Autobiographical Reminiscences with Family Letters and Notes on Music Part 9

she charms like any sorceress! She is the native haunt of the most radiant form of art. She has cast a flood of suns.h.i.+ne on the painter's canvas!

Unlike Rome, which waits your pleasure, draws you slowly onwards step by step, until you fall into an utter and never-ending thraldom of admiration, Venice takes swift hold upon your senses, and fascinates you at one fell swoop. Rome is serene and soothing, Venice heady and exciting. The intoxication of her charms is tinged (it was at least in my case) with a sort of nameless melancholy, like a captive's sense of loneliness. Is it the shadow cast by the dark deeds of former days, to which the city seems predestined by its very situation? It may be. But whether it be so or not, I cannot fancy any one staying long in this semi-amphibious City of the Dead without growing to feel half choked and plunged into deep depression. With its sleeping waters lapping in dismal silence round the walls of its old palaces, and its gloomy shadows whence the groan of some murdered n.o.ble seems to float, Venice is a city of terror; disaster hangs around her even now!

But yet, in the full sunlight, what can be more fairylike than the Grand Ca.n.a.l, or those glittering lagoons whose waves seem made of liquid light! What vivid power clings to those relics of departed splendour, which seem to call aloud to the blue sky, beseeching it to save them from the abyss that slowly but surely sucks them down, and will end some day by engulphing them for ever!

Rome stands for meditation, Venice for intoxication. Rome is the great Latin ancestress whose conquests are destined to give the world one catholic and universal language--a prelude and a means to another Catholicism, deeper and vaster yet. Venice is a true Oriental--Byzantine, not Greek; she makes one think much more of Satraps than of Pontiffs, of Eastern luxury rather than of Athenian or Roman dignity.

Even San Marco, with all its wonders, is more of a mosque than a basilica or a cathedral; it appeals far more to the imagination than to the deepest feelings of the soul. The splendour of the mosaics and gilding, pouring a stream of dark rich tints from the roof of the dome to its very base, is utterly unique. I know nothing like it either in strength of colouring or powerfulness of effect.

Venice breathes pa.s.sion, as distinct from love. I was bewitched the moment I arrived, but I left it without the pang I felt on quitting Rome--a sure sign and measure of the impression each city had produced on me.

Naples is like a smile from Greece; the horizon glowing with purple and azure, the blue sky reflected by the sapphire sea, even the ancient name, Parthenope, carry us back to that brilliant civilisation on which nature had bestowed such an exquisite setting. But Venice smiles on the traveller in quite a different way. She is coaxing and she is false, like a feast laid out on the trap-door of a dungeon. This doubtless is why involuntarily I felt more relief than regret when I departed, in spite of the masterpieces of art and the mysterious and magic charm I left behind me.

A steamer bore me to Trieste, where I at once took the stage-coach for Gratz. I halted on my way to visit the curious and wonderful stalact.i.te caverns of Adelsberg; they are like underground cathedrals. Crossing the Carinthian mountains (whose ragged outline I consigned to my sketch-book), I reached Gratz, and then Olmutz. Thence I went on by railway to Vienna, my first stopping place on this German tour which it was my one object to get through as quickly as possible, so as to shorten my exile from my mother's roof.

Vienna is a very cheerful city. The inhabitants struck me as being much more like Frenchmen than Germans. They are full of vivacity, high spirits, good-humour, and gaiety.

I had brought no letters of introduction with me, and I did not know a single soul. I took up my quarters in an hotel until I should be able to find quieter and less expensive rooms. It was absolutely necessary, as I was to make a stay of some months' duration, to cut my coat according to my cloth. A travelling acquaintance had strongly advised me to board and lodge in a private family, if possible; and I soon found an opportunity of putting his advice to a practical test.

Nothing in the world would have induced me to let my mother stint herself to swell my modest purse; even had I felt the least inclined to unnecessary expenditure, the thought of her life of toil would have overcome any such temptation. Board, lodging, and theatre expenses (which last were a necessary item in my musical education) made up the whole of my necessary outlay, and with due care and economy the amount of my scholars.h.i.+p was quite sufficient to cover that.

