Woman's Work in Music Part 3

The life of Carl Maria von Weber was tinged in its earlier years with the romance that seemed to pervade all phases of life in his native country. Germany had just pa.s.sed through one of her rare but regular periods of national awakening, and every one was full of a keen spirit of patriotic originality in life, letters, and art, as well as in music.

Gifted with unusual talents, trained in the paternal hope of his becoming a boy prodigy like Mozart, and urged by the need of making his own career, he soon made a name for himself by his personal charms as well as his talents. A welcome guest in the homes of aristocracy and cultivation, he possessed a roving disposition and a spirit of adventure that made his life not unlike that of the early Troubadours.

It was in Vienna that he met his future wife. Being given charge of the opera at Prague, he journeyed to the Austrian capital for the purpose of engaging singers, and among them brought back the talented Caroline Brandt. He soon wished to enter into closer relations with this singer, but found obstacles in the way of marriage. She was unwilling to sacrifice at once a career that was winning her many laurels, and she did not wholly approve of the wandering life that the gifted young manager had led up to the time of their meeting. We find him discontented with this situation, and travelling about in search of a better and more important post; and during one of these trips he received a letter from Caroline, saying that they had better part. This brought forth the accusation from the embittered Weber that "Her views of high art were not above the usual pitiful standard, namely, that it was but a means of procuring soup, meat, and s.h.i.+rts." There can be no doubt, however, that her influence was of the utmost value in steadying his efforts.

When Weber was once back in Prague, her real love for him overcame all scruples, and she showed herself ready to wait until he should attain a post of sufficient value to permit their marriage. After putting the Prague opera on a stable basis, he looked about for a long time in vain, until finally he obtained a life position as conductor in Dresden. At last he was able to return to Prague and marry his faithful Caroline, with the certainty of being able to provide her a home. The newly wedded pair made a triumphant concert tour, and settled down to a life of domestic felicity in Dresden. It can hardly be said that Weber lived happily ever afterward, for he found many troubles in connection with his new post. But his married life was such a constant source of joy to him that he felt always inspired with fresh energy to overcome all difficulties. It was during his married career that he won those immense popular successes, with "Der Freischutz," "Euryanthe," and "Oberon,"

that gave the most brilliant l.u.s.tre to a name already immortal. The last opera took him to London, away from his beloved family. Aware of his failing health, he made every effort to reach home, but that boon was denied him, and he died without another view of those who would have been anxious to soothe his last moments.

Ludwig Spohr was another composer who possessed a musical wife. He came of a musical family, his father being a flutist, while his mother played the piano and sang. Ludwig took up the violin at five years of age, and at six was able to take part in concerted music. His compositions began at about the same time. After a youth of earnest study, long practice, and successful tours, he finally became leader in the band of the Duke of Gotha. It was there that he met Dorette Scheidler, the famous harpist, whom he afterward married. Her influence is seen in his later compositions, for he wrote for her a number of sonatas for harp and violin, as well as a good many harp solos. The musical pair went on many tours, always sharing the honours of the performances.

Still more evident is the influence of woman upon music in the case of Hector Berlioz. This great genius, born in 1803, was the son of an opium eater, and the morbid character of most of his works may be traced to this cause. Berlioz studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but his sensational style did not win favour with the cla.s.sical Cherubini, and the young man was forced to work against many difficulties. He was even forbidden at one time to compete for the _Prix de Rome_, and came near giving up his career in dejection.

On the Parisian stage was a beautiful Irish actress, named Harriet Smithson, who was performing the plays of Shakespeare. Berlioz at once fell in love with her, but it was some time before his needy circ.u.mstances allowed him to lay his suit before her. When he did so, his pa.s.sion found shape and expression in a great musical work,--the Symphonic Fantastique.

