The Serapion Brethren Volume I Part 5

"Everything went swimmingly till we got to the last stage from the Residenz, but there my horse was seized with the remarkable idea that he ought to go home to his stable. A conviction that severe measures are seldom effectual in such conjunctures induced me to try every description of mild persuasion that I could think of. The perverse animal was proof against all my gentle remonstrances. I wanted to go forward; he wanted to go back. All that I could accomplish in the circ.u.mstances was that, instead of retrograding, he kept describing circles. Teresina leant out of the carriage, laughing most heartily; whilst Lauretta put her hands before her eyes and screamed, as if I were in the utmost danger. I jammed my spurs into the brute's sides, and, ere I could say Jack Robinson, found myself on the broad of my back on the turnpike road, with the horse standing over me, his long neck stretched out, surveying me with an expression of calm derision.

"'I could not get up till the driver got off and helped me. Lauretta, too, got out, and was weeping and screaming. I had twisted one of my feet, and couldn't ride any further. What was to be done? The horse was made fast to the back of the carriage, and I had to squeeze myself inside, as best I could. Just picture to yourself two well-grown young women, a fat maid, a couple of dogs, a dozen or so of baskets, band-boxes, etc., and me in addition, squeezed up in a little two-seated phaeton! Think of Lauretta's lamentations about the want of room; the dogs' yapping; the Neapolitan's chattering, and the horrible pain of my foot, and you will have some idea what a charming position I was in.

Teresina declared she could bear it no longer; the driver pulled up, and with one bound she was out of the carriage. She loosed my horse, got on his back, and trotted and curvetted down the road before us. She certainly looked splendid; the grace and distinction which she possessed in an eminent degree were more especially conspicuous on horseback. She made us hand her out her guitar, and, slinging her bridle over her left arm, she sang Spanish ballads as she rode along, striking handfuls of chords in accompaniment. Her silk dress fluttered in s.h.i.+mmering folds, and the white plumes in her hat nodded and quivered, like airy sprites, in time to the music. Her whole effect was romantic beyond expression, and I could not take my eyes away from her; although Lauretta called her absurd, and said she was a silly, forward girl, and had better take care she didn't meet with an accident.

However, the horse seemed to have altered his tactics--or perhaps he preferred the lady-singer to the Paladin; at all events, it was not till we were close to the gates of the Residenz that Teresina clambered back into the carriage again.

"'Imagine me now deliciously up to my eyes in concerts, operas, and music of every description, pa.s.sing my days and hours at the piano, whilst arias, duets, and I don't know all what, are being studied and rehea.r.s.ed. From the total change in my outward man you gather that I am permeated and inspired by a spirit of might. All the provincial bashfulness is gone. I sit at the piano, a _maestro_, with the score before me, conducting my donna's _scenas_. My whole soul and existence is centred in melody. With the utmost contempt for counterpoint, I write quant.i.ties of _canzonettas_ and _arias_, which Lauretta sings--only in private, however. Why won't she ever sing anything of mine at a concert? I can't make this out. Teresina sometimes dawns on my memory, curvetting with her lyre on her charger, like some incarnation of music; and, spite of myself, I write loftier and more serious strains when I think of this. Lauretta, no doubt, sports and plays with the notes like some fairy-queen. What does she ever attempt in which she does not succeed? Teresina never attempts a _roulade_; a simple _appoggiatura_ or so, in the antique style, is the utmost that she ventures upon; but those long, sustained notes of hers s.h.i.+ne through the dim background, and wonderful spirits arise, and gaze, with their earnest eyes, deep into the breast. I don't know why mine was so long before it opened to them.

"'The sisters' benefit-concert came off at length. Lauretta was singing a great _scena_ of Anfossi's. I was, of course, at the piano as usual.

We had arrived at her final "pause," where her grand _cadenza ad libitum_ had to come in. It was a question of showing what she really _could_ do. Nightingale trills went warbling up and down; then came long holding-notes; then all kinds of florid pa.s.sages--a regular _solfeggio_; even _I_ thought the affair was being kept up too long.

Suddenly I felt a breath. Teresina was standing close behind me; Lauretta was just pulling herself together to begin her long, swelling harmonica shake, which was to lead back to the _a-tempo_. Some demon took possession of me. I crashed down the chord of the dominant with both hands; the orchestra followed me; and there was an end of Lauretta's _trillo_, just at the supreme moment when it ought to have set the audience _in furore_.