The first thing I saw advertised on the Viennese Opera posters was Mozart's "Flauto Magico." I rushed forthwith and took the cheapest ticket I could get, for the very top of the house. Modest as it was, I would not have bartered it for an empire!

It was the first chance I had had of hearing that exquisite score, and I was perfectly enchanted. It was thoroughly well rendered. Otto Nicola conducted the orchestra. The Queen of Night was very well played by a singer of remarkable talent, Madame Ha.s.selt Barth; the High Priest Sarastro by a celebrated artist with a splendid voice, a first-cla.s.s method, and a magnificent style--Staudigl himself. The other _roles_, too, were very carefully performed, and I still remember the sweet voices of the boys who appeared as the three Genii.

I sent in my name (as an Academy student) to the Conductor, and asked if I could see him. He sent for me, and I was conducted to his presence on the stage itself, where he introduced me to the various artists, with whom I kept up pretty close relations from that night out. As I could not speak a single word of German, and as most of them knew little more French, it was not easy to get on at first. While I was standing on the stage, I was lucky enough to make acquaintance, also through Nicola, with a member of the orchestra, who spoke French. His name was Levy, and he was the leading cornet-player. His son, Richard Levy, then fourteen years old, held the same appointment at the Viennese Opera in later years as his father had before him. He received me in the kindest way, and asked me to call upon him. In a very short time we were firm friends. He had three other children. The eldest, Carl Levy, was a talented pianist and a skilful composer; the second, Gustave, is now a musical publisher at Vienna; and the daughter, Melanie, a charming creature, married the harpist Parish Alwars.

Through his kind offices, after a few weeks' residence in Vienna, I made the acquaintance of Count Stockhammer, one of the most useful friends I found there. He was President of the Philharmonic Society; and Levy, to whom I had shown the Ma.s.s I wrote in Rome, took me to see him, and spoke of the work in very favourable terms. The Count, with kindly prompt.i.tude, offered to have it performed in the Church of St. Charles, by the soloists, choruses, and orchestra of the Society.[11] The day fixed was the 14th of September.

My work seemed to give general satisfaction, a fact of which Count Stockhammer at once gave me the most substantial proof by asking me to write a Requiem Ma.s.s--solos, choruses, and orchestral accompaniments--to be performed in the same church on All Souls' Day, November 2nd.

I had a bare six weeks before me. The only chance of getting the work done in time was to toil at it night and day, without rest or intermission. I joyfully agreed to do it, and did not lose a moment in beginning. The Requiem was ready by the appointed date. Thanks to that universal diffusion of musical knowledge which is such a delightful and peculiar feature in Germany, a single rehearsal sufficed to make it all run smoothly. I was particularly struck by the facility with which mere schoolboys read music at sight--as easily as if it were their mother tongue. The choruses, too, were rendered to perfection. Among the soloists was a man of the name of Draxler, still quite young, with a magnificent ba.s.s voice. He and Staudigl were the leading ba.s.ses at the Opera. I heard some years later that Staudigl had gone mad, and died; and Draxler, who took his place, still held it when I went back to Vienna in 1868, twenty-five years after, to produce my opera "Romeo and Juliet."

Some time before the performance of my Requiem, Nicola had made me acquainted with an eminent composer named Becker, who devoted himself entirely to chamber music. A quartette party met at his house every week, and Holz, the first violin, had known Beethoven very intimately; a fact which, putting his own talent aside, made him very interesting company. Becker was also considered the most capable musical critic in all Germany at that time. He came to hear my Requiem, and published a _critique_ couched in terms of such high compliment as to be an immense encouragement to so young a man as I then was. My score, he said, "though evidently from the hand of a novice whose style is still unformed, and who has scarcely realised whither his powers may lead him, displays a grandeur of conception which is exceedingly rare now-a-days."

This heavy piece of work, undertaken and carried through within such a short s.p.a.ce of time, knocked me up so completely that I fell ill with a violent attack of sore throat, complicated with abscesses. Not wis.h.i.+ng to frighten my mother, I confided the true state of my health to n.o.body except my dear friends the Desgoffes, who were then in Paris. The moment Desgoffe knew I was lying ill in Vienna he left wife, daughter, and the pictures he was painting for the Salon, without a moment's hesitation, and started off to watch by my bedside and nurse me.

