his playing at
+Rome in 1817, and had repeatedly made plans to visit Germany, but his
+health had been so wretched as to prevent his departure from his native
+country. But a sojourn in the balmy climate of Sicily for a few months
+had done him so much good that in 1828 he put his long-deferred
+plans into execution. The first concert in March of that year made an
+unparalleled sensation. He gave a great number of concerts in Vienna,
+among them several for the poor. A fever seized all classes of society.
+The shop windows were crowded with goods _a la Paganini_; a good stroke
+at billiards was called _un coup a la Paganini_; dishes Avere named
+after him; his portrait was enameled on snuff-boxes, and the Viennese
+dandies carried his bust on the head of their walking-sticks. A cabman
+wheedled out of the reluctant violinist permission to print on his cab,
+_Cabriolet de Paganini_. By this cunning device, Jehu so augmented his
+profits that he was able to rent a large house and establish a hotel, in
+which capacity Paganini found him when he returned again to Vienna.
+
+Among the pleasant stories told of him is one similar to an incident
+previously related of Viotti. One day, as he was walking in Vienna,
+Paganini saw poor little Italian boy scraping some Neapolitan songs
+before the windows of a large house. A celebrated composer who
+accompanied the artist remarked to him, "There is one of your
+compatriots." Upon which Paganini evinced a desire to speak to the lad,
+and went across the street to him for that purpose. After ascertaining
+that he was a poor beggar-boy from the other side of the Alps, and that
+he supported his sick mother, his only relative, by his playing, the
+great violinist appeared touched. He literally emptied his pockets into
+the boy's hand, and, taking the violin and bow from him, began the
+most grotesque and extraordinary performance possible. A crowd soon
+collected, the great virtuoso was at once recognized by the bystanders,
+and when he brought the performance to an end, amid the cheers and
+shouts of all assembled, he handed round the boy's hat, and made a
+considerable collection of coin, in which silver pieces were very
+conspicuous. He then handed the sum to the young Italian, saying, "Take
+that to your mother," and, rejoining his companion, walked off with him,
+saying, "I hope I've done a good turn to that little animal." At
+Berlin, where he soon afterward astonished his crowded audiences by his
+marvelous playing, the same fanatical enthusiasm ensued; and, with
+the exception of Palermo, Naples (where he seems to have had many
+detractors), and Prague, his visits to the various cities of Europe were
+one continued triumph. People tried in vain to explain his method of
+playing, professors criticised him, and pamphlets were published which
+endeavored to make him out a quack or a charlatan. It was all to no
+purpose. Nothing could arrest his onward course; triumph succeeded
+triumph wherever he appeared; and, though no one could understand him,
+every one admired him, and he had only to touch his violin to enchant
+thousands. A curious scene occurred at Berlin, at a musical evening
+party to which Paganini was invited. A young and presumptuous professor
+of the violin performed there several pieces with very little effect; he
+was not aware of the presence of the Genoese giant, whom he did not know
+even by sight. Others, however, quickly recognized him, and he was asked
+to play, which he at first declined, but finally consented to do after
+urgent solicitation. Purposely he played a few variations in wretchedly
+bad style, which caused a suppressed laugh from those ignorant of his
+identity. The young professor came forward again and played another
+selection in a most pretentious and pointed way, as if to crush the
+daring wretch who had ventured to compete with him. Paganini again took
+up the instrument, and played a short piece with such touching pathos
+and astonishing execution, that the audience sat breathless till the
+last dying cadence wakened them into thunders of applause, and hearts
+thrilled as the name "Paganini" crept from mouth to mouth. The young
+professor had already vanished from the room, and was never again seen
+in the house where he had received so severe a lesson.
+
+Paganini repeated his triumphs again the following year, performing
+in Vienna and the principal cities of Germany, and everywhere arousing
+similar feelings of admiration. Orders and medals were bestowed on him,
+and his progress was almost one of royalty. His first concert in Paris
+was given on March 9, 1831, at the opera-house. He was then forty-seven
+years old, and Castil-Blaze described him as being nearly six feet
+in height, with a long, pallid face, brilliant eyes, like those of an
+eagle, long curling black hair, which fell down over the collar of his
+coat, a thin and cadaverous figure--altogether a personality so gaunt
+and delicate as to be more like a shadow than a man. The eyes sparkled
+with a strange phosphorescent gleam, and the long bony fingers were so
+flexible as to be likened only to "a handkerchief tied to the end of a
+stick." Petis describes the impression he created at his first concert
+as amounting to a "positive and universal frenzy." Being questioned as
+to why he always performed his own compositions, he replied "that, if he
+played other compositions than his own, he was obliged to arrange them
+to suit his own peculiar style, and it was less trouble to write a piece
+of his own." Indeed, whenever he attempted to interpret the works of
+other composers, he failed to produce the effects which might have been
+expected of him. This was especially the case in the works of Beethoven.
+
+
+V.
+
+When Paganini appeared in England, of course there was a prodigious
+curiosity to see and hear the great player. All kinds of rumors were
+in the public mouth about him, and many of the lower classes really
+believed that he had sold himself to the evil one. The capacious area
+of the opera-house was densely packed, and the prices of admission were
+doubled on the opening night. The enthusiasm awakened by the performance
+can best be indicated by quoting from some of the contemporary accounts.
+The concert opened with Beethoven's Second Symphony, performed by
+the Philharmonic Society, and it was followed by Lablache, who sang
+Rossini's "Largo al factotum." "A breathless silence then ensued,"
+writes Mr. Gardiner, an amateur of Leicester, who at the peril of his
+ribs had been struggling in the crowd for two hours to get admission,
+"and every eye watched the action of this extraordinary violinist as he
+glided from the side scenes to the front of the stage. An involuntary
+cheering burst from every part of the house, many persons rising from
+their seats to view the specter during the thunder of this unprecedented
+applause, his gaunt and extraordinary appearance being more like that
+of a devotee about to suffer martyrdom than one to delight you with
+his art. With the tip of his bow he set off the orchestra in a grand
+military movement with a force and vivacity as surprising as it was
+new. At the termination of this introduction, he commenced with a soft,
+streamy note of celestial quality, and with three or four whips of his
+bow elicited points of sound that mounted to the third heaven, and as
+bright as stars.... Immediately an execution followed which was equally
+indescribable. A scream of astonishment and delight burst from the
+audience at the novelty of this effect.... etc." This _naive_ account
+may serve to show the impression created on the minds of those not
+trained to guard their words with moderation.
+
+"Nothing can be more intense in feeling," said a contemporary critic,
+"than his conception and delivery of an adagio passage. His tone is,
+perhaps, not quite so full and round as that of a De Beriot or Baillot,
+for example; it is delicate rather than strong, but this delicacy was
+probably never possessed equally by another player." "There is no trick
+in his playing," writes another critic; "it is all fair scientific
+execution, opening to us a new order of sounds.... All his passages
+seem free and unpremeditated, as if conceived on the instant. One has no
+impression of their having cost him either forethought or labor....
+The word difficulty has no place in his vocabulary.... etc." Paganini's
+lengthened tour through London and the provinces was everywhere attended
+with the same success, and brought him in a golden harvest, for his
+reputation had now grown so portentous that he could exact the greatest
+terms from managers.
+
+Paganini avowed himself as not altogether pleased with England, but,
+under the surface of such complaints as the following, one detects the
+ring of gratified vanity. He writes in a MS. letter, dated from London
+in 1831, of the excessive and noisy admiration to which he was subjected
+in the London streets, which left him no peace, and actually blocked his
+passage to and from the theatre. "Although the public curiosity to see
+me," says he, "is long since satisfied; though I have played in public
+at least thirty times, and my likeness has been reproduced in all
+possible styles and forms, yet I can never leave my home without being
+mobbed by people who are not content with following and jostling me, but
+actually get in front of me, and prevent my going either way, address me
+in English of which I don't know a word, and even feel me as if to find
+out if I am made of flesh and blood. And this is not only among the
+common people, but among the upper classes." Paganini repeated his visit
+to England during the next season, playing his final farewell concert at
+the Victoria Theatre, London, June 17, 1832. The two following years
+our artist lived in Paris, and was the great lion of musical and
+social circles. People professed to be as much charmed with his lack of
+pretension, his _naive_ and simple manners, as with his musical genius.
+Yet no man was more exacting of his rights as an artist. One day a court
+concert was announced at the Tuilleries, at which Paganini was asked
+to play. He consented, and went to examine the room the day before. He
+objected to the numerous curtains, so hung as to deaden the sound,
+and requested the superintendent to see that they were changed. The
+supercilious official ignored the artist's wish, and the offended
+Paganini determined not to play. When the hour of the concert arrived,
+there was no violinist. The royalties and their attendants were all
+seated; murmurs arose, but still no Paganini. At last an official was
+sent to the hotel of the artist, only to be informed that _the great
+violinist had not gone out, but that he went to bed very early_. It was
+during his residence in Paris in the winter of 1834 that he proposed
+to Berlioz, for whom he had the most cordial esteem and admiration,
+to write a concerto for his Stradiuarius violin, which resulted in the
+famous symphony "Harold en Italie." Four years after this he bestowed
+the sum of twenty thousand francs on Berlioz, who was then in pressing
+need, delicately disguising the donation as a testimonial of his
+admiration for the "Symphonie Fantastique." Though the eagerness of
+Paganini to make money urged him to labor for years while his health was
+exceedingly frail, and though he was justly stigmatized as penurious
+in many ways, he was capable of princely generosity on occasions which
+appealed strongly to the ardent sympathies which lay at the bottom of
+his nature.
+
+Paganini made a great fortune by the exercise of his art, and in 1834
+purchased, among other property in his native country, a charming
+country seat called Villa Gajona, near Parma. Here he spent two years
+in comparative quiet, though still continuing to give concerts. At this
+period and for some time previous many music-sellers had striven to buy
+the copyright of his works. But Paganini put a price on it which
+was prescriptive, the probability being that he did not wish his
+compositions to pass out of his hands till he had given up his career on
+the concert stage. He was willing that they should be arranged for the
+piano, but not published as violin music.
+
+After his return to Italy Paganini gave several most successful
+concerts, among others, one for the poor at Placentia, on the 14th of
+November, 1834, and another at the court of the Duchess of Parma, in the
+December following. But his health was already giving way most visibly.
+Phthisis of the larynx, which rendered him a mere shadow of his former
+self, and sometimes almost deprived him of speech, had been gaining
+ground since his return to his native climate. In 1836, however, he was
+better, and some unscrupulous Parisian speculators induced him to lend
+his name to a joint-stock undertaking, a sort of gambling-room and
+concert-hall, which they called the Casino Paganini. This was duly
+opened in a fashionable part of Paris in 1837; but, as the Government
+would not allow the establishment to be used as a gambling-house, and
+the concerts did not pay the expenses, it became a great failure, and
+the illustrious artist actually suffered loss by it to the extent of
+forty thousand francs.
+
+One of his last, if not his very last, concert was given with the
+guitar-player, Signor Legnani, at Turin, on the 9th of June, 1837,
+for the benefit of the poor. He was then on his way to fulfill his
+engagements at the fatal Parisian casino, which opened with much
+splendor in the November following. But his health had again broken
+down, and the fatigue of the journey had told upon him so much that he
+was unable to appear at the casino. When the enterprise was found to
+be a failure, a pettifogging lawsuit was carried on against him, and,
+according to Fetis, who is very explicit on this subject, the French
+judges condemned him to pay the aforesaid forty thousand francs, and to
+be deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid--all this without
+hearing his defense!
+
+The career of Paganini was at this critical period fast drawing to a
+close. His medical advisers recommended him to return at once to the
+South, fearing that the winter would kill him in Paris. He died at Nice
+on May 27, 1840, aged fifty-six years. He left to his legitimized son
+Achille, the offspring of his _liaison_ with the singer Antonia Bianchi,
+a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, and the title of baron, of which he
+had received the patent in Germany. His beautiful Guarnerius violin, the
+vehicle of so many splendid artistic triumphs, he bequeathed to the town
+of Genoa, where he was born. Though Paganini was superstitious, and died
+a son of Holy Church, he did not leave any money in religious bequests,
+nor did he even receive the last sacraments. The authorities of Rome
+raised many difficulties about the funeral, and it was only after an
+enormous amount of trouble and expense that Achille was able to have a
+solemn service to the memory of his father performed at Parma. It was
+five years after Paganini's death that this occurred, and permission
+was obtained to have the body removed to holy ground in the village
+churchyard near the Villa Gajona. During this long period the dishonored
+remains of the illustrious musician were at the hospital of Nice, where
+the body had been embalmed, and afterward at a country place near Genoa,
+belonging to the family. The superstitious peasantry believed that
+strange noises were heard about the grave at night--the wailings of
+the unsatisfied spirit of Paganini over the unsanctified burial of its
+earthly shell. It was to end these painful stories that the young
+baron made a final determined effort to placate the ecclesiastical
+authorities.
+
+
+VI.
+
+The singular personality of Paganini displayed itself in his private no
+less than in his artistic life, and a few out of the many anecdotes told
+of him will be of interest, as throwing fresh light on the man. Paganini
+was accused of being selfish and miserly, of caring little even for his
+art, except as a means of accumulating money. While there is much in his
+life to justify such an indictment, it is no less true that he on many
+occasions displayed great generosity. He was always willing to give
+concerts for the benefit of his fellow-artists and for other charitable
+purposes, and on more than one occasion bestowed large sums of money for
+the relief of distress. We may assume that he was niggardly by habit
+and generous by impulse. Utterly ignorant of everything except the art
+of music, bred under the most unfortunate and demoralizing conditions,
+the fact that his character was, on the whole, so _naive_ and upright,
+speaks eloquently for the native qualities of his disposition. His
+eccentricities, perhaps, justified the unreasoning vulgar in believing
+that he was slightly crazed. His appearance and manner on the platform
+were fantastic in the extreme, and rarely failed to provoke ridicule,
+till his magic bow turned all other emotions into one of breathless
+admiration. He talked to himself continually when alone, a habit
+which was partly responsible for the popular belief that he was always
+attended by a familiar demon. When a stranger was introduced to him, his
+corpse-like face became galvanized into a ghastly smile, which produced
+a singular impression, half fascinating, half repulsive. He was taciturn
+in society, except among his intimates, when his buoyant spirits bubbled
+out in the most amusing jokes and anecdotes expressed in a polyglot
+tongue, for he never knew any language well except his own. Naturally
+irritable, his quick temper was inflamed by intestinal disease, which
+racked him with a suffering that was aggravated by a nostrum, in the use
+of which he indulged freely. Indeed, it was said by his friends that his
+death was accelerated by his devotion to medical quackery, from a belief
+in which no arguments could wean him.
+
+To his fellow-artists he was always polite and attentive, though they
+annoyed him by their persistent curiosity as to the means by which he
+produced his unrivaled effects--effects which the established technique
+of violin-playing could not explain. An Englishman named George Harris,
+who was an _attache_ of the Hanoverian court, attended Paganini for a
+year as his private secretary, and he asserts that Paganini was never
+seen to practice a single note of music in private. His astonishing
+dexterity was kept up to its pitch by the numerous concerts which he
+gave, and by his exquisitely delicate organization. He was accustomed to
+say that his whole early life had been one of prodigious and continual
+study, and that he could afford to repose in after years. Paganini's
+knowledge of music was profound and exact, and the most difficult music
+was mere child's play to him. Pasini, a well-known painter, living at
+Parma, did not believe the stories told of Paganini's ability to play
+the most difficult music at sight. Being the possessor of a valuable
+Stradiuarius violin, he challenged our artist to play, at first hand, a
+manuscript concerto which he placed before him. "This instrument
+shall be yours," he said, "if you can play, in a masterly manner, that
+concerto at first sight." The Genoese took the violin in his hand,
+saying, "In that case, my friend, you may bid adieu to it at once," and
+he immediately threw Pasini into ecstatic admiration by his performance
+of the piece. There is little doubt that this is the Stradiuarius
+instrument left by Paganini to his son, and valued at about six hundred
+pounds sterling.
+
+Of Antonia Bianchi, the mother of his son Achille, Paganini tells us
+that, after many years of a most devoted life, the lady's temper became
+so violent that a separation was necessary. "Antonia was constantly
+tormented," he says, "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 pianiste, and, when she read the few amiable words I had composed
+in honor of the artist to whom the book belonged, she tore it from my
+hands, demolished it on the spot, and, so fearful was her rage, would
+have assassinated me."
+
+He was very fond of his little son Achille. A French gentleman tells
+us that he called once to take Paganini to dine with him. He found the
+artist's room in great disorder. A violin on the table with manuscript
+music, another upon a chair, a snuff-box on the bed along with his
+child's toys, music, money, letters, articles of dress--all _pele-mele_;
+nor were the tables and chairs in their proper places. Everything was in
+the most conspicuous confusion. The child was out of temper; something
+had vexed him; he had been told to wash his hands; and, while the little
+one gave vent to the most violent bursts of temper, the father stood
+as calm and quiet as the most accomplished of nurses. He merely turned
+quietly to his visitor, and said, in melancholy accents: "The poor child
+is cross; I do not know what to do to amuse him; I have played with him
+ever since morning, and I can not stand it any longer."
+
+"It was rather amusing," says the same writer, "to see Paganini in his
+slippers doing battle with his child, who came about up to his knees.
+The little one advanced boldly with his wooden sword, while the father
+retired, crying out, 'Enough, enough! I am already wounded.' But it was
+not enough; the young Achilles was never satisfied until his father,
+completely vanquished, fell heavily on the bed."
+
+In the early part of the present century the facilities for travel
+were far less convenient than at the present time, and it was always an
+arduous undertaking to one in Paganini's frail condition of health. He
+was, however, generally cheerful while jolting along in the post-chaise,
+and chatted incessantly as long as his voice held out. Harris tells us
+that the artist was in the habit of getting out when the horses
+were changed, to stretch his long limbs after the confinement of the
+carriage. Often he extended his promenades when he became interested in
+the town through which he was passing, and would not return till
+long after the fresh horses had been harnessed, thereby causing much
+annoyance to the driver. On one occasion Jehu swore, if it occurred
+again, he would drive on, and leave his passenger behind, to get along
+as best he could. The secretary, Harris, was enjoying a nap, and the
+driver was true to his resolution at the next stopping-place, leaving
+Paganini behind. This made much trouble, and a special coach had to be
+sent for the enraged artist, who was found sputtering oaths in half a
+dozen languages. Paganini refused to pay for the carriage, and it was
+only by force of law that he reluctantly settled the bill.
+
+His baggage was always of the plainest description; in fact, ludicrously
+simple. A shabby box contained his precious Guarnerius fiddle, and
+served also as a portmanteau wherein to pack his jewelry, his linen, and
+sundry trifles. In addition to this he carried a small traveling-bag and
+a hat-box. Mr. Harris tolls us that Paganini was in eating and drinking
+exceedingly frugal. Table indulgence was forbidden him by the condition
+of his health, as any deviation from the strictest diet resulted in
+great suffering. He was a thorough Italian in all his habits and ideas.
+Among other traits was a great disdain for the lower classes, though
+he was by no means subservient to people of rank and wealth. It was
+his habit, when an inferior addressed him, to inquire of his companion,
+"What does this animal want with me?" If he was pleased with his
+coachman, he would say, "That animal drives well." This seemed not so
+much the vulgar arrogance of a small nature, elevated above the class in
+life from which it sprang, as that pride of great gifts which made the
+freemasonry of genius the measure by which he judged all others, noble
+and simple. Like all men of highly nervous constitution, he was keenly
+susceptible to both enjoyment and suffering. He was so sensitive
+to atmospheric changes that his irritability was excessive during a
+thunderstorm. He would then remain silent for hours together, while his
+eyes rolled and his limbs twitched convulsively. Such fragile, nervous,
+highly sensitive organizations are not unfrequently characteristic of
+men of great genius, and in the great Italian violinist it was developed
+in an abnormal degree.
+
+The circumstances accompanying the last scenes of Paganini's life are
+very interesting. He had been intimate with most of the great people
+of Europe, among them Lord Byron, Sir Clifford Constable, Lord Holland,
+Rossini, Ugo Fascolo, Monti, Prince Jerome, the Princess Eliza, and most
+of the great painters, poets, and musicians of his age. For Lord Byron
+he had a most ardent and exaggerated admiration. Paganini had stopped at
+Nice on his way from Paris, detained by extreme debility, for his
+last hours were drawing near. Under the blue sky and balmy air of
+this Mediterranean paradise the great musician somewhat recovered his
+strength at first. One night he sat by his bedroom window, surrounded by
+a circle of intimate friends, watching the glories of the Italian sunset
+that emblazoned earth, air, and sky, with the richest dyes of nature's
+palette. A soft breeze swept into the room, heavy with the perfumes of
+flowers, and the twittering of the birds in the green foliage mingled
+with the hum of talk from the throngs of gay promenaders sauntering on
+the beach. For a while Paganini sat silently absorbed in watching the
+joyous scene, when suddenly his eyes turned on the picture of Lord Byron
+that hung on the wall. A flash of enthusiasm lightened his face, as if
+a great thought were struggling to the surface, and he seized his violin
+to improvise. The listeners declared that this "swan song" was the
+most remarkable production of his life. He illustrated the stormy and
+romantic career of the English poet in music. The accents of doubt,
+irony, and despair mingled with the cry of liberty and the tumult of
+triumph. Paganini had scarcely finished this wonderful musical picture
+when the bow fell from the icy fingers that refused any longer to
+perform their function, and the player sank into a dead swoon.
+
+The shock had been too great, and Paganini never quitted his bed
+afterward. The day before his death he seemed a little better, and
+directed his servant to buy a pigeon for him, as he had a slight return
+of appetite. On the last evening of his life he seemed very tranquil,
+and ordered the curtains to be drawn that he might look out of the
+window at the beautiful night. The full moon was sailing through the
+skies, flooding everything with splendor. Paganini gazed eagerly, gave a
+long sigh of pleasure, and fell back on his pillow dead.
+
+
+VII.
+
+Paganini was the first to develop the full resources of the violin as
+a solo instrument. He departed entirely from the traditions of
+violin-playing as practiced by earlier masters, as he believed that
+great fame could never be acquired in pursuing their methods. A work of
+Locatelli, one of the cleverest pupils of Corelli, and a great master
+of technique, first seems to have inspired him with a conception of
+the more brilliant possibilities of the violin. What further favored
+Paganini's new departure was that he lived in an age when the artistic
+mind, as well as thought in other directions, felt the desire of
+innovation. The French Revolution stirred Europe to its deepest roots,
+intellectually as well as politically. At a very early date in his
+career Paganini seems to have begun experimenting with the new effects
+for which he became famous, though these did not reach their full
+fruitage until just before he left Italy on his first general tour.
+Fetis says: "In adopting the ideas of his predecessors, in resuscitating
+forgotten effects, in superadding what his genius and perseverance gave
+birth to, he arrived at that distinctive character of performance which
+contributed to his ultimate greatness. The diversity of sounds, the
+different methods of tuning his instrument, the frequent employment
+of harmonics, single and double, the simultaneous pizzicato and bow
+passages, the various staccato effects, the use of double and even
+triple notes, a prodigious facility in executing wide intervals with
+unerring precision, together with an extraordinary knowledge of all
+styles of bowing--such were the principal features of Paganini's talent,
+rendered all the more perfect by his great execution, exquisitely
+nervous sensibility, and his deep musical feeling." In a word, Paganini
+possessed the most remarkable creative power in the technical treatment
+of an instrument ever given to a player. Franz Liszt as a pianist
+approaches him more nearly in this respect than any other virtuoso,
+but the field open to the violinist was far greater and wider than
+that offered to the great Hungarian pianist. It was not, however, mere
+perfection of technical power that threw Europe into such paroxysms of
+admiration; it was the irresistible power of a genius which has never
+been matched, and which almost justified the vulgar conclusion that none
+but one possessed with a demon could do such things. Paganini possessed
+the oft-quoted attribute of genius, "the power of taking infinite
+pains," but behind this there lay superlative gifts of mind, physique,
+and temperament. He completely dazzled the greatest musical artists as
+well as the masses. "His constant and daring flights," writes
+Moscheles, "his newly discovered flageolet tones, his gift of fusing
+and beautifying objects of the most diverse kinds--all these phases
+of genius so completely bewilder my musical perceptions that for days
+afterward my head is on fire and my brain reels." His tone lacked
+roundness and volume. His use of very thin strings, made necessary by
+his double harmonics and other specialties, necessarily prevented a
+broad, rich tone. But he more than compensated for this defect by the
+intense expression, "soft and melting as that of an Italian singer," to
+use the language of Moscheles again, which characterized the quality of
+sound he drew from his instrument. Spohr, a very great player, but,
+with all his polish, precision, and classical beauty of style, somewhat
+phlegmatic and conventional withal, critcised Paganini as lacking
+in good taste. He could never get in sympathy with the bent of
+individuality, the Southern passion and fire, and the exceptional gifts
+of temperament which made Paganini's idiosyncrasies of style as a player
+consummate beauties, where imitations of these effects on the part of
+others would be gross exaggeration. Spohr developed the school of Viotti
+and Rode, and in his attachment to that school could see no artistic
+beauty in any deviation. Paganini's peculiar method of treating the
+violin has never been regarded as a safe school for any other violinist
+to follow. Without Paganini's genius to give it vitality, his technique
+would justly be charged with exaggeration and charlatanism. Some of the
+modern French players, who have been strongly influenced by the great
+Italian, have failed to satisfy serious musical taste from this cause.
+On the German violinists he has had but little influence, owing to the
+powerful example of Spohr and the musical spirit of the great composers,
+which have tended to keep players within the strictly legitimate lines
+of art. Some of the principal compositions of Paganini are marked by
+great originality and beauty, and are violin classics. Schumann and
+Liszt have transcribed several of them for the piano, and Brahms for the
+orchestra. But the great glory of Paganini was as a virtuoso, not as a
+composer, and it has been generally agreed to place him on the highest
+pedestal which has yet been reached in the executive art of the violin.
+
+
+
+
+DE BERIOT
+
+
+De Beriot's High Place in the Art of the Violin and Violin Music.--The
+Scion of an Impoverished Noble Family.--Early Education and Musical
+Training.--He seeks the Advice of Viotti in Paris.--Becomes a Pupil of
+Kobrechts and Baillot successively.--De Beriot finishes and perfects his
+Style on his Own Model.--Great Success in England.--Artistic Travels
+in Europe.--Becomes Soloist to the King of the Netherlands.--He meets
+Malibran, the Great Cantatrice, in Paris.--Peculiar Circumstances which
+drew the Couple toward Each Other.--They form a Connection which only
+ends with Malibran's Life.--Sketch of Malibran and her Family.--The
+Various Artistic Journeys of Malibran and De Beriot.--Their Marriage
+and Mme. de Beriot's Death.--De Beriot becomes Professor in the Brussels
+Conservatoire.--His Later Life in Brussels.--His Son Charles Malibran de
+Beriot.--The Character of De Beriot as Composer and Player.
+
+
+I.
+
+Among the great players contemporary with Paganini, the name of Charles
+Auguste de Beriot shines in the musical horizon with the luster of a
+star of the first magnitude. His influence on music has been one of
+unmistakable import, for he has perpetuated his great talents through
+the number of gifted pupils who graduated from his teachings and
+gathered an inspiration from an artist-master, in whom were united
+splendid gifts as a player, an earnest musical spirit, depth and
+precision of science, the chivalry of high birth and breeding, and
+a width of intellectual culture which would have dignified the
+_litterateur_ or scholar. De Beriot was for many years the chief of the
+violin department at the Brussels Conservatoire, where, even before the
+revolution of 1830, there was one of the finest schools of instruction
+for stringed instruments to be found in Europe. When in the full
+ripeness of his fame as a virtuoso and composer, De Beriot was called on
+to take charge of the violin section of this great institution, and his
+influence has thus been transmitted in the world of art in a degree by
+no means limited to his direct greatness as an executant.
+
+De Beriot was born at Louvain, in 1802, of a noble family, which
+had been impoverished through the crash and turmoil of the French
+Revolution. Left an orphan at the age of nine years, without inheritance
+except that of a high spirit and family pride, he would have fared badly
+in these early years, had it not been for the kindness of M. Tiby, a
+professor of music, who perceived the child's latent talent, and he
+acquired skill in playing so rapidly that he was able to play one of
+Viotti's concertos at the age of nine. His hearers, many of whom were
+connoisseurs, were delighted, and prophesied for him the great career
+which made the name of De Beriot famous. Naturally of a contemplative
+and thoughtful mind, he lost no time in studying not only the art of
+violin-playing but also acquiring proficiency in general branches of
+knowledge. His theories of an art ideal even at that early age were far
+more lofty and earnest than that which generally guides the aspirations
+of musicians. De Beriot, in after years, attributed many of the elevated
+ideas which from this time guided his life to the influence of the
+well-known scholar and philosopher Jacotot, who, though a poor musician
+himself, had very clear ideas as to the aesthetic and moral foundations
+on which art success must be built. The text-book, Jacotot's "Method,"
+fell early into the young musician's hand, and imbued him with the
+principles of self-reliance, earnestness, and patience which helped to
+model his life, and contributed to the remarkable proficiency in his
+art on which his fame rests. Two golden principles were impressed on De
+Beriot's mind from these teachings: "All obstacles yield to unwearied
+pursuit," and "We are not ordinarily willing to do all that we are
+really able to accomplish." In after years De Beriot met Jacotot, and
+had the pleasure of acknowledging the deep obligation under which he
+felt himself bound.
+
+In 1821 young Charles de Beriot had attained the age of nineteen, and
+it was determined that he should leave his native town and go to Paris,
+where he could receive the teachings of the great masters of the violin.
+At this time he was a handsome youth with a strongly knit figure,
+somewhat above the middle height, with fine, dark eyes and hair, a
+florid complexion, and very gentlemanly appearance. Good blood and
+breeding displayed themselves in every movement, and ardent hope shone
+in his face. He resided for several months in Brussels, which was
+afterward to be his home, and associated with the scenes of his greatest
+usefulness, and then pursued his eager way to Paris with a letter of
+introduction to Viotti, then director of music at the Grand Opera. De
+Beriot's ambition was to play before the veteran violinist of
+Europe, and to feed his own hopes on the great master's praise and
+encouragement.
+
+"You have a fine style," said Viotti; "give yourself up to the business
+of perfecting it; hear all men of talent; profit by everything, but
+imitate nothing." There was at this time in Brussels a violinist named
+Robrechts, a former pupil of Viotti, and one of the last artists who
+derived instruction directly from the celebrated Italian. Andreas
+Robrechts was born at Brussels on the 18th of December, 1797, and made
+rapid progress as a musician under Planken, a professor, who, like the
+late M. Wery, who succeeded him, formed many excellent pupils. He then
+entered himself at the Conservatoire of Paris in 1814, where he received
+some private lessons from Baillot, while the institution itself was
+closed during the occupation by the allied armies.
+
+Viotti, hearing the young Robrechts play, was so struck with his
+magnificent tone and broad style that he undertook to give him finishing
+lessons, with the approbation of Baillot. This was soon arranged, and
+for many years the two violinists were inseparable. He even accompanied
+Viotti in his journey to London, where they were heard more than once in
+duets. The illustrious Italian had recognized in Robrechts the pupil
+who most closely adhered to his style of playing, and one of the few who
+were likely to diffuse it in after years.
+
+In 1820 Robrechts returned to Brussels, where he was elected first
+violin solo to the king, Wil-helm I. It was shortly after this that De
+Beriot took lessons from him, and he it was who gave him the letter
+of introduction to Viotti. The same excellent professor also gave
+instructions to the young Artot. He died in 1860, the last direct
+representative of the great Viotti school.
+
+It will now be seen where De Beriot acquired the first principles of
+that large, bold, and exquisitely charming style that in after life
+characterized both his performances and his compositions.
+
+
+II.