"'Lauretta, with a glare of fury at me, which went through me like a two-edged sword, tore her music in pieces, and sent it flying about my ears; then rushed away like a mad creature, through the orchestra, into the ante-room. As soon as the _tutti_ was finished, I hastened after her. She was sobbing and raving. "Don't come near me, you malignant fiend!" she screamed: "you have blasted my career for ever; how can I ever look an audience in the face again? You have robbed me of my name, and fame, and, oh, of my _trillo_! Out of my sight;" she made a rush at me, but I slipped deftly out of the door. During the _concerto_--which somebody or other played--Teresina and the Kapellmeister succeeded in so far pacifying her as to induce her to appear again--but not with me at the piano--and in the concluding duet, which the sisters sung, Lauretta did actually introduce the harmonica shake, was tremendously applauded, and got into the most delightful temper imaginable.

"'I, however, couldn't get over the style in which I had been treated before so many strangers; and I had quite made up my mind to be off back to my native town again the following morning. In fact I was packing up, when Teresina came into my room. When she saw what was going on, she was thunderstruck. "_You_ going to leave us?" she cried.

I said that after the way in which Lauretta had behaved to me, I could not possibly stay.

"'"Then the hasty, petulant outburst of a foolish girl, which she is heartily ashamed of and sorry for, is going to drive you away; where else could you carry on your artistic life so happily? It rests entirely with you to cure Lauretta of those tempers of hers. You are too good to her, and let her have her own way far too much. You have too high an opinion of her altogether. She has a very fair voice, and an enormous compa.s.s, no doubt. But all those _fioriture_, those everlasting scales and pa.s.sages, and nightingale trills of hers, what are they but dazzling tricks, more like what an acrobat does on the tight-rope than anything else? Can such things possibly touch the heart? The harmonica shake, which you wouldn't let her bring in, is a thing which I detest! it makes me feel quite ill. Then all that clambering up among the ledger-line notes, isn't it a mere, unnatural forcing of the proper voice--the real voice--the only voice that touches the listener? What I admire are the middle and lower registers.

A tone which goes to the heart, a genuine _portamento di voce_, I prefer to everything else. None of those meaningless _embellimenti_--a firm, steady, full utterance of the note--something like decision and accuracy of intonation; that is real singing, and that is how I sing myself. If you can't bear Lauretta longer, don't forget that there is Teresina, who is your devoted friend: and you can be my _maestro_ and composer quite in your own special style. Don't be vexed with me, but all your florid _canzonettas_ and _arias_ are nothing in comparison with _the_ one."

"'Teresina sang, in her rich pathetic tones, a simple _canzone_ in church style which I had written a few days before. Never could I have imagined that it could ever possibly have sounded like that. Tears of rapture rolled down my cheeks: I seized her hand, and pressed it to my lips a thousand times: I vowed that nothing on earth should ever part us.

"'Lauretta looked upon my alliance with Teresina with angry jealousy, which she concealed as best she could. I was indispensable to her at the time; because, clever as her singing was, she couldn't learn anything new without a.s.sistance. She was a wretched hand at reading, and extremely shaky over her time. Teresina could read everything at sight, and the accuracy of her time was incomparable. Lauretta's tempers and caprices never came out in such full force as when she was being accompanied. The accompaniment never pleased her. She looked upon it in the light of a necessary evil, she wanted the piano to be barely audible, always _pianissimo_. She was always dragging and altering the time, every bar different, just as she happened to take it in her head at the moment. I set to work to resist this firmly. I combatted those evil habits of hers; I showed her that there must be a certain energy about an accompaniment, that breadth of phrasing was one thing, and meaningless dragging quite another. Teresina backed me up staunchly. I gave up writing everything but the church style, and gave all the solos to the contralto voice. Teresina dragooned me pretty smartly, too; but I didn't mind that. She knew more than Lauretta, and I thought she had more feeling for German music.

"'When we were in a certain little town in the south of Germany, we met with an Italian tenor on his way from Milan to Vienna. My ladies were charmed to meet with a fellow-countryman. He was continually with them.

