Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Part 12

Mendelssohn made five visits to England, where his success was even greater than it was at home. He learned to express himself well in English, but always spoke with the precision and care that marks the educated foreigner. So the result was that he spoke really better "English" than the English. The ease with which the Hebrew learns a language has often been noted and commented upon. Mendelssohn preferred German, but was not at a loss to carry on a conversation in French, Italian or English.

His nature was especially cosmopolitan, and like the true aristocrat that he was, he was also a democrat, and at home in any society.

When he was invited by the Queen to call upon her at Buckingham Palace, he went alone, in his afternoon dress, and sent in his card as every gentleman does when he calls upon a lady. Her Majesty greeted him at the door of her sitting-room, and dismissed the servants. They met as equals. In compliment to her guest Victoria spoke only in German. The Queen, seeing the music-rack was not in order, apologized, womanlike, for the appearance of the room and began to dust things in the usual housewifely fas.h.i.+on.

Mendelssohn, with that fine grace which never forsook him, a.s.sisted her in putting things to rights, and when the piano was opened, he proceeded to carry out two pet parrots, laughingly explaining that if they were to have music, it was well to insure against compet.i.tion.

He sat down at the piano and played, without being asked, and sang a little song in English in graceful but un.o.btrusive compliment to the hostess. Then the Queen sang in German, he playing the accompaniment.

And in his letter to his sister f.a.n.n.y, telling her of all this, in his easy, gossipy, brotherly way, Felix adds that the Queen has a charming soprano voice, that only needs a little cultivation and practise to make her fit to take the leading part in "Elijah."

This was no joke to Felix--he only regretted that Queen Victoria's official position was such that she could not spare enough time for music.

Albert did not appear upon the scene until Mendelssohn had extended his call to an hour, and was just ready to leave. The Prince Consort was too perfect a gentleman to ever obtrude when his wife was entertaining callers, but now he apologized for not knowing the Meister had honored them--which we hope was a white lie. But, anyway, Felix consented to remain and play a few bars of the oratorio they had heard him conduct the night before. Then Albert sang a little, and Victoria insisted on making a cup of tea for the guest before they parted. When he went away, Albert and Victoria both walked with him down the hall, and as he bade them good-by, Victoria spoke the kindly "Auf wiedersehen."

In the story of her life, Victoria has in spirit corroborated this account of her meeting with Mendelssohn. She refers to him as her dear friend and the friend of her husband, and pays incidentally a gentle tribute to his memory.

The universal quality of Mendelssohn's knowledge, his fine forbearance and diplomatic skill in leading a conversation into safe and peaceful waters, were very marked. He was recognized by the King of Saxony as a king of art, and so was received into the household as an equal; and surely no man ever had a more kingly countenance. His body, however, seemed to lag behind, and was no match for his sublime spirit. But when fired by his position as Conductor, or when at the piano, the slender body was nerved to a point where it seemed all suppleness and sinewy strength.

In his "Songs Without Words," the spirit of the Master is best shown.

There the grace, the gentleness and the sublimity of his soul are best mirrored. And if at twilight you should hear his "On the Wings of Song,"

played by one who understands, perhaps you will feel his spirit near, and divine the purity, kindliness and excellence of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANZ LISZT]

FRANZ LISZT

Were I to tell you what my feelings were on carefully perusing and reperusing this essay, I could hardly find terms to express myself.

Let this suffice: I feel more than fully rewarded for my trials, my sacrifices and artistic struggles, on noting the impression I have made on you in particular. To be thus completely understood was my only ambition; and to have been understood is the most ravis.h.i.+ng gratification of my longing.

--_Liszt in a Letter to Wagner_

FRANZ LISZT

In writing of Liszt there is a strong temptation to work the superlative to its limit. In this instance it is well to overcome temptation by succ.u.mbing to it.

That word "genius" is much bandied, and often used without warrant; but for those rare beings who leap from the brain of Jove, full-armed, it is the only appellation. No finespun theory of pedagogics or heredity can account for the marvelous talent of Franz Liszt--he was one sent from G.o.d.

Yet we find a few fortuitous circ.u.mstances that favored his evolution.