This is a weird and sinister composition, but very effective. It is in five movements. The first represents a young man seeing his ideal and falling in love with her, the object of this sudden affection being depicted by a tender theme on the violin. This theme pervades the entire work. In the second movement, which represents a ball, it signifies the entrance of the fair one. The third movement is called "In the Fields,"

and contains a duet between the two lovers in the guise of a shepherd and shepherdess. They are portrayed by an English horn and an oboe, the result being one of the great instrumental dialogues that are sometimes found in-works of the tone masters. An effective touch is the introduction of a thunder-storm, after which the English horn begins a plaintive note of inquiry, but meets with no reply. In the fourth movement, the young man has slain his love in a fit of jealousy, and is on his way to execution. Very powerful music expresses the fatal march, interrupted every now and then by the surging footsteps of the crowd. At its close, the hero ascends the scaffold; amid a hush, the tender love theme reappears, but is obliterated by a sudden crash of the full orchestra, and all is still. Berlioz, however, does not let his hero rest in the grave, but adds a fifth movement to show him in the infernal regions. Piccolo and other wild instruments depict the fury of the demons, a parody on the Dies Irae follows, and even the tender love-theme is not spared, but is turned into the most vulgar of waltzes.

This musical love-letter was understood, and Miss Smithson afterward married the great composer. But, unfortunately, the romance stopped at this point, and they did not "live happily ever afterward." The actress was forced by an accident to leave the stage permanently. She and her husband did not agree well, and were continually at odds. Finally she took to drink, and a separation soon followed. Berlioz married again, his second wife being the singer, Mlle. Recio. He outlived her, and in later life was taken care of by her mother.

The symphony, incidentally, was so successful at its first performance that a strange-looking man rushed to the platform, saluted the composer, and sent him a more substantial token in the shape of twenty thousand francs. The stranger proved to be Paganini, but that famous violinist was such a miser that the story has been doubted. It is said that he acted in behalf of an unknown benefactor, but his enthusiasm at the performance seems to disprove this, and the work possesses just the dark and sinister character that would appeal to Paganini.

Another composition inspired by the same love episode is the "Romeo and Juliette" Symphony. Berlioz tried to make all his music tell a story, and he believed in the theory that tones could be made to represent ideas in a much greater degree than is usually supposed. The result is shown in many characteristic pa.s.sages in his works, an excellent example being the gentle and melancholy theme that typifies Childe Harold in the symphony of that name. But Berlioz carried his idea to extremes, and fairly earned the half-reproach of Wagner, who said of him: "He ciphers with notes." That Berlioz could write with more direct beauty is shown by his practical joke at the expense of the critics; for he pretended to unearth an old piece by a certain Pierre Ducre, which they praised greatly in contrast with his own works, and after they had done their worst, Berlioz proved that he himself was the mythical Ducre.

Giuseppe Verdi was another great musician who felt the full richness of domestic happiness, if only for a time. Born in the little hamlet of Le Roncole in 1813, he proved himself possessed of unusual talent, and after a time went to Busseto for lessons. There he came to the notice of M. Barezzi, who became the friend and patron of the young student. The story of his being refused at the Milan Conservatory, and afterward amazing the authorities by his speed in composing fugues, is too well known to need repet.i.tion. After his Milan studies, we find him back at Busseto, in love with Barezzi's daughter Margherita. The father, unlike the usual stern parent who repels impecunious musicians, gave his permission for their union, which took place soon after, in 1836.

In a couple of years he settled down in Milan, with his wife and two children. Success began to crown his efforts, and his career of opera composer was well begun, when his domestic happiness came to a complete end. First one child fell sick and died of an unknown malady, then the second followed it in a few days, and within two months the bereaved mother was stricken with a fatal inflammation of the brain. In the midst of all these misfortunes, Verdi was kept at work by a commission for "Un Giorno di Regno," which was to be a comic opera! Little wonder that the wit oozed out of the occasion, and the performance proved a failure. The despondent Verdi resolved to give up his career altogether, and only by the insistence of the manager, Merelli, was he finally persuaded to resume his occupation. In later life he married again, pa.s.sing a placid existence on his extensive estates.