Teresina was the one whom he chiefly devoted himself to, and, to my no small disgust, I found myself quite playing second fiddle. One morning, as I was just going into their room, with a score under my arm, I heard an animated conversation going on between my ladies and the tenor. My own name struck my ear, and I listened with might and main. I knew enough Italian to catch every word that was said. Lauretta was relating the terrible story of the concert when I cut her out of her shake by striking my chord too soon.

"'"_Asino tedesco!_" cried the tenor. I felt inclined to go and chuck the vapouring stage-hero out of the window; but I restrained myself.

Lauretta went on to say that she would have got rid of me on the spot, but that I had implored her to let me stay, and she had done so, out of compa.s.sion, as I was going to take singing-lessons from her. Teresina confirmed this, to my no small amazement. "He is a nice boy, enough,"

she added. "He is in love with _me_ just now, and writes all his solos for the contralto. There is a certain amount of talent in him, if he could get rid of the stiffness and awkwardness which all Germans have.

I am in hopes I may make a composer of him who may write some good things for the contralto: there is so little written for it that is worth very much. He is dreadfully wearisome with his everlasting sighings and devotion, and torments me fearfully with his compositions, which are poor enough as yet."

"'"Thank goodness, I am quit of him," cried Lauretta, "You know, Teresina, how he used to torture me with his _arias_ and _duettos_,"

and she began a duet of mine, which she had highly praised formerly.

Teresina took the second voice, and they both caricatured me most unmercifully. The tenor laughed till the room re-echoed. I felt a stream of icy water running down my back, my mind was thoroughly made up. I slipped back to my own room as quietly as I could. Its windows looked out into the side-street--the post-office was just over the way, and the Bamberg coach was drawing up to take in the mail-bags.

The pa.s.sengers were collecting at the gate, but I had still the best part of an hour before me. I got my things together as quickly as I could--magnanimously paid the whole of the hotel bill, and was off to the coach. As I went along the High Street, I saw my ladies looking out at the window, with the tenor, at the sound of the horn. But I kept well out of sight in the background, and pictured to myself, with deep delight, the crus.h.i.+ng effect of the scathing letter which I had left for them.

"'Here Theodore slowly savoured, with intense gusto, the last drops of the glowing Eleatic which Edward had poured out for him.

"'"I shouldn't have expected Teresina to have behaved as she did," said Edward, opening a fresh bottle, and shaking away the drop or two of oil on the surface like one accustomed to that operation. "I can't forget the pretty picture of her caracoling along on horseback, singing Spanish songs."

"'That was her culminating point,' said Theodore. 'I remember as distinctly as possible the impression that made upon me. I forgot the pain of my foot. She looked like some creature of a higher sphere. A moment of that sort makes a tremendous impression upon one sometimes.

Things sometimes put on a form, in an instant, which no lapse of time can change. If ever, since then, I have been unusually happy in the subject of some bold, spirited _romanza_, you may be sure I had that scene, and Teresina, vividly before my mind.'

"'"We mustn't forget the clever Lauretta, either," said Edward. "I vote that we let bygones be bygones, and drink to both the sisters." Which they did.

"'Ah!' said Theodore, 'how the perfumes of exquisite Italy breathe upon one out of this wine. One's blood seems to course through one's veins with threefold vigour. Oh, why had I to leave that glorious country so soon!'

"'"So far, though," said Edward, "I see no connection between what you have been telling me and the picture; so I suppose there is more about the sisters yet to come. Of course I see that the ladies in the picture are no other than Lauretta and Teresina."

"'Yes,' said Theodore. 'And my longing sighs for Italy form a good-enough introduction to what there remains for me to say. A short time before I had to leave Rome, the year before last, I went for a little excursion into the country, on horseback. I came to a _locanda_, where I saw a nice-looking girl, and I thought it would be a good thing to get her to bring me a flagon of good wine. I drew up at the door in the shaded alley, the bright sunlight breaking athwart it through the branches. I heard singing, and a guitar, somewhere near. I listened attentively, for the voices of the singers affected me strangely; dim reminiscences stirred within me, but were slow to take definite form. I got off my horse, and slowly drew nearer to the vine-covered arbour where the music was going on. The second voice had stopped; the first was singing a _canzonetta_ alone; the singer was in the middle of an elaborate _cadenza_, it went warbling up and down, till at last she began a long holding-note, and then, all at once, a woman's voice broke out in a fury, with curses, execrations and reproaches. A man was heard protesting, another man laughing, whilst a second woman's voice joined in the _melee_. Wilder and wilder raged the storm, with true Italian _rabbia_. At last, just as I came up to the arbour, out flew an _abbate_, nearly knocking me down. He looked up at me, and I saw that he was none other than my good friend Signor Ludovico, my regular news-purveyor, from Rome. "What, in the name of Heaven----" I cried.