+
+Arriving at Paris, and believing probably that the classical style of
+Robrechts, from whom he had had instruction in Brussels, did not lead
+him swiftly forward enough in the path he would travel, he sought
+Viotti, as we have related above, and by his advice entered himself in
+the violin class of the Conservatoire, which was directed by Baillot, an
+eminent player of the Viotti school, though never a direct pupil of the
+latter master. De Beriot, however, did not remain long in the class, but
+applied himself most assiduously to the study of the violin in his own
+way. This is what Paganini had done, and through this course had been
+able to form a style so peculiarly his own. It is not probable that De
+Beriot at this time knew much about Paganini; certainly he had
+never heard him. Paganini was at first looked on as a mere comet of
+extraordinary brilliancy, without much soundness or true genius, and
+many who afterward became his most ardent admirers began with sneering
+at his pretensions. De Beriot was in later years undoubtedly powerfully
+influenced by Paganini, but at the time of which we speak the young
+violinist appears to have been determined to evolve a style and
+character in art out of his own resources purely. He was carrying out
+Viot-ti's advice.
+
+At this time our young artist was the possessor of a very fine
+instrument by Giovanni Magini, a celebrated maker of the Brescian
+school, and a pupil of Gaspar de Salo. Many of the violins of this make
+are of an excellence hardly inferior to the Strads of the best period,
+and De Beriot seems to have preferred this violin during the whole of
+his career, though he afterward owned instruments of the most celebrated
+makers.
+
+Very soon De Beriot made his public appearance in concerts, and was
+brilliantly successful from the outset. The range of his ambition may be
+seen from the fact that he had enough confidence in his own genius from
+the very first to play his own music, and it was conceded to possess
+great freshness and originality. These early "Airs Varie" consisted of
+an introduction, a theme, followed by three or four variations, and a
+brilliant finale.
+
+The young artist preceded Paganini in London several years, as he
+made his first appearance before an English audience in 1826. It was
+fortunate, perhaps, for De Beriot that such was the case, as it is more
+than probable that, after the dazzling and electric displays of
+the Geneose player, the more sedate and simple style which then
+characterized De Beriot would have failed to please. As it was, he
+was most cordially admired, and was generally recognized by English
+connoisseurs, as well as by the general public, as one of the most
+accomplished players who had ever visited England. The pecuniary results
+of these concerts were large, and sufficient to relieve De Beriot, who
+had formerly been rather straitened in his means, from the friction and
+embarrassment which poverty so often imposes on struggling talent.
+There was a peculiar charm in De Beriot's style which was permanently
+characteristic of him, though his technical method did not always remain
+the same. In addition to very facile execution and a rich, mellow tone,
+he possessed the most refined taste. His playing impressed people less
+as that of a great professional violinist than that of the marvelously
+accomplished amateur, the gentleman of leisure and culture, who
+performed with the easy, sparkling grace of one who took no thought of
+whether he played well or not, but did great feats on his instrument
+because he could not help it. Such was also the characteristic of Mario
+as a singer, and there seems to have been many features of resemblance
+between these two fine artists, though moving in different fields of
+art.
+
+After traveling through Europe for several years, giving concerts with
+great success, he was presented to King Wilhelm of the then united
+kingdom of the Netherlands. This monarch, though quite ignorant of
+music, was an enthusiastic patron of art, and, believing that De Beriot
+was destined to be a great ornament of his native country (for he was
+born in Belgium, though his parents were from France), bestowed on the
+artist a pension of two thousand florins a year, and the title of first
+violin solo to his majesty. But this honor was soon rudely snatched
+from De Beriot's grasp. The revolution of 1830, which began with
+the excitement inflamed in Brussels by the performance of Auber's
+revolutionary opera, "La Muette di Portici," better known as
+"Masaniello," dissolved the kingdom, and Belgium parted permanently
+from Holland. It was, perhaps, owing to this apparent misfortune that
+De Beriot made an acquaintance which culminated in the most interesting
+episode of his life. He lost his official position at Brussels, but he
+met Mme. Malibran.
+
+
+III.
+
+De Beriot returned to Paris, where Sontag and Malibran were engaged in
+ardent artistic rivalry, about equally dividing the suffrages of the
+French public. Mlle. Sontag was a beautiful, fair-haired, blue-eyed
+woman, in the very flush of her youth, with an expression of exquisite
+sweetness and mildness. De Beriot became madly enamored of her at once,
+and pressed his suit with vehemence, but without success. Henrietta
+Sontag was already the betrothed of Count Rossi, whom she soon afterward
+married, though the engagement was then a secret. The lady's firm
+refusal of the young Belgian artist's overtures filled him with a deep
+melancholy, which he showed so unmistakably that he became an object of
+solicitude to all his friends. Among those was Mme. Malibran, whose warm
+sympathies went out to an artist whose talents she admired. Malibran,
+living apart from her husband, was obliged to be careful in her conduct,
+to avoid giving food for the scandal of a censorious world, but this
+did not prevent her from exhibiting the utmost pity and kindness in her
+demeanor toward De Beriot. The violinist was soothed by this gentle and
+delightful companion, and it was not long before a fresh affection, even
+stronger than the other, sprang up in his susceptible nature for the
+woman whose ardent Spanish frankness found it difficult to conceal the
+fact that she cherished sentiments different from mere friendship.
+
+The splendid career of Mme. Malibran shines almost without a rival in
+the records of the lyric stage, and her influence on De Beriot, first
+her lover and afterward her husband, was most marked. Maria Garcia,
+afterward Mme. Malibran, was one of a family of very eminent musicians.
+She was trained by her father, Manuel Garcia, who, in addition to being
+a tenor singer of world-wide reputation, was a composer of some repute,
+and the greatest teacher of his time. Her sister, Pauline Garcia, in
+after years became one of the greatest dramatic singers who ever lived,
+and her brother Manuel also attained considerable eminence as singer,
+song-composer, and teacher. The whole family were richly dowered with
+musical gifts, and Maria was probably one of the most versatile and
+accomplished musical artists of any age. At the age of thirteen she was
+a professed musician, and at fifteen, when she came with her parents to
+London, she obtained a complete triumph by accidentally performing in
+Rossini's "Il Barbiere," to supply the place of a prima donna who was
+unable to appear.
+
+We can not tarry here to enter into the details of her interesting life.
+Her father having taken her to America, where she fulfilled a number
+of engagements with an increasing success, she finally espoused there
+a rich merchant named Malibran, much older than herself. It was a most
+ill-advised marriage, and, to make matters worse, the merchant failed
+very soon afterward. Some go so far as to say that he foresaw this
+catastrophe before he contracted his marriage, in the hope of regaining
+his fortune by the proceeds of the singer's career. However that may be,
+a separation took place, and Mme. Malibran returned to Paris in 1827.
+Her singing in Italian opera was everywhere a source of the most
+enthusiastic ovation, and, as she rose like a star of the first
+magnitude in the world of song, so the young De Beriot was fast earning
+his laurels as one of the greatest violinists of the day. In 1830 an
+indissoluble friendship united these two kindred spirits, and in 1832 De
+Beriot, Lablache, the great basso, and Mme. Malibran set out for a tour
+in Italy, where the latter had operatic engagements at Milan, Rome,
+and Naples, and where they all three appeared in concerts with the most
+_eclatant_ success--as may well be imagined.
+
+At Bologna, in 1834, it is difficult to say whether the cantatrice,
+or the violinist, or the inestimable basso, produced the greatest
+sensation; but her bust in marble was there and then placed under the
+peristyle of the Opera-house.
+
+Henceforward De Beriot never quitted her, and their affection seems to
+have increased as time wore on. In the year following she appeared in
+London, where she gave forty representations at Drury Lane, performing
+in "La Sonnambula," "The Maid of Artois," etc., for which she received
+the sum of three thousand two hundred pounds. De Beriot would not have
+made this amount probably with his violin in a year.
+
+After a second journey to Italy, in which Mme. Malibran renewed the
+enthusiasm which she had first created in the public mind, and a series
+of brilliant concerts which also added to De Beriot's prestige, they
+returned to Paris to wait for the divorce of Mme. Malibran from her
+husband, which had been dragging its way through the courts. The much
+longed for release came in 1836, and the union of hearts and
+lives, whose sincerity and devotion had more than half condoned its
+irregularity, was sanctified by the Church. The happiness of the
+artistic pair was not destined to be long. Only a month afterward Mme.
+de Beriot, who was then singing in London, had a dangerous fall from
+her horse. Always passionately fond of activity and exercise, she was an
+excellent horsewoman, and was somewhat reckless in pursuing her favorite
+pursuit. The great singer was thrown by an unruly and badly trained
+animal, and received serious internal injuries. Her indomitable spirit
+would not, however, permit her to rest. She returned to the Continent
+after the close of the London season, to give concerts, in spite of her
+weak health, and gave herself but little chance of recovery, before
+she returned again to England in September to sing at the Manchester
+festival, her last triumph, and the brilliant close of a short and very
+remarkable life. She was seized with sudden and severe illness, and died
+after nine days of suffering. During this period of trial to De Beriot,
+he never left the bedside of his dying wife, but devoted himself
+to ministering to her comfort, except once when she insisted on his
+fulfilling an important concert engagement. Racked with pain as she was,
+her greatest anxiety was as to his artistic success, fearing that his
+mental anguish would prevent his doing full justice to his talents. It
+is said that her friends informed her of the vociferous applause which
+greeted his playing, and a happy smile brightened her dying face. She
+died September 22, 1836, at the age of twenty-eight, but not too soon to
+have attained one of the most dazzling reputations in the history of
+the operatic stage. M. de Beriot was almost frantic with grief, for a
+profound love had joined this sympathetic and well-matched pair, and
+their private happiness had not been less than their public fame.*
+
+     * For a full sketch of Mme. Malibran de Beriot's artistic and
+     personal career, the reader is referred to "Great Singers,
+     Malibran to Tietjens," Appletons' "Handy-Volume Series."
+
+The news of this calamity to the world of music spread swiftly through
+the country, and was known in Paris the next day, where M. Mali-bran,
+the divorced husband of the dead singer, was then living. As the fortune
+which Mme. de Beriot had made by her art was principally invested in
+France, and there were certain irregularities in the French law which
+opened the way for claims of M. Malibran on her estate, De Beriot was
+obliged to hasten to Paris before his wife's funeral to take out letters
+of administration, and thus protect the future of the only child left by
+his wife, young Charles de Beriot, who afterward became a distinguished
+pianist, though never a professional musician. As the motives of this
+sudden disappearance were not known, De Beriot was charged with the
+most callous indifference to his wife. But it is now well known that
+his action was guided by a most imperative necessity, the welfare of
+his infant son, all that was left him of the woman he had loved so
+passionately. The remains of Mme. de Beriot were temporarily interred
+in the Collegiate Church in Manchester, but they were shortly afterward
+removed to Laeken, near Brussels. Over her tomb in the Laeken churchyard
+the magnificent mausoleum surmounted with her statue was erected by
+De Beriot. The celebrated sculptor Geefs modeled it, and the work is
+regarded as one of the _chefs-d'ouvre_ of the artist.
+
+
+IV.
+
+M. de Beriot did not recover from this shock for more than a year, but
+remained secluded at his country place near Brussels. It was not till
+Pauline Garcia (subsequently Mme. Viardot) made her _debut_ in concert
+in 1837, that De Beriot again appeared in public before one of the most
+brilliant audiences which had ever assembled in Brussels. In honor of
+this occasion the Philharmonic Society of that city caused two medals
+to be struck for M. de Beriot and Mlle. Garcia, the molds of which were
+instantly destroyed. The violinist gave a series of concerts assisted
+by the young singer in Belgium, Germany, and France, and returned to
+Brussels again on the anniversary of their first concert, where they
+appeared in the Theatre de la Renaissance before a most crowded and
+enthusiastic audience. Among the features of the performance which
+called out the warmest applause was Panseron's grand duo for voice and
+violin, "Le Songe de Tartini," Mlle. Garcia both singing and playing
+the piano-forte accompaniment with remarkable skill. Two years afterward
+Mile. Garcia married M. Viardot, director of the Italian Opera at Paris,
+and De Beriot espoused Mlle. Huber, daughter of a Viennese magistrate,
+and ward of Prince Dietrischten Preskau, who had adopted her at an early
+age.
+
+De Beriot became identified with the Royal Conservatory of Music at
+Brussels in the year 1840, and thenceforward his life was devoted to
+composition and the direction of the violin school. He gave much time
+and care to the education of his son Charles, who, in addition to a
+wonderful resemblance to his mother, appears to have inherited much of
+the musical endowment of both parents. Had not an ample fortune rendered
+professional labor unnecessary, it is probable that the son of Malibran
+and De Beriot would have attained a musical eminence worthy of his
+lineage; but he is even now celebrated for his admirable performances
+in private, and his musical evenings are said to be among the most
+delightful entertainments in Parisian society, gathering the most
+celebrated artists and _litterateurs_ of the great capital.
+
+De Beriot ceased giving public concerts after taking charge of the
+violin classes of the Brussels Conservatoire, though he continued to
+charm select audiences in private concerts. Many of his pupils became
+distinguished players, among whom may be named Monasterio, Standish,
+Lauterbach, and, chief of all, Henri Vieuxtemps, with whose precocious
+talents he was so much pleased that he gave him lessons gratuitously.
+During his life at Brussels, and indeed during the whole of his
+career, De Beriot enjoyed the friendship and esteem of many of the
+most distinguished men of the day, among his most intimate friends and
+admirers having been Prince de Chimay, the Russian Prince Youssoupoff,
+and King Leopold I, of Belgium. The latter part of his life was not
+un-laborious in composition, but otherwise of affluent and elegant ease.
+During the last two years his eyesight failed him, and he gradually
+became totally blind. He died, April 13, 1870, at the age of
+sixty-eight, while visiting his friend Prince Youssoupoff at St.
+Petersburg, of the brain malady which had long been making fatal inroads
+on his health.
+
+In originality as a composer for the violin, probably no one can surpass
+De Beriot except Paganini, who exerted a remarkable modifying influence
+on him after he had formed his own first style. His works are full
+of grace and poetic feeling, and worked out with an intellectual
+completeness of form which gives him an honorable distinction even among
+those musicians marked by affluence of ideas. These compositions are
+likely to be among the violin classics, though some of the violinists
+of the Spohr school have criticised them for want of depth. He produced
+seven concertos, eleven _airs varies_, several books of studies,
+four trios for piano, violin, and 'cello, and, together with Osborne,
+Thalberg, and other pianists, a number of brilliant duos for piano and
+violin. His book of instruction for the violin is among the best ever
+written, though somewhat diffuse in detail. He may be considered the
+founder of the Franco-Belgian school of violinists, as distinguished
+from the classical French school founded by Viotti, and illustrated by
+Rode and Baillot. His early playing was molded entirely in this style,
+but the dazzling example of Paganini, in course of time, had its
+effect on him, as he soon adopted the captivating effects of harmonics,
+arpeggios, pizzicatos, etc., which the Genoese had introduced, though
+he stopped short of sacrificing his breadth and richness of tone. He
+combined the Paganini school with that of Viotti, and gave status to
+a peculiar _genre_ of players, in which may be numbered such great
+virtuosos as Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, who successively occupied the
+same professional place formerly illustrated by De Beriot, and the
+latter of whom recently died. De Beriot's playing was noted for accuracy
+of intonation, remarkable deftness and facility in bowing, grace,
+elegance, and piquancy, though he never succeeded in creating the
+unbounded enthusiasm which everywhere greeted Paganini.
+
+
+
+
+OLE BULL.
+
+
+The Birth and Early Life of Ole Bull at Bergen, Norway.--His Family and
+Connections.--Surroundings of his Boyhood.--Early Display of his Musical
+Passion.--Learns the Violin without Aid.--Takes Lessons from an Old
+Musical Professor, and soon surpasses his Master.--Anecdotes of his
+Boyhood.--His Father's Opposition to Music as a Profession.--Competes
+for Admittance to the University at Christiania.--Is consoled
+for Failure by a Learned Professor.--"Better be a Fiddler than
+a Preacher."--Becomes Conductor of the Philharmonic Society at
+Bergen.--His first Musical Journey.--Sees Spohr.--Fights a Duel.--Visit
+to Paris.--He is reduced to Great Pecuniary Straits.--Strange Adventure
+with Vidocq, the Great Detective.--First Appearance in Concert in
+Paris.--Romantic Adventure leading to Acquaintance.--First Appearance
+in Italy.--Takes the Place of Do Beriot by Great Good Luck.--Ole Bull
+is most enthusiastically received.--Extended Concert Tour in Italy and
+France.--His _Debut_ and Success in England.--One Hundred and Eighty
+Concerts in Six Months.--Ole Bull's Gaspar di Salo Violin, and the
+Circumstances under which he acquired it.--His Answer to the King of
+Sweden.--First Visit and Great Success in America in 1843.--Attempt
+to establish a National Theatre.--The Norwegian Colony in
+Pennsylvania.--Latter Years of Ole Bull.--His Personal Appearance.--Art
+Characteristics.
+
+
+I.
+
+The life of Olaus Bull, or Ole Bull, as he is generally known to the
+world, was not only of much interest in its relation to music, but
+singularly full of vicissitude and adventure. He was born at Bergen,
+Norway, February 5, 1810, of one of the leading families of that resort
+of shippers, timber-dealers, and fishermen. His father, John Storm Bull,
+was a pharmaceutist, and among his ancestors he numbered the Norwegian
+poet Edward Storm, author of the "Sinclair Lay," an epic on the fate of
+Colonel Sinclair, who with a thousand Hebridean and Scotch pirates, made
+a descent on the Norwegian coast, thus emulating the Vikingr forefathers
+of the Norwegians themselves. The peasants slew them to a man by rolling
+rocks down on them from the fearful pass of the Gulbrands Dahl, and
+the event has been celebrated both by the poet's lay and the painter's
+brush. By the mother's side Ole Bull came of excellent Dutch stock,
+three of his uncles being captains in the army and navy, and another a
+journalist of repute. A passion for music was inherent in the family,
+and the editor had occasional quartet parties at his house, where the
+works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were given, much to the delight of
+young Ole, who was often present at these festive occasions.
+
+The romantic and ardent imagination of the boy was fed by the weird
+legends familiar to every Norwegian nursery. The Scheherezade of this
+occasion was the boy's own grandmother, who told him with hushed breath
+the fairy folk-lore of the mysterious Huldra and the Fossikal, or Spirit
+of the Waterfall, and Ole Bull, with his passion for music, was wont
+to fancy that the music of the rushing waters was the singing of the
+violins played by fairy artists. From an early age this Greek passion
+for personifying all the sights and sounds of nature manifested itself
+noticeably, but always in some way connected with music. He would fancy
+even that he could hear the bluebells and violets singing, and perfume
+and color translated themselves into analogies of sound. This poetic
+imagination grew with his years and widened with his experience,
+becoming the cardinal motive of Ole Bull's art life. For a long time the
+young boy had longed for a violin of his own, and finally his uncle who
+gave the musical parties presented him with a violin. Ole worked so hard
+in practicing on his new treasure that he was soon able to take part in
+the little concerts.
+
+There happened to be at this time in Bergen a professor of music named
+Paulsen, who also played skillfully on the violin. Originally from
+Denmark, he had come to Bergen on business, but, finding the brandy so
+good and cheap, and his musical talent so much appreciated, he postponed
+his departure so long that he became a resident. Paulsen, it was said,
+would show his perseverance in playing as long as there remained a drop
+in the brandy bottle before him, when his musical ambition came to a
+sudden close. When the old man, for he was more than sixty when young
+Ole Bull first knew him, had worn his clothes into a threadbare state,
+his friends would supply him with a fresh suit, and at intervals he gave
+concerts, which every one thought it a religious duty to attend. It
+was to this Dominie Sampson that Ole Bull was indebted for his earliest
+musical training; but it seems that the lad made such swift progress
+that his master soon had nothing further to teach him. Poor old Paulsen
+was in despair, for in his bright pupil he saw a successful rival, and,
+fearing that his occupation was gone, he left Bergen for ever.
+
+In spite of the boy's most manifest genius for music, his father was
+bent on making him a clergyman, going almost to the length of forbidding
+him to practice any longer on the dearly loved fiddle, which had now
+become a part of himself; but Ole persevered, and played at night
+softly, in constant fear that the sounds would be heard. But his mother
+and grandmother sympathized with him, and encouraged his labors of love
+in spite of the paternal frowns. The author of a recent article in an
+American magazine relates an interview with Ole Bull, in which the aged
+artist gave some interesting facts of that early period in his life.
+His father's assistant, who was musical, occasionally received musical
+catalogues from Copenhagen, and in one of these the boy first saw the
+name of Paganini, and reference to his famous "Caprices." One evening
+his father brought home some Italian musicians, and Ole Bull heard from
+them all they knew of the great player, who was then turning the musical
+world topsy-turvy with a fever of excitement. "I went to my grandmother.
+'Dear grandmother,' I said, 'can't I get some of Paganini's music?'
+'Don't tell any one,' said that dear old woman, 'but I will try and buy
+a piece of his for you if you are a good child.' And she did try, and
+I was wild when I got the Paganini music. How difficult it was, but oh,
+how beautiful! That garden-house was my refuge. Maybe--I am not so sure
+of it--the cats did not go quite so wild as some four years before. One
+day--a memorable one--I went to a quartet party. The new leader of our
+philharmonic was there, a very fine violinist, and he played for us a
+concerto of Spohr's. I knew it, and was delighted with his reading of
+it. We had porter to drink in another room, and we all drank it, but
+before they had finished I went back to the music-room, and commenced
+trying the Spohr. I was, I suppose, carried away with the music, forgot
+myself, and they heard me.
+
+"'This is impudence,' said the leader. 'And do you think, boy, that you
+can play it?' 'Yes,' I said, quite honestly. I don't to this day see why
+I should have told a story about it--do you? 'Now you shall play it,'
+said somebody. 'Hear him! hear him!' cried my uncle and the rest of
+them. I did try it, and played the allegro. All of them applauded save
+the leader, who looked mad.
+
+"'You think you can play anything, then?' asked the leader. He took a
+caprice of Paganini's from a music stand. 'Now you try this,' he said,
+in a rage. 'I will try it,' I said. 'All right; go ahead.'
+
+"Now it just happened that this caprice was my favorite, as the cats
+well knew. I could play it by memory, and I polished it off. When I did
+that, they all shouted. The leader before had been so cross and savage,
+I thought he would just rave now. But he did not say a word. He looked
+very quiet and composed like. He took the other musicians aside, and I
+saw that he was talking to them. Not long afterward this violinist left
+Bergen. I never thought I would see him again. It was in 1840, when I
+was traveling through Sweden on a concert tour, of a snowy day, that I
+met a man in a sleigh. It was quite a picture: just near sunset, and
+the northern lights were shooting in the sky; a man wrapped up in a
+bear-skin a-tracking along the snow. As he drew up abreast of me and
+unmuffled himself, he called out to my driver to stop. It was the
+leader, and he said to me, 'Well, now that you are a celebrated
+violinist, remember that, when I heard you play Paganini, I predicted
+that your career would be a remarkable one.' 'You were mistaken,' I
+cried, jumping up; 'I did not read that Paganini at sight; I had played
+it before.' 'It makes no difference; good-by,' and he urged on his
+horse, and in a minute the leader was gone."
+
+
+II.
+
+To please his father, Ole Bull studied assiduously to fit himself for
+the preliminary examination of the university, but he found time also to
+pursue his beloved music. At the age of eighteen he was entered at the
+University of Christiania as a candidate for admission, and went to that
+city somewhat in advance of the day of ordeal to finish his studies.
+He had hardly entered Christiania before he was seduced to play at a
+concert, which beginning gave full play to the music-madness beyond all
+self-restraint. As a result Ole Bull was "plucked," and at first he
+did not dare write to his father of this downfall of the hopes of the
+paternal Bull.
+
+We are told that he found consolation from one of the very professors
+who had plucked him. "It's the best thing could have happened to you,"
+said the latter, by way of encouragement.
+
+"How so?" inquired Ole.
+
+"My dear fellow," was the reply, "do you believe you are a fit man for
+a curacy in Finmarken or a mission among the Laps? Nature has made you a
+musician; stick to your violin, and you will never regret it."
+
+"But my father, think of his disappointed hopes," said Ole Bull.
+
+"Your father will never regret it either," answered the professor.
+
+As good fortune ordered for the forlorn youth, his musical friends did
+not desert him, but secured for him the temporary position of director
+of the Philharmonic Society of Christiania, the regular incumbent being
+ill. On the death of the latter shortly afterward, Ole Bull was tendered
+the place. As the new duties were very well paid, and relieved the youth
+from dependence on his father's purse, further opposition to his musical
+career was withdrawn.
+
+In the summer of 1829 Ole Bull made a holiday trip into Germany, and
+heard Dr. Spohr, then director of the opera at Cassel. "From this
+excursion," said one of Ole Bull's friends, "he returned completely
+disappointed. He had fancied that a violin-player like Spohr must be
+a man who, by his personal appearance, by the poetic character of his
+performance, or by the flash of genius, would enchant and overwhelm his
+hearers. Instead of this, he found in Spohr a correct teacher, exacting
+from the young Norwegian the same cool precision which characterized
+his own performance, and quite unable to appreciate the wild, strange
+melodies he brought from the land of the North." Spohr was a man of
+clock-work mechanism in all his methods and theories--young Ole Bull was
+all poetry, romance, and enthusiasm.
+
+At Minden our young violinist met with an adventure not of the
+pleasantest sort. He had joined a party of students about to give
+a concert at that place, and was persuaded to take the place of the
+violinist of the party, who had been rather free in his libations, and
+became "a victim of the rosy god." Ole Bull was very warmly applauded at
+the concert, and so much nettled was the student whose failure had made
+the vacancy for Ole Bull's talent, that the latter received a challenge
+to fight a duel, which was promptly accepted. Ole Bull proved that he
+could handle a sword as well as a fiddle-bow, for in a few passes he
+wounded and disabled his antagonist. He was advised, however, to leave
+that locality as soon as possible, and so he returned straight to
+Christiania, "feeling as if the very soil of Europe repelled him" (to
+use an expression from one of his letters).
+
+Ole Bull remained in Norway for two years, but he felt that he must
+bestir himself, and go to the great centers of musical culture if
+he would find a proper development and field for the genius which he
+believed he possessed. His friends at Christiania idolized him, and were
+loath to let him go, but nothing could stay him, so with pilgrim's staff
+and violin-case he started on his journey. Scarcely twenty-one years
+of age, nearly penniless, with no letters of introduction to people who
+could help him, but with boundless hope and resolution, he first
+set foot in Paris in 1831. The town was agog over Paganini and Mme.
+Malibran, and of course the first impulse of the young artist was to
+hear these great people. One night he returned from hearing Malibran,
+and went to bed so late that he slept till nearly noon the next day. To
+his infinite consternation, he discovered that his landlord had decamped
+during the early morning, taking away the household furniture of any
+value, and even abstracting the modest trunk which contained Ole Bull's
+clothes and his violin. After such an overwhelming calamity as this, the
+Seine seemed the only resource, and the young Norwegian, it is said,
+had nearly concluded to find relief from his troubles in its turbid
+and sin-weighted waters. But it happened that the young man had still a
+little money left, enough to support him for a week, and he concluded to
+delay the fatal plunge till the last sou was gone. It was while he was
+slowly enjoying the last dinner which he was able to pay for, that he
+made the acquaintance of a remarkable character, to whom he confided his
+misery and his determination to find a tomb in the Seine.
+
+
+III.
+
+Said the stranger, after pondering a few moments over the simple but sad
+story of the young violinist, in whom he had taken a sudden interest:
+
+"Well, I will do something for you, if you have courage and five
+francs."
+
+"I have both."
+
+"Then go to Frascate's at ten; pass through the first room, enter the
+second, where they play 'rouge-et-noir,' and when a new _taille_ begins
+put your five francs on _rouge_, and leave it there."
+
+This promise of an adventure revived Ole Bull's drooping spirits, and he
+was faithful in carrying out his unknown friend's instructions. At the
+precise hour the tall stalwart figure of the young Norwegian bent over
+the table at Frascate's, while the game of "rouge-et-noir" was being
+played. He threw his five francs on red; the card was drawn--red wins,
+and the five francs were ten. Again Ole Bull bet his ten francs on
+_rouge_, and again he won; and so he continued, leaving his money on the
+same color till a considerable amount of money lay before him. By this
+time the spirit of gaming was thoroughly aroused. Should he leave the
+money and trust to red turning up again, or withdraw the pile of gold
+and notes, satisfied with the kindness of Fortune, without further
+tempting the fickle goddess? He said to a friend afterward, in relating
+his feelings on this occasion:
+
+"I was in a fear--I acted as if possessed by a spirit not my own; no one
+can understand my feelings who has not been so tried--left alone in the
+world, as if on the extreme verge of an abyss yawning beneath, and at
+the same time feeling something within that might merit a saving hand at
+the last moment."
+
+Ole Bull stretched forth to grasp the money, when a white hand covered
+it before his. He seized the wrist with a fierce grasp, while the
+owner of it uttered a loud shriek, and loud threats came from the other
+players, who took sides in the matter, when a dark figure suddenly
+appeared on the scene, and spoke in a voice whose tones carried with
+them a magic authority which stilled all tumult at once. "Madame,
+leave this gold alone!"--and to Ole Bull: "Sir, take your money, if
+you please." The winner of an amount which had become very considerable
+lingered a few moments to see the further results of the play, and, much
+to his disgust, discovered that he would have possessed quite a little
+fortune had he left his pile undisturbed for one more turn of the cards.
+He was consoled, however, on arriving at his miserable lodgings, for he
+could scarcely believe that this stroke of good luck was true, and yet
+there was something repulsive in it to the fresh, unsophisticated nature
+of the man. He said in a letter to one of his friends, "What a hideous
+joy I felt--what a horrible pleasure it was to have saved one's own soul
+by the spoil of others!" The mysterious stranger who had thus befriended
+Ole Bull was the great detective Vidocq, whose adventures and exploits
+had given him a world-wide reputation. Ole Bull never saw him again.
+
+In exploring Paris for the purchase of a new violin, he accidentally
+made the acquaintance of an individual named Labout, who fancied that he
+had found the secret of the old Cremona varnish, and that, by using it
+on modern-made violins, the instruments would acquire all the tone
+and quality of the best old fiddles of the days of the Stradiuarii and
+Amati. The inventor persuaded Ole Bull to appear at a private concert
+where he proposed to test his invention, and where the Duke and Duchesse
+de Montebello were to be present. The Norwegian's playing produced
+a genuine sensation, and the duke took the young artist under his
+patronage. The result was that Ole Bull was soon able to give a concert
+on his own account, which brought him a profit of about twelve hundred
+francs, and made him talked about among the musical _cognoscenti_ of
+Paris. Of course every one at the time was Paganini mad, but Ole Bull
+secured more than a respectful hearing, and opened the way toward
+getting a solid footing for himself.
+
+Among the incidents which occurred to him in Paris about this time was
+one which had a curiously interesting bearing on his life. Obliged to
+move from his lodgings on account of the death of the landlord and his
+wife of cholera, a disease then raging in Paris, Ole Bull was told of
+a noble but impoverished family who had a room to let on account of the
+recent death of the only son. The Norwegian violinist presented himself
+at the somewhat dilapidated mansion of the Comtesse de Faye, and was
+shown into the presence of three ladies dressed in deepest mourning.
+The eldest of them, on hearing his errand, haughtily declined the
+proposition, when the more beautiful of the two girls said, "Look at
+him, mother!" with such eagerness as to startle the ancient dame.
+
+Ole Bull was surprised at this. The old lady put on her spectacles, and,
+as she riveted her eyes upon him, her countenance changed suddenly. She
+had found in him such a resemblance to the son she had lost that she
+at once consented to his residing in her house. Some time afterward Ole
+Bull became her son indeed, having married the fascinating girl who had
+exclaimed, "Look at him, mother!"