The domestic career of Richard Wagner has formed the subject for endless discussions. His birth, his early studies, his university career, and his start as a professional musician, all took place in Leipsic. There, too, he met the famous opera singer, Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient, whose gifts made such an impression on the young composer. It was the excellence of her acting, as well as her singing, that gave the embryo reformer his first ideas of the intimate union of drama and music that is one phase of his later operatic greatness. Many of his leading roles were written for her, and as late as 1872 he stated that whenever he conceived a new character he imagined her in the part.

His work as leader took him first to Magdeburg. The failure of his early opera, "Das Liebesverbot," put an end to this enterprise, and soon afterward he appeared as concert leader in Koenigsberg. There he met and married his first wife, Wilhelmina (or Minna) Planer. Their natures were different in many respects. While he displayed many of the vagaries of genius, she was patient and practical, and, if not wholly understanding the highest side of his nature, she gave up her own career to help him through his days of poverty and struggle.

The first venture of the wedded pair was at Riga, where Wagner was engaged for a term to conduct in a new theatre. After this, they took s.h.i.+p for Paris, and the stormy pa.s.sage gave Wagner many a suggestion for his "Flying Dutchman." It was in the French capital that Minna's domestic qualities were given their most severe trial, for the composer found little or no chance to produce his own works, and was forced to gain a precarious living by the commonest musical drudgery. Probably her constant care and economy were all that turned the scale in favour of success. At length the Dresden authorities became interested in some of the earlier operas, and Wagner was liberated from his dependent position.

The stay in Dresden being cut short by the political troubles of 1848 and 1849, Wagner found a home in Zurich, where his wife soon joined him.

There he wrote or sketched the grand works that came to full fruition in his later life. After years of exile, he came back to Germany, where his pursuit of fortune was still in vain, and might have ended in suicide but for the sudden patronage of his royal admirer, the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. It was at this time that the differences in character began to cause domestic infelicity in the Wagnerian household. Finally the pair separated, and, although he did not leave Minna in want, yet she was compelled to pa.s.s the last few years of her life in seclusion and loneliness, while he basked in the favour of royalty, and found the high position that had so long been denied him. It is usually claimed by Wagner's most rabid partisans that she was unable to hold her place in the new surroundings, and that his genius needed a helpmate more in sympathy with his high ideals. Admitting the truth of these a.s.sertions, the fair-minded critic must accept them as an explanation, at least, of his conjugal ingrat.i.tude, but Minna's faithful performance of duty in the early days will not allow them to stand as a valid excuse.

Wagner's second marriage with Cosima, daughter of Liszt and divorced wife of Von Bulow, resulted happily. The devotion of the new helpmate to the Wagnerian cause has survived the master's death by many years, and is still witnessed by the musical world. The domestic bliss of their married life is well shown in the beautiful Siegfried Idyll, which Wagner composed as a surprise for his wife on their son's birthday.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHARD AND COSIMA WAGNER.]

Among living composers gifted with musical wives, the most preeminent is Richard Strauss. As Clara Schumann could perform her husband's works, so the wife of Strauss, who is an excellent singer, is at her best when giving her husband's songs. Like Grieg's wife, she is more successful than all other singers in this role of domestic devotion. She usually appears with him as accompanist, a position in which he excels, and each modestly tries to make the other respond to the applause that is sure to follow their performance.

CHAPTER IV.

CLARA AND ROBERT SCHUMANN

History has never witnessed a more perfect union of two similar natures, both endowed with rich mental gifts, and each filled with a perfect sympathy for the other, than the marriage of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck. It holds a place in the story of music similar to that occupied by the romance of Abelard and Heloise in poetry. The lives of both composers afford an example of the most unselfish devotion and depth of affection, combined with the highest idealism in an art that poets themselves have admitted to be even n.o.bler than their own.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARIE WIECK]

The birth of Clara Wieck, on September 13, 1819, took place at Leipsic.

