^dce to 'Rail ^'itH Great Musicians enQi:ies.,,njsQa£son OlartteU Htttograttg Slibratg atljata, SJeto lark BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY MUSIC ... „ -wnell University Library ML 390.173 pt.1 ^^fiS.il!S„.f3.5.S. "''"1 fl™at musicians 3 1924 022 191 047 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022191047 FACE TO FACE WITH GREAT MUSICIANS FIRST GROUP FACE TO FACE WITH GREAT MUSICIANS BY CHARLES D. ISAACSON INTRODUCTION BY LEOPOLD GODOWSKY FIRST GROUP D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1929 Copyright, 19 1 8, Tjy D. APPLETON AND COMPANY CoPVWOBT, »nl», BY Bom & LiVEEIGBT, ISC. /, PJUHTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEDICATED TO MY WIFE WHO FIRST SAW THE VALUE OF THE IDEA PREFACE IF there is such a place as the Land of the Beyond, the immortals of music doubtless have gathered together there some time since, and come to some conclusion about this, their self-appointed latter-day Boswell. I have seen them if it is possible to see a man in his works, in his letters, in his memoirs, in his biog- raphies, in his portraits, and in the comments of his enemies and friends. Each name in the whole history of music conjures up for me a living personality, with whom I may in the silences of solitude, converse in no mistakable manner. It is no dead, empty-sounding word for me to see the name of a composer on a program; each number that is to be heard is a key which unlocks for me a stage on which is reenacted a scene from the drama of a man's life. In these little meetings face to face with great musicians, I have tried to make it possible for the most unlearned novice in music to enter the inner circle of musical creators and interpreters. As a matter of fact I have written the articles in such a way that the musical idea may be disre- vii Vlll Preface garded, permitting them to be read just as little stories for sheer entertainment. Dr. Humphrey, of homeopathic fame, used to give sugar tablets that people like to eat. The tablets, however, had just enough medicine in them to cure many ills. I have never had the fortune to know railroad operators intimately, and I have no particular sym- pathy for the railroad-operating business. If I were to live for some months with a set of men whose en- tire lives were devoted to that subject, I am sure that I would emerge with a knowledge and interest in railroad work, which would carry me through the rest of my days. The reason that so many people are indifferent to music has been simply a matter of circumstance and environment. In my work of bringing con- certs to hundreds of thousands of people I have dis- covered that the most outspoken skeptic becomes an ardent music-lover, imder this process of introducing the human element. It has broken down the im- agined barrier between the great public and what they erroneously termed "high brow stuff." These face to face meetings have been read to some three hundred thousand laymen that they might, in this intimate manner, gain an interest in music through knowing musicians. They have come into the circle] they have discovered that musicians are not impossible of understanding, but that they are very human creatures, whose lives furnish an Preface IX infinite source of entertainment to keep you laughing and weeping, to give you thrills and starts. "The music that a man writes is only the reflec- tion of his own life, ambitions, hopes and failures," I have said. "When you know his life, you have the clue to the significance of his music." With this as a premise, with face to face articles as the medium, I have asked audiences to interpret music for me iji their own way. Their imaginations are set at work, — and what is music worth if it does not excite the imagination? — and they find the loveliest, most amazing meanings in the speech of the piano, violin, cello and orchestra. Some day I am going to write all about these interpretations, but as Kip- ling has it, that is another story. These articles were written for me to read to my audiences; then it was asked that they run in my department in the New York Globe; and finally, hundreds of people asked that the articles be brought to book publication, or I would not have essayed so serious an undertaking. Each article represents research into all the avail- able existing data, which in most cases is miserably scant. I have tried to put no words into a charac- ter's mouth which were not taken from some actual, chronicled quotation