+
+With the little money he had now earned he determined to go to Italy,
+provided with some letters of introduction; and he gave his first
+Italian concert at Milan in 1834. Applause was not wanting, but his
+performance was rather severely criticised in the papers. The following
+paragraph, reproduced from an Italian musical periodical, published
+shortly after this concert, probably represents very truly the state of
+his talent at that period:
+
+"M. Ole Bull plays the music of Spohr, May-seder, Pugnani, and others,
+without knowing the true character of the music he plays, and partly
+spoils it by adding a color of his own. It is manifest that this
+color of his own proceeds from an original, poetical, and musical
+individuality; but of this originality he is himself unconscious. He
+has not formed himself; in fact, he has no style; he is an uneducated
+musician. _Whether he is a diamond or not is uncertain; but certain it
+is that the diamond is not polished_."
+
+In a short time Ole Bull discovered that it was necessary to cultivate,
+more than he had done, his cantabile--this was his weakest point, and a
+most important one. In Italy he found masters who enabled him to develop
+this great quality of the violin, and from that moment his career as an
+artist was established. The next concert of any consequence in which he
+played was at Bologna under peculiar circumstances; and his reputation
+as a great violinist appears to date from that concert. De Beriot and
+Malibran were then idolized at Bologna, and just as Ole Bull arrived in
+that ancient town, De Beriot was about to fulfill an engagement to play
+at a concert given by the celebrated Philharmonic Society there. The
+engagement had been made by the Marquis di Zampieri, between whom and
+the Belgian artist there was some feeling of mutual aversion, growing
+out of a misunderstanding and a remark of the marquis which had wounded
+the susceptibilities of the other. The consequence was that on the day
+of the concert De Beriot sent a note, saying that he had a sore finger
+and could not play.
+
+Marquis Zampieri was in a quandary, for the time was short. In his
+embarrassment he took council with Mme. Colbran Rossini, who was then at
+Bologna with her husband, the illustrious composer. It happened that Ole
+Bull's lodging was in the same palazzo, and Mme. Rossini had often heard
+the tones of the young artist's violin in his daily practicing; her
+curiosity had been greatly aroused about this unknown player, and now
+was the chance to gratify it. She told the noble _entrepreneur_ that she
+had discovered a violinist quite worthy of taking De Beriot's place.
+
+"Who is it?" inquired the marquis.
+
+"I don't know," answered the wife of Rossini.
+
+"You are joking, then?"
+
+"Not at all, but I am sure there is a genius in town, and he lodges
+close by here," pointing to Ole Bull's apartment. "Take your net,"
+she added, "and catch your bird before he has flown away." The marquis
+knocked at Ole Bull's door, and the delighted young artist soon
+concluded an engagement which insured him an appearance under the best
+auspices, for Mme. Malibran would sing at the same concert.
+
+In a few hours Ole Bull was performing before a distinguished audience
+in the concert-hall of the Philharmonic Society. Among the pieces he
+played, all of his own composition, was his "Quartet for One Violin,"
+in which his great skill in double and triple harmonics was admirably
+shown. Enthusiastic applause greeted the young virtuoso, and he was
+escorted home by a torchlight procession of eager and noisy admirers.
+This was Ole Bull's first really great success, though he had played
+in France and Germany. The Italians, with their quick, generous
+appreciation, and their demonstrative manner of showing admiration, had
+given him a reception of such unreserved approval as warmed his
+artistic ambition to the very core. Mme. Malibran, though annoyed at the
+mischance which glorified another at the expense of De Beriot, was too
+just and amiable not to express her hearty congratulations to the young
+artist, and De Beriot himself, when he was shortly afterward introduced
+to Ole Bull, treated him with most brotherly kindness and cordiality.
+Prince and Princess Poniatowsky also sent their cards to the now
+successful artist, and gave him letters of introduction to distinguished
+people which wore of great use in his concert tour. His career had now
+become assured, and the world received him with open arms.
+
+The following year, 1835, contributed a catalogue of similar successes
+in various cities of Italy and France, culminating in a grand concert at
+Paris in the Opera-house, where the most distinguished musicians of the
+city gave their warmest applause in recognition of the growing fame and
+skill of Ole Bull, for he had already begun to illustrate a new field in
+music by setting the quaint poetic legends and folk-songs of his native
+land. His specialty as a composer was in the domain of descriptive
+music, his genius was for the picturesque. His vivid imagination,
+full of poetic phantasy, and saturated with the heroic traditions and
+fairy-lore of a race singularly rich in this inheritance from an earlier
+age, instinctively flowered into art-forms designed to embody this
+legendary wealth. Ole Bull's violin compositions, though dry and
+rigorous musicians object to them as lacking in depth of science,
+as shallow and sensational, are distinctly tone-pictures full of
+suggestiveness for the imagination. It was this peculiarity which early
+began to impress his audiences, and gave Ole Bull a separate place by
+himself in an age of eminent players.
+
+
+IV.
+
+In 1836 and 1837 Ole Bull gave one hundred and eighty concerts in
+England during the space of sixteen months. By this time he had become
+famous, and a mere announcement sufficed to attract large audiences.
+Subsequently he visited successively every town of importance in Europe,
+earning large amounts of money and golden opinions everywhere. For
+a long time our artist used a fine Guarnerius violin and afterward a
+Nicholas Amati, which was said to be the finest instrument of this make
+in the world. But the violin which Ole Bull prized in latter years
+above all others was the famous Gaspar di Salo with the scroll carved
+by Benvenuto Cellini. Mr. Barnett Phillips, an American _litterateur_,
+tells the story of this noble old instrument, as related in Ole Bull's
+words:
+
+"Well, in 1839 I gave sixteen concerts at Vienna, and then Rhehazek was
+the great violin collector. I saw at his house this violin for the first
+time. I just went wild over it. 'Will you sell it?' I asked. 'Yes,' was
+the reply--'for one quarter of all Vienna.' Now Ehehazek was really as
+poor as a church mouse. Though he had no end of money put out in the
+most valuable instruments, he never sold any of them unless when forced
+by hunger. I invited Rhehazek to my concerts. I wanted to buy the violin
+so much that I made him some tempting offers. One day he said to
+me, 'See here, Ole Bull, if I do sell the violin, you shall have the
+preference at four thousand ducats.' 'Agreed,' I cried, though I knew it
+was a big sum.
+
+"That violin came strolling, or playing rather, through my brain for
+some years. It was in 1841. I was in Leipsic giving concerts. Liszt was
+there, and so also was Mendelssohn. One day we were all dining together.
+We were having a splendid time. During the dinner came an immense letter
+with a seal--an official document. Said Mendelssohn, 'Use no ceremony;
+open your letter.' 'What an awful seal!' cried Liszt. 'With your
+permission,' said I, and I opened the letter. It was from Bhehazek's
+son, for the collector was dead. His father had said that the violin
+should be offered to me at the price he had mentioned. I told Liszt and
+Mendelssohn about the price. 'You man from Norway, you are crazy,' said
+Liszt. 'Unheard of extravagance, which only a fiddler is capable of,'
+exclaimed Mendelssohn. 'Have you ever played on it? Have you ever tried
+it?' they both inquired. 'Never,' I answered, 'for it can not be played
+on at all just now.'
+
+"I never was happier than when I felt sure that the prize was mine.
+Originally the bridge was of boxwood, with two fishes carved on it--that
+was the zodiacal sign of my birthday, February--which was a good sign.
+Oh, the good times that violin and I have had! As to its history,
+Ehehazek told me that in 1809, when Innspruck was taken by the French,
+the soldiers sacked the town. This violin had been placed in the
+Innspruck Museum by Cardinal Aldobrandi at the close of the sixteenth
+century. A French soldier looted it, and sold it to Ehehazek for a
+trifle. This is the same violin that I played on, when I first came
+to the United States, in the Park Theatre. That was on Evacuation day,
+1843. I went to the Astor House, and made a joke--I am quite capable of
+doing such things. It was the day when John Bull went out and Ole Bull
+came in. I remember that at the very first concert one of my strings
+broke, and I had to work out my piece on the three strings, and it was
+supposed I did it on purpose." Ole Bull valued this instrument as beyond
+all price, and justly, for there have been few more famous violins than
+the Treasury violin of Innspruck, under which name it was known to all
+the amateurs and collectors of the world.
+
+During his various art wanderings through Europe, Ole Bull made many
+friends among the distinguished men of the world. A dominant pride
+of person and race, however, always preserved him from the slightest
+approach to servility. In 1838 he was presented to Carl Johann, king
+of Sweden, at Stockholm. The king had at that time a great feeling of
+bitterness against Norway, on account of the obstinate refusal of the
+people of that country to be united with Sweden under his rule. At the
+interview with Ole Bull the irate king let fall some sharp expressions
+relative to his chagrin in the matter.
+
+"Sire," said the artist, drawing himself up to the fullness of his
+magnificent height, and looking sternly at the monarch, "you forget that
+I have the honor to be a Norwegian."
+
+The king was startled by this curt rebuke, and was about to make an
+angry reply, but smoothed his face and answered, with a laugh:
+
+"Well! well! I know you d--d sturdy fellows." Carl Johann afterward
+bestowed on Ole Bull the order of Gustavus Vasa.
+
+
+V.
+
+Ole Bull's first visit to America was in 1843, and the impression
+produced by his playing was, for manifest causes, even greater than that
+created in Europe. He was the first really great violinist who had ever
+come to this country for concert purposes, and there was none other
+to measure him by. There were no great traditions of players who had
+preceded him; there were no rivals like Spohr, Paganini, and De Beriot
+to provoke comparisons. In later years artists discovered that this
+country was a veritable El Dorado, and regarded an American tour as
+indispensable to the fulfillment of a well-rounded career. But, when Ole
+Bull began to play in America, his performances were revelations, to the
+masses of those that heard him, of the possibilities of the violin. The
+greatest enthusiasm was manifested everywhere, and, during the three
+years of this early visit, he gave repeated performances in every city
+of any note in America. The writer of this little work met Ole Bull a
+few years ago in Chicago, and heard the artist laughingly say that,
+when he first entered what was destined to be such a great city, it was
+little more than a vast mudhole, a good-sized village scattered over
+a wide space of ground, and with no building of pretension except Fort
+Dearborn, a stockade fortification.
+
+Our artist returned to Europe in 1846, and for five years led a
+wandering life of concert-giving in England, France, Holland, Germany,
+Italy, and Spain, adding to his laurels by the recognition everywhere
+conceded of the increased soundness and musicianly excellence of his
+playing. It was indeed at this period that Ole Bull attained his best as
+a virtuoso. He had been previously seduced by the example of Paganini,
+and in the attempt to master the more strange and remote difficulties of
+the instrument had often laid himself open to serious criticism. But Ole
+Bull gradually formed a style of his own which was the outcome of his
+passion for descriptive and poetic playing, and the correlative of the
+mode of composition which he adopted. In still later years Ole Bull
+seems to have returned again to what might be termed claptrap and
+trickery in his art, and to have desired rather to excite wonder and
+curiosity than to charm the sensibilities or to satisfy the requirements
+of sound musical taste.
+
+In 1851 Ole Bull returned home with the patriotic purpose of
+establishing a strictly national theatre. This had been for a long time
+one of the many dreams which his active imagination had conjured up as
+a part of his mission. He was one of the earliest of that school of
+reformers, of whom we have heard so much of late years, that urge the
+readoption of the old Norse language--or, what is nearest to it now,
+the Icelandic--as the vehicle of art and literature. In the attempt to
+dethrone Dansk from its preeminence as the language of the drama, Ole
+Bull signally failed, and his Norwegian theatre, established at Bergen,
+proved only an insatiable tax on money-resources earned in other
+directions.
+
+The year succeeding this, Ole Bull again visited the United States,
+and spent five years here. The return to America did not altogether
+contemplate the pursuit of music, for there had been for a good while
+boiling in his brain, among other schemes, the project of a great
+Scandinavian colony, to be established in Pennsylvania under his
+auspices. He purchased one hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of
+land on the Susquehanna, and hundreds of sturdy Norwegians flocked over
+to the land of milk and honey thus auspiciously opened to them. Timber
+was felled, ground cleared, churches, cottages, school-houses built,
+and everything was progressing desirably, when the ambitious colonizer
+discovered that the parties who sold him the land were swindlers without
+any rightful claim to it. With the unbusiness-like carelessness of the
+man of genius, our artist had not investigated the claims of others
+on the property, and he thus became involved in a most perplexing and
+expensive suit at law. He attempted to punish the rascals who so nearly
+ruined him, but they were shielded behind the quips and quirks of the
+law, and got away scot free. Ole Bull's previously ample means were so
+heavily drained by this misfortune that he was compelled to take up
+his violin again and resume concert-giving, for he had incurred heavy
+pecuniary obligations that must be met. Driven by the most feverish
+anxiety, he passed from town to town, playing almost every night, till
+he was stricken down by yellow fever in New Orleans. His powerful frame
+and sound constitution, fortified by the abstemious habits which had
+marked his whole life of queer vicissitudes, carried him through this
+danger safely, and he finally succeeded in honorably fulfilling the
+responsibility which he had assumed toward his countrymen.
+
+For many recent years Ole Bull, when not engaged in concert-giving in
+Europe or America, has resided at a charming country estate on one
+of the little islands off the coast of Norway. His numerous farewell
+concert tours are very well known to the public, and would have won
+him ridicule, had not the genial presence and brilliant talents of the
+Norwegian artist been always good for a renewed and no less cordial
+welcome. He frequently referred to the United States in latter years as
+the beloved land of his adoption. One striking proof of his preference
+was, at all events, displayed in his marriage to an American lady, Miss
+Thorpe, of Wisconsin, in 1870. One son was the fruit of this second
+marriage, and Mr. and Mrs. Ole Bull divided their time between Norway
+and the United States.
+
+The magnificent presence of Ole Bull, as if of some grand old viking
+stepped out of his armor and dressed in modern garb, made a most
+picturesque personality. Those who have seen him can never forget him.
+The great stature, the massive, stalwart form, as upright as a pine, the
+white floating locks framing the ruddy face, full of strength and genial
+humor, lit up by keen blue eyes--all these things made Ole Bull the most
+striking man in _personnel_ among all the artists who have been familiar
+to our public.
+
+While Ole Bull will not be known in the history of art as a great
+scientific musician, there can be no doubt that his place as a brilliant
+and gifted solo player will stand among the very foremost. As a composer
+he will probably be forgotten, for his compositions, which made up the
+most of his concert programmes, were so radically interwoven with his
+executive art as a virtuoso that the two can not be dissevered. No one,
+unless he should be inspired by the same feelings which animated the
+breast of Ole Bull, could ever evolve from his musical tone-pictures
+of Scandinavian myth and folk-lore the weird fascination which his
+bow struck from the strings. Ole Bull, like Paganini, laid no claim to
+greatness in interpreting the violin classics. His peculiar title to
+fame is that of being, aside from brilliancy as a violin virtuoso, the
+musical exponent of his people and their traditions. He died at Bergen,
+Norway, on August 18, 1880, in the seventy-first year of his age,
+and his funeral services made one of the most august and imposing
+ceremonials held for many a long year in Norway.
+
+
+
+
+MUZIO CLEMENTI
+
+
+The Genealogy of the Piano-forte.--The Harpsichord its Immediate
+Predecessor.--Supposed Invention of the Piano-forte.--Silbermann the
+First Maker.--Anecdote of Frederick the Great.--The Piano-forte only
+slowly makes its Way as against the Clavichord and Harpsichord.--Emanuel
+Bach, the First Composer of Sonatas for the Piano-forte.--His Views
+of playing on the New Instrument.--Haydn and Mozart as Players.--Muzio
+Clementi, the Earliest Virtuoso, strictly speaking, as a Pianist.--Born
+in Rome in 1752.--Scion of an Artistic Family.--First Musical
+Training.--Rapid Development of his Talents.--Composes Contrapuntal
+Works at the Age of Fourteen.--Early Studies of the Organ and
+Harpsichord.--Goes to England to complete his Studies.--Creates
+an Unequaled Furore in London.--John Christian Bach's Opinion of
+Clementi.--Clementi's Musical Tour.--His Duel with Mozart before the
+Emperor.--Tenor of Clementi's Life in England.--Clementi's Pupils.--Trip
+to St. Petersburg.--Sphor's Anecdote of Him.--Mercantile and
+Manufacturing Interest in the Piano as Partner of Collard.--The Players
+and Composers trained under Clementi.--His Composition.--Status as
+a Player.--Character and Influence as an Artist.--Development of the
+Technique of the Piano, culminating in Clementi.
+
+
+I.
+
+Before touching the life of Clementi, the first of the great virtuosos
+who may be considered distinctively composers for and players on the
+pianoforte, it is indispensable to a clear understanding of the theme
+involved that the reader should turn back for a brief glance at the
+history of the piano and piano-playing prior to his time. Before the
+piano-forte came the harpsichord, prior to the latter the spinet,
+then the virginal, the clavichord, and monochord; before these, the
+clavieytherium. Before these instruments, which bring us down to modern
+civilized times, and constitute the genealogy of the piano-forte, we
+have the dulcimer and psaltery, and all the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman
+harps and lyres which were struck with a quill or plectrum. No product
+of human ingenuity has been the outcome of a steady and systematic
+growth from age to age by more demonstrable stages than this most
+remarkable of musical instruments. As it is not the intention to offer
+an essay on the piano, but only to make clearer the conditions under
+which a great school of players began to appear, the antiquities of the
+topic are not necessary to be touched.
+
+The modern piano-forte had as its immediate predecessor the harpsichord,
+the instrument on which the heroines of the novels of Fielding,
+Smollett, Richardson, and their contemporaries were wont to discourse
+sweet music, and for which Haydn and Mozart composed some delightful
+minor works. In the harpsichord the strings were set in vibration by
+points of quill or hard leather. One of these instruments looked like
+a piano, only it was provided with two keyboards, one above the other,
+related to each other as the swell and main keyboards of an organ.
+At last it occurred to lovers of music that all refinement of musical
+expression depended on touch, and that whereas a string could be plucked
+or pulled by machinery in but one way, it could be hit in a hundred
+ways. It was then that the notion of striking the strings with a hammer
+found practical use, and by the addition of this element the piano-forte
+emerged into existence. The idea appears to have occurred to three men
+early in the eighteenth century, almost simultaneously--Cristofori, an
+Italian, Marins, a Frenchman, and Schroter, a German. For years attempts
+to carry out the new mechanism were so clumsy that good harpsichords
+on the wrong principle were preferred to poor piano-fortes on the right
+principle. But the keynote of progress had been struck, and the day
+of the quill and leather jack was swiftly drawing to a close. A small
+hammer was made to strike the string, producing a marvelously clear,
+precise, delicate tone, and the "scratch" with a sound at the end of it
+was about to be consigned to oblivion for ever and a day.
+
+Gottfried Silbermann, an ingenious musical instrument maker, of
+Freyhurg, Saxony, was the first to give the new principle adequate
+expression, about the year 1740, and his pianos excited a great deal of
+curiosity among musicians and scientific men. He followed the mechanism
+of Cristofori, the Italian, rather than of his own countrymen. Schroter
+and his instruments appear to have been ingenious, though Sebastian
+Bach, who loved his "well-tempered clavichord" (the most powerful
+instrument of the harpsichord class) too well to be seduced from his
+allegiance, pronounced them too feeble in tone, a criticism which he
+retracted in after years. Silbermann experimented and labored with
+incessant energy for many years, and he had the satisfaction before
+dying of seeing the piano firmly established in the affection and
+admiration of the musical world. One of the most authentic of musical
+anecdotes is that of the visit of John Sebastian Bach and his son to
+Frederick the Great, at Potsdam, in 1747. The Prussian king was an
+enthusiast in music, and himself an excellent performer on the flute,
+of which, as well as of other instruments, he had a large collection. He
+had for a long time been anxious for a visit from Bach, but that great
+man was too much enamored of his own quiet musical solitude to
+run hither and thither at the beck of kings. At last, after much
+solicitation, he consented, and arrived at Potsdam late in the evening,
+all dusty and travel-stained. The king was just taking up his flute
+to play a concerto, when a lackey informed him of the coming of Bach.
+Frederick was more agitated than he ever had been in the tumult of
+battle. Crying aloud, "Gentlemen, old Bach is here!" he rushed out to
+meet the king in a loftier domain than his own, and ushered him into the
+lordly company of powdered wigs and doublets, of fair dames shining with
+jewels, satins, and velvets, of courtiers glittering in all the colors
+of the rainbow. "Old Bach" presented a shabby figure amid all this
+splendor, but the king cared nothing for that. He was most anxious to
+hear the grand old musician play on the new Silbermann piano, which was
+the latest hobby of the Prussian monarch.
+
+It is not a matter of wonder that the lovers of the harpsichord and
+clavichord did not take kindly to the piano-forte at first. The keys
+needed a greater delicacy of treatment, and the very fact that the
+instrument required a new style of playing was of course sufficient to
+relegate the piano to another generation. The art of playing had at the
+time of the invention of the piano attained a high degree of efficiency.
+Such musicians as Do-menico Scarlatti in Italy and John Sebastian Bach
+in Germany had developed a wonderful degree of skill in treating the
+_clavecin_, or spinet, and the clavichord, and, if we may trust the old
+accounts, they called out ecstasies of admiration similar to those which
+the great modern players have excited. With the piano-forte, however, an
+entirely new style of expression came into existence. The power to play
+soft or loud at will developed the individual or personal feeling of the
+player, and new effects were speedily invented and put in practice. The
+art of playing ceased to be considered from the merely objective point
+of view, for the richer resources of the piano suggested the indulgence
+of individuality of expression. It was left to Emanuel Bach to make
+the first step toward the proper treatment of the piano, and to adapt
+a style of composition expressly to its requirements, though even he
+continued to prefer the clavichord. The rigorous, polyphonic style of
+his illustrious father was succeeded by the lyrical and singing
+element, which, if fantastic and daring, had a sweet, bright charm very
+fascinating. He writes in one of his treatises: "Methinks music
+ought appeal directly to the heart, and in this no performer on
+the piano-forte will succeed by merely thumping and drumming, or by
+continual arpeggio playing. During the last few years my chief endeavor
+has been to play the piano-forte, in spite of its deficiency in
+sustaining the sound, so much as possible, in a singing manner, and
+to compose for it accordingly. This is by no means an easy task, if we
+desire not to leave the ear empty or to disturb the noble simplicity of
+the cantabile by too much noise."
+
+Haydn and Mozart, who composed somewhat for the harpsichord (for until
+the closing years of the eighteenth century this instrument had
+not entirely yielded to the growing popularity of the piano-forte),
+distinguished themselves still more by their treatment of the latter
+instrument. They closely followed the maxims of Emanuel Bach. They
+aimed to please the public by sweet melody and agreeable harmony, by
+spontaneous elegance and cheerfulness, by suave and smooth simplicity.
+Their practice in writing for the orchestra and for voices modified
+their piano-forte style both as composers and players, but they never
+sacrificed that intelligible and simple charm which appeals to the
+universal heart to the taste for grand, complex, and eccentric effects,
+which has so dominated the efforts of their successors. Mozart's most
+distinguished contemporaries bear witness to his excellence as a player,
+and his great command over the piano-forte, and his own remarks on
+piano-playing are full of point and suggestion. He asserts "that the
+performer should possess a quiet and steady hand, with its natural
+lightness, smoothness, and gliding rapidity so well developed that the
+passages should flow like oil.... All notes, graces, accents, etc.,
+should be brought out with fitting taste and expression.... In passages
+[technical figures], some notes may be left to their fate without
+notice, but is that right? Three things are necessary to a good
+performer"; and he pointed significantly to his head, his heart, and
+the tips of his fingers, as symbolical of understanding, sympathy, and
+technical skill. But it was fated that Clementi should be the Columbus
+in the domain of piano-forte playing and composition. He was the father
+of the school of modern piano technique, and by far surpassed all his
+contemporaries in the boldness, vigor, brilliancy, and variety of his
+execution, and he is entitled to be called first (in respect of date)
+of the great piano-forte virtuosos, Clementi wrote solely for this
+instrument (for his few orchestral works are now dead). The piano, as
+his sole medium of expression, became a vehicle of great eloquence and
+power, and his sonatas, as pure types of piano-forte compositions, are
+unsurpassed, even in this age of exuberant musical fertility.
+
+
+II.
+
+Muzio Clementi was born at Rome in the year 1752, and was the son of
+a silver worker of great skill, who was principally engaged on the
+execution of the embossed figures and vases employed in the Catholic
+worship. The boy at a very early age evinced a most decided taste
+for music, a predilection which delighted his father, himself an
+enthusiastic amateur, and caused him to bestow the utmost pains on the
+cultivation of the child's talents. The boy's first master was Buroni,
+choir-master a tone of the churches, and a relation of the family.
+Later, young Clementi took lessons in thorough bass from an eminent
+organist, Condicelli, and after a couple of years' application he was
+thought sufficiently advanced to apply for the position of organist,
+which he obtained, his age then being barely nine. He prosecuted his
+studies with great zeal under the ablest masters, and his genius for
+composition as well as for playing displayed a rapid development. By the
+time Clementi had attained the age of fourteen he had composed several
+contrapuntal works of considerable merit, one of which, a mass for four
+voices and chorus, gained great applause from the musicians and public
+of Rome.
+
+During his studies of counterpoint and the organ Clementi never
+neglected his harpsichord, on which he achieved remarkable proficiency,
+for the piano-forte at this time, though gradually coming into use, was
+looked on rather as a curiosity than an instrument of practical value.
+The turning-point of Clementi's life occurred in 1767, through his
+acquaintance with an English gentleman of wealth, Mr. Peter Beckford,
+who evinced a deep interest in the young musician's career. After much
+opposition Mr. Beckford persuaded the elder Clementi to intrust his
+son's further musical education to his care. The country seat of Mr.
+Beckford was in Dorsetshire, England, and here, by the aid of a fine
+library, social surroundings of the most favorable kind, and indomitable
+energy on his own part, he speedily made himself an adept in the English
+language and literature. The talents of Clementi made him almost an
+Admirable Crichton, for it is asserted that, in addition to the most
+severe musical studies, he made himself in a few years a proficient in
+the principal modern languages, in Greek and Latin, and in the
+whole circle of the belles-lettres. His studies in his own art were
+principally based on the works of Corelli, Alexander Scarlatti,
+Handel's harpsichord and organ music, and on the sonatas of Paradies, a
+Neapolitan composer and teacher, who enjoyed high repute in London for
+many years. Until 1770 Clementi spent his time secluded at his patron's
+country seat, and then fully equipped with musical knowledge, and with
+an unequaled command of the instrument, he burst on the town as pianist
+and composer. He had already written at this time his "Opus No. 2,"
+which established a new era for sonata compositions, and is recognized
+to-day as the basis for all modern works of this class.
+
+Clementi's attainments were so phenomenal that he carried everything
+before him in London, and met with a success so brilliant as to be
+almost without precedent. Socially and musically he was one of the
+idols of the hour, and the great Handel himself had not met with as much
+adulation. Apropos of the great sonata above mentioned, with which the
+Clementi furore began in London, it is said that John Christian Bach,
+son of Sebastian, one of the greatest executants of the time, confessed
+his inability to do it justice, and Schroter, one of those sharing the
+honor of the invention of the piano-forte, and a leading musician of his
+age, said, "Only the devil and Clementi could play it." For seven years
+the subject of our sketch poured forth a succession of brilliant works,
+continually gave concerts, and in addition acted as conductor of the
+Italian opera, a life sufficiently busy for the most ambitious man. In
+1780 Clementi began his musical travels, and gave the first concerts
+of his tour at Paris, whither he was accompanied by the great singer
+Pacchierotti. He was received with the greatest favor by the queen,
+Marie Antoinette, and the court, and made the acquaintance of Gluck, who
+warmly admired the brilliant player who had so completely revolutionized
+the style of execution on instruments with a keyboard. Here he also met
+Viotti, the great violinist, and played a _duo concertante_ with the
+latter, expressly composed for the occasion. Clementi was delighted with
+the almost frantic enthusiasm of the French, so different from the more
+temperate approbation of the English. He was wont to say jocosely that
+he hardly knew himself to be the same man. From Paris Clementi passed,
+via Strasburg and Munich, where he was most cordially welcomed,
+to Vienna, the then musical Mecca of Europe, for it contained two
+world-famed men--"Papa" Haydn and the young prodigy Mozart. The Emperor
+Joseph II, a great lover of music, could not let the opportunity slip,
+for he now had a chance to determine which was the greater player, his
+own pet Mozart or the Anglo-Italian stranger whose fame as an executant
+had risen to such dimensions. So the two musicians fought a musical
+duel, in which they played at sight the most difficult works, and
+improvised on themes selected by the imperial arbiter. The victory
+was left undecided, though Mozart, who disliked the Italians, spoke
+afterward of Clementi, in a tone at variance with his usual gentleness,
+as "a mere mechanician, without a pennyworth of feeling or taste."
+Clementi was more generous, for he couldn't say too much of Mozart's
+"singing touch and exquisite taste," and dated from this meeting a
+considerable difference in his own style of play.
+
+With the exception of occasional concert tours to Paris, Clementi
+devoted all his time up to 1802 in England, busy as conductor, composer,
+virtuoso, and teacher. In the latter capacity he was unrivaled, and
+pupils came to him from all parts of Europe. Among these pupils were
+John B. Cramer and John Field, names celebrated in music. In 1802
+Clementi took the brilliant young Irishman, John Field, to St.
+Petersburg on a musical tour, where both master and pupil were received
+with unbounded enthusiasm, and where the latter remained in affluent
+circumstances, having married a Russian lady of rank and wealth.
+Field was idolized by the Russians, and they claim his compositions
+as belonging to their music. He is now distinctively remembered as the
+inventor of that beautiful form of musical writing, the nocturne. Spohr,
+the violinist, met Clementi and Field at the Russian capital, and gives
+the following amusing account in his "Autobiography": "Clementi, a man
+in his best years, of an extremely lively disposition and very engaging
+manners, liked much to converse with me, and often invited me after
+dinner to play at billiards. In the evening I sometimes accompanied him
+to his large piano-forte warehouse, where Field was often obliged
+to play for hours to display instruments to the best advantage to
+purchasers. I have still in recollection the figure of the pale
+overgrown youth, whom I have never since seen. When Field, who had
+outgrown his clothes, placed himself at the piano, stretching out his
+arms over the keyboard, so that the sleeves shrank up nearly to the
+elbow, his whole figure appeared awkward and stiff in the highest
+degree. But, as soon as his touching instrumentation began, everything
+else was forgotten, and one became all ear. Unfortunately I could not
+express my emotion and thankfulness to the young man otherwise than
+by the pressure of the hand, for he spoke no language but his mother
+tongue. Even at that time many anecdotes of the remarkable avarice of
+the rich Clementi were related, which had greatly increased in later
+years when I again met him in London. It was generally reported that
+Field was kept on very short allowance by his master, and was obliged to
+pay for the good fortune of having his instruction by many privations.
+I myself experienced a little sample of Clementi's truly Italian
+parsimony, for one day I found teacher and pupil with upturned sleeves,
+engaged at the wash-tub, washing their stockings and other linen. They
+did not suffer themselves to be disturbed, and Clementi advised me to do
+the same, as washing in St. Petersburg was not only very expensive, but
+the linen suffered much from the method used in washing it."
+
+From the above it may be suspected that Clementi was not only player
+and composer, but man of business. He had been very successful in
+money-making in England from the start, and it was not many years before
+he accumulated a sufficient amount to buy an interest in the firm of
+Longman & Broderip, "manufacturers of musical instruments, and music
+sellers to their majesties." The failure of the house, by which he
+sustained heavy losses, induced him to try his hand alone at music
+publishing and piano-forte manufacturing; and his great success (the
+firm is still extant in the person of his partner's son, Mr. Col-lard)
+proves he was an exception to the majority of artists, who rarely
+possess business talents. Clementi met many reverses in his commercial
+career. In March, 1807, the warehouses occupied by Clementi's new firm
+were destroyed by fire, entailing a loss of about forty thousand pounds.
+But the man's courage was indomitable, and he retrieved his misfortunes
+with characteristic pluck and cheerfulness. After 1810 he gave up
+playing in public, and devoted himself to composing and the conduct of
+his piano-forte business, which became very large and valuable. Himself
+an inventor and mechanician, he made many important improvements in the
+construction of the piano, some of which have never been superseded.
+
+
+III.