That city had not yet entered upon the period of musical greatness that it was soon to enjoy. The day of Beethoven and Schubert was apparently pa.s.sing, and only the lighter and more trivial styles of composition held sway. Her father, however, Friedrich Wieck, was a piano teacher of extensive reputation and most excellent qualities, and did his best to raise the standard of the place. From him, and from her mother as well, the young Clara inherited her innate musical taste. But the maternal influence was not of long duration, for domestic troubles soon caused the separation of Wieck and his wife, the latter marrying the father of Woldemar Bargiel, while the former also entered into a second union, with Clementine Fechner at Leipsic. A daughter of this second marriage, Marie Wieck, won some fame as a pianist, but was far surpa.s.sed by her elder half-sister.

Clara did not at first show signs of becoming a child prodigy, but in her fifth year she gave indications of possessing musical talent, and her careful father proceeded at once to develop her powers. So successful were his individual methods that in four years she was able to play Mozart and Hummel concertos by heart, and ready to sustain her part in public. Her first appearance was in conjunction with Emilie Reichold, one of her father's older pupils, with whom she played Kalkbrenner's variations on a march from "Moses." One important paper of the time spoke of her success as universal and well deserved, and did not hesitate to predict a great future for her under her honoured father's wise guidance.

Wieck has been the subject of much criticism on account of his supposed harshness and severity. In the matter of Clara's musical training, however, these charges cannot be sustained, as one of her own letters will show. "My father has come before the world in an entirely false light," she writes, "because he took art earnestly, and brought me up to regard it earnestly. People have no idea how utterly different from the usual standards must be the whole education and career of any one who wishes to accomplish something worth while in art. In connection with artistic development, my father kept the physical development especially in view also. I never studied more than two hours a day in the earliest times, or three in later years; but I had also to take a daily walk with him of just as many hours to strengthen my nerves. Moreover, while I was not yet grown up, he always took me home from every entertainment at ten o'clock, as he considered sleep before midnight necessary for me. He never let me go to b.a.l.l.s, as he judged I could use my strength for more important things than dancing; but he always let me go to good operas.

In many free hours I used to grow enthusiastic over piano arrangements of operas and other music. One cannot do that when one is tired out.

Besides that, I had, even in earliest youth, intercourse with the most distinguished artists. They, and not dolls, were the friends of my childhood, though I was not deprived of the latter. Those people who have no comprehension of such a serious bringing up ascribed it all to tyranny and severity, and held my accomplishments, which may indeed have been more than those of a child, to be impossible unless I had been forced to study day and night. As a matter of fact, it was wholly my father's genius for teaching that brought me so far, by cultivation of the intellect and the feelings united with only moderate practice."

"To my pain," she continues, "I must say that my father has never been recognized as he deserved to be. I shall thank him during my entire lifetime for the so-called severities. How would I have been able to live through a career of art, with all the heavy difficulties that were laid upon me, if my const.i.tution had not been so strong and healthy because of my father's care?"

About this time there came upon the scene a youth named Robert Schumann.

Born in 1810, of a family that was literary rather than musical, he had obtained some knowledge of the art with his father's consent. After the death of the latter, his mother would not hear of his choosing a musical career, but insisted on his studying law. This he did at Heidelberg, in a rather original manner,--taking long walks, reading Jean Paul's works, and practising piano nearly all day. In the summer he met Wieck, whom he adopted as a teacher, and in this way he came to know the learned pedagogue's talented daughter.

Her musical education was now beginning to bear fruit. In the concert tours that she began soon after her first triumph, she never allowed herself to be carried away by the fondness of the public for mere display, but always aimed at something higher. Instead of making a show of her technical attainments, she consecrated her powers to the cause of true art. It required great courage to uphold her standard, for she came upon the scene at a time when only phenomenal playing, bristling with seemingly unconquerable difficulties, won the public homage and the public wealth. Herein both she and her future husband showed themselves actuated by the very highest motives.

