Ole Bull Part 13

Although requested by the judge to speak to the crowd, the artist declined to do so; but at last the excitement became so intense that at the urgent entreaty of this official he took his arm and walked home to dinner with him, to satisfy and quiet the people.

The children even were interested in these contests, and would accompany Ole Bull to and from the theatre by hundreds, while they took every occasion to torment his annoyers. The affection always shown him by the children of Bergen touched him more than any demonstration on the part of their elders.

Jonas Lie, referring to the establishment of the theatre, says:-

The culture of the country which had fostered his Norse violin was not yet sufficiently advanced for the new step. After two years the theatre pa.s.sed into other hands, but the 2d of January, 1850, will always be regarded as the birthday of the Norse National Drama and a memorable day in Ole Bull's life. Johannes Brun, Mrs.

Gundersen, Mrs. Brun, Mrs. Wolf, and Mrs. Juel,-these artists who have since shed so much l.u.s.tre on our National Theatre at the capital,-all began their artistic careers in Ole Bull's theatre.

In the disappointments and heartaches which the artist suffered from the misunderstanding of his best motives and most unselfish efforts, should not be forgotten the sympathy and helpfulness of the men and women of whom Norway is proud today. A few letters of this time have been preserved.

The following must have given him new courage and stimulus:-

BALESTRAND,[18] _September 4, 1849_.

[18] A most beautiful spot, the scene of "Frithiof's Saga."

... As I am not certain to meet you in Christiania when I go there, I write a few words to tell you what a lively interest I feel in your grand undertaking, the laying of the cornerstone of a _Norse_ theatre. And next, I have a strong desire to thank you for the happy hours you made me pa.s.s when we were last together.

It would not do for everybody to express their grat.i.tude by letter, but my artistic conceit makes me feel that the good I gained from your playing was of another kind than that which most people received; but, be that as it may, I have often thought that I must write and thank you some time, and this present occasion is a good one, since this is to be a sort of business letter. I have studied to find if there was not some way I could give my mite to this important work. In any case my suggestion can do no harm if it should not be practicable. I am thinking naturally of painting-the decorations. The manner in which this should be done is no unimportant matter, and especially important is it that it should be done by a Norseman and be Norse in spirit. As I am pretty certain not to be depriving any fellowcountrymen of work, I offer my services. The theatre must pay for the canvas and colors, or we might procure them in some other way that may occur to us later. You will best know how the directors would receive my offer. This much is certain, that it would give me great pleasure to work for the young theatre in this way. I could have the help of some of the younger artists in Christiania, as it would be too hard a task for me alone. It will be delightful if we can talk this over a fortnight hence in Christiania. The work you have before you will demand courage and endurance, and I wish you enough of both, since of necessity many serious obstacles will surely come in your way. Therefore good courage!-as the song says.

I am living amid all this glory and beauty, and know not whether to be sad or happy; for it is in every way delightful, but-what will come of it? The summer joy will soon be past, as already I must light my fire of an evening as I sit and muse in the chimney corner; but this is not so bad either. I leave for Christiania in a week and shall arrive a fortnight hence, when I hope to meet you.

Your very devoted HANS GUDE.

The following congratulatory letter from the poet Wergeland is characteristic:-

THE GROTTO, _22d July_.

DEAR OLE,-Welcome _Home_! I am cursing Denmark, in which you will sympathize with me. You see that I date this from a spot unknown to you. It is my new countryplace, and I look forward to having you of an evening on my balcony, which commands the most glorious view the environs of Christiania can offer. I want, too, to ask you if I should give you the text of what I am now writing. I have two delightful subjects, but both exotic; the one is Persian, the other filled with ravenblack negroes from the Congo coast and coppercolored Portuguese. Or do you wish something Norse? The latter might be preferable, though the Oriental subjects are exceedingly charming. I dare suggest these, since they are not my own. Let me know your decision.... I have a Norse vaudeville lying by me, which I can send you, if you will set it to music....

Having arranged for the business management of the theatre during his absence, Ole Bull visited Hamburg and Copenhagen. He also went to Prussia, giving concerts in several cities. At the end of the year he left Bergen for America, sailing from Liverpool for New York in January, 1852.

Early in March he went to Baltimore to see his counsel, who had written him of the favorable termination of his suit with Schubert. He also visited Lexington, Kentucky, among other places; and the following note from Henry Clay must have been written at that time, though it bears no date:-

LEXINGTON.