+
+Clementi numbers among his pupils more great names in the art of
+piano-forte playing than any other great master. This is partly owing
+to the fact, it may be, that he began his career in the infancy of the
+piano-forte as an instrument, and was the first to establish a solid
+basis for the technique of the instrument. In addition to John Field and
+J. B. Cramer, previously mentioned, were Zeuner, Dussek, Alex. Kleugel,
+Ludwig Berger, Kalkbrenner, Charles Mayer, and Meyerbeer. These
+musicians not only added richly to the literature of the piano-forte,
+but were splendid exponents of its powers as virtuosos. But mere
+artistic fame is transitory, and it is in Clementi's contributions to
+the permanent history of piano-forte playing that we must find his chief
+claim on the admiration of posterity. He composed not a few works for
+the orchestra, and transcriptions of opera, but these have now receded
+to the lumber closet. The works which live are his piano concertos, of
+which about sixty were written for the piano alone, and the remainder
+as duets or trios; and, _par excellence_, his "Gradus ad Parnassum," a
+superb series of one hundred studies, upon which even to-day the solid
+art of piano-forte playing rests. Clementi's works must always remain
+indispensable to the pianist, and, in spite of the fact that piano
+technique has made such advances during the last half century, there are
+several of Clementi's sonatas which tax the utmost skill of such players
+as Liszt and Von Billow, to whom all ordinary difficulty is merely a
+plaything. As Viotti was the father of modern violin-playing, Clementi
+may be considered the father of virtuosoism on the piano-forte, and he
+has left an indelible mark, both mechanically and spiritually, on
+all that pertains to piano-playing. Compared with Clementi's style in
+piano-forte composition, that of Haydn and Mozart appears poor and thin.
+Haydn and Mozart regarded execution as merely the vehicle of ideas, and
+valued technical brilliancy less than musical substance. Clementi, on
+the other hand, led the way for that class of compositions which pay
+large attention to manual skill. His works can not be said to burn with
+that sacred fire which inspires men of the highest genius, but they are
+magnificently modeled for the display of technical execution, brilliancy
+of effect, and virile force of expression. The great Beethoven, who
+composed the greatest works for the piano-forte, as also for the
+orchestra, had a most exalted estimate of Clementi, and never wearied
+of playing his music and sounding his praises. No musician has probably
+exerted more far-reaching effects in this department of his art than
+Clementi, though he can not be called a man of the highest genius,
+for this lofty attribute supposes great creative imagination and rich
+resources of thought, as well as knowledge, experience, skill, and
+transcendent aptitude for a single instrument.
+
+As far as a musician of such unique and colossal genius as Beethoven
+could be influenced by preceding or contemporary artists, his style as
+a piano-forte player and composer was more modified by Clementi than
+by any other. He was wont to say that no one could play till he
+knew Clementi by heart. He adopted many of the peculiar figures and
+combinations original with Clementi, though his musical mentality,
+incomparably richer and greater than that of the other, transfigured
+them into a new life. That Beethoven found novel means of expression
+to satisfy the importunate demands of his musical conceptions; that his
+piano works display a greater polyphony, stronger contrasts, bolder
+and richer rhythm, broader design and execution, by no means impair
+the value of his obligations to Clementi, obligations which the most
+arrogant and self-centered of men freely allowed. Beethoven's fancy was
+penetrated by all the qualities of tone which distinguish the string,
+reed, and brass instruments; his imagination shot through and through
+with orchestral color; and he succeeded in saturating his sonatas with
+these rich effects without sacrificing the specialty of the piano-forte.
+But in general style and technique he is distinctly a follower of
+Clementi. The most unique and splendid personality in music has thus
+been singled out as furnishing a vivid illustration of the influence
+exerted by Clementi in the department of the piano-forte.
+
+Clementi lived to the age of eighty, and spent the last twelve years of
+his life in London uninterruptedly, his growing feebleness preventing
+him from taking his usual musical trips to the Continent. He retained
+his characteristic energy and freshness of mind to the last, and
+was held in the highest honor by the great circle of artists who had
+centered in London, for he was the musical patriarch in England, as
+Cherubini was in France at a little later date. He was married three
+times, had children in his old age, and only a few months before
+his death, Moscheles records in his diary, he was able to arouse the
+greatest enthusiasm by the vigor and brilliancy of his playing, in spite
+of his enfeebled physical powers. He died March 9, 1832, at Eversham,
+and his funeral gathered a great convocation of musical celebrities. His
+life covered an immense arch in the history of music.
+
+At his birth Handel was alive; at his death Beethoven, Schubert,
+and Weber had found refuge in the grave from the ingratitude of a
+contemporary public. He began his career by practicing Scarlatti's
+harpsichord sonatas; he lived to be acquainted with the finest
+piano-forte works of all time. When he first used the piano, he
+practiced on the imperfect and feeble Silbermann instrument. When he
+died, the magnificent instruments of Erard, Broadwood, and Collard,
+to the latter of which his own mechanical and musical knowledge had
+contributed much, were in common vogue. Such was the career of Muzio
+Clementi, the father of piano-forte virtuosos. Had he lived later, he
+might have been far eclipsed by the great players who have since adorned
+the art of music. As Goethe says, through the mouthpiece of Wil-helm.
+Meister: "The narrowest man may be complete while he moves within the
+bounds of his own capacity and acquirements, but even fine qualities
+become clouded and destroyed if this indispensable proportion is
+exceeded. This unwholesome excess, however, will begin to appear
+frequently, for who can suffice to the swift progress and increasing
+requirements of the ever-soaring present time?" But, measured by his own
+day and age, Clementi deserves the pedestal on which musical criticism
+has placed him.
+
+
+
+
+MOSCHELES.
+
+
+Clementi and Mozart as Points of Departure in Piano-forte
+Playing.--Moscheles the most Brilliant Climax reached by the Viennese
+School.--His Child-Life at Prague.--Extraordinary Precocity.--Goes to
+Vienna as the Pupil of Salieri and Albrechts-burger.--Acquaintance
+with Beethoven.--Moscheles is honored with a Commission to make a Piano
+Transcription of Beethoven's "Fidelio."--His Intercourse with the Great
+Man.--Concert Tour.--Arrival in Paris.--The Artistic Circle into which
+he is received.--Pictures of Art-Life in Paris.--London and its Musical
+Celebrities.--Career as a Wandering Virtuoso.--Felix Mendelssohn becomes
+his Pupil.--The Mendelssohn Family.--Moscheles's Marriage to a
+Hamburg Lady.--Settles in London.--His Life as Teacher, Player, and
+Composer.--Eminent Place taken by Moscheles among the Musicians of
+his Age.--His Efforts soothe the Sufferings of Beethoven's
+Deathbed.--Friendship for Mendelssohn.--Moscheles becomes connected with
+the Leipzig Conservatorium.--Death in 1870.--Moscheles as Pianist
+and Composer.--Sympathy with the Old as against the New School of the
+Piano.--His Powerful Influence on the Musical Culture and Tendencies of
+his Age.
+
+
+I.
+
+The rivalry of Clementi and Mozart as exponents of piano-forte playing
+in their day was continued in their schools of performance. The original
+cause of this difference was largely based on the character of the
+instruments on which they played. Clementi used the English piano-forte,
+and Mozart the Viennese, and the style of execution was no less the
+outcome of the mechanical difference between the two vehicles of
+expression than the result of personal idiosyncrasies. The English
+instrument was speedily developed into the production of a richer,
+fuller, and more sonorous tone, while the Viennese piano-forte continued
+for a long time to be distinguished by its light, thin, sweet quality of
+sound, and an action so sensitive that the slightest pressure produced
+a sound from the key, so that the term "breathing on the keys" became
+a current expression, Clementi's piano favored a bold, masculine,
+brilliant style of playing, while the Viennese piano led to a rapid,
+fluent, delicate treatment. The former player founded the school which
+has culminated, through a series of great players, in the magnificent
+virtuosoism of Franz Liszt, while the Vienna school has no nearer
+representative than Tgnaz Moscheles, one of the greatest players in the
+history of the pianoforte, who, whether judged by his gifts as a
+concert performer, a composer for the instrument which he so brilliantly
+adorned, or from his social and intellectual prominence, must be set
+apart as peculiarly a representative man. There were other eminent
+players, such as Hummel, Czerny, and Herz, contemporary with Moscheles
+and belonging to the same _genre_ as a pianist, but these names do not
+stand forth with the same clear and permanent luster in their relation
+to the musical art.
+
+Ignaz Moscheles was born at Prague, May 30, 1794, his parents being
+well-to-do people of Hebrew stock. His father, a cloth merchant, was
+passionately fond of music, and was accustomed to say, "One of my
+children must become a thoroughbred musician." Ignaz was soon selected
+as the one on whom the experiment should be made, and the rapid
+progress he made justified the accident of choice, for all of the family
+possessed some musical talent. The boy progressed too fast, for he
+attempted at the age of seven to play Beethoven's "Sonata Pathetique."
+He was traveling on the wrong road, attempting what he could in no
+way attain, when his father took him to Dionys Weber, one of the best
+teachers of the time. "I come," said the parent, "to you as our first
+musician, for sincere truth instead of empty flattery. I want to find
+out from you if my boy has such genuine talent that you can make a
+really good musician of him." "Naturally, I was called on to play," says
+Moscheles, in his "Autobiography," "and I was bungler enough to do it
+with some conceit. My mother having decked me out in my Sunday best, I
+played my best piece, Beethoven's 'Sonata Pathetique.' But what was my
+astonishment on finding that I was neither interrupted by bravos nor
+overwhelmed by praise! and what were my feelings when Dionys Weber
+finally delivered himself thus:
+
+"'Candidly speaking, the boy has talent, but is on the wrong road, for
+he makes bosh of great works which he does not understand, and to which
+he is utterly unequal. I could make something of him if you could hand
+him over to me for three years, and follow out my plan to the letter.
+The first year he must play nothing but Mozart, the second Clementi, and
+the third Bach; but only that: not a note as yet of Beethoven; and if
+he persists in using the circulating libraries, I have done with him for
+ever.'"
+
+This scheme was followed out strictly, and Moscheles at the age of
+fourteen had acquired a sufficient mastery of the piano to give a
+concert at Prague with brilliant success. The young musician continued
+to pursue his studies assiduously under Weber's direction until
+his father's death, and his mother then determined to yield to his
+oft-repeated wish to try his musical fortunes in a larger field, and win
+his own way in life. So young Ignaz, little more than a child, went to
+Vienna, where he was warmly received in the hospitable musical circles
+of that capital. He took lessons in counterpoint from Albrechts-burger,
+and in composition from Salieri, and in all ways indicated that serene,
+tireless industry which marked his whole after-career. Moscheles spent
+eight years at Vienna, continually growing in estimation as artist and
+beginning to make his mark as a composer. His own reminiscences of the
+brilliant and gifted men who clustered in Vienna are very pleasant, but
+it is to Beethoven that his admiration specially went forth. The great
+master liked his young disciple much, and proposed to him that he should
+set the numbers of "Fidelio" for the piano, a task which, it is needless
+to say, was gladly accepted. Moscheles tells us one morning, when he
+went to see Beethoven, he found him lying in bed. "He happened to be in
+remarkably good spirits, jumped up immediately, and placed himself, just
+as he was, at the window looking out on the Schotten-bastei, with the
+view of examining the 'Fidelio' numbers which I had arranged. Naturally,
+a crowd of street-boys collected under the window, when he roared out,
+'Now, what do these confounded boys want?' I laughed and pointed to his
+own figure. 'Yes, yes! You are quite right,' he said, and hastily put on
+a dressing-gown."
+
+Moscheles's associations were even at this early period with all the
+foremost people of the age, and he was cordially welcome in every
+circle. He composed a good deal, besides giving concerts and playing in
+private select circles, and was recognized as being the equal of Hummel,
+who had hitherto been accepted as the great piano virtuoso of Vienna.
+The two were very good friends in spite of their rivalry. They, as well
+as all the Viennese musicians, were bound together by a common tie, very
+well expressed in the saying of Moscheles: "We musicians, whatever we
+be, are mere satellites of the great Beethoven, the dazzling luminary."
+
+
+II.
+
+In the autumn of 1816 Moscheles bade a sorrowful adieu to the imperial
+city, where he had spent so many happy years, to undertake an extended
+concert tour, armed with letters of introduction to all the courts of
+Europe from Prince Lichtenstein, Countess Hardigg, and other influential
+admirers. He proceeded directly to Leipzig, where he was warmly received
+by the musical fraternity of that city, especially by the Wiecks, of
+whose daughter Clara he speaks in highly eulogistic words. He played his
+own compositions, which already began to show that serene and finished
+beauty so characteristic of his after-writings. A similar success
+greeted him at Dresden, where, among other concerts, he gave one before
+the court. Of this entertainment Moscheles writes: "The court actually
+dined (this barbarous custom still prevails), and the royal household
+listened in the galleries, while I and the court band made music to
+them, and barbarous it really was; but, in regard to truth, I must add
+that royalty and also the lackeys kept as quiet as possible, and the
+former congratulated me, and actually condescended to admit me to
+friendly conversation." He continued his concerts in Munich, Augsburg,
+Amsterdam, Brussels, and other cities, creating the most genuine
+admiration wherever he went, and finally reached Paris in December,
+1817.
+
+Here our young artist was promptly received in the extraordinary world
+of musicians, artists, authors, wits, and social celebrities which then,
+as now, made Paris so delightful for those possessing the countersign of
+admission. Baillot, the violinist, gave a private concert in his honor,
+in which he in company with Spohr played before an audience made up of
+such artists and celebrities as Cherubini, Auber, Herold, Adam, Lesueur,
+Pacini, Paer, Habeneck, Plantade, Blangini, La-font, Pleyel, Ivan
+Muller, Viotti, Pellegrini, Boieldieu, Schlesinger, Manuel Garcia, and
+others. These areopagites of music set the mighty seal of their approval
+on Moscheles's genius. He was invited everywhere, to dinners, balls, and
+_fetes_, and there was no _salon_ in Paris so high and exclusive which
+did not feel itself honored by his presence. His public concerts were
+thronged with the best and most critical audiences, and he by no means
+shone the less that he appeared in conjunction with other distinguished
+artists. He often entertained parties of jovial artists at his lodgings,
+and music, punch, and supper enlivened the night till 3 A.M. Whoever
+could play or sing was present, and good music alternated with amusing
+tricks played on the respective instruments. "Altogether," he writes,
+"it is a happy, merry time! Certainly, at the last state dinner of
+the Rothschilds, in the presence of such notabilities as Canning
+or Narischkin, I was obliged to keep rather in the background. The
+invitation to a large, brilliant, but ceremonious ball appears a very
+questionable way of showing me attention. The drive up, the endless
+queue of carriages, wearied me, and at last I got out and walked.
+There, too, I found little pleasure." On the other hand, he praises the
+performance of Gluck's opera at the house of the Erards. The "concerts
+spirituels" delight him. "Who would not," he says, "envy me this
+enjoyment? These concerts justly enjoy a world-wide celebrity. There I
+listen with the most solemn earnestness." On the other hand, there are
+cheerful episodes, and jovial dinners with Carl Blum and Schlesinger, at
+the Restaurant Lemelle. "Yesterday," he writes, "Schlesinger quizzed me
+about my slowness in eating, and went so far as to make the stupid bet
+with me, that he would demolish three dozen oysters while I ate one
+dozen, and he was quite right. On perceiving, however, that he was on
+the point of winning, I took to making faces, made him laugh so heartily
+that he couldn't go on eating; thus I won my bet." We find the
+following notice on the 20th of March: "I spent the evening at Ciceri's,
+son-in-law of Isabey, the famous painter, where I was introduced to
+one of the most interesting circles of artists. In the first room were
+assembled the most famous painters, engaged in drawing several things
+for their own amusement. In the midst of these was Cherubini, also
+drawing. I had the honor, like every one newly introduced, of having
+my portrait taken in caricature. Begasse took me in hand, and succeeded
+well. In an adjoining room were musicians and actors, among them
+Ponchard, Le-vasseur, Dugazon, Panseron, Mlle, de Munck, and Mme.
+Livere, of the Theatre Francais. The most interesting of their
+performances, which I attended merely as a listener, was a vocal quartet
+by Cherubini, performed under his direction. Later in the evening, the
+whole party armed itself with larger or smaller 'mirlitons' (reed-pipe
+whistles), and on these small monotonous instruments, sometimes made
+of sugar, they played, after the fashion of Russian horn music, the
+overture to 'Demophon,' two frying-pans representing the drums." On the
+27th of March this "mirliton" concert was repeated at Ciceri's, and on
+this occasion Cherubini took an active part. Moscheles relates: "Horace
+Vernet entertained us with his ventriloquizing powers, M. Salmon with
+his imitation of a horn, and Dugazon actually with a 'mirliton' solo.
+Lafont and I represented the classical music, which, after all, held,
+its own." It was hard to tear himself from these gayeties; but he
+had not visited London, and he was anxious to make himself known at a
+musical capital inferior to none in Europe. He little thought that in
+London he was destined to find his second home. He plunged into the
+gayeties and enjoyments of the English capital with no less zest than he
+had already experienced in Paris. He found such great players as J. B.
+Cramer, Ferdinand Ries, Kalkbrenner, and Clementi in the field; but
+our young artist did not altogether lose by comparison. Among other
+distinguished musicians, Moscheles also met Kiesewetter, the violinist,
+the great singers Mara and Catalani, and Dragonetti, the greatest of
+double-bass players. Dragonetti was a most eccentric man, and of him
+Moscheles says: "In his _salon_ in Liecester Square he has collected
+a large number of various kinds of dolls, among them a negress. When
+visitors are announced, he politely receives them, and says that this
+or that young lady will make room for them; he also asks his intimate
+acquaintances whether his favorite dolls look better or worse since
+their last visit, and similar absurdities. He is a terrible snuff-taker,
+helping himself out of a gigantic snuff-box, and he has an immense and
+varied collection of snuff-boxes. The most curious part of him is his
+language, a regular jargon, in which there is a mixture of his native
+Bergamese, bad French, and still worse English."
+
+During the several months of this first English visit Moscheles made
+many acquaintances which were destined to ripen into solid friendships,
+and gave many concerts in which the most distinguished artists, vocal
+and instrumental, participated. Altogether, he appears to have been
+delighted with the London art and social world little less than he had
+been with that of Paris. He returned, however, to the latter city in
+August, and again became a prominent figure in the most fashionable and
+admired concerts. During this visit to Paris he writes in his diary:
+"Young Erard took me to-day to his piano-forte factory to try the new
+invention of his uncle Sebastian. This quicker action of the hammer
+seems to me so important that I prophesy a new era in the manufacture
+of piano-fortes. I still complain of some heaviness in the touch, and,
+therefore, prefer to play on Pape's and Petzold's instruments (Viennese
+pianos). I admired the Erards, but am not thoroughly satisfied, and
+urged him to make new improvements."
+
+From 1815, when Moscheles began his career as a virtuoso in the
+production of his "Variationen fiber den Alexandermarsch," to 1826,
+he established a great reputation as a virtuoso and composer for the
+piano-forte. Though he played his own works at concerts with marked
+approbation, he also became distinguished as an interpreter of Mozart
+and Beethoven, for whom he had a reverential admiration. Moscheles often
+records his own sense of insignificance by the side of these Titans
+of music. A delightful characteristic of the man was his modesty about
+himself, and his genial appreciation of other musicians. Nowhere do
+those performers who, for example, came in active rivalry with himself,
+receive more cordial and unalloyed praise. Moscheles was entirely devoid
+of that littleness which finds vent in envy and jealousy, and was as
+frank and sympathetic in his estimate of others as he was ambitious and
+industrious in the development of his own great talents. In 1824 he gave
+piano-forte lessons to Felix Mendelssohn, then a youth of fifteen, at
+Berlin. He wrote of the Mendelssohn family: "This is a family the like
+of which I have never known. Felix, a boy of fifteen, is a phenomenon.
+What are all prodigies as compared with him? Gifted children, but
+nothing else. This Felix Mendelssohn is already a mature artist, and
+yet but fifteen years old! We at once settled down together for several
+hours, for I was obliged to play a great deal, when really I wanted to
+hear him and see his compositions, for Felix had to show me a concerto
+in C minor, a double concerto, and several motets; and all so full of
+genius, and at the same time so correct and thorough! His elder sister
+Fanny, also extraordinarily gifted, played by heart, and with admirable
+precision, fugues and passacailles by Bach. I think one may well call
+her a thorough 'Mus. Doc' (guter Musiker). Both parents give one the
+impression of being people of the highest refinement. They are far from
+overrating their children's talents; in fact, they are anxious about
+Felix's future, and to know whether his gift will prove sufficient to
+lead to a noble and truly great career. Will he not, like so many other
+brilliant children, suddenly collapse? I asserted my conscientious
+conviction that Felix would ultimately become a great master, that I
+had not the slightest doubt of his genius; but again and again I had
+to insist on my opinion before they believed me. These two are not
+specimens of the genus prodigy-parents (Wunderkinds Eltern), such as I
+most frequently endure." Moscheles soon came to the conclusion that to
+give Felix regular lessons was useless. Only a little hint from time
+to time was necessary for the marvelous youth, who had already begun to
+compose works which excited Moscheles's deepest admiration.
+
+
+III.
+
+In January, 1825, Moscheles, in the course of his musical wanderings,
+gave several concerts at Hamburg. Among the crowd of listeners who
+came to hear the great pianist was Charlotte Embden, the daughter of an
+excellent Hamburg family. She was enchanted by the playing of Moscheles,
+and, when she accidentally made the acquaintance of the performer at the
+house of a mutual acquaintance, the couple quickly became enamored of
+each other. A brief engagement of less than a month was followed by
+marriage, and so Moscheles entered into a relation singularly felicitous
+in all the elements which make domestic life most blessed. After a brief
+tour in the Rhenish cities, and a visit to Paris, Moscheles proceeded to
+London, where he had determined to make his home, for in no country had
+such genuine and unaffected cordiality boon shown him, and nowhere
+were the rewards of musical talent, whether as teacher, virtuoso, or
+composer, more satisfying to the man of high ambition. He made London
+his home for twenty years, and during this time became one of the most
+prominent figures in the art circles of that great city. Moscheles's
+mental accomplishments and singular geniality of nature contributed,
+with his very great abilities as a musician, to give him a position
+attained by but few artists. He gave lessons to none but the most
+talented pupils, and his services were sought by the most wealthy
+families of the English capital, though the ability to pay great prices
+was by no means a passport to the good graces of Moscheles. Among
+the pupils who early came under the charge of this great master was
+Thalberg, who even then was a brilliant player, but found in the exact
+knowledge and great experience of Moscheles that which gave the
+crowning finish to his style. Busy in teaching, composing, and public
+performance; busy in responding to the almost incessant demands made by
+social necessity on one who was not only intimate in the best circles
+of London society, but the center to whom all foreign artists of merit
+gravitated instantly they arrived in London; busy in confidential
+correspondence with all the great musicians of Europe, who discussed
+with the genial and sympathetic Moscheles all their plans and
+aspirations, and to whom they turned in their moments of trouble, he
+was indeed a busy man; and had it not been for the loving labors of his
+wife, who was his secretary, his musical copyist, and his assistant in
+a myriad of ways, he would have been unequal to his burden. Moscheles's
+diary tells the story of a man whose life, though one of tireless
+industry, was singularly serene and happy, and without those salient
+accidents and vicissitudes which make up the material of a picturesque
+life.
+
+He made almost yearly tours to the Continent for concert-giving
+purposes, and kept his friendship with the great composers of the
+Continent green by personal contact. Beethoven was the god of his
+musical idolatry, and his pilgrimage to Vienna was always delightful
+to him. When Beethoven, in the early part of 1827, was in dire distress
+from poverty, just before his death, it was to Moscheles that he applied
+for assistance; and it was this generous friend who promptly arranged
+the concert with the Philharmonic Society by which one hundred pounds
+sterling was raised to alleviate the dying moments of the great man
+whom his own countrymen would have let starve, even as they had allowed
+Schubert and Mozart to suffer the direst want on their deathbeds.
+
+An adequate record of Moscheles's life during the twenty years of his
+London career would be a pretty full record of all matters of musical
+interest occurring during this time. In 1832 he was made one of the
+directors of the Philharmonic Society, and in 1837-'38 he conducted
+with signal success Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony." When Sir Henry Bishop
+resigned, in 1845, Moscheles was made the conductor, and thereafter
+wielded the baton over this orchestra, the noblest in England. Among the
+yearly pleasures to which our pianist looked forward with the greatest
+interest were the visits of Mendelssohn, between whom and Moscheles
+there was the most tender friendship. Whole pages of his diary are given
+up to an account of Mendelssohn's doings, and to the most enthusiastic
+expression of his love and admiration for one of the greatest musical
+geniuses of modern times.
+
+We can not attempt to follow up the placid and gentle current of
+Moscheles's life, flowing on to ever-increasing honor and usefulness,
+but hasten to the period when he left England in 1846, to
+become associated with Mendelssohn in the conduct of the Leipzig
+Conservatorium, then recently organized. Mendelssohn lived but a few
+months after achieving this great monument of musical education, but
+Moscheles remained connected with it for nearly twenty years, and to his
+great zeal, knowledge, and executive skill is due in large measure the
+solid success of the institution. Mendelssohn's early death, while yet
+in the very prime of creative genius, was a stunning blow to Moscheles;
+more so, perhaps, than would have occurred from the loss of any one
+except his beloved wife, the mother of his five children. Our musician
+died himself, in Leipzig, March 10, 1870, and his passage from this
+world was as serene and quiet as his passage through had been. He lived
+to see his daughters married to men of high worth and position, and his
+sons substantially placed in life. Perhaps few distinguished musicians
+have lived a life of such monotonous happiness, unmarked by those events
+which, while they give romantic interest to a career, make the gift at
+the expense of so much personal misery.
+
+
+IV.
+
+As a pianist Moscheles was distinguished by an incisive, brilliant
+touch, wonderfully clear, precise phrasing, and close attention to the
+careful accentuation of every phase of the composer's meaning. Of the
+younger composers for the piano, Mendelssohn and Schumann were the only
+ones with whose works he had any sympathy, though he often complains of
+the latter on account of his mysticism. His intelligence had as much
+if not more part in his art work than his emotions, and to this we may
+attribute that fine symmetry and balance in his own compositions, which
+make them equal in this respect to the productions of Mendelssohn.
+Chopin he regarded with a sense of admiration mingled with dread, for
+he could by no means enter into the peculiar conditions which make the
+works of the Polish composer so unique. He wrote of Chopin's "Etudes,"
+in 1838: "My thoughts and consequently my fingers ever stumble and
+sprawl at certain crude modulations, and I find Chopin's productions
+on the whole too sugared, too little worthy of a man and an educated
+musician, though there is much charm and originality in the national
+color of his motive." When he heard Chopin play in after-years, however,
+he confessed the fascination of the performance, and bewailed his own
+incapacity to produce such effects in execution, though himself one of
+the greatest pianists in the world. So, too, Moscheles, though dazzled
+by Liszt's brilliant virtuosoism and power of transforming a single
+instrument into an orchestra, shook his head in doubt over such
+performances, and looked on them as charlatanism, which, however
+magnificent as an exhibition of talent, would ultimately help to degrade
+the piano by carrying it out of its true sphere. Moscheles himself was
+a more bold and versatile player than any other performer of his school,
+but he aimed assiduously to confine his efforts within the perfectly
+legitimate and well-established channels of pianism.
+
+As an extemporaneous player, perhaps no pianist has ever lived who could
+surpass Moscheles. His improvisation on themes suggested by the audience
+always made one of the most attractive features of his concerts. His
+profound musical knowledge, his strong sense of form, the clearness and
+precision with which he instinctively clothed his ideas, as well as the
+fertility of the ideas themselves, gave his improvised pieces something
+of the same air of completeness as if they were the outcome of hours of
+laborious solitude. His very lack of passion and fire were favorable
+to this clear-cut and symmetrical expression. His last improvisation
+in public, on themes furnished by the audience, formed part of the
+programme of a concert at London, in 1865, given by Mme. Jenny Lind
+Goldschmidt, in aid of the sufferers by the war between Austria and
+Prussia, where he extemporized for half an hour on "See the Conquering
+Hero Comes," and on a theme from the andante of Beethoven's C Minor
+Symphony, in a most brilliant and astonishing style.
+
+Aside from his greatness as a virtuoso and composer for the piano-forte,
+whose works will always remain classics in spite of vicissitudes
+of public opinion, even as those of Spohr will for the violin, the
+influence of Moscheles in furtherance of a solid and true musical taste
+was very great, and worthy of special notice. Perhaps no one did more
+to educate the English mind up to a full appreciation of the greatest
+musical works. As teacher, conductor, player, and composer, the life
+of Ignaz Moscheles was one of signal and permanent worth, and its
+influences fertilized in no inconsiderable streams the public thought,
+not only of his own times, but indirectly of the generation which has
+followed. It is not necessary to attribute to him transcendent genius,
+but lie possessed, what was perhaps of equal value to the world, an
+intellect and temperament splendidly balanced to the artistic needs of
+his epoch. The list of Moscheles's numbered compositions reaches Op.
+142, besides a large number of ephemeral productions which he did not
+care to preserve.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
+
+Robert Schumann's Place as a National Composer.--Peculiar Greatness as
+a Piano-forte Composer.--Born at Zwickau in 1810.--His Father's
+Aversion to his Musical Studies.--Becomes a Student of Jurisprudence
+in Leipzig.--Makes the Acquaintance of Clara Wieck.--Tedium of his Law
+Studies.--Vacation Tour to Italy.--Death of his Father, and Consent
+of his Mother to Schumann adopting the Profession of Music.--Becomes
+Wieck's Pupil.--Injury to his Hand which prevents all Possibilities of
+his becoming a Great Performer.--Devotes himself to Composition.--The
+Child, Clara Wieck--Remarkable Genius as a Player.--Her Early
+Training.--Paganini's Delight in her Genius.--Clara Wieck's
+Concert Tours.--Schumann falls deeply in Love with her, and Wieck's
+Opposition.--His Allusions to Clara in the "Neue Zeitschrift."--Schumann
+at Vienna.--His Compositions at first Unpopular, though played by Clara
+Wieck and Liszt.--Schumann's Labors as a Critic.--He Marries Clara
+in 1840.--His Song Period inspired by his Wife.--Tour to Russia, and
+Brilliant Reception given to the Artist Pair.--The "Neue Zeitschrift"
+and its Mission.--The Davidsbund.--Peculiar Style of Schumann's
+Writing.--He moves to Dresden.--Active Production in Orchestral
+Composition.--Artistic Tour in Holland.--He is seized with
+Brain Disease.--Characteristics as a Man, as an Artist, and as a
+Philosopher.--Mme. Schumann as her Husband's Interpreter.--Chopin
+a Colaborer with Schumann.--Schumann on Chopin again.--Chopin's
+Nativity.--Exclusively a Piano-forte Composer.--His _Genre_ as Pianist
+and Composer.--Aversion to Concert-giving.--Parisian Associations.--New
+Style of Technique demanded by his Works.--Unique Treatment of the
+Instrument.--Characteristics of Chopin's Compositions.
+
+
+I.
+
+Robert Schumann shares with Weber the honor of giving the earliest
+impulse to what may be called the romantic school of music, which has
+culminated in the operatic creations of Richard Wagner. Greatly to the
+gain of the world, his early aspirations as a mere player were crushed
+by the too intense zeal through which he attempted to perfect his
+manipulation, the mechanical contrivance he used having had the
+effect of paralyzing the muscular power of one of his hands. But this
+department of art work was nobly borne by his gifted wife, _nee_ Clara
+Wieck, and Schumann concentrated his musical ambition in the higher
+field of composition, leaving behind him works not only remarkable for
+beauty of form, but for poetic richness of thought and imagination.
+Schumann composed songs, cantatas, operas, and symphonies, but it is in
+his works for the piano-forte that his idiosyncrasy was most strikingly
+embodied, and in which he has bequeathed the most precious inheritance
+to the world of art. All his powers were swept impetuously into one
+current, the poetic side of art, and alike as critic and composer he
+stands in a relation to the music of the pianoforte which places him on
+a pinnacle only less lofty than that of Beethoven.