Possibly, on the other hand, there are those who might say the boy attracted to himself the human elements that he required, and thus worked out his freedom, acquiring that wondrous ability to express his inmost emotions. Art is the beautiful way of doing things. All art is the expression of sublime emotions; and there seems a strong necessity in every soul to impart the joy and the aspiration that it feels. And further, art is for the artist first, just as work is for the worker--it is all just a matter of self-development. And how blessed is it to think that every soul that works out its own freedom gives freedom to others!

Liszt is the inspirer of musicians, just as Shakespeare is the inspirer of writers. Strong men make it possible for others to be strong. No man of the century gave the science of music such an impulse for good as this man. To go no further in way of proof, let the truth be stated yet once again, that it was Franz Liszt who threw a rope to the drowning Wagner.

On October Twenty-second, in the year Eighteen Hundred Eleven, when a man-child was born at the village of Raiding, Hungary, the heavens gave no sign, and no signal-flags nor couriers proclaimed the event, all as had been done a week before when a babe was born to the Prince and Princess Esterhazy at the same place. Now the child born last was the son of obscure parents, the father being an underling secretary of the Prince, known as Liszt. The child was very weak and frail, and for some months it was thought hardly possible it could live; but Destiny decreed that the boy should not perish.

The first recollections of Liszt take in, in a happy view, four men playing cards at a square table. One of these men was the boy's father, another was Mein Herr Joseph Haydn, and the other two players are lost in the fog of obscurity. Did they ever know what a wonderful game they played, as little Franz Liszt, sitting on a corner of the table, listened to their talk and admired the b.u.t.tons on the coat of the Kappellmeister? After the card-game Haydn sat at the piano and played, and the boy, just three years old, thought he could do that, too. Then there was another Kappellmeister in the employ of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy at Eisenstadt, and his name was Hummel. He was a pupil of Mozart, and used to tell of it quite often when he came up to Raiding on little visits, after the wine had been sampled. Liszt the Elder used to help Hummel straighten out his accounts, and where went Liszt the Elder, there, too, went little Franz Liszt, who wasn't very strong and banked on it, and had to be babied. And so little Franz became acquainted with Hummel and used to sit on his knee at the piano, and together they played funny duets that set the company in a roar--two tunes at a time, harmonious discords and counterpoint, such as no one ever heard before, or since.

At this time there was no piano at the Liszt cottage, but the boy learned to play at the neighbors', and practised at the palace of the Prince. His father and mother once took him there to hear Hummel. On this occasion Hummel played the Concerto by Reis in C minor. At the close of the performance, little Franz climbed up on the piano-stool and very solemnly played the same thing himself, to the immense delight of the listeners.

The father of Liszt has recorded that at this time the child was but three years old, but after taking off the proper per cent for the pride of a fond parent, the probabilities are the boy was five. This is the better attested when we remember that it was only a few weeks later that, on the request of Prince Esterhazy, the boy played at a concert in Oedenburg.

This launched the boy on that public career which was to continue for just seventy years. There is good evidence that the boy could read music before he could read writing, and that he threw into his playing such feeling and expression as Ferdinand Reis, who merely imitated his master, Beethoven, had never antic.i.p.ated. That is to say, when he played "Reis," he improved on him, with variations all his own--attempts often made with the work of great composers, but which incur risks not advised.

It will be seen that Liszt, although born in poverty, was from the very first in a distinctly musical environment. He could not remember a time when he did not attend the band-concerts--his parents wanted to go, and took the baby because there were no servants to take charge of him at home. Music was in the air, and everybody discussed it, just as in Italy you may hear the beggars in the streets criticizing art.

The delightful insouciance of this child-pianist won the heart of every hearer, and his success quite turned the head of his father, the worthy bookkeeper.

To give the child the advantages of an education was now his parents'

one ambition. Having no money of his own, the father importuned his employer, the Prince, who rather smiled at the thought of spending time and money on such an elfin-like child. His playing was, of course, phenomenal, unaccountable, a sort of bursting out of the sun's rays, and, like the rainbow, a thing not to be seized upon and kept. It was mere precocity, and precocity is a rareripe fruit, with a worm at the core. This discouragement of the over-ambitious father was probably wise, for it gave the boy a chance to play I-Spy and leapfrog in the streets of the village, and to roam the fields. The lad became strong and well, and when ten years of age he had grown into a handsome youngster with already those marks of will and purpose on his beautiful face that were to be his credentials to place and power.

He had often played at concerts in the towns and villages about, and when there were visitors at the palace this fine, slim son of the bookkeeper was sent for to entertain them.