MY DEAR SIR,-I am truly sorry that my bad cold, which the change of weather and the prospect of rain induce me to apprehend I might increase by going out at night, deprives me of an opportunity of witnessing your performance from which I antic.i.p.ated so much pleasure tonight. All the other members of my family, who are not indisposed, have gone to enjoy that satisfaction.

I made an unsuccessful effort to see you today, but left no card.

I hope to pay my respects tomorrow, if you do not leave the city before the afternoon.

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. CLAY.

MR. OLE BULL, Lexington.

Ole Bull the next morning went to Mr. Clay's house, taking with him his violin. He went into the room adjoining the one in which Mr. Clay was seated, and played in a low tone the great statesman's favorite melody, "The Last Rose of Summer." Mr. Clay's interest was immediately aroused, and he asked if some one was not playing in the street. As the air continued, he remarked, "Ah, that must be Ole Bull; no one but he could play the old familiar air in that manner." When the artist finished, the doors were thrown open, and they embraced.

The following correspondence is interesting from the a.s.sociation of distinguished names:-

SENATE CHAMBER, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, _March 15, 1852_.

OLE BULL, ESQ.:

Sir,-Understanding that your present visit to this country is not made with any professional purpose, we take occasion to state that it would give us sincere gratification to be afforded an opportunity to witness a display of your peculiar powers in that art in which, by acknowledgment of the world, you are allowed to be a master. We wish to express the hope that you may find it convenient to give a public concert, during the course of your stay in Was.h.i.+ngton, in such manner and at such time and place as you may choose to indicate.

Very respectfully, your obedient servants,

James s.h.i.+elds, R. M. T. Hunter, Chas. T. James, Hamilton Fish, Geo. W. Jones, S. P. Chase, John J. McRae, Richard Brodhead, Pierre Soule, J. W. Bradbury, H. Clay, A. P. Butler, Wm. M. Gwin, S. R. Mallory, Chas. Sumner, J. D. Bright, J. M. Mason, S. U. Downs, Thomas G. Pratt, H. Hamlin, Thomas J. Rusk, M. Norris, James C. Jones, Jackson Morton, W. P. Mangum, Lewis Ca.s.s, John Davis, S. A. Douglas, Truman Smith, John H. Clarke, Wm. H. Seward.

The undersigned unite cordially in the foregoing request, and hope that it may be convenient and agreeable to gratify us:

Daniel Webster, J. J. Crittenden, A. H. H. Stuart, Wm. A. Graham, Thomas Corwin, Winfield Scott, A. De Bodisco, Sartiges, John T. Crampton, F. Testa, A. Calderon de la Barca, Fr. V. Gerolt, Marcoleta, F. Molina, De Bosch Spencer, G. Sibbern, De Sodre.

In accordance with this invitation, Ole Bull gave a concert in Was.h.i.+ngton on the 26th of March. He had visited the city to learn more about the inducements and advantages offered emigrants to go to the Western States. He had now a better opportunity than ever of studying and understanding the government of this country, because of personal acquaintance with such men as Webster, Clay, and Sumner. Minister Sibbern, the resident Swedish amba.s.sador at that time, was a friend of Ole Bull, and did everything in his power to make his stay pleasant.

He now performed by invitation in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York. The following notice of one of his concerts at this time (in the New York _Tribune_ of May 24, 1852) is from the pen of Mr.