+
+Robert Schumann was born in the small Saxon town of Zwickau in the
+year 1810, and was designed by his father, a publisher and author
+of considerable reputation, for the profession of the law. The elder
+Schumann, though a man of talent and culture, had a deep distaste for
+his son's clearly displayed tendencies to music, and though he permitted
+him to study something of the science in the usual school-boy way (for
+music has always been a part of the educational course in Germany), he
+discouraged in every way Robert's passion. The boy had quickly become a
+clever player, and even at the age of eight had begun to put his ideas
+on paper. We are told by his biographers that he was accustomed
+to extemporize at school, and had such a knack in portraying the
+characteristics of his school-fellows in music as to make his purpose
+instantly recognizable. His father died when Schumann was only
+seventeen, and his mother, who was also bent on her son becoming a
+jurist, became his guardian. It was a severe battle between taste
+and duty, but love for his widowed mother conquered, and young Robert
+Schumann entered the University of Leipzig as a law student. It was with
+a feeling almost of despair that he wrote at this time, "I have decided
+upon law as my profession, and will work at it industriously, however
+cold and dry the beginning may be." Previously, however, he had spent a
+year in the household of Frederick Wieck, the distinguished teacher of
+music. So much he had exacted before succumbing to maternal pleading.
+At this time he first made the acquaintance of a charming and precocious
+child, Clara Wieck, who played such an important part in his future
+life.
+
+Robert Schumann's law studies were inexpressibly tedious to him, and so
+he told his sympathetic professor, the learned Thibaut, author of the
+treatise "On the Purity of Music," in a characteristic manner. He went
+to the piano and played Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," commenting on
+the different passages: "Now she speaks--that's the love prattle; now
+he speaks--that's the man's earnest voice; now both the lovers speak
+together "; concluding with the remark, "Isn't all that better far than
+anything that jurisprudence can utter?" The young student became quite
+popular in society as a pianist, heard Ernst and Paganini for the first
+time, and composed several works, among them the Toccata in D major.
+The genius for music would come to the fore in spite of jurisprudence.
+A vacation trip to Italy which the young man made gave fresh fuel to
+the flame, and he began to write the most passionate pleas to his
+mother that she should con sent to his adoption of a musical career. The
+distressed woman wrote to Wieck to know what he thought, and the answer
+was favorable to Robert's aspirations. Robert was intoxicated with his
+mother's concession, and he poured out his enthusiasm to Wieck: "Take
+me as I am, and, above all, bear with me. No blame shall depress me, no
+praise make me idle. Pails upon pails of very cold theory can not hurt
+me, and I will work at it without the least murmur."
+
+Taking lodgings at the house of Wieck, Schumann devoted himself to
+piano-forte playing with intense ardor; but his zeal outran prudence.
+To hasten his proficiency and acquire an independent action for each
+finger, he contrived a mechanical apparatus which held the third
+finger of the right hand immovable, while the others went through their
+evolutions. The result was such a lameness of the hand that it was
+incurable, and young Schumann's career as a virtuoso was for ever
+checked. His deep sorrow, however, did not unman him long, for he turned
+his attention to the study of composition and counterpoint under Kupsch,
+and, afterward, Heinrich Dorn. He remained for three years under Wieck's
+roof, and the companionship of the child Clara, whose marvelous musical
+powers were the talk of Leipzig, was a sweet consolation to him in his
+troubles and his toil, though ten years his junior. The love, which
+became a part of his life, had already begun to flutter into unconscious
+being in his feeling for a shy and reserved little girl.
+
+Schumann tells us that the year 1834 was the most important one of his
+life, for it witnessed the birth of the "N'eue Zeitschrift fur Musik,"
+a journal which was to embody his notions of ideal music, and to be the
+organ of a clique of enthusiasts in lifting the art out of Philistinism
+and commonplace. The war-cry was "Reform in art," and never-ending
+battle against the little and conventional ideas which were believed
+then to be the curse of German music. Among the earlier contributors
+were Wieck, Schumke, Knorr, Banck, and Schumann himself, who wrote
+under the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius. Between his new journal and
+composing, Schumann was kept busy, but he found time to persuade himself
+that he was in love with Fraulein Ernestine von Fricken, a beautiful but
+somewhat frivolous damsel, who became engaged to the young composer and
+editor. Two years cooled off this passion, and a separation was mutually
+agreed on. Perhaps Schumann recognized something, in the lovely child
+who was swiftly blooming into maidenhood, which made his own inner soul
+protest against any other attachment.
+
+
+II.
+
+It would have been very strange indeed if two such natures as Clara
+Wieck and Robert Schumann had not gravitated toward each other during
+the almost constant intercourse between them which took place between
+1835 and 1838. Clara, born in 1820, had been her father's pupil from her
+tenderest childhood, but the development of her musical gifts was not
+forced in such a way as to interfere with her health and the exuberance
+of her spirits. The exacting teacher was also a tender father and a
+man of ripe judgment, and he knew the bitter price which mere mental
+precocity so frequently has to pay for its existence.
+
+But the young girl's gifts were so extraordinary, and withal her
+character so full of childish simplicity and gayety, that it was
+difficult to think of her as of the average child phenomenon. At the age
+of nine she could play Mozart's concertos, and Hummel's A minor Concerto
+for the orchestra, one of the most difficult of compositions. A year
+later she began to compose, and improvised without difficulty, for her
+lessons in counterpoint and harmony had kept pace with her studies of
+pianoforte technique. Paganini visited Leipzig at this period, and was
+so astonished at the little Clara's precocious genius that he insisted
+on her presence at all his concerts, and addressed her with the deepest
+respect as a fellow-artist. She first appeared in public concert at
+the age of eleven, in Leipzig, Weimar, and other places, playing Pixis,
+Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin. The latter of these
+composers was then almost unknown in Germany, and Clara Wieck, young
+as she was, contributed largely to making him popular. A year later she
+visited Paris in company with her father, and heard Chopin, Liszt, and
+Kalkbrenner, who on their part were delighted with the little artist,
+who, beneath the delicacy and timidity of the child, indicated
+extraordinary powers. Society received her with the most flattering
+approbation, and when her father allowed her to appear in concert her
+playing excited the greatest delight and surprise. Her improvisation
+specially displayed a vigor of imagination, a fine artistic taste, and
+a well-defined knowledge which justly called out the most enthusiastic
+recognition.
+
+When Clara Wieck returned home, she gave herself up to work with fresh
+ardor, studying composition under Heinrich Dorn, singing under the
+celebrated Mieksch, and even violin-playing, so great was her ambition
+for musical accomplishments. From 1836 to 1838 she made an extended
+musical tour through Germany, and was welcomed as a musico-poetic ideal
+by the enthusiasts who gathered around her. The poet Grillparzer spoke
+of her as "the innocent child who first unlocked the casket in which
+Beethoven buried his mighty heart," and it must be confessed that Clara
+Wieck, even as a young girl, did more than any other pianist to develop
+a love of and appreciation for the music of the Titan of composers.
+
+Long before Schumann distinctly contemplated the image of Clara as
+the beloved one, the half of his soul, he had divined her genius, and
+expressed his opinion of her in no stinted terms of praise. When she was
+as yet only thirteen, he had written of her in his journal: "As I
+know people who, having but just heard Clara, yet rejoice in their
+anticipation of their next occasion of hearing her, I ask, What sustains
+this continual interest in her? Is it the 'wonder child' herself, at
+whose stretches of tenths people shake their heads while they are amazed
+at them, or the most difficult difficulties which she sportively flings
+toward the public like flower garlands? Is it the special pride of
+the city with which a people regards its own natives? Is it that she
+presents to us the most interesting productions of recent art in as
+short a time as possible? Is it that the masses understand that art
+should not depend on the caprices of a few enthusiasts, who would direct
+us back to a century over whose corpse the wheels of time are hastening?
+I know not; I only feel that here we are subdued by genius, which men
+still hold in respect. In short, we here divine the presence of a power
+of which much is spoken, while few indeed possess it.... Early she
+drew the veil of Isis aside. Serenely the child looks up; older eyes,
+perhaps, would have been blinded by that radiant light.... To Clara
+we dare no longer apply the measuring scale of age, but only that of
+fulfillment.... Clara Wieck is the first German artist.... Pearls do not
+float on the surface; they must be sought for in the deep, often with
+danger. But Clara is an intrepid diver."
+
+The child whose genius he admired ripened into a lovely young woman, and
+Schumann became conscious that there had been growing in his heart for
+years a deep, ardent love. He had fancied himself in love more
+than once, but now he felt that he could make no mistake as to the
+genuineness of his feelings. In 1836 he confessed his feelings to the
+object of his affections, and discovered that he not only loved but
+was loved, for two such gifted and sympathetic natures could hardly be
+thrown together for years without the growth of a mutual tenderness.
+The marriage project was not favored by Papa Wieck, much as he liked the
+young composer who had so long been his pupil and a member of his family
+circle. The father of Clara looked forward to a brilliant artistic
+career for his daughter, perhaps hoped to marry her to some serene
+highness, and Schumann's prospects were as yet very uncertain. So he
+took Clara on a long artistic journey through Germany, with a view of
+quenching this passion by absence and those public adulations which he
+knew Clara's genius would command. But nothing shook the devotion of
+her heart, and she insisted on playing the compositions of the young
+composer at her concerts, as well as those of Beethoven, Liszt, and
+Chopin, the latter two of whom were just beginning to be known and
+admired.
+
+Hoping to overcome Papa Wieck's opposition by success, Schumann took
+his new journal to Vienna, and published it in that city, carrying on
+simultaneously with his editorial duties active labors in composition.
+The attempt to better his fortunes in Vienna, however, did not prove
+very successful, and after six months he returned again to Leipzig.
+Schumann's generous sympathy with other great musicians was signally
+shown in his very first Vienna experiences, for he immediately made
+a pious pilgrimage to the Waehring cemetery to offer his pious gift of
+flowers on the graves of Beethoven and Schubert. On Beethoven's grave
+he found a steel pen, which he preserved as a sacred treasure, and used
+afterward in writing his own finest musical fancies. He remembered, too,
+that the brother of Schubert, Ferdinand, was still living in a suburb
+of Vienna. "He knew me," Schumann says, "from my admiration for his
+brother, as I had publicly expressed it, and showed me many things. At
+last he let me look at the treasures of Franz Schubert's compositions,
+which he still possesses. The wealth that lay heaped up made me shudder
+with joy, what to take first, where to cease. Among other things, he
+also showed me the scores of several symphonies, of which many had never
+been heard, while others had been tried, but put back, on the score of
+their being too difficult and bombastic." One of these symphonies, that
+in C major, the largest and grandest in conception, Schumann chose
+and sent to Leipzig, where it was soon afterward produced under
+Mendelssohn's direction at one of the Ge-wandhaus concerts, and produced
+an immediate and profound sensation. For the first time the world
+witnessed, in a more expanded sphere, the powers of a composer the very
+beauties of whose songs had hitherto been fatal to his general success.
+During this period of Schumann's life the most important works he
+composed were the "Etudes Symphoniques," the famous "Carnival" dedicated
+to Liszt, the "Scenes of Childhood," the "Fantasia" dedicated to Liszt,
+the "Novellettes," and "Kreisleriana." As he writes to Heinrich Dorn:
+"Much music is the result of the contest I am passing through for
+Clara's sake." Schumann's compositions had been introduced to the public
+by the gifted interpretation of Clara Wieck, with whom it was a labor of
+love, and also by Franz Liszt, then rising almost on the top wave of his
+dazzling fame as a virtuoso. Liszt was a profound admirer of the less
+fortunate Schumann, and did everything possible to make him a favorite
+with the public, but for a long time in vain. Liszt writes of this as
+follows: "Since my first knowledge of his compositions I had played many
+of them in private circles at Milan and Vienna, without having succeeded
+in winning the approbation of my hearers. These works were, fortunately
+for them, too far above the then trivial level of taste to find a home
+in the superficial atmosphere of popular applause. The public did not
+fancy them, and few players understood them. Even in Leipzig, where I
+played the 'Carnival' at my second Gewandhaus concert, I did not
+obtain my customary applause. Musicians, even those who claimed to be
+connoisseurs also, carried too thick a mask over their ears to be able
+to comprehend that charming 'Carnival,' harmoniously framed as it is,
+and ornamented with such rich variety of artistic fancy. I did not
+doubt, however, but that this work would eventually win its place in
+general appreciation beside Beethoven's thirty-three variations on a
+theme by Diabelli (which work it surpasses, according to my opinion, in
+melody, richness, and inventiveness)." Both as a composer and writer on
+music, Schumann embodied his deep detestation of the Philistinism and
+commonplace which stupefied the current opinions of the time, and he
+represented in Germany the same battle of the romantic in art against
+what was known as the classical which had been carried on so fiercely in
+France by Berlioz, Liszt, and Chopin.
+
+
+III.
+
+The year 1840 was one of the most important in Schumann's life. In
+February he was created Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Jena,
+and, still more precious boon to the man's heart, Wieck's objections to
+the marriage with Clara had been so far melted away that he consented,
+though with reluctance, to their union. The marriage took place quietly
+at a little church in Schonfeld, near Leipzig. This year was one of the
+most fruitful of Schumann's life. His happiness burst forth in lyric
+forms. He wrote the amazing number of one hundred and thirty-eight
+songs, among which the more famous are the set entitled "Myrtles," the
+cycles of song from Heine, dedicated to Pauline Viardot, Chamisso's
+"Woman's Love and Life," and Heine's "Poet Love." Schumann as a
+song-writer must be called indeed the musical reflex of Heine, for his
+immortal works have the same passionate play of pathos and melancholy,
+the sharp-cut epigrammatic form, the grand swell of imagination,
+impatient of the limits set by artistic taste, which characterize the
+poet themes. Schumann says that nearly all the works composed at this
+time were written under Clara's inspiration solely. Blest with the
+continual companionship of a woman of genius, as amiable as she was
+gifted, who placed herself as a gentle mediator between Schumann's
+intellectual life and the outer world, he composed many of his finest
+vocal and instrumental compositions during the years immediately
+succeeding his marriage; among them the cantata "Paradise and the
+Peri," and the "Faust" music. His own connection with public life
+was restricted to his position as teacher of piano-forte playing,
+composition, and score playing at the Leipzig Conservatory, while the
+gifted wife was the interpreter of his beautiful piano-forte works as an
+executant. A more perfect fitness and companionship in union could not
+have existed, and one is reminded of the married life of the poet pair,
+the Brownings. After four years of happy and quiet life, in which mental
+activity was inspired by the most delightful of domestic surroundings,
+an artistic tour to St. Petersburg was undertaken by Robert and Clara
+Schumann. Our composer did not go without reluctance. "Forgive me," he
+writes to a friend, "if I forbear telling you of my unwillingness to
+leave my quiet home." He seems to have had a melancholy premonition that
+his days of untroubled happiness were over. A genial reception awaited
+them at the Russian capital. They were frequently invited to the Winter
+Palace by the emperor and empress, and the artistic circles of the city
+were very enthusiastic over Mme. Schumann's piano-forte playing. Since
+the days of John Field, Clementi's great pupil, no one had raised such
+a furore among the music-loving Russians. Schumann's music, which it was
+his wife's dearest privilege to interpret, found a much warmer welcome
+than among his own countrymen at that date. In the Sclavonic nature
+there is a deep current of romance and mysticism, which met with
+instinctive sympathy the dreamy and fantastic thoughts which ran riot in
+Schumann's works.
+
+On returning from the St. Petersburg tour, Schumann gave up the "Neue
+Zeitschrift," the journal which he had made such a powerful organ of
+musical revolution, and transferred it to Oswald Lorenz. Schumann's
+literary work is so deeply intertwined with his artistic life and
+mission that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate the two.
+He had achieved a great work--he had planted in the German mind the
+thought that there was such a thing as progress and growth; that
+stagnation was death; and that genius was for ever shaping for itself
+new forms and developments. He had taught that no art is an end to
+itself, and that, unless it embodies the deep-seated longings and
+aspirations of men ever striving toward a loftier ideal, it becomes
+barren and fruitless--the mere survival of a truth whose need had
+ceased. He was the apostle of the musico-poetical art in Germany, and,
+both as author and composer, strove with might and main to educate his
+countrymen up to a clear understanding of the ultimate outcome of the
+work begun by Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber.
+
+Schumann as a critic was eminently catholic and comprehensive. Deeply
+appreciative of the old lights of music, he received with enthusiasm all
+the fresh additions contributed by musical genius to the progress of
+his age. Eschewing the cold, objective, technical form of criticism,
+his method of approaching the work of others was eminently subjective,
+casting on them the illumination which one man of genius gives
+to another. The cast of his articles was somewhat dramatic and
+conversational, and the characters represented as contributing
+their opinions to the symposium of discussion were modeled on actual
+personages. He himself was personified under the dual form of Florestan
+and Eusebius, the "two souls in his breast"--the former, the fiery
+iconoclast, impulsive in his judgments and reckless in attacking
+prejudices; the latter, the mild, genial, receptive dreamer. Master
+Raro, who stood for Wieck, also typified the calm, speculative side of
+Schumann's nature. Chiara represented Clara Wieck, and personified the
+feminine side of art. So the various personages were all modeled after
+associates of Schumann, and, aside from the freshness and fascination
+which this method gave his style, it enabled him to approach his
+subjects from many sides. The name of the imaginary society was the
+Davids-bund, probably from King David and his celebrated harp, or
+perhaps in virtue of David's victories over the Philistines of his day.
+
+As an illustration of Schumann's style and method of treating musical
+subjects, we can not do better than give his article on Chopin's "Don
+Juan Fantasia": "Eusebius entered not long ago. You know his pale face
+and the ironical smile with which he awakens expectation. I sat with
+Florestan at the piano-forte. Florestan is, as you know, one of
+those rare musical minds that foresee, as it were, coming novel or
+extraordinary things. But he encountered a surprise today. With the
+words 'Off with your hats, gentlemen! a genius,' Eusebius laid down a
+piece of music. We were not allowed to see the title-page. I turned over
+the music vacantly; the veiled enjoyment of music which one does not
+hear has something magical in it. And besides this, it seems that every
+composer has something different in the note forms. Beethoven looks
+differently from Mozart on paper; the difference resembles that between
+Jean Paul's and Goethe's prose. But here it seemed as if eyes, strange,
+were glancing up to me--flower eyes, basilisk eyes, peacock's eyes,
+maiden's eyes; in many places it looked yet brighter. I thought I
+saw Mozart's 'La ci darem la mano' wound through a hundred chords.
+_Leporello_ seemed to wink at me, and _Don Juan_ hurried past in his
+white mantle. 'Now play it,' said Florestan. Eusebius consented, and we,
+in the recess of a window, listened. Eusebius played as though he were
+inspired, and led forward countless forms filled with the liveliest,
+warmest life; it seemed that the inspiration of the moment gave to his
+fingers a power beyond the ordinary measure of their cunning. It is true
+that Florestan's whole applause was expressed in nothing but a happy
+smile, and the remark that the variations might have been written by
+Beethoven or Franz Schubert, had either of these been a piano virtuoso;
+but how surprised he was when, turning to the title-page, he read 'La ci
+darem la mano, varie pour le piano-forte, par Frederic Chopin, Ouvre 2,'
+and with what astonishment we both cried out, 'An Opus 2!' How our faces
+glowed as we wondered, exclaiming, 'That is something reasonable once
+more! Chopin? I never heard of the name--who can he be? In any case, a
+genius. Is not that _Zerlina's_ smile, And _Leporello_, etc' I could not
+describe the scene. Heated with wine, Chopin, and our own enthusiasm,
+we went to Master Raro, who with a smile, and displaying but little
+curiosity for Chopin, said, 'Bring me the Chopin! I know you and your
+enthusiasm.' We promised to bring it the next day. Eusebius soon bade us
+good-night. I remained a short time with Master Raro. Florestan, who had
+been for some time without a habitation, hurried to my house through the
+moonlit streets. 'Chopin's variations,' he began, as if in a dream,
+'are constantly running through my head; the whole is so dramatic
+and Chopin-like; the introduction is so concentrated. Do you remember
+_Leporello's_ springs in thirds? That seems to me somewhat unfitted
+to the theme; but the theme--why did he write that in A flat? The
+variations, the finale, the adagio, these are indeed something; genius
+burns through every measure. Naturally, dear Julius, _Don Juan, Zerlina,
+Leporello, Massetto_, are the _dramatis persona; Zerlina's_ answer in
+the theme has a sufficiently enamored character; the first variation
+expresses, a kind of coquettish coveteousness: the Spanish Grandee
+flirts amiably with the peasant girl in it. This leads of itself to the
+second, which is at once confidential, disputative, and comic, as though
+two lovers were chasing each other and laughing more than usual about
+it. How all this is changed in the third! It is filled with fairy music
+and moonshine; _Masetto_ keeps at a distance, swearing audibly, but
+without any effect on _Don Juan_. And now the fourth--what do you
+think of it? Eusebius played it altogether correctly. How boldly, how
+wantonly, it springs forward to meet the man! though the adagio (it
+seems quite natural to me that Chopin repeats the first part) is in
+B flat minor, as it should be, for in its commencement it presents a
+beautiful moral warning to _Don Juan_. It is at once so mischievous
+and beautiful that _Leporello_ listens behind the hedge, laughing and
+jesting that oboes and clarionettes enchantingly allure, and that the
+B flat major in full bloom correctly designates the first kiss of love.
+But all this is nothing compared to the last (have you any more wine,
+Julius?). That is the whole of Mozart's finale, popping champagne corks,
+ringing glasses, _Leporello's_ voice between, the grasping, torturing
+demons, the fleeing _Don Juan_--and then the end, that beautifully
+soothes and closes all.' Florestan concluded by saying that he had never
+experienced feelings similar to those awakened by the finale. When the
+evening sunlight of a beautiful day creeps up toward the highest peaks,
+and when the last beam vanishes, there comes a moment when the white
+Alpine giants close their eyes. We feel that we have witnessed a
+heavenly apparition. 'And now awake to new dreams, Julius, and sleep.'
+'Dear Flores-tan,' I answered, 'these confidential feelings, are perhaps
+praiseworthy, although somewhat subjective; but as deeply as yourself I
+bend before Chopin's spontaneous genius, his lofty aim, his mastership;
+and after that we fell asleep.'" This article was the first journalistic
+record of Chopin's genius.
+
+
+IV.
+
+When Schumann gave up his journal in 1845 he moved to Dresden, and he
+began to suffer severely from the dreadful disorder to which he fell a
+victim twelve years later. This disease--an abnormal formation of
+bone in the brain--afflicted him with excruciating pains in the head,
+sleeplessness, fear of death, and strange auricular delusions. A sojourn
+at Parma, where he had complete repose and a course of sea-bathing,
+partially restored his health, and he gave himself up to musical
+composition again. During the next three years, up to 1849, Schumann
+wrote some of his finest works, among which may be mentioned his opera
+"Genoviva," his Second symphony, the cantata "The Rose's Pilgrimage,"
+more beautiful songs, much piano-forte and concerted music, and the
+musical illustrations of Byron's "Manfred," which latter is one of his
+greatest orchestral works.
+
+During the years 1850 to 1854 Schumann composed his "Rhenish Symphony,"
+the overtures to the "Bride of Messina" and "Hermann and Dorothea,"
+and many vocal and piano-forte works. He accepted the post of musical
+director at Dusseldorf in 1850, removed to that city with his wife and
+children, and, on arriving, the artistic pair were received with a
+civic banquet. The position was in many respects agreeable, but the
+responsibilities were too great for Schumann's declining health, and
+probably hastened his death. In 1853 Robert and Clara Schumann made
+a grand artistic tour through Holland, which resembled a triumphal
+procession, so great was the musical enthusiasm called out. When they
+returned Schumann's malady returned with double force, and on February
+27, 1854, he attempted to end his misery by jumping into the Rhine.
+Madness had seized him with a clutch which was never to be released,
+except at short intervals. Every possible care was lavished on him by
+his heartbroken and devoted wife, and the assiduous attention of the
+friends who reverenced the genius now for ever quenched. The last two
+years of his life were spent in the private insane asylum at Endenich,
+near Bonn, where he died July 20, 1856. Schumann possessed a wealth of
+musical imagination which, if possibly equaled in a few instances, is
+nowhere surpassed in the records of his art. For him music possessed
+all the attributes inherent in the other arts--absolute color and
+flexibility of form. That he attempted to express these phases of art
+expression, with an almost boundless trust in their applicability to
+tone and sound, not unfrequently makes them obscure to the last degree,
+but it also gave much of his composition a richness, depth, and subtilty
+of suggestive power which place them in a unique niche, and will
+always preserve them as objects of the greatest interest to the musical
+student. There is no doubt that his increasing mental malady is evident
+in the chaotic character of some of his later orchestral compositions,
+but, in those works composed during his best period, splendor of
+imagination goes hand in hand with genuine art treatment. This is
+specially noticeable in the songs and the piano-forte works. Schumann
+was essentially lyrical and subjective, though his intellectual breadth
+and culture (almost unrivaled among his musical compeers) always kept
+him from narrowness as a composer. He led the van in the formation of
+that pictorial and descriptive style of music which has asserted itself
+in German music, but his essentially lyric personality in his attitude
+to the outer world presented the external thoroughly saturated and
+modified by his own moods and feelings.
+
+In his piano-forte works we find his most complete and satisfactory
+development as the artist composer. Here the world, with its myriad
+impressions, its facts, its purposes, its tendencies, met the man and
+commingled in a series of exquisite creations, which are true tone
+pictures. In this domain Beethoven alone was worthy to be compared with
+him, though the animus and scheme of the Beethoven piano-forte works
+grew out of a totally different method.
+
+In personal appearance Schumann bore the marks of the man of genius. As
+he reached middle age we are told of him that his figure was of middle
+height, inclined to stoutness, that his bearing was dignified, his
+movements slow. His features, though irregular, produced an agreeable
+impression; his forehead was broad and high, the nose heavy, the eyes
+excessively bright, though generally veiled and downcast, the mouth
+delicately cut, the hair thick and brown, his cheeks full and ruddy. His
+head was squarely formed, of an intensely powerful character, and the
+whole expression of his face sweet and genial. Even when young he was
+distinguished by a kind of absent-mindedness that prevented him from
+taking much part in conversation. Once, it is said, he entered a lady's
+drawing-room to call, played a few chords on the piano, and smilingly
+left without speaking a word. But, among intimate friends, he could be
+extraordinarily fluent and eloquent in discussing an interesting topic.
+He was conscious of his own shyness, and once wrote to a friend: "I
+shall be very glad to see you here. In me, however, you must not expect
+to find much. I scarcely ever speak except in the evening, and most in
+playing the piano." His wife was the crowning blessing of his life. She
+was not only his consoler, but his other intellectual life, for she,
+with her great powers as a virtuoso, interpreted his music to the world,
+both before and after his death. It has rarely been the lot of an artist
+to see his most intimate feelings and aspirations embodied to the world
+by the genius of the mother of his children. Well did Ferdinand Hiller
+write of this artist couple: "What love beautified his life! A woman
+stood beside him, crowned with the starry circlet of genius, to whom he
+seemed at once the father to his daughter, the master to the scholar,
+the bridegroom to the bride, the saint to the disciple."
+
+Clara Schumann still lives, though becoming fast an old woman in years,
+if still young in heart, and still able to win the admiration of the
+musical world by her splendid playing. Berlioz, who heard her in her
+youth, pronounced her the greatest virtuoso in Germany, in one of his
+letters to Heine; and while she was little more than a child she had
+gained the heartiest admiration in England, France, and Germany. Henry
+Chorley heard her at Leipzig in 1839, and speaks of "the organ-playing
+on the piano of Mme. Schumann (better known in England under the name of
+Clara Wieck), who commands her instrument with the enthusiasm of a sibyl
+and the grasp of a man." Since Schumann's death, Mme. Schumann has been
+known as the exponent of her husband's works, which she has performed in
+Germany and England with an insight, a power of conception, and a beauty
+of treatment which have contributed much to the recognition of his
+remarkable genius.
+
+
+V.
+
+The name of Frederic Francis Chopin is so closely linked in the minds
+of musical students with that of Schumann in that art renaissance which
+took place almost simultaneously in France and Germany, when so many
+daring and original minds broke loose from the petrifactions of custom
+and tradition, that we shall not venture to separate them here. Chopin
+was too timid and gentle to be a bold aggressor, like Berlioz, Liszt,
+and Schumann, but his whole nature responded to the movement, and his
+charming and most original compositions, which glow with the fire of a
+genius perhaps narrow in its limits, have never been surpassed for their
+individuality and poetic beauty. The present brief sketch of Chopin
+does not propose to consider his life biographically, full of pathos and
+romance as that life may be.*
+
+     * See article Chopin, in "Great German Composers."
+
+Schumann, in his "N'eue Zeitschrift," sums up the characteristics of the
+Polish composer admirably; "Genius creates kingdoms, the smaller states
+of which are again divided by a higher hand among talents, that these
+may organize details which the former, in its thousand-fold activity,
+would be unable to perfect. As Hummel, for example, followed the call
+of Mozart, clothing the thoughts of that master in a flowing, sparkling
+robe, so Chopin followed Beethoven. Or, to speak more simply, as Hummel
+imitated the style of Mozart in detail, rendering it enjoyable to the
+virtuoso on one particular instrument, so Chopin led the spirit of
+Beethoven into the concert-room.
+
+"Chopin did not make his appearance accompanied by an orchestral army,
+as great genius is accustomed to do; he only possessed a small cohort,
+but every soul belongs to him to the last hero.
+
+"He is the pupil of the first masters--Beethoven, Schubert, Field. The
+first formed his mind in boldness, the second his heart in tenderness,
+the third his hand to its flexibility. Thus he stood well provided with
+deep knowledge in his art, armed with courage in the full consciousness
+of his power, when in the year 1830 the great voice of the people arose
+in the West. Hundreds of youths had waited for the moment; but Chopin
+was the first on the summit of the wall, behind which lay a cowardly
+renaissance, a dwarfish Philistinism, asleep. Blows were dealt right
+and left, and the Philistines awoke angrily, crying out, 'Look at the
+impudent one!' while others behind the besieger cried, 'The one of noble
+courage.'
+
+"Besides this, and the favorable influence of period and condition, fate
+rendered Chopin still more individual and interesting in endowing him
+with an original pronounced nationality; Polish, too, and because this
+nationality wanders in mourning robes in the thoughtful artist, it
+deeply attracts us. It was well for him that neutral Germany did not
+receive him too warmly at first, and that his genius led him straight
+to one of the great capitals of the world, where he could freely poetize
+and grow angry. If the powerful autocrat of the North knew what a
+dangerous enemy threatens him in Chopin's works in the simple melodies
+of his mazurkas, he would forbid music. Chopin's works are cannons
+buried in flowers.... He is the boldest, proudest poet soul of to-day."
+
+But Schumann could have said something more than this, and added that
+Chopin was a musician of exceptional attainments, a virtuoso of the very
+highest order, a writer for the piano pure and simple preeminent beyond
+example, and a master of a unique and perfect style.
+
+Chopin was born of mixed French and Polish parentage, February 8,
+1810, at Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw. He was educated at the Warsaw
+Conservatory, and his eminent genius for the piano shone at this time
+most unmistakably. He found in the piano-forte an exclusive organ for
+the expression of his thoughts. In the presence of this confidential
+companion he forgot his shyness and poured forth his whole soul.
+A passionate lover of his native country, and burning with those
+aspirations for freedom which have made Poland since its first partition
+a volcano ever ready to break forth, the folk-themes of Poland are
+at the root of all of Chopin's compositions, and in the waltzes and
+mazurkas bearing his name we find a passionate glow and richness of
+color which make them musical poems of the highest order.
+
+Chopin's art position, both as a pianist and composer, was a unique one.