"Ah, Signor Maestro! Signor Maestro!" he cried, "save me! rescue me!

protect me from this mad creature--this crocodile, this tiger, this hyena--this devil of a girl! It is true I was beating the time to that _canzonetta_ of Anfossi's, and I came in too soon with my down-beat, right in the middle of her pause-note, and cut her out of her _trillo_. Why did I look at her eyes, G.o.ddess of the infernal regions that she is? The devil take all pause-notes!"

"'In most unusual excitement I hastened into the arbour, and at the first glance, recognised Lauretta and Teresina. Lauretta was still screaming and raging, Teresina talking violently into her face; the landlord was looking on with a face of amus.e.m.e.nt, whilst a girl was putting fresh flasks of wine on the table.

"'The moment that the singers set eyes on me they threw themselves about my neck and overwhelmed me with the affectionateness of their reception. "Ah, Signor Teodoro, Signor Teodoro," all our little differences were forgotten. "This," said Lauretta to the _Abbate_, "is a composer who has all the grace and melody of the Italians combined with the science of the Germans." And both the sisters, taking the words out of each other's mouths, told him all about the happy days we had spent together, my profound musical knowledge, even as a boy, our practisings, and the excellence of my compositions. Never had they really cared to sing anything but works of mine. Presently Teresina told me she had got an engagement at an important theatre for the next Carnival, but meant to make it a condition that _I_ should be commissioned to write at least one tragic opera; since, of course, _opera seria_ was my real line, etc., etc. Lauretta, again, said it would be too bad if I didn't follow my special bent for the florid and sparkling style--for _opera buffa_, in fact: that she had got an engagement as prima donna in that line, and that, as a matter of course, n.o.body but I should write the operas in which she should appear. You can imagine how strange it felt to be with them again; and you see, now, that the scene and all the circ.u.mstances are exactly those of Hummel's picture.

"'"But didn't they say anything about the circ.u.mstances of your parting, or that scathing letter of yours?" asked Edward.

"Not a syllable,' said Theodore. 'Neither did I. I had long forgotten my annoyance, and remembered my affair with the sisters as a mere piece of fun nothing more. The only thing I did was to tell the _Abbate_ how, many years ago, a similar misadventure had befallen me, and that in an aria of Anfossi's too. I incorporated in my story an account of all that had happened during the time that the sisters and I had spent together, delivering a swas.h.i.+ng side-blow, now and then, just to show the considerable increment of "calibre" which a few years of artistic experience had endowed me with. "And," said I in conclusion, "it was a very lucky thing that I did come in too soon with that down-beat of mine. No doubt it was fore-ordained from all eternity; and I have little doubt that, if I hadn't interrupted Lauretta as I did then, I should have been sitting playing pianoforte accompaniments to this hour."

"'"But, Signer," said the _Abbate_, "what _maestro_ can lay down laws to a prima donna? And then, your crime was far more heinous than mine.

You were in a concert-room. I was only in this arbour here, merely _playing_ the _maestro_. What did it matter about my down-beat? If those beautiful eyes of hers hadn't bewitched me, I shouldn't have made an a.s.s of myself as I did." The _Abbate's_ last words worked like magic. Lauretta's eyes, which had begun to dart angry lightnings, beamed softly again.

"'We spent that evening together. It was fourteen years since we had met, and fourteen years cause many changes. Lauretta was by no means as young as she had been, but she had not lost all her attractiveness.

Teresina had worn better, and still retained her beautiful figure. They dressed in much the same style as of old, and had all their former ways: that's to say, their dress and manners were fourteen years younger than themselves. At my request, Teresina sang some of those earnest, serious _arias_ which had impressed me so much in early days, but they did not seem to be quite what my memory had represented them.