of his life-time utterances, or were not justified by co-related evidence. In every instance it has been my desire to write the article in the dominant spirit of the composer's music, as I conceive it. For instance, Mendelssohn is to me X Preface the spring-time poet, Tschaikowsky is morbid trag- edy — Rossini is bubbling good-humor; Berlioz is a philosopher; Chopin is the living expression of re- gret; Gluck represents the revolutionary spirit. I have purposely pressed-down-hard in order to leave the reader with a definite impression of a specific characteristic or set of characteristics to be remem- bered evermore when the name is mentioned, or the music of the man is heard. The book is built with widely varying characters following one another. No academic method of grouping has been attempted. In fact that style has been religiously avoided, although the entire series, weaving all facts together, gives a comprehensive knowledge of musical facts and history. I have included Stradivarius, Christofori and other instru- ment makers, that even the instruments may take on a new interest because of those who are responsi- ble for their existence. For the music student who has neither the time nor inclination to wade through the voluminous dry-as-dust encyclopedias and biog- raphies, I trust these articles will offer a pleasant short-cut to the goal, being vignettes out of the composers' lives, presented without pedantic or tech- nical flavor. I am grateful to all the sources of information from which I have gleaned my facts. I wish to extend to the publishers and editors of the New York Globe my appreciation for the assistance they have given me and to the several hundred important Preface XI artists of to-day who have aided me with their per- sonal opinions and experiences. Charles D. Isaacson CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Preface, Introduction, by Leopold Godowsky Face to Face with Music . . . vii XV I II. Face to Face with Beethoven 6 III. Face to Face with Mendelssohn . • 19 IV. Face to Face with Chopin . . . • 25 V. Face to Face with Gretry . . . 32 VI. Face to Face with Brahms . . . 39 VII. Face to Face with Debussy . . 48 VIII. Face to Face with Paganini . . S5 IX. Face to Face with Stradivarius . 63 X. Face to Face with Wolf . . . 71 XI. Face to Face with Bach . . . . 79 XII. Face to Face with Gluck . . . . 86 XIII. Face to Face with MacDowell . . 93 XIV. Face to Face with Liszt . . . . 102 XV. Face to Face with Lully . . . . IIO XVI. Face to Face with Pergolesi . . . 119 XVII. Face to Face with Meyerbeer . . 1 25 iyiu. Face to Face with Granados . 135 XIX. Face to Face with Cherubini . . . 143 XX. Face to Face with Sullivan . . . 152 XIY Contents CHAPTER PAGE XXI. Face to Face with Stradella . . . i6o XXII. Face to Face with Chaminade . i68 XXIII. Face to Face with Massenet . . . 177 XXIV. Face to Face with Mascagni . . . 186 XXV. Face to Face with Haydn . . . 19s XXVI. Face to Face with Monteverde . 204 XXVII. Face to Face with Bellini . , . 213 XXVIII. Face to Face with Noverre . . 221 XXIX. Face to Face with Verdi . . . 230 XXX. Face to Face with Handel . . . . 238 INTRODUCTION BY LEOPOLD GODOWSKY THE Americans adore people. If you have done something which gives you a person- ality, you are popular. If you create an atmosphere which stimulates the curiosity, excites admiration, or even arouses scorn, you are sure to be on everybody's lips. Abraham Lincoln will live forever as a dear friend, because he is an idol. We know all his foibles and whims. Stonewall Jackson, U. S. Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, John L. Sullivan, "Matty" the pitcher, are national figures because the people have a chance to hang their names to a human set of qualities. Americans want to know what goes on under- neath the skin of folks — ^not the scandal, but the real being, irrespective of genius. My good friend, Charles D. Isaacson, caught this idea. It might have been an accident, but I think it was worked out with malice aforethought. Isaac- son knows the American people. To have held to- gether hundreds of thousands of lay audiences, ad- minister heavy doses of classic music without giving his listeners mental indigestion, is a feat. But the way he did it shows human nature is just the same xvi Introduction whether it's baseball, politics or music, under discus- sion. These "Face to Face" meetings with the famous musicians of history, take the musical human beings off the shelf, dust