George William Curtis:-

Nine years ago Ole Bull, then little known in America, made his debut at the old Park Theatre. Those who remember the glowing enthusiasm of that evening, and the triumphal career of which it was the prelude, will understand the interest with which the news of his recent arrival among us was received, and the eager curiosity to know if he was again to witch our world. On Sat.u.r.day evening that curiosity was satisfied by the reappearance of the great violinist, and the revelation of undiminished power. The audience was in itself a triumph, on Sat.u.r.day evening, in the midst of the present musical excitement attendant upon Madame Goldschmidt's farewell series. To gather three thousand people in Metropolitan Hall was an evidence of cordial and admiring remembrance, and of genuine homage to genius of which any artist might be justly proud. Since Ole Bull played here before, our musical experience is enlarged and deepened. Our audience is no longer unused to fine performance. It has heard much of the best, and its approbation is more discriminating, and therefore more flattering. That Ole Bull's success on Sat.u.r.day evening was very great, it is unnecessary to say; for no audience (except the French), however critical and severe, can escape the electrical touch of his genius. One word, one glance, one sweep, if it is informed with magnetic power, leaves all rules in the rear, and a.s.serts its own supremacy. Here is the characteristic and charm of Ole Bull. Like Paganini, he is an exceptional person. Like every man of remarkable and p.r.o.nounced genius, he is a phenomenon. He is his own standard; he makes his own rules. It is useless to pursue him with the traditional rules. His...o...b..t will not be prescribed or prophesied, for it is eccentric. In all that he does, the traditional temperament of genius betrays itself. He is tremulous and tender, but also rugged and stern, and strong as his native mountains. He is no unapt type of his Norway, with its sunny but breezy heights, with its dark and solemn depths, and, over all, the clear, blue heaven. In his mien and manner, in his music and his playing, the same thing is constantly felt. They are all wonderfully suggestive, but mainly of bold and melancholy outlines. For the pathos which inheres in air Northern story and character permeates all that he does, not as lachrymose sentiment, but as a genuine minor tone of feeling. It will not be difficult to infer the impression of his music and of his performance. It is all subjugated to himself. It is all means of expression for his own individuality. He aims not so much at a pure representation of the subject treated by his music, as at his own peculiarity of perception in regarding it. The hearer must know it as it struck him, and in the way he chooses, and all tends to impress upon that hearer the individuality of the artist. Hence Ole Bull stands in direct opposition to the "cla.s.sical" school, of which the peculiarity is to subdue the artist to the music. He is essentially romantic. His performance, beyond any we have ever heard, is picturesque. He uses music as color, and it matters nothing to him if the treatment be more or less elaborate, or rhythmical, or detailed, if it succeed in striking the hearer with the vivid impression sought. It is unavoidable, therefore, that he is called a charlatan. It is natural that the cla.s.sical artists are amazed at this bold buccaneer roving the great sea of musical approbation and capturing the costliest prizes of applause. But these prizes are never permanently held by weakness. They surrender only to majestic power. Hence we have the strange spectacle of an immense and miscellaneous audience hanging enchanted upon this wondrous bow, through performances of a length which, in itself, would be enough to wreck most success. Like the voice of an orator speaking for a people its hopes, its indignation, its pity and sorrow, so this violin sings for those who listen their own s.h.i.+fting, wild, and vague fancies. It is because the artist magnetizes them, for the time, and they think and dream as he chooses.

Ole Bull's mastery of his violin is imperial. The proud majesty of his person imparts itself in feeling to his command of the instrument; and artist, orchestra, and performance only magnify the man. We can, of course, have no quarrel with those who do not like it. If the hearer regrets the want of subtle musical elaboration in the composition; if he complains of its ponderous _physique_; if he is angry at the submission of the author to the virtuoso, we have nothing to say but that certainly he has reason, and that, if without these there were no beauty, no grandeur, no longhaunting imagery in the mind, then there would be little hope for our artist. But every man like Ole Bull shows that these are not essentials; he shows that the heart and imagination yield against all wishes and precedents and rules. Ole Bull is precisely "an irrefragable fact," against which criticism may dash its head at leisure. The public heart will follow him and applaud, because he plays upon its strings as deftly as upon those of his violin.

Possessed of a nature whose moods sympathize with those of the ma.s.s of men, and that in broad and striking reaches,-not too finely spun,-not of a Chopinlike dreaminess, which is rather the preternatural state of a feeble and excited organization, but of a broad humanity in his lights and shades, so full of life and overflowing vigor that he must impart that sympathy, and will scorn all rules in burning and branding it upon his audience; it is no marvel that this eccentric artist sways his hearer as he will, and is as secure of victory as Napoleon. If we turn more directly to his performance, we find a purity, a firmness, a sweetness, and breadth of tone which is unprecedented. The violin has no secrets from him. It waits upon him as Ariel upon Prospero.

There is no fiddle left in it. It sings and shouts and weeps as he wills. It is an orchestra or a flute or an aeolian harp, as the mood seizes him. The brilliancy, the incredible articulation, and the rapidity of his execution-upon one string or four strings-with all kinds of marvelous effects and whims, with the intensity and precision of his bowing, are in harmony with all the rest. They are called tricks, but they are only such tricks as the wind and clouds play; they are only such tricks as an artist of his organization, who loves the sounds and capacities of his instrument for their own sake, must necessarily display. He rejoices in this bewitching of the strings with a kind of physical delight, and he uses that witchery so well, with such richness and lavishness, that the susceptible listener does not long resist. We have left ourselves no s.p.a.ce to follow the performance in detail, which we shall do upon occasion of the next concert, at which, in the "Carnival of Venice," his supreme mastery of the violin will be dazzlingly displayed.