Unfortunately for the romantic side of the story, theirs was not a case of love at first sight. No less than five years after their first meeting, we find Schumann deeply interested in a certain Ernestine von Fricken, another pupil of Wieck. It is stated that the beautiful numbers of the "Carneval" were due largely, if not wholly, to her inspiration, which at that time reached its highest point.[4] The letters A, S, C, and H (the German way of notating B) represent the Bohemian town of Asch, where she was born, and are also the only musical letters in Schumann's own name. He himself noted this coincidence in a letter to Moscheles, and built the themes of the various numbers almost wholly upon them.

However this may be, he certainly had a great admiration for Clara even in her early years. He took piano lessons of her father, and became for a time an inmate of their house. He owed much to the teaching, but still more to the stimulating artistic society of the Wieck family.

In 1829 he left his teacher, and made a final effort to prepare for the legal career that his mother had planned for him. It was of little avail, however, for in the next year we find him writing home that his entire life had been "but a twenty years' strife between poetry and prose,--or music and law,--and it must now cease." So earnestly did he plead his case that his mother at last yielded to his wishes, though with fear and trembling, and the final decision was referred to Wieck.

That artist, who had by this time fully recognized Schumann's great gifts, gave his decision in favour of music, and the young enthusiast, after having his affairs duly settled, returned to Leipsic and devoted himself altogether to art.

It is probable that he would have given himself wholly to the career of a successful pianist, but for an accident. After a year of painstaking practice, he invented a contrivance by which the weaker fingers were allowed to gain strength by usage, while the third finger was held back.

This mechanism was altogether too successful, for, after using it some time, he found his third finger so badly crippled that he was forced to give up hope of ever winning fame on the concert stage. What seemed a catastrophe to him has proven a blessing to the world, for, if he had spent his life in executing the works of others, he would never have had the leisure to create his own immortal compositions.

Meanwhile Clara was steadily improving her already remarkable powers.

Besides keeping up her playing, she now began regular study in composition. In later life the two were to labour together in many pieces, but even at this time Schumann's interest in her work was great, and in one of his early compositions (Impromptu, Op. 5) we find him using a theme of hers as the basis of his own piece.

The eleven-year-old girl was now started upon a series of tours by her father, who wished to give her some idea of the world, and to let the world gain some knowledge of her attainments. From Dresden he writes home joyfully to his wife: "It is impossible to describe the sensation that your two little monkeys from the Leipsic menagerie have made here."

But the fatherly care and wisdom were not lacking, for he continues: "I am anxious lest the honours and distinctions should have a bad influence upon Clara. If I notice anything of the sort, then I shall travel further at once, for I am too proud of her modesty, and would not exchange it for any decoration in the world." In the next year the triumphs were continued at Weimar, Ca.s.sel, and Frankfurt. After winning the approval of Spohr and other competent judges who were above all envy, she proceeded to Paris, where her father had the proud privilege of exhibiting her talents to Chopin. In Weimar, Goethe took a deep interest in the wonderful child, and sent his picture to the "Richly endowed (_Kunstreichen_) Clara Wieck," as a token of the pleasure her playing had given him.

As the result of her Parisian meeting with Chopin, she became one of the best interpreters of that master's works, and gave them to the world in much the same manner that she did those of Schumann soon afterward.

Usually her work in educating the public was successful. But critics are not all safe guides, and even to-day we find many unmusical men in responsible newspaper positions, so it is not surprising to find an occasional misunderstanding occur. In Vienna, for instance, we find the influential but self-important Rellstab writing that it is "a shame that she is in the hands of a father who allows such nonsense as Chopin's to be played." These strictures did not extend to the performance, however, and the writer does not fail to acknowledge her marked talent. Fetis bears witness to the "lively sensation" she created on the banks of the Seine, while along the Danube she won victory on victory. The aristocracy were eager to admit her to their circle, and the Austrian Empress named her court virtuoso, an honour never before bestowed on a foreigner.