them, spruce them up, and breathe life into them so that for a brief space of time they actually reenact their former existence. They go through it all over again. "If I had my chance to live again," some have said, "how differently I might act," but Isaacson doesn't give them the opportunity to be good. As they were, they are. How my friend did it, I don't know. I'm sure he's not as old as his most ancient subject. Then, too, nobody ever wrote anything just like this be- fore. Perhaps Isaacson has an intuitive sense of what they did, which he adds to the marvelous re- search he has made. I know that in my own work I have discovered that this sort of treatment adds unusual interest; in my teaching the young students, I have always tried to make the music appear as a human thing rather than as a dry academical assortment of notes. I have always urged the teachers who come to me in my Master-Class to make their lessons with the young people human. The moment a lesson be- comes dry it is fatal. These "Face to Face" readings are popular be- cause they are very much needed. They are proving the great stepping stone to music for hundreds of thousands. The same inspiring way that the genius Introduction xvii of the past has been preserved, is possible with the genius of to-day. I commend their publication because at last Amer- icans can think of Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and others as something other than printed names on the printed programs. Now, Johnny Smith and Mrs. Brown can join company with the great old masters. "Beethoven," reads the man at the concert. "I see that a good deal; what does it mean?" Now, in the "Face to Face" reading, the man himself breaks through the printed word. Beethoven, at his piano, sad-eyed, stone-deaf, plodding at his task relent- lessly. Opera — grand opera — well that came from 'way back, reads the "Face to Face" article on Monte- verde, and tells of the first opera house. The citi- zens, all skeptical, are moving about sure as life. That violin you see there, with the name "Stradivarius." The air is astir and old Antonio Stradivarius has rebuilt his Cremonese shop for you — his daughter is walking about and poor old Strad is bargaining with his unreasonable customers. Mario! A name which formerly filled persons with awe. Dead and gone except that now his ro- mances are alive all over. Those musicians are human indeed. I wish I had really lived with them, — don't you? Leopold Godowsky. FACE TO FACE WITH GREAT MUSICIANS FACE TO FACE WITH— MUSIC WE are to meet so many of music's ambas- sadors that it occurred to us that an ex- cellent thing would be to meet the mon- arch herself and be done with it. So forthwith we set out like Jason in search of the Golden Fleece. We will find her at once, we thought, and press question after question on her until she tells us with her own lips just what she is, just what are the true facts concerning her and her life's history. 2 Face to Face with Great Musicians Ah, there she is, we whisper, as from the street we hear a melody — we will capture her at once. Rushing from the building we are about to turn back in disgust, for to the turning of a hand organ grinding out a tawdry tune, some ragged chil- dren are dancing. Standing nearby is a woman, her face bearing an empty stare, pretty maybe, and some- times smiling — an empty smile. The woman approaches us and says in hollow ac- cents: "You wanted me. Here I am." We look at each other wondering — the woman is an impostor. "Follow me if you want to know me," she says, and we shudder, for in her voice is something vul- gar and suggestive. But her words carry a command, and fast on her heels we pursue into the forest depths. An In- dian tribe are doing their war dance. "Follow me," she says, and through jungles and over plains, up to the very north and down to the suimy Orient, she runs before us, never stopping to breathe. But now she darts into a stately castle of old Europe. "Follow me," she whispers. If we hadn't kept our eyes upon her, we would have thought she had disappeared, for to our amazement she has changed into a majestic, glorious queen whom we might wor- ship. Tenderly she looks toward us and beckons us to be seated. From out a nearby room come strains Face to Face with — Music 3 of Chopin's Nocturnes and Schumann's Carnaval. She woos us, and as the passionate gleams in her eye betoken the full meaning of feminine lure, we hear a motif like the singing of Wagner's