Again Mr. Curtis said:-

Ole Bull was the Ole Bull of old. His andante and adagio movements revealed in a remarkable degree that singular subtlety of his playing by which the instrument and the means seem lost, and only pure sound remains. Certain of his strokes are like rays of light.

They seem to flash and glisten sound, rather than produce it by mechanical means. The wild melancholy infused through all these pieces and which imparts to them rather the character of audible reveries than of formal compositions, is one of the great fascinations of his performance. It is always the individuality, always Norway and its weird interpreter, which affects you. The tenderness, the yearning plaintiveness, the subdued sweetness of the "Mother's Prayer," in particular, did not fail of a profound impression on the audience.

Before starting for the West and South, Ole Bull concluded the purchase of a large tract of land for a settlement of Norwegians. This land, 125,000 acres, was on the Susquehanna, in Potter County, Pennsylvania.

On the inauguration of the colony, he said: "We are to found a New Norway, consecrated to liberty, baptized with independence, and protected by the Union's mighty flag."

The representations of his countrymen who had settled in the South and had told him their tales of privations and hards.h.i.+ps, to which poor health was added because of the unfavorable climate, had induced him to make the experiment of a settlement in the North. Some three hundred houses were built, with a country inn, a store, and a church, erected by the founder, and hundreds flocked to the new colony. He entered heart and soul into the new project of making his countrymen happy and prosperous. He also continued his concerts for means to carry out his plans, having risked most of his fortune in the original purchase.

The company of artists with whom Ole Bull made his Western and Southern tour was a fine one, including the little Adelina Patti, her sister, Amalia Patti Strakosch, and Mr. Maurice Strakosch. They gave many concerts, some two hundred, we believe, in all.

The following, from a Southern paper, is interesting for its recognition of the early promise of the youngest member of the company:-

We are to hear Signorina Adelina Patti, a musical prodigy only eight years old. Unless the musical critics of the Union are much mistaken, this child is an extraordinary phenomenon. She sings the great songs of Malibran, Jenny Lind, Madame Sontag, and Catharine Hayes with singular power. Her voice is a pure soprano, and such are its remarkable powers that it is not necessary to make any allowance for the performance being that of a child.... It is a mark of great musical intrepidity in a child eight years of age to sing "Ah, mon giunge," from "Sonnambula," and Jenny Lind's "Echo Song"; and nothing short of the testimony we have seen could make us believe such a thing possible. Yet, the whole artistic life of Ole Bull is a guarantee that nothing but sterling merit can take part in his concerts. We have no doubt that Signorina Patti will nestle herself in many a memory tonight, in company with Jenny Lind and Catharine Hayes, not because she is such a singer as they are, but because her youth will impart to her performance a charm that their matured powers cannot give.

From Georgia the violinist wrote his brother Edward, February 6, 1853, as follows:-

Not indifference, but overwhelming business has prevented my answering your dear letter,-and unfortunately my reply must be as short as possible, although I have so much on my heart that I long to tell you. Of my activity as artist and leader, and controller of my little State in Pennsylvania, you can have a conception only when you know that I am engaged simultaneously in laying out five villages, and am contracting with the Government for the casting of cannon, some ten thousand in all, for the fortresses, especially for those in California. Philadelphia has subscribed two millions to the Sunbury and Erie road, which goes near the colony on the south; New York has also given two millions to a branch of the Erie and New York road from Elmira to Oleana, the northern line of the colony, so that we shall be only twelve hours distant from New York, ten from Philadelphia, and about eleven from Baltimore.

So many have applied for land that I have been obliged to look out for more in the neighborhood; I have bought 20,000 acres to the west, and in the adjoining county (MacKean) I have the refusal of 112,000 acres. In Wyoming County I am contracting for an old, deserted foundry with forest, waterpower, workshops, and dwellings, and am taking out patents in Was.h.i.+ngton for a new smelting furnace for cannon.

I am giving concerts every day, and must often go without my dinner, I am so driven. Today, Sunday, I have a moment free; tomorrow to Columbia, and on to New Orleans; from there either to Was.h.i.+ngton, for the inauguration of President Pierce, or to California via Nicaragua; and in the latter event I return to New York to visit the colony the end of April....