+He was accustomed to say that the breath of the concert-room stifled
+him, whereas Liszt, his intimate friend and fellow-artist, delighted in
+it as a war-horse delights in the tumult of battle. Chopin always shrank
+from the display of his powers as a mere executant. To exhibit his
+talents to the public was an offense to him, and he only cared for his
+remarkable technical skill as a means of placing his fanciful original
+poems in tone rightly before the public. It was with the greatest
+difficulty that his intimate friends, Liszt, Meyerbeer, Nourrit,
+Delacroix, Heine, Mme. George Sand, Countess D'Agoult, and others, could
+persuade him to appear before large mixed audiences. His genius only
+shone unconstrained as a player in the society of a few chosen intimate
+friends, with whom he felt a perfect sympathy, artistic, social, and
+intellectual. Exquisite, fastidious, and refined, Chopin was loss an
+aristocrat from political causes, or even by virtue of social caste,
+than from the fact that his art nature, which was delicate, feminine,
+and sensitive, shrank from all companions except those molded of the
+finest clay. We find this sense of exclusiveness and isolation in all
+of the Chopin music, as in some quaint, fantastic, ideal world, whose
+master would draw us up to his sphere, but never descend to ours.
+
+In the treatment of the technical means of the piano-forte, he entirely
+wanders from the old methods. Moscheles, a great pianist in an age of
+great players, gave it up in despair, and confessed that he could not
+play Chopin's music. The latter teaches the fingers to serve his own
+artistic uses, without regard to the notions of the schools. It is said
+that M. Kalkbrenner advised Chopin to attend his classes at the Paris
+Conservatoire, that the latter might learn the proper fingering. Chopin
+answered his officious adviser by placing one of his own "Etudes" before
+him, and asking him to play it. The failure of the pompous professor
+was ludicrous, for the old-established technique utterly failed to do it
+justice. Chopin's end as a player was to faithfully interpret the poetry
+of his own composition. His genius as a composer taught him to make
+innovations in piano-forte effects. He was thus not only a great
+inventor as a composer, but as regards the technique of the piano-forte.
+He not only told new things well worth hearing which the world would not
+forget, but devised new ways of saying them, and it mattered but little
+to him whether his more forcible and passionate dialectic offended what
+Schumann calls musical Philistinism or no. Chopin formed a school of his
+own which was purely the outcome of his genius, though as Schumann, in
+the extract previously quoted, justly says: "He was molded by the
+deep poetic spirit of Beethoven, with whom form only had value as it
+expressed truthfully and beautifully symmetry of conception."
+
+The forms of Chopin's compositions grew out of the keyboard of the
+piano, and their _genre_ is so peculiar that it is nearly impracticable
+to transpose them for any other instrument. Some of the noted
+contemporary violinists have attempted to transpose a few of the
+Nocturnes and Etudes, but without success. Both Schumann and Liszt
+succeeded in adapting Paganini's most complex and difficult violin works
+for the piano-forte, but the compositions of Chopin are so essentially
+born to and of the one instrument that they can not be well suited to
+any other. The cast of the melody, the matchless beauty and swing of the
+rhythm, his ingenious treatment of harmony, and the chromatic changes
+and climaxes through which the motives are developed, make up a new
+chapter in the history of the piano-forte.
+
+Liszt, in his life of Chopin, says of him: "His character was indeed
+not easily understood. A thousand subtile shades, mingling, crossing,
+contradicting, and disguising each other, rendered it almost
+undecipherable at first view; kind, courteous, affable, and almost
+of joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret convulsions which
+agitated him to be ever suspected. His works, concertos, waltzes,
+sonatas, ballades, polonaises, mazurkas, nocturnes, scherzi, all reflect
+a similar enigma in a most poetical and romantic form."
+
+Chopin's moral nature was not cast in an heroic mold, and he lacked the
+robust intellectual marrow which is essential to the highest forms of
+genius in art as well as in literature and affairs, though it is not
+safe to believe that he was, as painted by George Sand and Liszt, a
+feeble youth, continually living at death's door in an atmosphere of
+moonshine and sentimentality. But there can be no question that the
+whole bent of Chopin's temperament and genius was melancholy, romantic,
+and poetic, and that frequently he gives us mere musical moods and
+reveries, instead of well-defined and well-developed ideas. His music
+perhaps loses nothing, for, if it misses something of the clear,
+inspiring, vigorous quality of other great composers, it has a subtile,
+dreamy, suggestive beauty all its own.
+
+The personal life of Chopin was singularly interesting. His long and
+intimate connection with George Sand; the circumstances under which it
+was formed; the blissful idyl of the lovers in the isle of Majorca; the
+awakening from the dream, and the separation--these and other striking
+circumstances growing out of a close association with what was best in
+Parisian art and life, invest the career of the man, aside from his art,
+with more than common charm to the mind of the reader. Having touched
+on these phases of Chopin's life at some length in a previous volume of
+this series, we must reluctantly pass them by.
+
+In closing this imperfect review of the Polish composer, it is enough to
+say that the present generation has more than sustained the judgment
+of his own as to the unique and wonderful beauty of his compositions.
+Hardly any concert programme is considered complete without one or more
+numbers selected from his works; and though there are but few pianists,
+even in a day when Chopin as a stylist has been a study, who can do
+his subtile and wonderful fancies justice, there is no composer for the
+piano-forte who so fascinates the musical mind.
+
+
+
+
+THALBERG AND GOTTSCHALK.
+
+
+Thalberg one of the Greatest of Executants.--Bather a Man of Remarkable
+Talents than of Genius.--Moscheles's Description of him.--The
+Illegitimate Son of an Austrian Prince.--Early Introduction to
+Musical Society in London and Vienna.--Beginning of his Career as a
+Virtuoso.--The Brilliancy of his Career.--Is appointed Court Pianist to
+the Emperor of Austria.--His Marriage.--Visits to America.--Thalborg's
+Artistic Idiosyncrasy.--Robert Schumann on his Playing.--His Appearance
+and Manner.--Characterization by George William Curtis.--Thalberg's
+Style and Worth as an Artist.--His Pianoforte Method, and Place as a
+Composer for the Piano.--Gott-schalk's Birth and Early Years.--He is
+sent to Paris for Instruction.--Successful _Debut_ and Public
+Concerts in Paris and Tour through the French Cities.--Friendship with
+Berlioz.--Concert Tour to Spain.--Romantic Experiences.--Berlioz on
+Gottschalk.--Reception of Gottschalk in America.--Criticism of his
+Style.--Remarkable Success of his Concerts.--His Visit to the West
+Indies, Mexico, and Central America.--Protracted Absence.--Gottschalk
+on Life in the Tropics.--Return to the United States.--Three Brilliant
+Musical Years.--Departure for South America.--Triumphant Procession
+through the Spanish-American Cities.--Death at Rio Janeiro.--Notes on
+Gottschalk as Man and Artist.
+
+
+I.
+
+One of the most remarkable of the great piano-forte virtuosos was
+unquestionably Sigismond Thalberg, an artist who made a profound
+sensation in two hemispheres, and filled a large space in the musical
+world for more than forty-five years. Originally a disciple of the
+Viennese school of piano-forte playing, a pupil of Mosche-les, and a
+rigid believer in making the instrument which was the medium of his
+talent sufficient unto itself, wholly indifferent to the daring and
+boundless ambition which made his great rival, Franz Liszt, pile Pelion
+on Ossa in his grasp after new effects, Thalberg developed virtuoso-ism
+to its extreme degree by a mechanical dexterity which was perhaps
+unrivaled. But the fingers can not express more than rests in the heart
+and brain to give to their skill, and Thalberg, with all his immense
+talent, seems to have lacked the divine spark of genius. It goes without
+saying, to those who are familiar with the current cant of criticism,
+that the word genius is often applied in a very loose and misleading
+manner. But, in all estimates of art and artists, where there are two
+clearly defined factors, imagination or formative power and technical
+dexterity, it would seem that there should not be any error in deciding
+on the propriety of such a word as a measure of the quality of an
+artist's gifts. The lack of the creative impulse could not be mistaken
+in Thalberg's work, whether as player or composer. But the ability to
+execute all that came within the scope of his sympathies or intelligence
+was so prodigious that the world was easily dazzled into forgetting
+his deficiencies in the loftier regions of art. Trifles are often very
+significant. What, for example, could more vividly portray an artist's
+tendencies than the description of Thalberg by Moscheles, who knew him
+more thoroughly than any other contemporary, and felt a keener sympathy
+with his _genre_ as an artist than with the more striking originality of
+Chopin and Liszt. Moscheles writes:
+
+"I find his introduction of harp effects on the piano quite original.
+His theme, which lies in the middle part, is brought out clearly in
+relief with an accompaniment of complicated arpeggios which reminds me
+of a harp. The audience is amazed. He himself sits immovably calm;
+his whole bearing as he sits at the piano is soldierlike; his lips are
+tightly compressed and his coat buttoned closely. He told me he acquired
+this attitude of self-control by smoking a Turkish pipe while practicing
+his piano-forte exercises: the length of the tube was so calculated as
+to keep him erect and motionless." This exact discipline and mechanism
+were not merely matters of technical culture; they were the logical
+outcome of the man and surely a part of himself. But within his limits,
+fixed as these were, Thalberg was so great that he must be conceded to
+be one of the most striking and brilliant figures of an age fecund in
+fine artists.
+
+Thalberg was born at Geneva, January 7,1812, and was the natural son of
+Prince Dietrichstein, an Austrian nobleman, temporarily resident in that
+city. His talent for music, inherited from both sides, for his mother
+was an artist and his father an amateur of no inconsiderable skill,
+became obvious at a very tender age, following the law which so
+generally holds in music that superior gifts display themselves at an
+early period. These indications of nature were not ignored, for the boy
+was placed under instruction before he had completed his sixth year. It
+is a little singular that his first teacher was not a pianist, though a
+very superior musician. Mittag was one of the first bassoonists of
+his times, and, in addition to his technical skill, a thoroughly
+accomplished man in the science of his profession. Thalberg was
+accustomed to attribute the wonderfully rich and mellow tone which
+characterized his playing to the influence and training of Mittag. From
+this instructor the future great pianist passed to the charge of the
+distinguished Hummel, who was not only one of the greatest virtuosos of
+the age, but ranked by his admirers as only a little less than Beethoven
+himself in his genius for pianoforte compositions, though succeeding
+generations have discredited his former fame by estimating him merely
+a "dull classic." Contemporaneously with his pupilage under Hummel,
+he studied the theory of music with Simon Sechter, an eminent
+contrapuntist. Even at this early age, for Thalberg must have been
+less than ten years old, he impressed all by the great precision of
+his fingering and the instinctive ease with which he mastered the most
+difficult mechanism of the art of playing. At the age of fourteen young
+Thalberg went to London in the household of his father, who had been
+appointed imperial ambassador to England, and the youth was then placed
+under the instruction of the great pianist Moscheles. The latter speaks
+of Thalberg as the most distinguished of his pupils, and as being, even
+at that age, already an artist of distinction and mark. It was a source
+of much pleasure to Moscheles that his brilliant scholar, who played
+much at private soirees, was not only recognized by the _dilletante_
+public generally, but by such veteran artists as Clementi and Cramer.
+Moscheles, in his diary, speaks of the wonderful brilliancy of a grand
+fancy dress ball given by Thalberg's princely father at Covent Garden
+Theatre. Pit, stalls, and proscenium were formed into one grand room,
+in which the crowd promenaded. The costumes were of every conceivable
+variety, and many of the most gorgeous description. The spectators, in
+full dress, sat in the boxes; on the stage was a court box, occupied by
+the royal family; and bands played in rooms adjoining for small parties
+of dancers. "You will have some idea," wrote Mme. Moscheles, in a
+letter, "of the crowd at this ball, when I tell you that we left the
+ballroom at two o'clock and did not get to the prince's carriage till
+four." One of the interesting features of this ball was that the
+boy Thalberg played in one of the smaller rooms before the most
+distinguished people present, including the royal family, all crowding
+in to hear the youthful virtuoso, whose tacit recognition by his father
+had already opened to him the most brilliant drawing-rooms in London.
+
+Thalberg did not immediately begin to perform in public, but, on
+returning to Vienna in 1827, played continually at private soirees,
+where he had the advantage of being heard and criticised by the foremost
+amateurs and musicians of the Austrian capital. It had some time since
+become obvious to the initiated that another great player was about to
+be launched on his career. The following year the young artist tried his
+hand at composition, for he published variations on themes from Weber's
+"Euryanthe," which were well received. Thalberg in after-years spoke of
+all his youthful productions with disdain, but his early works displayed
+not a little of the brilliant style of treatment which subsequently gave
+his fantasias a special place among compositions for the piano-forte.
+
+It was not till 1830 that young Thalberg fairly began his career as
+a traveling player. The cities of Germany received him with the most
+_eclatant_ admiration, and his feats of skill as a performer were
+trumpeted by the newspapers and musical journals as something
+unprecedented in the art of pianism. From Germany Thalberg proceeded to
+France and England, and his audiences were no less pronounced in their
+recognition. Liszt had already been before him in Paris, and Chopin
+arrived about the same time. Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller, and
+Field were playing, but the splendid, calm beauty of Thalberg's style
+instantly captivated the public, and elicited the most extravagant
+and delighted applause not only from the public, but from enlightened
+connoisseurs.
+
+To follow the course of Thalberg's pianoforte achievements in his
+musical travels through Europe would be merely to repeat a record of
+uninterrupted successes. He disarmed envy and criticism everywhere, and
+even those disposed to withhold a frank and generous acknowledgment of
+his greatness did not dare to question powers of execution which
+seemed without a technical flaw. During his travels Thalberg composed
+a concerto for piano and orchestra, to play at his concerts. But this
+species of composition was so obviously unsuited to his abilities that
+he quickly forsook it, and thenceforward devoted his efforts exclusively
+to the instrument of which he was such an eminent master. A more
+extensive ambition had been rebuked in more ways than one. He composed
+two operas, "Fiorinda" and "Christine," and of course easily yielded to
+the entreaties of his admirers to have them produced. But it was clearly
+evident that his musical idiosyncrasy, though magnificent of its kind,
+was limited in range, and after the failure of his operas and attempts
+at orchestral writing Thalberg calmly accepted the situation.
+
+In the year 1834 Thalberg was appointed pianist of the Imperial Chamber
+to the court of Austria, and accompanied the Emperor Ferdinand to
+Toplitz, where a convocation of the European sovereigns took place. His
+performances were warmly received by the assembled monarchs, and he was
+overwhelmed with presents and congratulations. Thalberg's way throughout
+the whole of his life was strewn with roses, and, though his career did
+not present the same romantic incidents which make the life of Franz
+Liszt so picturesque, it was attended by the same lavish favors of
+fortune. From one patron he received the gift of a fine estate, from
+another a magnificent city mansion in Vienna, and testimonials, like
+snuff-boxes set with diamonds, jeweled court-swords, superbly set
+portraits of his royal and imperial patrons, and costly jewelry, poured
+in on him continually. Imperial orders from Austria and Russia were
+bestowed on him, and hardly any mark of favor was denied him by that
+good fortune which had been auspicious to him from his very birth. In
+1845, while still in the service of the Austrian emperor, though he did
+not intermit his musical tours through the principal European cities,
+Thalberg married the charming widow, whom he had known and admired
+before her marriage, the daughter of the great singer Lablache, Mme.
+Bouchot, whose first husband had been the distinguished French painter
+of that name. The marriage was a happy one, though scandal, which loves
+to busy itself about the affairs of musical celebrities, did not fail
+to associate Thalberg's name with several of the most beautiful women of
+his time. Mile. Thalberg, a daughter of this marriage, made her _debut_
+with considerable success in London, in 1874.
+
+Thalberg's first visit to America was in 1853, and he came again in
+1857, to more than repeat the enthusiastic reception with which he was
+greeted by music-loving Americans. Musical culture at that time had not
+attained the refinement and knowledge which now make an audience in
+one of our greater cities as fastidious and intelligent as can be found
+anywhere in the world. But Thalberg's wonderful playing, though lacking
+in the fire, glow, and impetuosity which would naturally most arouse the
+less cultivated musical sense, created a _furore_, which has never been
+matched since, among those who specially prided themselves on being good
+judges. He extended both tours to Cuba, Mexico, and South America, and
+it is said took away with him larger gains than he had ever made during
+the same period in Europe.
+
+During the latter years of Thalberg's life he spent much of his time
+in elegant ease at his fine country estate near Naples, only giving
+concerts at some few of the largest European capitals, like London and
+Paris. He became an enthusiastic wine-grower, and wine from his estate
+gained a medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1867. Many of his best
+piano-forte compositions date from the period when he had given up the
+active pursuit of virtuosoism. His works comprise a concerto, three
+sonatas, many nocturnes, rondos, and etudes, about thirty fantasias, two
+operas, and an instruction series, which latter has been adopted by many
+of the best teachers, and has been the means of forming a number of able
+pupils. This fine artist died at his Neapolitan estate, April 27, 1871.
+
+
+II.
+
+Thalberg had but little sympathy with the dreamy romanticism which
+found such splendid exponents, while he was yet in his early youth,
+in Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt. Imagination in its higher functions he
+seemed to lack. A certain opulence and picturesqueness of fancy united
+in his artistic being with an intelligence both lucid and penetrating,
+and a sense of form and symmetry almost Greek in its fastidiousness. The
+sweet, vague, passionate aspiration^, the sensibility that quivers
+with every breath of movement from the external world, he could not
+understand. Placidity, grace, and repose he had in perfection. Yet he
+was very highly appreciated by those who had little in common with his
+artistic nature. As, for example, Robert Schumann writes of Thalberg and
+his playing, on the occasion of a charity concert, given in Leipzig in
+1841: "In his passing flight the master's pinions rested here awhile,
+and, as from the angel's pinions in one of Rucker's poems, rubies and
+other precious stones fell from them and into indigent hands, as the
+master ordained it. It is difficult to say anything new of one who has
+been so praise beshow-ered as he has. But every earnest virtuoso is glad
+to hear one thing said at any time--that he has progressed in his
+art since he last delighted us. This best of all praise we are
+conscientiously able to bestow on Thalberg; for, during the last two
+years that we have not heard him, he has made astonishing additions to
+his acquirements, and, if possible, moves with greater boldness, grace,
+and freedom than ever. His playing seemed to have the same effect on
+every one, and the delight that he probably feels in it himself was
+shared by all. True virtuosity gives us something more than mere
+flexibility and execution: aman may mirror his own nature in it, and in
+Thalberg's playing it becomes clear to all that he is one of the favored
+ones of fortune, one accustomed to wealth and elegance. Accompanied
+by happiness, bestowing pleasure, he commenced his career; under such
+circumstances he has so far pursued it, and so he will probably continue
+it. The whole of yesterday evening and every number that he played gave
+us a proof of this. The public did not seem to be there to judge, but
+only to enjoy; they were as certain of enjoyment as the master was of
+his art."
+
+Thalberg in his appearance had none of the traditional wild
+picturesqueness of style and manner which so many distinguished artists,
+even Liszt himself, have thought it worth while to carry perhaps to
+the degree of affectation. Smoothly shaven, quiet, eminently
+respectable-looking, his handsome, somewhat Jewish-looking face composed
+in an expression of unostentatious good breeding, he was wont to
+seat himself at the piano with all the simplicity of one doing any
+commonplace thing. He had the air of one who respected himself, his art,
+and the public. His performance was in an exquisitely artistic sense
+that of the gentleman, perfect, polished, and elaborately wrought. The
+distinguished American litterateur, Mr. George William Curtis, who heard
+him in New York in 1857, thus wrote of him: "He is a proper artist in
+this, that he comprehends the character of his instrument. He neither
+treats it as a violoncello nor a full orchestra. Those who in private
+have enjoyed the pleasure of hearing--or, to use a more accurate
+epithet, of seeing--Strepitoso, that friend of mankind, play the piano,
+will understand what we mean when we speak of treating the piano as if
+it were an orchestra. Strepitoso storms and slams along the keyboard
+until the tortured instrument gives up its musical soul in despair
+and breaks its heart of melody by cracking all its strings.... Every
+instrument has its limitations, but Strepitoso will tolerate no such
+theory. He extracts music from his piano, not as if he were sifting the
+sands for gold, but as if he were raking oysters.... Now, Thalberg's
+manner is different from Strepitoso's. He plays the piano; that is the
+phrase which describes his performance. He plays it quietly and suavely.
+You could sit upon the lawn on a June night and hear with delight
+the sounds that trickled through the moonlight from the piano of this
+master. They would not melt your soul in you; they would not touch those
+longings that, like rays of starry light, respond to the rays of the
+stars; they would not storm your heart with the yearning passion
+of their strains, but you would confess it was a good world as you
+listened, and be glad you lived in it--you would be glad of your home
+and all that made it homelike; the moonlight as you listened would melt
+and change, and your smiling eyes would seem to glitter in cheerful
+sunlight as Thalberg ended."
+
+Thalberg's style was, perhaps, the best possible illustration of the
+legitimate effects of the pianoforte carried to the highest by as
+perfect a technique as could possibly be attained by human skill.
+
+That he lacked poetic fire and passion, that the sense of artistic
+restraint and a refined fastidiousness chilled and fettered him, is
+doubtlessly true. Whether the absence of the imaginative warmth and
+vigor which suffuse a work of art with the glow of something that can
+not be fully expressed, and kindle the thoughts of the hearer to take
+hitherto unknown flights, is fully compensated for by that repose and
+symmetry of style which know exactly what it wishes to express, and,
+being perfect master of the means of expression, puts forth an exact
+measure of effort and then stops as if shut down by an iron wall--this
+is an open question, and must be answered according to one's art
+theories. The exquisite modeling of a Benvenuto Cellini vase, wrought
+with patient elaboration into a thing of unsurpassable beauty, does not
+invoke as high a sense of pleasure as an heroic statue or noble painting
+by some great master, but of its kind the pleasure is just as complete.
+Apart from Thalberg's power as a player, however, there was something
+captivating in the quality of his talent, which, though not creative,
+was gifted with the power of seizing the very essence of the music to
+be interpreted. A striking example of this is shown in the fantasias he
+composed on the different operas, a form of writing which reached its
+perfection in him. His own contribution is simply a most delightful
+setting of the melodies of his subject, and the whole is steeped in the
+very atmosphere and feeling of the original, as if the master himself
+had done the work.
+
+A good example is the fantasia on Mozart's "Don Giovanni." The little,
+wild, unformed melodies rustle in quick gusts along the keys as if
+wavering shadows, yet with all the familiar rhythm and family likeness,
+filling the mind of the hearer with the atmosphere and necessity of what
+is to follow, while gradually the full harmonies unfold themselves. The
+introduction of the minuet is one of the most striking portions. The
+scene of the minuet in the opera is a vision of rural loveliness and
+repose, whispering of flowers, fields, and happy flying hours. All this
+becomes poetized, and the music seems to imply rich reaches of odorous
+garden and moonlight, whispering foliage, and nightingales mad with the
+delight of their own singing, and a palace on the lawn sounding with
+riotous mirth. The player-composer weaves the glamour of such a dream,
+and the hearer finds himself strolling in imagination through the
+moonlit garden, listening to the birds, the waters, and the rustling
+leaves, while the stately beat of the minuet comes throbbing through
+it all, calling up the vision of gayly dressed cavaliers and beautiful
+ladies fantastically moving to the tune. Such poetic sentiment as
+this of the purely picturesque sort was in large measure Thalberg's
+possession, but he could never understand that turbulent ground-swell of
+passion which music can also powerfully express, and by which the
+soul is lifted up to the heights of ecstasy or plunged in depths of
+melancholy. Music as a vehicle for such meanings was mere Egyptian
+hieroglyphic, utterly beyond his limitation, absolute bathos and
+absurdity.
+
+It is doubtful whether any player ever possessed a more wonderfully
+trained mechanism; the smallest details were polished and finished with
+the utmost care, the scales marvels of evenness, the shakes rivaling the
+trill of a canary bird. His arpeggios at times rolled like the waves
+of the sea, and at others resembled folds of transparent lace floating
+airily with the movements of the wearer. The octaves were wonderfully
+accurate, and the chords appeared to be struck by steel mallets instead
+of fingers. He was called the Bayard of pianists, "le Chevalier sans
+peur et sans reproche." His tone was noble, yet mellow and delicate, and
+the gradations between his forte and piano were traced most exquisitely.
+In a word, technical execution could go no further. It is said that
+he never played a piece in public till he had absolutely made it the
+property of his fingers. He was the first to divide the melody between
+the two hands, making the right hand perform a brilliant figure in the
+higher register, while the left hand exhibited a full and rich bass
+part, supplementing it with an accompaniment in chords. It was this
+characteristic which made his fantasias so unique and interesting, in
+spite of their lack of originality of motive, as compositions. Almost
+all writers for the piano have since adopted this device, even the great
+Mendelssohn using it in some of his concertos and "Songs without Words";
+and in many cases it has been transformed into a mere trick of arrant
+musical charlatanism, designed to cover up with a sham glitter the utter
+absence of thought and motive. No better suggestion of the dominant
+characteristic of Thal-berg as a pianist can be found than a critical
+word of his friend Moscheles: "The proper ground for finger gymnastics
+is to be found in Thalberg's latest compositions; for mind [Geist], give
+me Schumann."
+
+
+III.
+
+During Thalberg's first visit to America he had an active and dangerous
+rival in the young and brilliant pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk,
+who was as fresh to New York audiences as Thalberg himself, though the
+latter had the advantage over his young competitor in a fame which
+was almost world-wide. Of American pianists Louis Gottschalk stands
+confessedly at the head by virtue of remarkable native gifts, which, had
+they been assisted by greater industry and ambition, might easily have
+won him a very eminent rank in Europe as well as in his own country. An
+easy, pleasure-loving, tropical nature, flexible, facile, and disposed
+to sacrifice the future to the present, was the only obstacle to the
+attainment to a place level with the foremost artists of his age.
+
+Edward Gottschalk, who came to America in his young manhood and settled
+in New Orleans, and his wife, a French Creole lady, had five children,
+of whom the future pianist was the eldest, born in 1829. His feeling for
+music manifested itself when he was three years old by his ability to
+play a melody on the piano which he had heard. Instantly he was strong
+enough, he was placed under the instruction of a good teacher, and no
+pains were spared to develop his precocious talent. At the age of six he
+had made such progress on the piano that he was also instructed on
+the violin, and soon was able to play pieces of more than ordinary
+difficulty with taste and expression. We are told that the lad gave
+a benefit concert at the age of eight to assist an unfortunate
+violin-player, with considerable success, and was soon in great request
+at evening parties as a child phenomenon. The propriety of sending
+the little Louis to Paris had long been discussed, and it was finally
+accomplished in 1842.
+
+On reaching Paris he was first put under the teaching of Charles Halle,
+but, as the latter master was a little careless, he was replaced by M.
+Camille Stamaty, who had the reputation of being the ablest professor
+in the city. The following year he began the study of harmony and
+counterpoint with M. Malidan, and the rapid progress he evinced in his
+studies was of a kind to justify his parents in their wish to devote him
+to the career of a pianist.
+
+Young Louis Gottschalk was much petted in the aristocratic salons of
+Paris, to which he had admission through his aunts, the Comtesse de
+Lagrange and the Comtesse de Bourjally. His remarkable musical gifts,
+and more especially his talent for improvisation, excited curiosity and
+admiration, even in a city where the love of musical novelty had been
+sated by a continual supply of art prodigies. Young as he was, he wrote
+at this time not a few charming compositions, which were in after-years
+occasional features of his concerts. His delicate constitution succumbed
+under hard work, and for a while a severe attack of typhoid fever
+interrupted his studies. On his recovery, our young artist spent a few
+months in the Ardennes. On returning to Paris, he became the pupil of
+Hector Berlioz, who felt a deep interest in the young American, as an
+art prodigy from a land of savages in harmony, and devoted himself so
+assiduously to the study that he declined an invitation from the Spanish
+queen to become a guest of the court at Madrid.
+
+An amusing incident occurred in a pedestrian trip which he made to the
+Vosges in 1846. He had forgotten his passport, and, on arriving at a
+small town, was arrested by a gendarme and taken before the maire. The
+latter official was reading a newspaper containing a notice of his last
+concert, and through this means he assured the worthy functionary of his
+identity, and was cordially welcomed to the hospitality of the official
+residence.
+
+His friend Berlioz, who was ever on the alert to help the American pupil
+who promised to do him so much credit, arranged a series of concerts
+for him at the Italian Opera in the winter of 1846-'47, and these proved
+brilliantly successful, not merely in filling the young artist's purse,
+but in augmenting his fast-growing reputation. Steady labor in study and
+concert-giving, many of his public performances being for charity, made
+two years pass swiftly by. A musical tour through France in 1849 was
+highly successful, and the young American returned to Paris, loaded
+down with gifts, and rich in the sense of having justly earned the
+congratulations which showered on him from all his friends. A second
+invitation now came from Spain, and Louis Gottschalk on arriving at
+Madrid was made a guest at the royal palace. From the king he received
+two orders, the diamond cross of Isabella la Catholique and that of
+Leon d'Holstein, and from the Duke de Montpensier he received a sword of
+honor. We are told that at one of the private court concerts Gottschalk
+played a duet with Don Carlos, the father of the recent pretender to the
+Spanish throne.
+
+Among the romantic incidents narrated of this visit of Gottschalk to
+Madrid, one is too characteristic to be overlooked, as showing the
+tender, generous nature of the artist. An imaginative Spanish girl,
+whose fancy had been excited by the public enthusiasm about Gottschalk,
+but was too ill to attend his concerts, had a passionate desire to hear
+him play, and pined away in the fret-fulness of ungratified desire. Her
+family were not able to pay Gottschalk for the trouble of giving such an
+exclusive concert, but, to satisfy the sick girl, made the circumstances
+known to the artist. Gottschalk did not hesitate a moment, but ordered
+his piano to be conveyed to the humble abode of the patient. Here by her
+bedside he played for hours to the enraptured girl, and the strain of
+emotion was so great that her life ebbed away before he had finished the
+final chords. Gottschalk remained in Spain for two years, and it was not
+till the autumn of 1852 that he returned to Paris, to give a series of
+farewell concerts before returning again to America, where his father
+and brothers were anxiously awaiting him.
+
+
+IV.
+
+Before Gottschalk's departure from Paris, Hector Berlioz thus wrote of
+his _protege_, for whom we may fancy he had a strong bias of liking; and
+no judge is so generous in estimation as one artist of another, unless
+the critic has personal cause of dislike, and then no judge is so
+sweepingly unjust: "Gottschalk is one of the very small number who
+possess all the different elements of a consummate pianist, all the
+faculties which surround him with an irresistible prestige, and give him
+a sovereign power. He is an accomplished musician; he knows just how far
+fancy may be indulged in expression. He knows the limits beyond which
+any freedom taken with the rhythm produces only confusion and disorder,
+and upon these limits he never encroaches. There is an exquisite grace
+in his manner of phrasing sweet melodies and throwing off light touches
+from the higher keys. The boldness, brilliancy, and originality of his
+play at once dazzle and astonish, and the infantile _naivete_ of his
+smiling caprices, the charming simplicity with which he renders simple
+things, seem to belong to another individuality, distinct from that
+which marks his thundering energy. Thus the success of M. Gottschalk
+before an audience of musical cultivation is immense."
+
+But even this enthusiastic praise was pale in comparison with the
+eulogiums of some of the New York journals, after the first concert of
+Gottschalk at Niblo's Garden Theatre. One newspaper, which arrogated
+special strength and good judgment in its critical departments,
+intimated that after such a revelation it was useless any longer to
+speak of Beethoven! Whether Beethoven as a player or Beethoven as a
+composer was meant was left unknown. Gottschalk at his earlier concerts
+played many of his own compositions, made to order for the display
+of his virtuosoism, and their brilliant, showy style was very well
+calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of the general public. Perhaps the
+most sound and thoughtful opinion of Gottschalk expressed during the
+first enthusiasm created by his playing was that of a well-known musical
+journal published in Boston:
+
+"Well, at the concert, which, by the way, did not half fill the Boston
+Music Hall, owing partly, we believe, to the one-dollar price, and
+partly, we _hope_, to distrust of an artist who plays wholly his own
+compositions, our expectation was confirmed. There was, indeed, most
+brilliant execution; we have heard none more brilliant, but are not yet
+prepared to say that Jaell's was less so. Gottschalk's touch is the most
+clear and crisp and beautiful that we have ever known. His play is
+free and bold and sure, and graceful in the extreme; his runs pure and
+liquid; his figures always clean and perfectly denned; his command of
+rapid octave passages prodigious; and so we might go through with all
+the technical points of masterly execution. It _was_ great execution.