And it was the same with Lauretta's singing: though her voice had fallen off little, either in power or in compa.s.s, still it was different from the singing which lived in my memory as hers; and this attempt to compare a mental idea with the not altogether satisfactory reality, untuned me even more than the sisters' behaviour--their pretended ecstasy, their coa.r.s.e admiration (which at the same time took the form of a generous patronage) had done at the beginning. But the droll little _Abbate_--who was playing the _amoroso_ to both the sisters at once, in the most sugary manner--and the good wine (of which we had a fair share) gave me my good humour back at length, so that we all enjoyed our evening. The sisters invited me, in the most pressing manner, to go and see them, so that we might talk over the parts I was to compose for them; however I left Rome without ever seeing them again.

"'"Still," said Edward, "you have to thank them for awaking the music within you."

"'Undoubtedly,' answered Theodore, 'and for a quant.i.ty of good melodies into the bargain; but that is exactly the reason why I never should have seen them again. No doubt every composer can remember some particular occasion when some powerful impression was made on him, which time never effaces. The spirit which dwells in music spoke, and the spirit _en rapport_ with it within the composer awoke at that creative fiat; it flamed up with might, and could never be extinguished again. It is certain that all the melodies which we produce under an impulse of this sort seem to belong only to the singer who cast the first spark into us. We hear her, and merely write down what she has sung; but it is the lot of us feeble earthly creatures, clamped to the dust as we are, to long and strive to bring down whatever we can of the super-earthly into the wretched little bit of earthly life in which we are cribbed up. And thus the singer becomes our beloved--perhaps our wife! The spell is broken; our inward melody, with its message, or gospel of glory, turns to a squabble about a broken soup-plate, or a row about an ink-mark on one's new s.h.i.+rt. That composer is a happy man who never again, in this earthly life, sees Her who, with mystic power, kindled the music within him. He may rage, and mourn, poor boy! when his beautiful enchantress has left him; but she has been transformed to everlasting Music, glorious and divine, which lives on in eternal beauty and youth; and out of it are born the melodies which are Her only, and Her again and again. What is she but his highest ideal, reflected from him on to herself?

"'"Curious, but pretty plausible," said Edward, as the friends, arm-in-arm, walked out of the Sala Tarone into the street.'"

It was admitted that, if Theodore's story might not satisfy all the necessary conditions, it came near enough to be pa.s.sed as "Serapiontic." Ottmar said, "Your story, dear Theodore, has this effect, that it brings vividly to mind all your devoted labours at music. Each of us wished to draw you into a different province of it.

While Lothair thought your instrumental writings your best, I thought your _forte_ was comic opera. Cyprian wanted you to do 'things unattempted yet,' by putting music to (what he will now admit were) poems completely beyond all recognised forms and rules; and you yourself cared only for the serious ecclesiastical style. Well, as things stand at present, the _opera tragica_ may probably be considered, the highest goal at which a composer can aim, and I can't understand why you haven't set to work at one long ago; you would surely have turned out something very superior in that line."

"And whose fault is it that I have not?" said Theodore, "but your own, and Cyprian's, and Lothair's? Could I ever succeed in inducing either of you to write me a libretto, with all my entreaties?"

"Marvellous fellow!" said Cyprian, "haven't I argued for hours and days with you about opera-texts? Haven't you rejected the finest ideas, on the ground that they were not adapted for music? Didn't you insist, at last, like an extraordinary fellow as you are, that I should regularly set to work to study music, so as to be able to understand, and comply with your requirements? So that I should have had to say good-bye to all idea of writing poetry, seeing that, like all professional writers, Kapellmeisters, and music-directors, you cleave to the established musical forms, and won't abandon them by so much as a hair's breadth."

"What I can't understand," said Lothair, "is, why Theodore, with his command of language and poetical expression, doesn't write librettos for himself? Why should we have to learn to be musicians, and expend our poetical powers, merely to produce a sort of block, or lay figure, for him to give life and motion to? Is it not princ.i.p.ally because composers are usually one-sided people, without enough _general_ education, that they require other folks to help them to do their own work? Are perfect unity of text and music conceivable, except when poet and composer are one and the same person?"

"All that sounds astonis.h.i.+ngly plausible," said Theodore, "and yet it is utterly and completely untrue. I maintain that it is wholly impossible that any one person can write a work, the words and the music of which shall both be excellent."