Isolde. Ah, but she has only been playing with us — a shrewish coquette — a Carmen, it seems — or is it the very nature of that flatterer, Gretry"? A coquette, did we say? Indeed she laughs mer- rily to the gay strains of Sullivan. Aye, indeed, a cruel beast, laughing and taunting us like a move- ment from Tschaikowsky. Demon-like, fiend-like, she carouses to a lustful phrase of Puccini, or is it Mascagni? Hark the chimes — the church bells, the singing of Handel I The chanting of Depres! She is trans- formed at the very first note. Her eyes take on a heavenly beauty — "Follow me," she sighs, and out into the meadows of Mozart, past the red roses of MacDowell, close by the rippling rills of Mendelssohn, she floats on the wings of the spring day. Her garments, like a rainbow, reflect the myriad dancing hues of a De- bussy Arabesque, woven into a spider web or a Delibes Polka a la pizzicato. "Follow me," she faintly laughs, on an arpeggio that dies away, even as a phrase of romantic Per- golesi ! She is gone ! We are alone in the desert — alone — deserted. Out of the dim horizon a figure comes toward us. 4 Face to Face with Great Musicians bent and old, breathing an atmosphere of ages ag« like a Brahms study. Our eyes have deceived us — or our ears play us false — or we are no longer to de- pend on our senses. For the old man croaks : "Follow me if you wish to know my story," and scarcely are the words out of his mouth when he walks ahead of us like a dandy, fashionably dressed in the clothes of a Beau Brum- mel, singing a phrase from an old folksong. Now, a jester- — a veritable personification of Strauss. Now, he stands aloft, and like an old Shakespearean actor plays the many-parted repertoire of Liszt or Bach. "Follow me," he orders, in solemn, deep-throated voice. Philosophy is written on his face, deep an- guish and world-old sorrows are cast in his features — Beethoven resounds. "You wish to know who I am and what I am," says the man as he seats himself humbly before us, and holds a child upon his knee. The night time has come on apace. It is dark as jet. The man has faded out and we can see nothing. Out of the vast stillness, a voice booms, and it seems to have all the beauty of the woman and the character of the man. "I am Music. I was born before the universe was conceived. I shall live a million million years after it has passed on. "I am the sister of Time and the han,dmaiden of Creation. I am the mother of the niuses. Face to Face with — Music 5 "I live in the blade of grass and in the heart of man and in the stony granite of buildings, and in the fleeting evanescence of a smile. I am in the child, the woman, the man. I am heard in the mother's lullaby, the schoolchildren's games, the lover's wooing, the wedding ceremony, in wars, in peace, in commerce, in rivers, in religion, in lust, in hate, in affection, in sorrow. I am everywhere and anywhere. "At the head of armies I sound the alarm. At the altars of peace ambassadors I play the docile lamb. "When the great molten mass of tremendous growth burst into a thousand worlds of which this is but one, I was playing my great symphony. When the prophets led their flocks, I warmed their hearts and sang their inspirational anthems. When Michael Angelo molded his sculpture, when Shakespeare wrote his plays, when Raphael painted his Madonna, when Patrick Henry delivered his great speech, when Walt Whitman wrote his immortal poetry, it was I who clasped them in my arms and glorified them. "Who am I, what am I? This is my answer, then: "Go out and live your loveliest ideals and I will be — only and utterly your slave !" PAROVHACt BEETHOVEN II FACE TO FACE WITH BEETHOVEN 1770-1827 IMPENETRABLE are the caves of the infinite! Unsurmountable are the heights of the eternal! Unapproachable are the distances of the om- niscient ! Face to face with Beethoven! How could you face the thunderbolts or the cavernous depths or the sublime heights? The rush of centuries and the il- limitable outlook of the future will not stand still and gaze at you out of two eyes. The raging storms, the roaring flames, the crashing hurricane, will not 6 Face to Face with Beethoven 7 smile at you or speak to you in words of human im- port. "But he will not see you," his housekeeper pleads, "he never sees anybody. He does not want people around. He wants to be alone. It is useless for me to ask him. He refused to have that young Liszt admitted. Noted musicians he turns away without a word." We beg