This attention kept ambition alive in the hearts of his parents, and after many misgivings they decided to hazard all and move to Vienna to give their boy the opportunities they felt he deserved.

The entire household effects being sold, the bookkeeper found he had nearly six hundred francs--one hundred fifty dollars. To this amount Prince Esterhazy added fifty dollars, and Hummel gave his mite, and with tears of regret at breaking up the home-nest, but with high hope, flavored by chill intervals of fear, the father, mother and boy started for Vienna.

Arriving in that city the distinguished Carl Czerny, pupil of Beethoven, was importuned to take the lad. Only the letter from Hummel secured the boy an audience, for Czerny was already overburdened with pupils. But when he had listened to the lad's playing, he consented to take him as a pupil, merely saying that he showed a certain degree of promise. It is sternly true that Czerny did not fully come into the Liszt faith until after that concert of April Thirteenth, Eighteen Hundred Twenty-three, when Beethoven, ripe with years, crowded his way to the front and kissed the player on both cheeks, calling him "my son." Such a greeting from the great Master spoke volumes when we consider the lifelong aversion that Beethoven held toward "prodigies," and his disinclination to attend all concerts but his own.

And thus did Franz Liszt begin his professional pilgrimage, consecrated by the kiss of the Master.

Paris was the next step--to Paris, the musical and artistic center of the world. To win in Paris meant fame and fortune wherever he wished to exhibit his powers. The way the name of Franz Liszt swept through the fas.h.i.+onable salons of Paris is too well known to recount. Scarcely thirteen years of age, he played the most difficult pieces with peculiar precision and power. And his simple, boyish, unaffected manner--his total lack of self-consciousness--won him the affection of every mother-heart. He was fondled, feted, caressed, and took it all as a matter of course. He had not yet reached the age of indiscretion.

Music is a secondary s.e.xual manifestation, just as are the songs of birds, their gay and gaudy plumage, the color and perfume of flowers that so delight us, and the luscious fruits that nourish us--all is s.e.x.

And then, do you not remember that expression of Renan's, "The unconscious coquetry of the flowers"? Without love there would be no poetry and no music. All the manifest beauty of earth is only Nature's nuptial decoration.

James Huneker, not always judicious, but a trifle more judicial than others that might be named, declares that two women, making a simultaneous attack upon the great composer, caused him to cut for sanctuary, and hence we have the Abbe Liszt, thus proving again that love and religion are twin sisters.

The old-time biographers can easily be placed in two cla.s.ses: those who sought to pillory their man, and those who sought to protect him.

Neither one told the truth; but each gave a picture, more or less blurred, of a being conjured forth from their own inner consciousness.

Franz Liszt was naturalized in the Faubourg Saint Germain. It was here that he was first hailed as the infant prodigy, and proud ladies, at his performances, pressed to the front and struggled for the privilege of imprinting on his fair forehead a chaste and motherly kiss.

Eight years had pa.s.sed: years of work and travel and constant growing fame. The youth had grown into a man, and his return to the scene of his former triumphs was the signal for a regathering of the clans to note his progress--or decline. The verdict was that from "Le Pet.i.t Prodige,"

he had evolved into something far more interesting--"Le Grand Prodige."

Tall, handsome, strong, and with a becoming diffidence and a half-shy manner, his name went abroad, and he became the rage of the salons. His marvelous playing told of his hopes, longings, fears and aspirations--proud, melancholy, imploring, sad, sullen--his tones told all.

Fair votaries followed him from one performance to another. Leaving out of the equation such mild incidents as the friends.h.i.+p for George Sand, which began with a brave avowal of platonics, and speedily drifted into something more complex; also the equally interesting incident of his being invited to visit the Chateau of the lovely Adele Laprunarede, and the Alpine winter catching the couple and holding them willing captives for three months, blocked there in a castle, with nothing worse than a conscience and an elderly husband to appease, we reach the one, supreme love-pa.s.sion in the life of Liszt. The Countess d'Agoult is worthy of much more than a pa.s.sing note.

At twenty years of age she had been married to a man twenty-one years her senior. It was a "mariage de convenance"--arranged by her parents and a notary in a powdered wig. It is somewhat curious to find how many great women have contracted just such marriages. Grim disillusionment following, true love holding nothing in store for them, they turn to books, politics or art, and endeavor to stifle their woman's nature with the husks of philosophy.