"You composers," said Lothair, "get that idea into your heads either because you are absurdly unenergetic, or const.i.tutionally indolent. The notion of having to go through the labour of writing the words before you can set to work at the music is so disagreeable to you that you can't bring yourselves to face it; but my belief is that, to a really inspired composer, the words and the music would occur simultaneously."

"You are rather driving me into a corner," said Theodore, "so instead of carrying on this argument, I shall ask you to let me read you a dialogue about the necessary conditions, or essentials of opera, which I wrote several years ago that eventful period which we have pa.s.sed through was then only beginning. I thought my artistic existence seriously menaced, and I fell into a state of despondency, which was probably partly the result of bad health. At this time I made a Serapiontic friend, who had abandoned the pen for the sword. He cheered me in my despondency, and forced me to throw myself into the full current of the events of that stirring time." Without further introduction, Theodore at once began:--

"THE POET AND THE COMPOSER.

"The enemy was before the gates. Heavy guns were thundering in every direction, and sh.e.l.ls were hurtling through the air; the people of the town were running, with white faces, into their houses, and the empty streets rang to the tramp of the cavalry patrols that were cantering along through them, and driving, with threats and curses, such of the soldiers as were loitering, or had fallen out of the ranks from any cause, forward into the trenches. But Ludwig sat on, in his back room, sunk and lost in the lovely, glorious vision-world which had opened upon him at his piano. For he had just completed a symphony, in which he had tried to write down, in notes to be seen and read, what he had heard and seen within him; a work which, like Beethoven's colossal ones in that kind, should tell, in heavenly language, of the glorious wonders of that far-off, romantic realm where life is all unspeakable, blissful, longing. Like _his_ marvellous creations, it was to come from that far-off realm, into this little, arid, thirsty world of ours, and, with beautiful, syren-accents, lure away from it those who should list, and give ear to its charming. But the landlady came in and rated him for sitting at his piano in that time of danger and distress; asking him if he meant to stay in his garret and be shot. At first he didn't understand what the woman was talking about, till a fragment of a sh.e.l.l knocked a piece of the roof off, and the broken panes of the window went clattering down upon the floor. Then the landlady ran down-stairs weeping and screaming; and Ludwig, taking his most precious possession, the score of his symphony, under his arm, hastened after her to the cellar. The inhabitants of the house were all a.s.sembled there. In an access of liberality very unusual with him, the wine-shop keeper, who occupied the lower story, had 'stood' a dozen or so of his best wine; whilst the women, in fear and trembling, brought numerous t.i.t-bits in their work-baskets. People ate and drank, and quickly pa.s.sed from their condition of exaltation and excitement to that confidential frame of mind in which neighbour, drawing close to neighbour, seeks, and thinks he finds security; and, so to say, all the petty, artificial _pas_ which we have been taught by conventionality are whelmed and merged in the great colossal waltz-whirl, to which the iron hand of destiny beats the resistless measure. The trouble and danger--the risk to life and limb--were forgotten; cheerful conversation was the order of the day; animated lips uttered brilliant speeches, and fellow-lodgers, who barely touched a hat to each other at ordinary times as they met on the stairs, were seated side by side, confiding to each other their most confidential affairs.

"The firing began to slacken a good deal, and there was talk of going up-stairs again, as the streets seemed to be getting pretty safe. An ex-Militaire, who was present, went further; and, after a few instructive observations concerning the system of fortification practised by the Romans, and the effect of the catapult (with a pa.s.sing allusion or two to Vauban, and more modern times), was just proving to us that we had no cause for the slightest uneasiness, because the house was completely out of the line of fire, when a shot sent the bricks of the cellar-ventilator rattling down about our ears. No one was hurt, however; and, as the Militaire jumped, with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g b.u.mper in his hand, on to the table (which the falling bricks had cleared of the bottles), and defied any other shot to trouble us, we were all quite rea.s.sured at once; and this proved to be our last scare. The night pa.s.sed away quietly, and, in the morning, we found that the troops had moved off to occupy another position, abandoning the town to the enemy.

On leaving the cellar, we found the enemy's cavalry scouring the streets, and a placard posted up guaranteeing that the townsfolk and their property should not be molested.