The journey from Paris to Vienna took five or six days at that time. It was now mid-winter, December in fact, and what would have been bad enough in any case at that season, was made far worse by the serious illness my poor friend contracted on the way. When he arrived at Vienna he stood sorely in need of care himself. Yet he spent no fewer than twenty-two days at my bedside, s.n.a.t.c.hing a few moments' sleep on a mattress on the floor, and watching over my every movement with the most motherly care. He only left me and returned to Paris when the doctor had satisfied him that I was completely convalescent.

Such friends.h.i.+p is not often met with; but, indeed, Providence has been more than good to me in that respect.

The success of my Requiem had made me alter my plans as to my stay in Germany, and I determined to prolong my sojourn in Vienna. Count Stockhammer gave me a fresh commission on behalf of the Philharmonic Society. This time it was a vocal Ma.s.s without accompaniment, to be sung in Lent in the same church, dedicated to St. Charles, my patron saint. I was glad to take this fresh opportunity, not only of gaining practice in my art, but also of getting my work performed--a rare and precious privilege at the opening of any man's career. This was the second considerable piece of work I did at Vienna, and my last. I left that city immediately after the performance for Berlin, _via_ Prague and Dresden, in neither of which towns did I stay long. But I felt I must not leave Dresden without visiting that admirable museum which, among other treasures, contains the famous Madonna by Holbein, and that other wonderful Madonna known as the "San Sisto," painted by Raphael's master-hand.

As soon as I reached Berlin I went, according to her request, to call on Madame Henzel. But within three weeks I was seriously ill again, this time with internal inflammation, and that just when I had written my mother that I was about to start homewards, and that we should soon be reunited after our weary separation of over three and a half years.

Madame Henzel at once sent her own doctor to me, and to him I presented the following ultimatum--

"Sir, I have a mother waiting for me in Paris, counting the hours till I get back; if she were to hear I am prevented from getting home by illness, she would probably start off to join me, and she might quite possibly lose her reason on the road. She is getting old. I must make up some explanation of my delay, but it can only be a very short one. I can only give you a fortnight, either to bury me or set me on my legs again."

"Very good," quoth the doctor; "if you will make up your mind to obey my orders, you may travel in a fortnight."

He kept his word; on the fourteenth day I was out of the wood, and eight and forty hours after I had started for Leipzig, where Mendelssohn was living, with a letter of introduction to him from his sister, Madame Henzel.

Mendelssohn received me wonderfully--I use the expression advisedly, to describe the condescension extended by such an ill.u.s.trious man to a youth who could not in his eyes have been more than a novice. I can truly say that for the four days I spent at Leipzig he devoted himself to me. He questioned me about my studies and my works with the keenest and sincerest interest. He made me play some of my later efforts to him, and gave me precious words of approbation and encouragement. One sentence only will I quote; I am too proud of it ever to have forgotten it. I had just played him the "Dies Irae" from my Vienna Requiem. He laid his finger on a pa.s.sage written for five voices without accompaniment, and said--

"My boy, that might have been written by Cherubini!"

Such words from such a master are better than any decoration--more precious to their recipient than all the ribbons and stars in Europe.

Mendelssohn was Director of the "Gewandhaus" Philharmonic Society. As the concert season was over, there were no meetings of the society going on, but he showed me the delicate kindness of calling its members together for my benefit. Thus I heard his beautiful work known as the "Scotch Symphony" in A Minor, and he afterwards gave me the full score endorsed with a few kind words in his own handwriting.

Too soon, alas! the early death of that splendid genius, in the heyday of his beauty and his charm, was to transform this friendly memento into a treasured and precious relic. He died only six months after the charming woman to whom I owed my acquaintance with her gifted brother.

Mendelssohn did not confine himself to calling the Philharmonic Society together for my benefit. An admirable organist himself, he was anxious I should make acquaintance with some of the numerous and admirable works composed by the mighty Sebastian Bach for the instrument over which he reigned supreme. With this object, he had the old organ at St.