of her to intercede. She is a motherly woman, she loses her frown, she plays with her apron and smiles. "I will try. Promise to be very quiet and good and to leave if I give you the signal. Wait here until he comes. Write down the impor- tant questions you have to ask him, so as to save time. Oh, dear, I know I should not do it. But I cannot refuse you. I am a mother and I understand how much it means to you. Wait." She shows us Beethoven's rooms. Two large grand pianos are set end to end. "That is his work piano; the other is his play piano. One of them was sent from London as a gift. It was this one, no, I guess it was the other one, I never can tell which it is. Don't mind the looks of the rooms. I once tried to keep them in order, but I soon found that impos- sible. He doesn't like to see me cleaning up, it an- noys him, and two minutes after the place was all nicely dusted, it would look like this. Over there is his kitchen — he cooks everything himself; he won't permit me to help him. The little he eats is easy enough to cook. He's not a bit well; his deafness is 8 Face to Face with Great Musicians absolute — ^he can't hear a thing, and his nephew, the rascal, I'd like to choke him, bothers him terribly. I feel like crying out every time I look at him." She had a great deal to tell about him and she told it. "Sh, there he comes. I do hope he won't mind this liberty. I've taken too much." A heavy step is heard on the stair, slowly coming up the two flights. We can tell when he pauses at the first landing for breath, and by the way he slows up, that the last steps tire him almost completely. He does not see us as he enters the room but we behold him with awe. He is little, just five feet five inches in height, with very broad shoulders, which make him look the image of strength, like a little Gibraltar ready to stand almost anything, prepared for any shock. He is dressed in a light blue frock coat, with yel- low buttons; underneath is a white waistcoat and sackcloth. But both coat and waistcoat are unbut- toned and show the signs of long wear. The whole appearance is untidy — one can tell that the coat- tails are heavily weighted with something — ^probably books. ("He keeps his ear-trumpet in there," the housekeeper explains, "but it's useless to him now.") His hat is a gray felt, thrown on the back of his great forehead. The moment Beethoven enters the room, he puts his hat on the top of a coat-tree ; it is dripping with water, and his unkempt hair is also wet. He in- stantly goes over to the piano, noticing nothing or Face to Face with Beethoven 9 nobody; puts on his double eyeglasses and sits at the desk, taking a pen in hand. The hands are hairy and large, and seem scarcely the sort to belong to an esthete. But the face ! What a study ! The forehead is high and commanding. The eyes are large and gray, shining brilliantly. The mouth is firm and tightly closed, the nose long and heavy, the chin square and cleft. What a face ! What tragedy is written there, what pent-up suflFering is depicted in that counte- nance. The housekeeper advances hesitatingly to Beethoven, trying to catch his attention, which he gives grudgingly. "What's that? What's that?" he asks. "Yes, a mean day. That brother of mine is after me again. I've just heard bad news of my Carl. I'm afraid of that boy. Such a nephew. Oh, what bad boys I met to-day, scoffing and leering at me, running in front of me and laughing in my face and imitating me. What's that? What's that?" as the house- keeper points to us, standing in the opposite comer of the room. "I cannot talk. Speak louder; I am deaf. I can- not talk with anybody," he says to us. We move forward and hand a paper to the Master. He adjusts his glasses more carefully and reads it with a concentrated expression on his face. "So? You come in and you beard the lion in his den," and on his stem face a very human smile ap- pears, showing two rows of sparkling teeth. "You 10 Face to Face with Great Musicians are very brave. Are you sure I will not bite you? You will find it difficult to understand me and make me catch what you say. Here, come and sit down beside me. You see, I cannot hear," and he taps his ear, and hands a pencil and paper to us. The Mas- ter has almost been won over. "We want to know your own life and carry a message back to the people which will make them un- derstand your real, your good soul," we write on the paper. Beethoven reads it, and a tear glistens in his eye. "My good