+But what is execution, without some thought and meaning in the
+combinations to be executed?... Skillful, graceful, brilliant,
+wonderful, we own his playing was. But players less wonderful have given
+us far deeper satisfaction. We have seen a criticism upon that concert,
+in which it was regretted that his music was too fine for common
+apprehension, 'too much addressed to the _reasoning_ faculties,' etc.
+To us the want was, that it did _not_ address the reason; that it seemed
+empty of ideas, of inspiration; that it spake little to the mind or
+heart, excited neither meditation nor emotion, but simply dazzled by the
+display of difficult feats gracefully and easily achieved. But of
+what use were all these difficulties? ('Difficult! I wish it was
+_impossible_,' said Dr. Johnson.) Why all that rapid tossing of handfuls
+of chords from the middle to the highest octaves, lifting the hand with
+such conscious appeal to our eyes? To what end all those rapid octave
+passages? since in the intervals of easy execution, in the seemingly
+quiet impromptu passages, the music grew so monotonous and commonplace:
+the same little figure repeated and repeated, after listless pauses, in
+a way which conveyed no meaning, no sense of musical progress, but only
+the appearance of fastidiously critical scale-practicing."
+
+In the series of concerts given by Gottschalk throughout the United
+States, the public generally showed great enthusiasm and admiration,
+and the young pianist sustained himself very successfully against the
+memories of Jaell, Henri Herz, and Leopold de Meyer, as well as the
+immediate rivalry of Thalberg, who appealed more potently to a select
+few. The hold the American pianist had secured on his public did not
+lessen during the five years of concert-giving which succeeded. No
+player ever displayed his skill before American audiences who had in so
+large degree that peculiar quality of geniality in his style which so
+endears him to the public. This characteristic is something apart from
+genius or technical skill, and is peculiarly an emanation from the
+personality of the man.
+
+In the spring of 1837 Gottschalk found himself in Havana, whither he had
+gone to make the beginning of a musical tour through the West Indies.
+His first concert was given at the Tacon Theatre, which Mr. Maretzek,
+who was giving operatic representations then in Havana, yielded to
+him for the occasion. The Cubans gave the pianist a tropical warmth of
+welcome, and Gott-schalk's letters from the old Spanish city are full
+of admiration for the climate, the life, and the people, with whom there
+was something strongly sympathetic in his own nature. The artist had not
+designed to protract his musical wanderings in the beautiful island of
+the Antilles for any considerable period, but his success was great,
+and the new experiences admirably suited his dreaming, sensuous,
+pleasure-loving temperament. Everywhere the advent of Gottschalk at
+a town was made the occasion of a festival, and life seemed to be one
+continued gala-day with him.
+
+
+V.
+
+In the early months of 1860 the young pianist, Arthur Napoleon, joined
+Gottschalk at Havana, and the two gave concerts throughout the West
+Indies, which were highly successful. The early summer had been designed
+for a tour through Central America and Venezuela, but a severe attack of
+illness prostrated Gottschalk, and he was not able to sail before August
+for his new field of musical conquest. Our artist did not return to New
+York till 1862, after an absence of five years, though his original plan
+had only contemplated a tour of two years. It must not be supposed that
+Gottschalk devoted his time continually to concert performances and
+composition, though he by no means neglected the requirements of
+musical labor. As he himself confesses, the balmy climate, the glorious
+landscapes, the languid _dolce far niente_, which tended to enervate
+all that came under their magic spell, wrought on his susceptible
+temperament with peculiar effect. A quotation from an article written by
+Gottschalk, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly," entitled "Notes of
+a Pianist," will furnish the reader a graphic idea of the influence
+of tropical life on such an imaginative and voluptuous character,
+passionately fond of nature and outdoor life: "Thus, in succession, I
+have visited all the Antilles--Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Swedish,
+and Danish; the Guianas, and the coasts of Para. At times, having become
+the idol of some obscure _pueblo_, whose untutored ears I had charmed
+with its own simple ballads, I would pitch my tent for five, six, eight
+months, deferring my departure from day to day, until finally I began
+seriously to entertain the idea of remaining there for evermore.
+Abandoning myself to such influences, I lived without care, as the bird
+sings, as the flower expands, as the brook flows, oblivious of the past,
+reckless of the future, and sowed both my heart and my purse with the
+ardor of a husbandman who hopes to reap a hundred ears for every grain
+he confides to the earth. But, alas! the fields where is garnered the
+harvest of expended doubloons, and where vernal loves bloom anew, are
+yet to be discovered; and the result of my prodigality was that, one
+fine morning, I found myself a bankrupt in heart, with my purse
+at ebb-tide. Suddenly disgusted with the world and myself, weary,
+discouraged, mistrusting men (ay, and women too), I fled to a desert on
+the extinct volcano of M------, where, for several months, I lived the
+life of a cenobite, with no companion but a poor lunatic whom I had met
+on a small island, and who had attached himself to me. He followed me
+everywhere, and loved me with that absurd and touching constancy of
+which dogs and madmen alone are capable. My friend, whose insanity was
+of a mild and harmless character, fancied himself the greatest genius in
+the world. He was, moreover, under the impression that he suffered from
+a gigantic, monstrous tooth. Of the two idiosyncrasies, the latter alone
+made his lunacy discernible, too many individuals being affected with
+the other symptom to render it an anomalous feature of the human mind.
+My friend was in the habit of protesting that this enormous tooth
+increased periodically, and threatened to encroach upon his entire jaw.
+Tormented, at the same time, with the desire of regenerating humanity,
+he divided his leisure between the study of dentistry, to which he
+applied himself in order to impede the progress of his hypothetical
+tyrant, and a voluminous correspondence which he kept up with the Pope,
+his brother, and the Emperor of the French, his cousin. In the latter
+occupation he pleaded the interests of humanity, styled himself 'the
+Prince of Thought,' and exalted me to the dignity of his illustrious
+friend and benefactor. In the midst of the wreck of his intellect, one
+thing still survived--his love of music. He played the violin; and,
+strange as it may appear, although insane, he could not understand the
+so-called _music of the future_.
+
+"My hut, perched on the verge of the crater, at the very summit of the
+mountain, commanded a view of all the surrounding country. The rock
+upon which it was built projected over a precipice whose abysses were
+concealed by creeping plants, cactus, and bamboos. The species
+of table-rock thus formed had been encircled with a railing, and
+transformed into a terrace on a level with the sleeping-room, by my
+predecessor in this hermitage. His last wish had been to be buried
+there; and from my bed I could see his white tombstone gleaming in the
+moonlight a few steps from my window. Every evening I rolled my piano
+out upon the terrace; and there, facing the most incomparably beautiful
+landscape, all bathed in the soft and limpid atmosphere of the tropics,
+I poured forth on the instrument, and for myself alone, the thoughts
+with which the scene inspired me. And what a scene! Picture to yourself
+a gigantic amphitheatre hewn out of the mountains by an army of Titans;
+right and left, immense virgin forests full of those subdued and distant
+harmonies which are, as it were, the voices of Silence; before me,
+a prospect of twenty leagues marvelously enhanced by the extreme
+transparency of the air; above, the azure of the sky: beneath, the
+creviced sides of the mountain sweeping down to the plain; afar, the
+waving savannas; beyond them, a grayish speck (the distant city); and,
+encompassing them all, the immensity of the ocean closing the horizon
+with its deep-blue line. Behind me was a rock on which a torrent of
+melted snow dashed its white foam, and there, diverted from its course,
+rushed with a mad leap and plunged headlong into the gulf that yawned
+beneath my window.
+
+"Amid such scenes I composed 'Reponds-moi la Marche des Gibaros,'
+'Polonia,' 'Columbia,' 'Pastorella e Cavaliere,' 'Jeunesse,' and many
+other unpublished works. I allowed my fingers to run over the keys,
+wrapped up in the contemplation of these wonders; while my poor friend,
+whom I heeded but little, revealed to me with a childish loquacity the
+lofty destiny he held in reserve for humanity. Can you conceive the
+contrast produced by this shattered intellect expressing at random its
+disjointed thoughts, as a disordered clock strikes by chance any
+hour, and the majestic serenity of the scene around me? I felt it
+instinctively. My misanthropy gave way. I became indulgent toward myself
+and mankind, and the wounds of my heart closed once more. My despair was
+soothed; and soon the sun of the tropics, which tinges all things with
+gold--dreams as well as fruits--restored me with new confidence and
+vigor to my wanderings.
+
+"I relapsed into the manners and life of these primitive countries:
+if not strictly virtuous, they are at all events terribly attractive.
+Existence in a tropical wilderness, in the midst of a voluptuous and
+half-civilized race, bears no resemblance to that of a London cockney, a
+Parisian lounger, or an American Quaker. Times there were, indeed, when
+a voice was heard within me that spoke of nobler aims. It reminded me
+of what I once was, of what I yet might be; and commanded imperatively a
+return to a healthier and more active life. But I had allowed myself to
+be enervated by this baneful languor, this insidious _far niente_; and
+my moral torpor was such that the mere thought of reappearing before
+a polished audience struck me as superlatively absurd. 'Where was the
+object?' I would ask myself. Moreover, it was too late; and I went on
+dreaming with open eyes, careering on horseback through the savannas,
+listening at break of day to the prattle of the parrots in the
+guava-trees, at nightfall to the chirp of the _grillos_ in the
+cane-fields, or else smoking my cigar, taking my coffee, rocking myself
+in a hammock--in short, enjoying all the delights that are the very
+heart-blood of a _guajiro_, and out of the sphere of which he can see
+but death, or, what is worse to him, the feverish agitation of our
+Northern society. Go and talk of the funds, of the landed interest, of
+stock-jobbing, to this Sybarite lord of the wilderness, who can live all
+the year round on luscious bananas and delicious cocoa-nuts which he
+is not even at the trouble of planting; who has the best tobacco in
+the world to smoke; who replaces today the horse he had yesterday by a
+better one, chosen from the first _calallada_ he meets; who requires no
+further protection from the cold than a pair of linen trousers, in that
+favored clime where the seasons roll on in one perennial summer; who,
+more than all this, finds at eve, under the rustling palm-trees, pensive
+beauties, eager to reward with their smiles the one who murmurs in their
+ears those three words, ever new, ever beautiful, 'Yo te quiero.'"
+
+
+VI.
+
+Mr. Gottschalk's return to America in February, 1862, was celebrated by
+a concert in Irving Hall, on the anniversary of his _debut_ in New York.
+This was the beginning of another brilliant musical series, in pursuance
+of which he appeared in every prominent city of the country. While
+many found fault with Gottschalk for descending to pure "claptrap" and
+bravura playing, for using his great powers to merely superficial and
+unworthy ends, he seemed to retain as great a hold as ever over the
+masses of concert-goers. Gottschalk himself, with his epicurean,
+easy-going nature, laughed at the lectures read him by the critics and
+connoisseurs, who would have him follow out ideals for which he had no
+taste. It was like asking the butterfly to live the life of the bee.
+Great as were the gifts of the artist, it was not to be expected that
+these would be pursued in lines not consistent with the limitations
+of his temperament. Gottschalk appears to have had no desire except to
+amuse and delight the world, and to have been foreign to any loftier
+musical aspiration, if we may judge by his own recorded words. He passed
+through life as would a splendid wild singing-bird, making music
+because it was the law of his being, but never directing that talent
+with conscious energy to some purpose beyond itself.
+
+In 1863 family misfortunes and severe illness of himself cooperated to
+make the year vacant of musical doings, but instantly he recovered he
+was engaged by M. Strakosch to give another series of concerts in the
+leading Eastern cities. Without attempting to linger over his career for
+the next two years, let us pass to his second expedition to the tropics
+in 1865. Four years were spent in South America, each country that he
+visited vieing with the other in doing him honor. Magnificent gifts were
+heaped on him by his enthusiastic Spanish-American admirers, and life
+was one continual ovation. In Peru he gave sixty concerts, and was
+presented with a costly decoration of gold, diamond, and pearl. In Chili
+the Government voted him a grand gold medal, which the board of public
+schools, the board of visitors of the hospitals, and the municipal
+government of Valparaiso supplemented by gold medals, in recognition
+of Gottschalk's munificence in the benefit concerts he gave for various
+public and humane institutions. The American pianist, through the whole
+of his career, had shown the traditional benevolence of his class in
+offering his services to the advancement of worthy objects. A similar
+reception awaited Gottschalk in Montevideo, where the artist became
+doubly the object of admiration by the substantial additions he made
+to the popular educational fund. While in this city he organized and
+conducted a great musical festival in which three hundred musicians
+engaged, exclusive of the Italian Opera company then at Montevideo.
+
+The spring of 1869 brought Gottschalk to the last scene of his musical
+triumphs, for the span of his career was about to close over him. Rio
+Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, gave Gottschalk an ardent reception,
+which made this city properly the culmination of his toils and triumphs.
+Gottschalk wrote that his performances created such a _furore_ that
+boxes commanded a premium of seventy-five dollars, and single seats
+fetched twenty-five. He was frequently entertained by Dom Pedro at the
+palace; in every way the Brazilians testified their lavish admiration of
+his artistic talents. In the midst of his success Gottschalk was seized
+with yellow fever, and brought very low. Indeed, the report came back
+to New York that he was dead, a report, however, which his own letters,
+written from the bed of convalescence, soon contradicted.
+
+In October of 1869 Gottschalk was appointed by the emperor to take the
+leadership of a great festival, in which eight hundred performers in
+orchestra and chorus would take part. Indefatigable labor, in rehearsing
+his musicians and organizing the almost innumerable details of such an
+affair, acted on a frame which had not yet recovered its strength from a
+severe attack of illness. With difficulty he dragged himself through the
+tedious preparation, and when he stood up to conduct the first concert
+of the festival, on the evening of November 26, he was so weak that he
+could scarcely stand. The next day he was too ill to rise, and, though
+he forced himself to go to the opera-house in the evening, he was so
+weak as to be unable to conduct the music, and he had to be driven back
+to his hotel. The best medical skill watched over him, but his hour had
+come, and after three weeks of severe suffering he died, December 18,
+1869. The funeral solemnities at the Cathedral of Rio were of the most
+imposing character, and all the indications of really heart-felt sorrow
+were shown among the vast crowd of spectators, for Gottschalk had
+quickly endeared himself to the public both as man and artist. At the
+time of Gott-schalk's death, it was his purpose to set sail for Europe
+at the earliest practicable moment, to secure the publication of some of
+his more important works, and the production of his operas, of which he
+had the finished scores of not less than six.
+
+Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an artist and composer whose gifts were
+never more than half developed; for his native genius as a musician was
+of the highest order. Shortly before he died, at the age of forty, he
+seemed to have ripened into more earnest views and purposes, and, had
+he lived to fulfill his prime, it is reasonable to hazard the conjecture
+that he would have richly earned a far loftier niche in the pantheon
+of music than can now be given him. A rich, pleasure-loving, Oriental
+temperament, which tended to pour itself forth in dreams instead of
+action; vivid emotional sensibilities, which enabled him to exhaust
+all the resources of pleasure where imagination stimulates sense; and
+a thorough optimism in his theories, which saw everything at its best,
+tended to blunt the keen ambition which would otherwise inevitably have
+stirred the possessor of such artistic gifts. Gottschalk fell far short
+of his possibilities, though he was the greatest piano executant ever
+produced by our own country. He might have dazzled the world even as he
+dazzled his own partial countrymen.
+
+His style as a pianist was sparkling, dashing, showy, but, in the
+judgment of the most judicious, he did not appear to good advantage in
+comparison with Thalberg, in whom a perfect technique was dominated by
+a conscious intellectualism, and a high ideal, passionless but severely
+beautiful.
+
+Gottschalk's idiosyncrasy as a composer ran in parallel lines with
+that of the player. Most of the works of this musician are brilliant,
+charming, tender, melodious, full of captivating excellence, but
+bright with the flash of fancy, rather than strong with the power
+of imagination. We do not find in his piano-forte pieces any of that
+subtile soul-searching force which penetrates to the deepest roots
+of thought and feeling. Sundry musical cynics were wont to crush
+Gottschalk's individuality into the coffin of a single epigram. "A
+musical bonbon to tickle the palates of sentimental women." But this
+falls as far short of justice as the enthusiasm of many of his admirers
+overreaches it. The easy and genial temperament of the man, his ability
+to seize the things of life on their bright side, and a naive indolence
+which indisposed the artist to grapple with the severest obligations of
+an art life, prevented Gottschalk from attaining the greatness possible
+to him, but they contributed to make him singularly lovable, and to
+justify the passionate attachment which he inspired in most of those
+who knew him well. But, with all of Gottschalk's limitations, he must
+be considered the most noticeable and able of pianists and composers for
+the piano yet produced by the United States.
+
+
+
+
+FRANZ LISZT.
+
+
+The Spoiled Favorite of Fortune.--His Inherited Genius.--Birth and
+Early Training.--First Appearance in Concert.--Adam Liszt and his Son
+in Paris.--Sensation made by the Boy's Playing.--His Morbid Religious
+Sufferings.--Franz Liszt thrown on his own Resources.--The Artistic
+Circle in Paris.--Liszt in the Banks of Romanticism.--His Friends and
+Associates.--Mme. D'Agoult and her Connection with Franz
+Liszt.--He retires to Geneva.--Is recalled to Paris by the Thalberg
+_Furore_.--Rivalry between the Artists, and their Factions.--He
+commences his Career as Traveling Virtuoso.--The Blaze of Enthusiasm
+throughout Europe.--Schumann on Liszt as Man and Artist.--He ranks the
+Hungarian Virtuoso as the Superior of Thalberg.--Liszt's Generosity to
+his own Countrymen.--The Honors paid to him in Pesth.--Incidents of
+his Musical Wanderings.--He loses the Proceeds of Three Hundred
+Concerts.--Contributes to the Completion of the Cologne Cathedral.--His
+Connection with the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, and the Celebration of
+the Unveiling.--Chorley on Liszt.--Berlioz and Liszt.--Character of the
+Enthusiasm called out by Liszt as an Artist.--Remarkable Personality
+as a Man.--Berlioz characterizes the Great Virtuoso in a Letter.--Liszt
+erases his Life as a Virtuoso, and becomes Chapel-Master and Court
+Conductor at Weimar.--Avowed Belief in the New School of Music, and
+Production of Works of this School.--Wagner's Testimony to Liszt's
+Assistance.--Liszt's Resignation of his Weimar Post after Ten
+Years.--His Subsequent Life.--He takes Holy Orders.--Liszt as a Virtuoso
+and Composer.--Entitled to be placed among tire most Remarkable Men of
+his Age.
+
+
+I.
+
+There are but few names in music more interesting than that of Franz
+Liszt, the spoiled favorite of Europe for more than half a century, and
+without question the greatest piano-forte virtuoso that ever lived. His
+life has passed through the sunniest regions of fortune and success,
+and from his cradle upward the gods have showered on him their richest
+gifts. His career as an artist and musician has been most remarkable,
+his personal life full of romance, and his connection with some of
+the most vital changes in music which have occurred during the century
+interesting and significant. From his first appearance in public, at the
+age of twelve, his genius was acknowledged with enthusiasm throughout
+the whole republic of art, from Beethoven down to the obscurest
+_dilletante_, and it may be asserted that the history of music knows
+no instance of success approaching that achieved by the performances
+of this great player in every capital of Europe, from Madrid to St.
+Petersburg. When he wearied of the fame of the virtuoso, and became
+a composer, not only for the piano-forte, but for the orchestra, his
+invincible energy soon overcame all difficulties in his path, and he has
+lived to see himself accepted as one of the greatest of living musical
+thinkers and writers.
+
+The life of Liszt is so crowded with important incidents that it is
+difficult to condense into the brief limits of a sketch any fairly
+adequate statement of his career. He was born October 22, 1811, in the
+village of Raiding, in Hungary, and it is said that his father Adam
+Liszt, who was in the service of the Prince Esterhazy, was firmly
+convinced that the child would become distinguished on account of the
+appearance of a remarkable comet during the year. Adam Liszt himself was
+a fine pianist, gifted indeed with a talent which might have made him
+eminent had he pursued it. All his ambition and hope, however, centered
+in his son, in whom musical genius quickly declared itself; and the
+father found teaching this gifted child not only a labor of love, but
+a task smoothed by the extraordinary aptness of the pupil. He was
+accustomed to say to the young Franz: "My son, you are destined to
+realize the glorious ideal that has shone in vain before my youth. In
+you that is to reach its fulfillment which I have myself but faintly
+conceived. In you shall my genius grow up and bear fruit; I shall renew
+my youth in you even after I am laid in the grave." Such prophetic words
+recall the vision of the Genoese woman, who foresaw the future greatness
+of the little Nicolo Paganini, a genius who resembled in many ways the
+phenomenal musical force embodied in Franz Liszt. When the lad was very
+young, perhaps not more than six, he read the "Kene" of Chateaubriand,
+and it made such an indelible impression on his mind that he in after
+years spoke of it as having been one of the most potent influences of
+his life, since it stimulated the natural melancholy of his character
+when his nature was most flexible and impressible.
+
+At the age of nine he made his first appearance in public at Odenburg,
+playing Bies's concerto in three flats, and improvising a fantasia so
+full of melodic ideas, striking rhythms, and well-arranged harmony as to
+strike the audience with surprise and admiration. Among the hearers was
+Prince Esterhazy, who was so pleased with the precocious talent shown
+that he put a purse of fifty ducats in the young musician's hand. Soon
+after this Adam Liszt went to Pres-burg to live, and several noblemen,
+among whom were Prince Esterhazy, and the Counts Amadee and Szapary, all
+of them enthusiastic patrons of music, determined to bear the burden of
+the boy's musical education. To this end they agreed to allow him six
+hundred florins a year for six years. Young Liszt was placed at Vienna
+under the tutelage of the celebrated pianist and teacher Czerny, and
+soon made such progress that he was able to play such works as those
+even of Beethoven and Hummel at first sight. When Liszt did this for
+one of Hummel's most difficult concertos, at the rooms of the music
+publisher one day, it created a great sensation in Vienna, and he
+quickly became one of the lions of the drawing-rooms of the capital.
+Czerny himself was so much delighted with the genius of his charge
+that he refused to accept the three hundred florins stipulated for his
+lessons, saying he was but too well repaid by the success of the pupil.
+
+Though toiling with incessant industry in musical study and practice,
+for the boy was working at composition with Salieri and Randhartinger,
+as well as the piano-forte with Czerny, he found time to indulge in
+those strange, mystical, and fantastic dreams which have molded his
+whole life, oscillating between pietistic delirium, wherein he saw
+celestial visions and felt the call to a holy life, and the most
+voluptuous images and aspirations for earthly pleasures. Franz Liszt
+at this early age had a sensibility so delicate, and an imagination so
+quickly kindled, that he himself tells us no one can guess the extremes
+of ecstasy and despair through which he alternately passed. These
+spiritual experiences were perhaps fed by the mysticism of Jacob Boehme,
+whose works came into his possession, and furnished a most delusive and
+dangerous guide for the young enthusiast's fancy. But, dream and suffer
+as he might, nothing was allowed to quench the ardor of his musical
+studies.
+
+Eighteen months were passed in diligent labor under the guidance of the
+masters, who found teaching almost unnecessary, as the wonderful lad
+needed but a hint to work out for himself the most difficult problems,
+and he toiled so incessantly that he often became conscious of the
+change of day into night only by the failure of the light and the coming
+of the candles. Finally, by advice of Salieri, after eighteen months of
+labor, he determined to appear in concert in Vienna. On this occasion
+the audience was composed of the most distinguished people of Vienna,
+drawn thither to hear the young musical wonder of whom every one talked.
+Among the hearers was Beethoven, who after the concert gave the proud
+boy the most cordial praise, and prophesied a great career for him.
+
+The elder Liszt was already in Paris, and it was determined that
+Franz should go to that city, to avail himself of the instructions of
+Cherubini, at the Conservatoire, who as a teacher of counterpoint had
+no equal in Europe. The Prince Metternich sent letters of the warmest
+recommendation, but they were of no avail, for Cherubini, who was
+singularly whimsical and obstinate in his notions, refused to accept
+the new candidate, on account of the rule of the Conservatoire excluding
+pupils of foreign birth, a plea which the famous director did not
+hesitate to break when he chose. Franz, however, continued his studies
+under Reicha and Paer, and, while the gates of the Conservatoire were
+closed, all the salons of Paris opened to receive him. Everywhere he was
+feted, courted, caressed. This fair-haired, blue-eyed lad, with the seal
+of genius burning on his face, had made the social world mad over him.
+The young adventurer was sailing in a treacherous channel, full of
+dangerous reefs. Would he, in the homage paid to him, an unmatured
+youth, by scholars, artists, wealth, beauty, and rank, forgot in mere
+self-love and vanity his high obligations to his art and the sincere
+devotion which alone could wrest from art its richest guerdon? This
+problem seems to have troubled his father, for he determined to take his
+young Franz away from the palace of Circe. The boy had already made an
+attempt at composition in the shape of an operetta, in one act, "Don
+Sanche," which was very well received at the Academie Royale. Adolph
+Nourrit, the great singer, had led the young composer on the stage,
+where he was received with thunders of applause by the audience, and
+was embraced with transport by Rudolph Kreutzer, the director of the
+orchestra.
+
+Adam Liszt and his son went to England, and spent about six months in
+giving concerts in London and other cities. Franz was less than
+fourteen years old, but the pale, fragile, slender boy had, in the deep
+melancholy which stamped the noble outline of his face, an appearance
+of maturity that belied his years. English audiences everywhere received
+him with admiration, but he seemed to have lost all zest for the
+intoxicating wine of public favor. A profound gloom stole over him,
+and we even hear of hints at an attempt to commit suicide. Adam Liszt
+attributed it to the sad English climate, which Hein-rich Heine cursed
+with such unlimited bitterness, and took his boy back again to sunnier
+France. But the dejection darkened and deepened, threatening even
+to pass into epilepsy. It assumed the form of religious enthusiasm,
+alternating with fits of remorse as of one who had committed the
+unpardonable sin, and sometimes expressed itself in a species of frenzy
+for the monastic life. These strange experiences alarmed the father,
+and, in obedience to medical advice, he took the ailing, half-hysterical
+lad to Boulogne-sur-Mer, for sea-bathing.
+
+
+II.
+
+While by the seaside Franz Liszt lost the father who had loved him
+with the devotion of father and mother combined. This fresh stroke of
+affliction deepened his dejection, and finally resulted in a fit of
+severe illness. When he was convalescent new views of life seemed
+to inspire him. He was now entirely thrown on his own resources for
+support, for Adam Liszt had left his affairs so deeply involved that
+there was but little left for his son and widow. A powerful nature,
+turned awry by unhealthy broodings, is often rescued from its own mental
+perversities by the sense of some new responsibility suddenly imposed on
+it. Boy as Liszt was, the Titan in him had already shown itself in
+the agonies and struggles which he had undergone, and, now that the
+necessity of hard work suddenly came, the atmosphere of turmoil and
+gloom began to clear under the imminent practical burden of life. He set
+resolutely to work composing and giving concerts. The religious mania
+under which he had rested for a while turned his thoughts to sacred
+music, and most of his compositions were masses. But the very effort of
+responsible toil set, as it were, a background against which he could
+appoint the true place and dimensions of his art work. There was another
+disturbance, however, which now stirred up his excitable mind. He fell
+madly in love with a lady of high rank, and surrendered his young heart
+entirely to this new passion. The unfortunate issue of this attachment,
+for the lady was much older than himself, and laughed with a gentle
+mockery at the infatuation of her young adorer, made Liszt intensely
+unhappy and misanthropical, but it did not prevent him from steady
+labor. Indeed, work became all the more welcome, as it served to
+distract his mind from its amorous pains, and his fantastic musings,
+instead of feeding on themselves, expressed themselves in his art.
+Certainly no healthier sign of one beginning to clothe himself in his
+right mind again can easily be imagined.
+
+Liszt was now twenty years of age, and had regularly settled in Paris.
+He became acquainted intimately with the leaders of French literature,
+and was an habitue of the brilliant circles which gathered these great
+minds night after night. Lamartine and Chateaubriand were yielding
+place to a young and fiery school of writers and thinkers, but cordially
+clasped hands with the successors whom they themselves had made
+possible. Mme. George Sand, Balzac, Dumas, Victor Hugo, and others were
+just then beginning to stir in the mental revolution which they made
+famous. Liszt felt a deep interest in the literary and scientific
+interests of the day, and he threw himself into the new movement with
+great enthusiasm, for its strong wave moved art as well as letters with
+convulsive throes. The musician found in this fresh impulse something
+congenial to his own fiery, restless, aspiring nature. He entered
+eagerly into all the intellectual movements of the day. He became a
+St. Simonian and such a hot-headed politician that, had he not been an
+artist, and as such considered a harmless fanatic, he would perhaps have
+incurred some penalties. Liszt has left us, in his "Life of Chopin," and
+his letters, some very vivid portraitures of the people and the events,
+the fascinating literary and artistic reunions, and the personal
+experiences which made this part of his life so interesting; but,
+tempting as it is, we can not linger. There can be no question that this
+section of his career profoundly colored his whole life, and that
+the influence of Victor Hugo, Balzac, and Mme. George Sand is very
+perceptible in his compositions not merely in their superficial tone
+and character, but in the very theory on which they are built. Liszt
+thenceforward cut loose from all classic restraints, and dared to fling
+rules and canons to the winds, except so far as his artistic taste
+approved them. The brilliant and daring coterie, defying conventionality
+and the dull decorum of social law, in which our artist lived, wrought
+also another change in his character. Liszt had hitherto been almost
+austere in his self-denial, in restraint of passion and license, in
+a religious purity of life, as if he dwelt in the cold shadow of the
+monastery, not knowing what moment he should disappear within its gates.
+There was now to be a radical change.
+
+One of the brilliant members of the coterie in which he lived a life of
+such keen mental activity was Countess D'Agoult, who afterward became
+famous in the literary world as "Daniel Stern." Beautiful, witty,
+accomplished, imaginative, thoroughly in sympathy with her friend
+George Sand in her views of love and matrimony, and not less daring
+in testifying to her opinion by actions, the name of Mme. D'Agoult had
+already been widely bruited abroad in connection with more than one
+romantic escapade. In the powerful personality of young Franz Liszt,
+instinct with an artistic genius which aspired like an eagle, vital with
+a resolute, reckless will, and full of a magnetic energy that overflowed
+in everything--looks, movements, talk, playing--the somewhat fickle
+nature of Mme. D'Agoult was drawn to the artist like steel to a magnet.
+Liszt, on the other hand, easily yielded to the refined and delicious
+sensuousness of one of the most accomplished women of her time, who to
+every womanly fascination added the rarest mental gifts and high social
+place.
+
+The mutual passion soon culminated in a tie which lasted for many years,
+and was perhaps as faithfully observed by both parties as could be
+expected of such an irregular connection. Three children were the
+offspring of this attachment, a son who died, and two daughters, one of
+whom became the wife of M. Ollivier, the last imperial prime minister of
+France, and the other successively Mme. Von Bulow and Mme. Wagner, under
+which latter title she is still known. The _chroniques scandaleuses_
+of Paris and other great cities of Europe are full of racy scandals
+purporting to connect the name of Liszt with well-known charming and
+beautiful women, but, aside from the uncertainty which goes with such
+rumors, this is not a feature of Liszt's life on which it is our purpose
+to dilate. The errors of such a man, exposed by his temperament and
+surroundings to the fiercest breath of temptation, should be rather
+veiled than opened to the garish day. Of the connection with Mme.
+D'Agoult something has been briefly told, because it had an important
+influence on his art career. Though the Church had never sanctioned the
+tie, there is every reason to believe that the lady's power over Liszt
+was consistently used to restrain his naturally eccentric bias, and to
+keep his thoughts fixed on the loftiest art ideals.