Some time before this, she had won the attention and interest of the young Schumann, if nothing more. He had been at work on a symphony in G minor (which, by the way, proved a failure and was never published), and the performance of the first movement in his native Zwickau took place at a concert given there by Clara, then only thirteen. Even then her performance was astonis.h.i.+ng, and, as Schumann put it, "Zwickau was fired with enthusiasm for the first time in its life." Schumann was no less excited than the rest of the town. His letters of that time are full of expressions that seem to betray a deeper feeling, though he himself did not become conscious of it until later. "Call her perfection," he writes to a friend, "and I will agree to it." In a Leipsic tribute, he inquires: "Is it the gifted child of genius (_Wunderkind_), at whose stretch of a tenth people shake their heads, but admire? Is it the hardest of difficulties, which she throws off to the public as if they were wreaths of flowers? Is it perhaps mere pride, with which the city looks upon its daughter; or is it because she gives us the most interesting things of the most recent times with the least delay? I do not know; but I do feel, simply, that she has the spirit that compels admiration."

The great poets, too, gave her their tributes of praise. "They recognized in this inspiring vision," says Liszt, "a true daughter of their fatherland. They strewed their pearls of song before her, and glorified this Benjamin of their race, who, gazing about with inspired glances and wondrous smiles, seemed like a silent Naiad, who felt herself a stranger in the land of prose."

Meanwhile the love that had been growing in silence between her and Schumann began to take tangible form. His unspoken pa.s.sion found expression in the written rhapsodies addressed to "Chiarina" in his new music journal, the _Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik_. In a more purely musical manner, his feelings took shape in such works as his "Daidsbundler" Dances, the "Chiarina" of the Carnival, the F-Sharp Minor Sonata, the Kreisleriana, the Humoreske, the Novelettes, and the Nocturnes,--truly an offering of rare beauty, and well worthy to express the feelings of the inspired lover. They bore witness of his adoration to all who knew him, and all who were able to listen with understanding ears. And Clara, too, in spite of high honours and higher friends.h.i.+ps, had already given her heart to the silent man endowed with the deep spirit of romance and poetry. She was his, in spite of the opposition of her father, who guarded his treasure with a jealous eye, and would hear of no marriage unless in the distant future.

It was in 1836 that the two lovers came to an understanding. In the next summer Schumann made formal mention of his suit to her father. Wieck's refusal may have been due to his entertaining higher hopes for his now famous daughter, but at any rate the father found an adequate reason in the vague and unsubstantial prospects of the young composer. This was a sad blow, but Schumann tacitly acknowledged its justice, for he soon began making efforts to better his condition, instead of working only for the glory of art. Although he tried to resign himself to give Clara up, he could not do so, and with her consent he left for Vienna in hopes of giving his music journal a broader field. The effort was not a success; Schumann found Vienna no less trivial in its tastes than many other places, and wrote home that people could "gabble and gossip quite as much as in Zwickau." His sojourn there had one important result in his discovery of Schubert's beautiful C major Symphony, which he sent to Mendelssohn for performance at the Leipsic Gewandhaus.

Disappointed in material prospects, he tried to obtain a more honourable position by getting a Doctor's degree from the University of Jena. "You know, perhaps, that Clara is my betrothed," he writes to an influential friend. "Her high rank as an artist has often led me to consider my own humble position, and, although I know how modest she is, and that she loves me simply as a man and a musician, still I think it would please her to have me seek a higher position in the civic sense of the word.

Let me ask you: Is it very hard to get a Doctor's degree at Jena?"

Apparently it was not hard when a man of Schumann's fame applied, for in another letter he writes: "Everything combined to fill the measure of my joy. The eulogy is so glorious that I certainly owe you a large share of thanks for it. It gave me and my friends most sincere pleasure. The first thing I did was, of course, to send a copy into the north to a girl who is still a child, and who will dance with glee at the idea that she is engaged to a Doctor."