soul? What makes you say that, when everybody takes me for a misanthrope, a hater of humanity. Oh, my young friend, I am in love with people. But, what can I do, cut off, as I am, by a wall of misunderstanding ! I am thinking always of the world; I am aching for a smile of the people. "What do you take me for? What do they think of me? A weakened invalid, not yet reached the half-way of life, racked with pain, driven mad with loneliness, dying in the storms that whistle around the little house, and thunder and crash, while the lightning sweeps across the window and throws a yellow glare on these hardened features. "What do they think of me? Beethoven, a little man, in a little room, with hairy hands and unkempt locks; dressed in disheveled way, storming at the cook and the housemaid, weeping over the lost Ade- laide, dreaming of Leonora, burdened with the petty doings of a spendthrift brother's son, harassed by Face to Face with Beethoven ii pigmy creditors, fiddlers and scribblers, scoffed at by leering boys, saying, 'What's that? Speak louder —I'm deaf.' "Here I sit alone, endlessly writing down the notes, the music which I never hear, but which never- theless resounds in my heart in greater beauty than any living man might play it. Sometimes I sigh that I am so weak and such a worthless instrument to transcribe the magnificence which makes joyous my spiritual existence. "To go out in the fields all alone, yet really ac- companied with the hosts of heaven — that is my only freedom. They see me foolishly waving my hands and like a simpleton gazing hard at the clouds — soli- tary, lonely and transfixed. Sometimes I think a tree is better than a man. It is so good and demo- cratic. "Can you think of me — a volcano whose summit is riveted down, while underneath burning lava, boil- ing, shoving, moved upwards by tightened strength, is fighting its way outward? Can you feel within your own breast the agony of this volcano, feeling within me the burning lava, fighting, rushing on- ward and striving to flow out with a gush that might lay me dead at a stroke? "The first duty of a musician is to hear what is to be heard. Is it not so? He must be eternally on the alert to catch the song and laughter of the brooks and the flowers and men and women. The greatest 12 Face to Face with Great Musicians tragedy that could befall any musician is to be ren- dered incapable of hearing." We took the pencil and wrote these words, with the Master looking over our shoulder : But the greatest gift Fate presented to Beethoven was when it locked his soul in a deafness like stone. It thrust him into a cell from which all sunlight was excluded, it chained him down that he might face the bleary dreariness of the colorless floor, it exiled him from life — ^And yet — and yet it was the great- est gift Beethoven might have prayed for. It left him alone with his great soul. It left him to converse with his companion, the Eternal, and, freed from the whisperings and babblings and confusions of the insects at his feet, he enjoyed his sovereign powers. The master looked at us with shining eyes and took our hands in his great paws and wept. "You have understood. You know what it means to me, with all this tragedy, what it has done for me. I have suffered that I might write as I have. This is not the Beethoven who is the composer, this figure you see here talking to you, and trying to catch your ideas. "No; it is Beethoven in the storm outside; in the crashing clouds overhead that reverberate in ominous accents. It is Beethoven in the lightning that zig- zags around the world; in the elements; in the moun- tains. It is Beethoven in the surge and flow of the ocean, that rolls and sweeps for thousands of miles, Face to Face with Beethoven 13 that drags down ships, that beats against trembling reefs. "You understand, and you once more make me content. If only others could realize what this mis- fortune here has done to isolate me from the world, not because I wanted it, but because it had to be. I am glad you came. "Will you stay with me for a modest bite of supper? Yes, you will!" And Beethoven goes over to his little kitchen, takes down his coffee can, and measures out the beans. "Sixty beans for each makes just the right flavor. No, no, no, you sit right down and let me help you. There's very little, for I do not eat much, and guests are a rarity in this house." At the table, the master talks of many happenings of his career. "My boyhood picture ? A