Thomas's--the very instrument Bach himself used--examined and repaired, and there for two long hours and more he revealed an unknown world of beauty to my wondering ears.

Finally, to crown it all, he presented me with a collection of motets by this same Bach, who was a sort of G.o.d to him, in whose school he had been formed from infancy, and whose Pa.s.sion music, "according to St.

Matthew," he had conducted and accompanied by heart before he was fifteen.

Such was the kind treatment I received at the hands of that most lovable of men, that splendid artist, that magnificent musician, cut off, alas!

in the flower of his age (just eight-and-thirty), s.n.a.t.c.hed from the plaudits he had earned so well, and from the yet more glorious results the later efforts of his talent might have yielded. Strange is the fate of genius, even when endued with the charm possessed by his! It was not till Mendelssohn himself was dead that the ears which would not hearken in his lifetime learnt to appreciate the exquisite works which are now the joy and delight of every subscriber to the Conservatoire concerts.

Once I had seen Mendelssohn I could think of nothing except of getting back as fast as possible to Paris and to my beloved mother. I left Leipzig on May 18, 1843. I changed carriages seventeen times on the road, and travelled four nights out of six. At length, on May 25, I reached Paris, where my life was to enter on a new and different phase.

I found my brother waiting for me when the mail-coach arrived, and together we hurried to that beloved home into which I was about to carry so much new happiness, and return to so much that I had left behind.

IV

_HOME AGAIN_

Whether my three and a half years of absence had wrought a mighty change in my appearance, or my last illness (still very recent) and the stains of travel had played havoc with my looks, I know not, but anyhow my mother did not recognise me when I arrived. True, I had a budding beard, but such a slight one, that any one might have counted every hair.

During my absence my mother had left the Rue de l'eperon, and settled down in the Rue Vaneau, in the parish known as "Les Missions Etrangeres," the church of which stands at the corner of the Rue du Bac and the Rue de Babylone. There a post awaited me which was to fill up my time for several years to come. The priest of this parish, the Abbe Dumarsais, had formerly been chaplain at the Lycee St. Louis. His predecessor at the Missions Etrangeres was the Abbe Lecourtier.

While I was in Rome at the Academie de France, the Abbe Dumarsais had written to offer me, on my return, the appointment of organist and chapel-master to his parish. This I had accepted, but under certain conditions. I had no notion of taking any advice, and still less any orders, on musical matters, from priest or parish authorities, or anybody else. I had my own ideas, my own opinions, my own convictions.

In short, I meant either to have my own way about the music, or not have anything to do with it. That was flat. However, my conditions were accepted, and all should have gone smoothly.

But old habit is hard to break. My predecessor had accustomed the worthy paris.h.i.+oners to a style of music quite different from that which I had brought back with me from Rome and Germany. Palestrina and Bach were deities in _my_ eyes, and I was casting down the idols _they_ were accustomed to wors.h.i.+p.

The means at my disposal were almost _nil_. Besides the organ--a small and very inferior instrument--I had two ba.s.ses, a tenor, and one choir-boy, without reckoning myself, who was chapel-master, organist, singer, and composer all in one. I had to do my best with what I found to my hand, and the necessity which forced me to use these very modest resources to the best possible advantage was of real benefit to me in the long run. Things went on well enough at first, but I guessed, from a sort of coldness and reserve I noticed, that I was not altogether in the good books of the congregation. I was not mistaken. About the end of my first year of office, the priest sent for me, and confided to me that he had to endure many complaints and reproaches from his flock. Monsieur or Madame So-and-so did not consider the musical part of the service the least bit cheerful or entertaining. He therefore suggested to me to "change my style," and to "give in to them a little."

"My dear Abbe," I said, "you know our bargain. I didn't come here to consult the taste of your paris.h.i.+oners, but to improve it. If they don't like my 'style,' as you call it, there is a simple way out of the difficulty. I will resign, you can reappoint my predecessor, and everybody will be satisfied. The matter is entirely in your own hands."

"Very well," said the Abbe; "all right. I accept your resignation."

Thereupon we parted the best of friends. I had not been home for more than half an hour when the Abbe's servant knocked at my door.