+
+
+III.
+
+Soon after Liszt's connection with Mme. D'Agoult began, he retired with
+his devoted companion to Geneva, Switzerland, a city always celebrated
+in the annals of European literature and art. In the quiet and charming
+atmosphere of this city our artist spent two years, busy for the most
+part in composing. He had already attained a superb rank as a pianist,
+and of those virtuosos who had then exhibited their talents in Paris
+no one was considered at all worthy to be compared with Liszt except
+Chopin. Aside from the great mental grasp, the opulent imagination, the
+fire and passion, the dazzling technical skill of the player, there was
+a vivid personality in Liszt as a man which captivated audiences. This
+element dominated his slightest action. He strode over the concert
+stage with the haughty step of a despot who ruled with a sway not to be
+contested. Tearing his gloves from his fingers and hurling them on
+the piano, he would seat himself with a proud gesture, run his fingers
+through his waving blonde locks, and then attack the piano with the
+vehemence of a conqueror taking his army into action. Much of this
+manner was probably the outcome of natural temperament, something the
+result of affectation; but it helped to add to the glamour with which
+Liszt always held his audiences captive. When he left Paris for a
+studious retirement at Geneva, the throne became vacant. By and by there
+came a contestant for the seat, a player no less remarkable in many
+respects than Liszt himself, Sigismond Thalberg, whose performances
+aroused Paris, alert for a new sensation, into an enthusiasm which
+quickly mounted to boiling heat. Humors of the danger threatened to his
+hitherto acknowledged ascendancy reached Liszt in his Swiss retreat. The
+artist's ambition was stirred to the quick; he could not sleep at night
+with the thought of this victorious rival who was snatching his laurels,
+and he hastened back to Paris to meet Thalberg on his own ground.
+The latter, however, had already left Paris, and Liszt only felt the
+ground-swell of the storm he had raised. There was a hot division of
+opinion among the Parisians, as there had been in the days of Gluck and
+Piccini. Society was divided into Lisztians and Thalbergians, and to
+indulge in this strife was the favorite amusement of the fashionable
+world. Liszt proceeded to reestablish his place by a series of
+remarkable concerts, in which he introduced to the public some of the
+works wrought out during his retirement, among them transcriptions from
+the songs of Schubert and the symphonies of Beethoven, in which the most
+free and passionate poetic spirit was expressed through the medium of
+technical difficulties in the scoring before unknown to the art of the
+piano-forte. There can be no doubt that the influence of Thalberg's
+rivalry on Liszt's mind was a strong force, and suggested new
+combinations. Without having heard Thalberg, our artist had already
+divined the secret of his effects, and borrowed from them enough to give
+a new impulse to an inventive faculty which was fertile in expedients
+and quick to assimilate all things of value to the uses of its own
+insatiable ambition.
+
+Franz Liszt's career as a traveling virtuoso commenced in 1837, and
+lasted for twelve years. Hitherto he had resisted the impulsion to
+such a course, all his desires rushing toward composition, but the
+extraordinary rewards promised cooperated with the spur of rivalry to
+overcome all scruples. The first year of these art travels was made
+memorable by the great inundation of the Danube, which caused so much
+suffering at Pesth. Thousands of people were rendered homeless, and
+the scene was one that appealed piteously to the humanitarian mind. The
+heart of Franz Liszt burned with sympathy, and he devoted the proceeds
+of his concerts for nearly two months to the alleviation of the woes of
+his countrymen. A princely sum was contributed by the artist, which went
+far to assist the sufferers. The number of occasions on which Liszt
+gave his services to charity was legion. It is credibly stated that the
+amount of benefactions contributed by his benefit concerts, added to the
+immense sums which he directly disbursed, would have made him several
+times a millionaire.
+
+The blaze of enthusiasm which Liszt kindled made his track luminous
+throughout the musical centers of Europe. Caesar-like, his very arrival
+was a victory, for it aroused an indescribable ferment of agitation,
+which rose at his concerts to wild excesses. Ladies of the highest rank
+tore their gloves to strips in the ardor of their applause, flung
+their jewels on the stage instead of bouquets, shrieked in ecstasy and
+sometimes fainted, and made a wild rush for the stage at the close of
+the music to see Liszt, and obtain some of the broken strings of the
+piano, which the artist had ruined in the heat of his play, as precious
+relics of the occasion. The stories told of the Liszt craze among the
+ladies of Germany and Russia are highly amusing, and have a value as
+registering the degree of the effect he produced on impressible minds.
+Even sober and judicious critics who knew well whereof they spoke
+yielded to the contagion. Schumann writes of him, _apropos_ of his
+Dresden and Leipzig concerts in 1840: "The whole audience greeted his
+appearance with an enthusiastic storm of applause, and then he began to
+play. I had heard him before, but an artist is a different thing in the
+presence of the public compared with what he appears in the presence of
+a few. The fine open space, the glitter of light, the elegantly dressed
+audience--all this elevates the frame of mind in the giver and receiver.
+And now the demon's power began to awake; he first played with the
+public as if to try it, then gave it something more profound, until
+every single member was enveloped in his art; and then the whole mass
+began to rise and fall precisely as he willed it. I never found any
+artist except Paga-nini to possess in so high a degree this power of
+subjecting, elevating, and leading the public. It is an instantaneous
+variety of wildness, tenderness, boldness, and airy grace; the
+instrument glows under the hand of its master.... It is most easy to
+speak of his outward appearance. People have often tried to picture
+this by comparing Liszt's head to Schiller's or Napoleon's; and the
+comparison so far holds good, in that extraordinary men possess certain
+traits in common, such as an expression of energy and strength of will
+in the eyes and mouth. He has some resemblance to the portraits of
+Napoleon as a young general, pale, thin, with a remarkable profile,
+the whole significance of his appearance culminating in his head. While
+listening to Liszt's playing, I have often almost imagined myself as
+listening to one I heard long before. But this art is scarcely to be
+described. It is not this or that style of piano-forte playing; it is
+rather the outward expression of a daring character, to whom Fate has
+given as instruments of victory and command, not the dangerous weapon of
+war, but the peaceful ones of art. No matter how many and great artists
+we possess or have seen pass before us of recent years, though some of
+them equal him in single points, all must yield to him in energy and
+boldness. People have been very fond of placing Thalberg in the lists
+beside him, and then drawing comparisons. But it is only necessary to
+look at both heads to come to a conclusion. I remember the remark of
+a Viennese designer who said, not inaptly, that his countryman's head
+resembled that of a handsome countess with a man's nose, while of Liszt
+he observed that he might sit to every painter for a Grecian god. There
+is a similar difference in their art. Chopin stands nearer to Liszt as a
+player, for at least he loses nothing beside him in fairy-like grace and
+tenderness; next to him Paganini, and, among women, Mme. Malibran; from
+these Liszt himself says he has learned the most.... Liszt's most genial
+performance was yet to come, Weber's 'Concert-stuck,' which he played
+at the second performance. Virtuoso and public seemed to be in the
+freshest mood possible on that evening, and the enthusiasm during and
+after his playing almost exceeded anything hitherto known here. Although
+Liszt grasped the piece from the begin-ing with such force and grandeur
+that an attack on the battle-field seemed to be in question, yet he
+carried this on with continually increasing power, until the passage
+where the player seems to stand at the summit of the orchestra, leading
+it forward in triumph. Here, indeed, he resembled that great commander
+to whom he has been compared, and the tempestuous applause that greeted
+him was not unlike an adoring 'Vive l'Empereur.'"
+
+Flattering to his pride, however, as were the universal honors bestowed
+on the artist, none were so grateful as those from his own countrymen.
+The philanthropy of his conduct had made a deep impression on the
+Hungarians. Two cities, Pesth and Odenburg, created him an honorary
+citizen; a patent of nobility was solicited for him by the _comitat_ of
+Odenburg; and the "sword of honor," according to Hungarian custom, was
+presented to him with due solemnities. A brief account from an Hungarian
+journal of the time is of interest.
+
+"The national feeling of the Magyars is well known; and proud are they
+of that star of the first magnitude which arose out of their nation.
+Over the countries of Europe the fame of the Hungarian Liszt came to
+them before they had as yet an opportunity of admiring him. The Danube
+was swollen by rains, Pesth was inundated, thousands were mourning
+the loss of friends and relations or of all their property. During
+his absence in Milan Liszt learned that many of his countrymen were
+suffering from absolute want. His resolution was taken. The smiling
+heaven of Italy, the _dolce far niente_ of Southern life, could not
+detain him. The following morning he had quitted Milan and was on his
+way to Vienna. He performed for the benefit of those who had suffered
+by the inundation at Pesth. His art was the horn of plenty from which
+streamed forth blessings for the afflicted. Eighteen months afterward he
+came to Pesth, not as the artist in search of pecuniary advantage,
+but as a Magyar. He played for the Hungarian national theatre, for the
+musical society, for the poor of Pesth and of Odenburg, always before
+crowded houses, and the proceeds, fully one hundred thousand francs,
+were appropriated for these purposes. Who can wonder that admiration
+and pride should arise to enthusiasm in the breasts of his grateful
+countrymen? He was complimented by serenades, garlands were thrown
+to him; in short, the whole population of Pesth neglected nothing to
+manifest their respect, gratitude, and affection. But these honors,
+which might have been paid to any other artist of high distinction, did
+not satisfy them. They resolved to bind him for ever to the Hungarian
+nation from which he sprang. The token of manly honor in Hungary is
+a sword, for every Magyar has the right to wear a sword, and avails
+himself of that right. It was determined that their celebrated
+countryman should be presented with the Hungarian sword of honor. The
+noblemen appeared at the theatre, in the rich costume they usually wear
+before the emperor, and presented Liszt, midst thunders of applause from
+the whole assembled people, with a costly sword of honor." It was also
+proposed to erect a bronze statue of him in Pesth, but Liszt persuaded
+his countrymen to give the money to a struggling young artist instead.
+
+
+IV.
+
+In the autumn of 1840 Liszt went from Paris, at which city he had been
+playing for some time, to the north of Germany, where he at first found
+the people colder than he had been wont to experience. But this soon
+disappeared before the magic of his playing, and even the Hamburgers,
+notorious for a callous, bovine temperament, gave wild demonstrations
+of pleasure at his concerts. He specially pleased the worthy citizens
+by his willingness to play off-hand, without notes, any work which they
+called for, a feat justly regarded as a stupendous exercise of memory.
+From Hamburg he went to London, where he gave nine concerts in a
+fortnight, and stormed the affections and admiration of the English
+public as he had already conquered the heart of Continental Europe.
+While in London a calamity befell him. A rascally agent in whom he
+implicitly trusted disappeared with the proceeds of three hundred
+concerts, an enormous sum, amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds
+sterling. Liszt bore this reverse with cheerful spirits and scorned
+the condolences with which his friends sought to comfort him, saying he
+could easily make the money again, that his wealth was not in money, but
+in the power of making money.
+
+The artist's musical wanderings were nearly without ceasing. His
+restless journeying carried him from Italy to Denmark, and from the
+British Islands to Russia, and everywhere the art and social world bowed
+at his feet in recognition of a genius which in its way could only be
+designated by the term "colossal." It seems cumbersome and monotonous to
+repeat the details of successive triumphs; but some of them are attended
+by features of peculiar interest. He offered, in the summer of 1841,
+to give the proceeds of a concert to the completion of the Cathedral
+of Cologne (who that loves music does not remember Liszt's setting of
+Heine's song "Im Rhein," where he translates the glory of the Cathedral
+into music?). Liszt was then staying at the island of Nonneworth, near
+Bonn, and a musical society, the Liedertafel, resolved to escort him
+up to Cologne with due pomp, and so made a grand excursion with a great
+company of invited guests on a steamboat hired for the purpose. A fine
+band of music greeted Liszt on landing, and an extensive banquet was
+then served, at which Liszt made an eloquent speech, full of wit and
+feeling. The artist acceded to the desire of the great congregation of
+people who had gathered to hear him play; and his piano was brought
+into the ruined old chapel of the ancient nunnery, about which so many
+romantic Rhenish legends cluster. Liszt gave a display of his wonderful
+powers to the delighted multitude, and the long-deserted hall of
+Nonneworth chapel, which for many years had only heard the melancholy
+call of the owl, resounded with the most magnificent music. Finally
+the procession with Liszt at the head marched to the steamboat, and the
+vessel glided over the bosom of the Rhine amid the dazzling glare of
+fireworks and to the music of singing and instruments. All Cologne was
+assembled to meet them, and Liszt was carried on the shoulders of his
+frantic admirers to his hotel.
+
+In common with all other great musicians, Liszt has throughout life been
+a reverential admirer of the genius of Beethoven, an isolated force
+in music without peer or parallel. In his later years Liszt bitterly
+reproached himself because, in the vanity and impetuosity of his youth,
+he had dared to take liberties with the text of the Beethoven sonatas.
+Many interesting facts in Liszt's life connect themselves, directly
+or indirectly, with Beethoven. Among these is worthy of mention our
+artist's part in the Beethoven festival at Bonn in 1845, organized to
+celebrate the erection of a colossal bronze statue. The enterprise had
+been languishing for a long time, when Liszt promptly declared he
+would make up the deficiency single-handed, and this he did with great
+celerity. In an incredibly short time the money was raised, and the
+commission put in the hands of the sculptor Hilbnel, of Dresden, one of
+the foremost artists of Germany.
+
+The programme for the celebration was drawn up by Liszt and Dr. Spohr,
+who were to be the joint conductors of the festival music. A thousand
+difficulties intervened to embarrass the organization of the affair,
+the jealousies of prominent singers, who revolted against the
+self-effacement they would needs undergo, a certain truly German
+parsimony in raising the money for the expenses, and the envious
+littleness of certain great composers and musicians, who feared that
+Liszt would reap too much glory from the prominence of the part he
+had taken in the affair, But Liszt's energy had surmounted all these
+obstacles, when finally, only a month before the festival, which was
+to take place in August, it was discovered that there was no suitable
+Pesthalle in Bonn. The committee said, "What if the affair should not
+pay expenses? would they not be personally saddled with the debt?" Liszt
+promptly answered that, if the proceeds were not sufficient, he himself
+would pay the cost of the building. The architect of the Cologne
+Cathedral was placed at the head of the work, a waste plot of ground
+selected, the trees grubbed up, timber fished up from one of the great
+Rhine rafts, and the Festhalle rose with the swiftness of Aladdin's
+palace. The erection of the statue of Beethoven at his birthplace,
+and the musical celebration thereof in August, 1845, one of the most
+interesting events of its kind that ever occurred, must be, for the most
+part, attributed to the energy and munificence of Franz Liszt. Great
+personages were present from all parts of Europe, among them King
+William of Prussia and Queen Victoria of England. Henry Chorley, who
+has given a pretty full description of the festival, says that Liszt's
+performance of Beethoven's concerto in E flat was the crowning glory
+of the festival, in spite of the richness and beauty of the rest of the
+programme. "I must lastly commemorate, as the most magnificent piece of
+piano-forte playing I ever heard, Dr. Liszt's delivery of the concerto
+in E flat.... Whereas its deliverer restrained himself within all the
+limits that the most sober classicist could have prescribed, he still
+rose to a loftiness, in part ascribable to the enthusiasm of time and
+place, in part referable to a nature chivalresque, proud, and poetic in
+no common degree, which I have heard no other instrumentalist attain....
+The triumph in the mind of the executant sustained the triumph in the
+idea of the compositions without strain, without spasm, but with a
+breadth and depth and height such as made the genius of the executant
+approach the genius of the inventor.... There are players, there are
+poets; and as a poet Liszt was possibly never so sublimely or genuinely
+inspired as in that performance, which remains a bright and precious
+thing in the midst of all the curiously parti-colored recollections of
+the Beethoven festival at Bonn."
+
+In 1846, among Liszt's other musical experiences, he played in concerts
+with Berlioz throughout Austria and Southern Germany. The impetuous
+Osechs and Magyars showed their hot Tartar blood in the passion of
+enthusiasm they displayed. Berlioz relates that, at his first concert at
+Pesth, he performed his celebrated version of the "Rakoczy March," and
+there was such a furious explosion of excitement that it wellnigh put an
+end to the concert. At the end of the performance Berlioz was wiping the
+perspiration from his face in the little room off the stage, when the
+door burst open, and a shabbily dressed man, his face glowing with a
+strange fire, rushed in, throwing himself at Berlioz's feet, his eyes
+brimming with tears. He kissed the composer over and over again, and
+sobbed out brokenly: "Ah, sir! Me Hungarian... poor devil... not
+speak French... _un, poco l'taliano_.... Pardon... my ecstasy... Ah!
+understand your cannon... Yes! yes! the great battle... Germans, dogs!"
+Then, striking great blows with his fists on his chest, "In my heart I
+carry you... A Frenchman, revolutionist... know how to write music for
+revolutions." At a supper given after the performance, Berlioz tells
+us Liszt made an inimitable speech, and got so gloriously be-champagned
+that it was with great difficulty that he could be restrained from
+pistolling a Bohemian nobleman, at two o'clock in the morning, who
+insisted that he could carry off more bottles under his belt than Liszt.
+But the latter played at a concert next day at noon "assuredly as he had
+never played before," says Berlioz.
+
+Before passing from that period of Liszt's career which was distinctly
+that of the virtuoso, it is proper to refer to the unique character of
+the enthusiasm which everywhere followed his track like the turmoil of
+a stormy sea. Europe had been familiar with other great players, many of
+them consummate artists, like Hummel, Henri Herz, Czerny, Kalkbrenner,
+Field, Moscheles, and Thalberg, the most brilliant name of them all. But
+the feeling which these performers aroused was pale and passionless
+in comparison with that evoked by Franz Liszt. This was not merely the
+outcome of Liszt as a player and musician, but of Liszt as a man. The
+man always impressed people as immeasurably bigger than what he did,
+great as that was. His nature had a lavishness that knew no bounds. He
+lived for every distinguished man and beautiful woman, and with every
+joyous thing. He had wit and sympathy to spare for gentle and simple,
+and his kindliness was lavished with royal profusion on the scum as well
+as the salt of the earth. This atmosphere of personal grandeur radiated
+from him, and invested his doings, musical and otherwise, with something
+peculiarly fine and fascinating. And then as a player Liszt rose above
+his mates as something of a different genius, a different race, a
+different world, to every one else who has ever handled a piano. He is
+not to be considered among the great composers, also pianists, who have
+merely treated their instrument as an interpreting medium, but as a
+poet, who executively employed the piano as his means of utterance and
+material for creation. In mere mechanical skill, after every one else
+has ended, Liszt had still something to add, carrying every man's
+discovery further. If he was surpassed by Thalberg in richness of sound,
+he surpassed Thalberg by a variety of tone of which the redoubtable
+Viennese player had no dream. He had his delicate, light, freakish
+moods in which he might stand for another Chopin in qualities of fancy,
+sentiment, and faery brilliancy. In sweep of hand and rapidity of
+finger, in fire and fineness of execution, in that interweaving of
+exquisite momentary fancies where the work admits, in a memory so vast
+as to seem almost superhuman; in that lightning quickness of view,
+enabling him to penetrate instantaneously the meaning of a new
+composition, and to light it up properly with its own inner spirit (some
+touch of his own brilliancy added); briefly, in a mastery, complete,
+spontaneous, enjoying and giving enjoyment, over every style and school
+of music, all those who have heard Liszt assert that he is unapproached
+among players and the traditions of players.
+
+In a letter from Berlioz to Liszt, the writer gives us a vivid idea of
+the great virtuoso's playing and its effects. Berlioz is complaining of
+the difficulties which hamper the giving of orchestral concerts.
+After rehearsing his mishaps, he says: "After all, of what use is such
+information to you? You can say with confidence, changing the mot of
+Louis XIV, '_L'orchestre, c'est moi; le chour, c'est moi; le chef
+c'est encore moi_.' My piano-forte sings, dreams, explodes, resounds;
+it defies the flight of the most skillful forms; it has, like the
+orchestra, its brazen harmonies; like it, and without the least
+preparation, it can give to the evening breeze its cloud of fairy chords
+and vague melodies. I need neither theatre, nor box scene, nor much
+staging. I have not to tire myself out at long rehearsals. I want
+neither a hundred, fifty, nor twenty players. I do not even need any
+music. A grand hall, a grand pianoforte, and I am master of a grand
+audience. I show myself and am applauded; my memory awakens, dazzling
+fantasies grow beneath my fingers. Enthusiastic acclamations answer
+them. I sing Schubert's "Ave Maria," or Beethoven's "Adelaida" on the
+piano, and all hearts tend toward me, all breasts hold their breath....
+Then come luminous bombs, the banquet of this grand firework, and the
+cries of the public, and the flowers and the crowns that rain around
+the priest of harmony, shuddering on his tripod; and the young beauties,
+who, all in tears, in their divine confusion kiss the hem of his
+cloak; and the sincere homage drawn from serious minds and the feverish
+applause torn from many; the lofty brows that bow down, and the narrow
+hearts, marveling to find themselves expanding '.... It is a dream, one
+of those golden dreams one has when one is called Liszt or Paganini."
+
+That such a man as this, brilliant in wit, extravagant in habit and
+opinion, courted for his personal fascination by every one greatest in
+rank and choicest in intellect from his prodigious youth to his ripe
+manhood, should suddenly cease from display at the moment when his
+popularity was at its highest, when no rival was in being, is a
+remarkable trait in Dr. Franz Liszt's remarkable life. But this he did
+in 1849, by settling in Weimar as conductor of the court theatre, his
+age then being thirty-eight years.
+
+
+V.
+
+Liszt closed his career as a virtuoso, and accepted a permanent
+engagement at Weimar, with the distinct purpose of becoming identified
+with the new school of music which was beginning to express itself so
+remarkably through Richard Wagner. His new position enabled him to bring
+works before the world which would otherwise have had but little chance
+of seeing the light of day, and he rapidly produced at brief intervals
+eleven works, either for the first time, or else revived from what had
+seemed a dead failure. Among these works were "Lohengrin," "Rienzi," and
+"Tannhauser" by Wagner, "Benvenuto Cellini" by Berlioz, and Schumann's
+"Genoveva," and music to Byron's "Manfred." Liszt's new departure
+and the extraordinary band of artists he drew around him attracted
+the attention of the world of music, and Weimar became a great musical
+center, even as in the days of Goethe it had been a visiting shrine for
+the literary pilgrims of Europe. Thus a nucleus of bold and enthusiastic
+musicians was formed whose mission it was to preach the gospel of the
+new musical faith.
+
+Richard Wagner says that, after the revolution of 1849, when he was
+compelled to fly for his life, he was thoroughly disheartened as an
+artist, and that all thought of musical creativeness was dead within
+him. From this stagnation he was rescued by a friend, and that friend
+was Franz Liszt. Let us tell the story in Wagner's own words:
+
+"I met Liszt for the first time during my earliest stay in Paris, at
+a period when I had renounced the hope, nay, even a wish of a Paris
+reputation, and, indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the
+artistic life which I found there. At our meeting he struck me as the
+most perfect contrast to my own being and situation. In this world into
+which it had been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt
+had grown up from his earliest age so as to be the object of general
+love and admiration at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness
+and want of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him with suspicion.
+I had no opportunity of disclosing my being and working to him, and
+therefore the reception I met with on his part was of a superficial
+kind, as was indeed natural in a man to whom every day the most
+divergent impressions claimed access. But I was not in a mood to look
+with unprejudiced eyes for the natural cause of this behavior, which,
+though friendly and obliging in itself, could not but wound me in the
+then state of my mind. I never repeated my first call on Liszt, and,
+without knowing or even wishing to know him, I was prone to look on
+him as strange and adverse to my nature. My repeated expression of this
+feeling was afterward told to him, just at the time when my "Rienzi"
+at Dresden was attracting general attention. He was surprised to find
+himself misunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely
+known, and whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to him. I am
+still moved when I think of the repeated and eager attempts he made to
+change my opinion of him, even before he knew any of my works. He acted
+not from any artistic sympathy, but led by the purely human wish of
+discontinuing a casual disharmony between himself and another being;
+perhaps he also felt an infinitely tender misgiving of having really
+hurt me unconsciously. He who knows the selfishness and terrible
+insensibility of our social life, and especially of the relations
+of modern artists to each other, can not be struck with wonder, nay,
+delight, with the treatment I received from this remarkable man.... At
+Weimar I saw him for the last time, when I was resting for a few days in
+Thuringia, uncertain whether the threatening persecution would compel me
+to continue my flight from Germany. The very day when my personal
+danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conducting a rehearsal of my
+'Tannhouser,' and was astonished at recognizing my second self in
+his achievement. What I had felt in inventing this music, he felt in
+performing it; what I had wanted to express in writing it down, he
+expressed in making it sound. Strange to say, through the love of this
+rarest friend, I gained, at the very moment of becoming homeless, a real
+home for my art which I had hitherto longed for and sought for in
+the wrong place.... At the end of my last stay in Paris, when, ill,
+miserable, and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on
+the score of my 'Lohengrin,' which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I
+felt something like compassion that this music should never sound from
+off the death-pale paper. Two words I wrote to Liszt; the answer was
+that preparation was being made for the performance on the grandest
+scale which the limited means of Weimar permitted. Everything that
+man or circumstances could do was done to make the work understood....
+Errors and misconceptions impeded the desired success. What was to be
+done to supply what was wanted, so as to further the true understanding
+on all sides and, with it, the ultimate success of the work? Liszt saw
+it at once, and did it. He gave to the public his own impression of the
+work in a manner the convincing eloquence and overpowering efficacy of
+which remain unequaled. Success was his reward, and with this success he
+now approaches me, saying, 'Behold, we have come so far! Now create us a
+new work, that we may go still farther.'"
+
+Liszt remained at Weimar for ten years, when he resigned his place
+on account of certain narrow jealousies and opposition offered to his
+plans. Since 1859 he has lived at Weimar, Pesth, and Rome, always
+the center of a circle of pupils and admirers, and, though no longer
+occupying an active place in the world, full of unselfish devotion to
+the true interests of music and musicians. In 1868 he took minor orders
+in the Roman priesthood. Since his early youth Liszt had been the
+subject of strong paroxysms of religious feeling, which more than once
+had nearly carried him into monastic life, and thus his brilliant career
+would have been lost to the world and to art. After he had gained every
+reward that can be lavished on genius, and tasted to the very dregs
+the wine of human happiness, so far as that can come of a splendid
+prosperity and the adoration of the musical world for nearly half a
+century, a sudden revulsion seems to have recalled again to the surface
+that profound religious passion which the glory and pleasure of his busy
+life had never entirely suppressed. It was by no means astonishing to
+those who knew Liszt's life best that he should have taken holy orders.
+
+Abbe Liszt lives a portion of each year with the Prince-Cardinal
+Hohenlohe, in the well-known Villa d'Este, near Rome, a chateau with
+whose history much romance is interwoven. He is said to be very zealous
+in his religious devotions, and to spend much time in reading and
+composing. He rarely touches the piano, unless inspired by the presence
+of visitors whom he thoroughly likes, and even in such cases less for
+his own pleasure than for the gratification of his friends. Even his
+intimate friends would hardly venture to ask Liszt to play. His summer
+months are divided between Pesth and Weimar, where his advent always
+makes a glad commotion among the artistic circles of these respective
+cities. Of the various pupils who have been formed by Liszt, Hans von
+Bulow, who married his daughter Cosima, is the most distinguished,
+and shares with Rubenstein the honor of being the first of European
+pianists, now that Liszt has for so long a time withdrawn himself from
+the field of competition.
+
+
+VI.
+
+Liszt has been a very industrious and prolific writer, his works
+numbering thirty-one compositions for the orchestra; seven for the
+piano-forte and orchestra; two for piano and violin; nine for the organ;
+thirteen masses, psalms, and other sacred music; two oratorios;
+fifteen cantatas and chorals; sixty-three songs; and one hundred
+and seventy-nine works for the piano-forte proper. The bulk of these
+compositions, the most important of them at least, were produced in
+the first forty years of his life, and testify to enormous energy and
+capacity for work, as they came into being during his active period as
+a virtuoso. In addition to his musical works, Liszt has shown
+distinguished talent in letters, and his articles and pamphlets, notably
+the monographs on Robert Franz, Chopin, and the Music of the Gypsies,
+indicate that, had he not chosen to devote himself to music, he might
+have made himself an enviable name in literature.
+
+Perhaps no better characterization of Liszt could be made than to call
+him the musical Victor Hugo of his age. In both these great men we find
+the same restless and burning imagination, a quickness of sensibility
+easily aroused to vehemence, a continual reaching forward toward the new
+and untried and impatience of the old, the same great versatility, the
+same unequaled command of all the resources of their respective crafts,
+and, until within the last twenty years, the same ceaseless fecundity.
+Of Liszt as a player it is not necessary to speak further. Suffice it
+that he is acknowledged to have been, while pursuing the path of the
+virtuoso, not only great, but the greatest in the records of art, with
+the possible exception of Paganini. To the possession of a technique
+which united all the best qualities of other players, carrying each
+a step further, he added a powerful and passionate imagination which
+illuminated the work before him. Wagner wrote of him: "He who has had
+frequent opportunities, particularly in a friendly circle, of hearing
+Liszt play, for instance, Beethoven, must have understood that this
+was not mere reproduction, but production. The actual point of division
+between these two things is not so easily determined as most people
+believe, but so much I have ascertained without a doubt, that, in order
+to reproduce Beethoven, one must produce with him." It was this quality
+which made Liszt such a vital interpreter of other composers, as well as
+such a brilliant performer of his own works. As a composer for the piano
+Franz Liszt has been accused of sacrificing substantial charm of motive
+for the creation of the most gigantic technical difficulties, designed
+for the display of his own skill. This charge is best answered by a
+study of his transcriptions of songs and symphonies, which, difficult in
+an extreme degree, are yet rich in no less excess with musical thought
+and fullness of musical color. He transcribed the "Etudes" of Pa-ganini,
+it is true, as a sort of "tour deforce", and no one has dared to attempt
+them in the concert room but himself; but for the most part Liszt's
+piano-forte writings are full of substance in their being as well as
+splendid elaboration in their form. This holds good no less of the
+purely original compositions, like the concertos and "Rhapsodies
+Hongroises," than of the transcriptions and paraphrases of the _Lied_,
+the opera, and symphony.
+
+As a composer for the orchestra Liszt has spent the ripest period of his
+life, and attained a deservedly high rank. His symphonies belong to what
+has been called, for want of a better name, "programme music," or music
+which needs the key of the story or legend to explain and justify the
+composition. This classification may yet be very misleading. Liszt does
+not, like Berlioz, refer every feature of the music to a distinct event,
+emotion, or dramatic situation, but concerns himself chiefly with
+the pictorial and symbolic bearings of his subject. For example, the
+"Mazeppa" symphony, based on Victor Hugo's poem, gets its significance,
+not in view of its description of Mazeppa's peril and rescue, but
+because this famous ride becomes the symbol of man: "_Lie vivant sur
+la croupe fatale, Genie, ardent Coursier_." The spiritual life of this
+thought burns with subtile suggestions throughout the whole symphony.
+
+Liszt has not been merely a devoted adherent of the "Music of the
+Future" as expressed in operatic form, but he has embodied his belief
+in the close alliance of poetry and music in his symphonies and
+transcriptions of songs. Anything more pictorial, vivid, descriptive,
+and passionate can not easily be fancied. It is proper also to say in
+passing that the composer shows a command over the resources of the
+orchestra similar to his mastery of the piano, though at times a
+tendency to violent and strident effects offends the ear. Franz Liszt,
+take him for all in all, must be regarded as one of the most remarkable
+men of the last half century, a personality so stalwart, picturesque,
+and massive as to be not only a landmark in music, but an imposing
+figure to those not specially characterized by their musical sympathies.
+His influence on his art has been deep and widespread; his connection
+with some of the most important movements of the last two generations
+well marked; and his individuality a fact of commanding force in the
+art circles of nearly every country of Europe, where art bears any vital
+connection with social and public life.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Violinists And Pianists, by George T. Ferris
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