stolid-faced boy, awak- ened from his sleep on a bed as hard as board, dragged downstairs and out to the inn by a drunken, dissolute father, made to play at the piano for tipsy revelers. "My grandfather, Ludwig von Beethofen, was a fine old musician. He was disappointed in his son and laid all his hopes in me. My father not only laid his hopes in me, but intended to live forever on my ability — so he tried to exploit me from the early days. My brother has ever since been doing the same, living on the poor genius of the family. "In the early days I studied music with Papa 14 Face to Face with Great Musicians Haydn, but how could I study with him? One day I met Schanke after a lesson. I showed him how Haydn had corrected my composition and Schanke became incensed that he should have made such ri- diculous changes. I never more had respect for Haydn, although I like him. He says he was Bee- thoven's teacher. Rot ! Bach was my real teacher, whom I studied through his writings. I was taken to play for Mozart, but I grew restless. Finally I said, 'Master, may I not improvise for you?' He gave his consent and remarked in an undertone, 'He will make a noise in the world.' "The rest of my life? A pianist, smiling and bow- ing to the noble prince, who gave me a salary, writ- ing sonatas to the dedication of that noble benefac- tor, conducting the village orchestra, appearing once or twice a year at the sick benefit concert. I couldn't stand it. I said, 'Why can't some one take over my life like was done with Goethe and Colta? Don't permit me to work for a salary, or sell my works. Give me so much to live and let me work out my music' "That is what finally happened. So, ever since, here I've been living. Everybody who thinks he can do anything says,, 'Let's go down to Beethoven,' and while I interrupt my work, I must listen to every- thing. There was once a very good pianist, Him- mell, who came to play for me, something of his own. 'But, Himmell,' I said, 'where do you begin?' after he had played for several minutes. 'It is not Face to Face with Beethoven 15 all prelude, I hope.' That angered him, and later he had his revenge. "He knew I was very anxious to get news of the world, and very credulous. So he wrote me full de- tails about a new invention, a lamp for the blind! I thought that was great, and I went around telling everybody until I suddenly woke up to the impos- ture. "You will stay here to-night with me. Yes, you will stay. Let me finish this little measure I'm now working on. Don't listen to me, mind! I don't like any one to overhear me. "I moved from a house one time because the land- lady insisted on putting her ear to the keyhole while I was practicing." The master goes over to the piano, plays the chords, writes them down and sings the melody — ■ sings, did I say? — in a cracked voice, which is piti- ful, sings all out of tune, with no melody, the singing of a deaf man. The melodies are singing to him, however, for he is shaking his head and moving with the rhythm he hears inside of him. He grows ex- cited, pours water over his hands and wrists and right on his head. "Nice forehead," he laughs, looking at us; "a lady once admired it very much and so I said she might kiss it, and she did." So he writes for half an hour or more and then pauses. "Oh, it is terrible, this affliction. When I think l6 Face to Face with Great Musicians how it happened, I am mad. There was a bad tenor; he could not act; I could not make him catch a single idea. It was impossible. I wanted him to fall flat on the ground, as if he had fainted. He could not do it. 'Here, I will show you,' I cried, and rushed on the stage, falling on the ground as if dead. When I got up, I could not hear a thing. I had broken the drum. That was the immediate cause of it — the early beatings by my father, the worries of the later' days all contributed. "I never wanted to admit the fact that I was really ruined like this. I can never forget the last rehearsal of Tidelio,' which I conducted. It was maddening. There I stood, beating time, and faces of the actors and audience were a study. I was not doing it right; I couldn't hear that it was like bedlam, and they were too courteous to tell me. Finally a friend, a real friend, called me aside and said, 'Come home at once,' and at home he told me, 'You had better not conduct any more.' Then I knew. I threw my- self on the bed here and cried aloud for hours, for nothing could stop me. I wanted to die, but I cduldn't, because I had so much to write for the world. "To hear these beauties in my heart! Oh, you cannot imagine what I feel inside of me. If only for one moment I could hear an orchestra play the music I try to write down. It is terrible." The landlady comes into the room. She is weep- ing and trying hard to be calm, Beethoven is so in- Face to Face with Beethoven 17 tent on what he is saying that even when she taps him on the shoulder he does not look up. "What's that? What's that? What is it?" The landlady foraied her lips into "Carl." "Carl! What's wrong with him? He's hurt! Oh, my boy, my son, my everything! It's I who am to blame; I made him unripe for the world! What is it? He shot himself! Oh, my God, it is I with whom the blame should lay. Let me go to him. I am coming, Carl, to you, your father is coming to you !" Without hat, his hair dripping wet, Beethoven rushes out, and nothing will stop him. So ended the interview with the master. That little man in the little room, the man who stood five feet five inches tall, whose broad shoul- ders made him the image of strength, he was merely the mouthpiece of that Beethoven, the master of all the music which, in its turn, is the mouthpiece of the universe. Or was it that Beethoven was rather a planet added to the universe? A little world cut off from this world? Made to reproduce within himself all the kaleidoscopic imagery of life itself? Face to face with Beethoven — imagine! While you sat beside him and wrote down on a piece of paper the question, "And what did you think next?" or, "And how did you happen to write 'Fidelio'?" Or, "Which is the true story of the origin of 'The Moonlight Sonata'?" Or, "Is it a fact that the 1 8 Face to Face with Great Musicians 'Eroica Symphony' is the story of Napoleon?" Or, "What is the tragedy of the 'Sonata Pathetique' f — where do you suppose Beethoven was? Do you think that he was really sitting there? Important works on Ludwig van Beethoven: "Brief e Beethovens," by Dr. Nohl. "Notices by Friends and Contemporaries," by Seyfried; "Beethoven and his Sym- phonies," by Sir G. Grove. "Beethoven's Leben" by A. W. Thayer. JMENDELSSOHN III FACE TO FACE WITH MENDELSSOHN 1809-1847 JT was a day in spring, as it should have been, when we went out to meet Felix Mendelssohn. Buds about to bloom, little green sprouting grasses taking their first modest glimpse of the world — ^youth scampering and laughing, the air fraught with a myriad of throbbing impulses. And then there was Mendelssohn. If Fragonard had ever lived to paint the portrait 19 20 Face to Face with Great Musicians of this man he would have represented him with dashing fauns and roguish little cupids, all grouped with fastidious arrangement around the oval of the frame. Here was the very personification of the season when little pussy willows stick their fuzzy heads out on the green stalk. There is nothing sad in spring- time. There can be nothing but laughter and vic- tory. In springtime one never thinks about the mor- row; one never seeks beneath the countenance of' things; one never philosophizes. Just life and living. A man of small frame, delicate as a lily, yet sug- gesting the power and endurance of an oak — ^his large, luminous eyes seemed to have the depth and liquid softness of a forest lake. He moved forward, loosely jointed and lightly, his hand extended in wel- come. A deep, rich voice spoke to us as in a chant. In the first moment we were with him we realized the whole past of his life — his utter freedom from worry or woes. In the face of the man who has known an obstacle there is written the struggle on his brow. Who has risen by sheer dint of his own acquired power transcribes his biography in his whole future being. Nothing of this sort was to be seen in Men- delssohn. In him spoke Springtime — in which all is victory — ^just life and living. Nurtured in the bosom of the wealthiest family in all Hamburg, the grandson of the greatest philoso- pher of the time, the son of loving, earnest parents, Face to Face with Mendelssohn 21 himself handsome, sound, brilliant, amazingly prom- ising, the idol of the idols, the friend, from his boy- hood days, of Goethe and Zelter, a pianist at five, a composer at eight, a world figure at seventeen, the best beloved musician in Europe at twenty-five, what could the world seem to Mendelssohn but a place made for him to grow up in, peopled with individ- uals created to please him, to aid him, to listen to him, to praise him, to glorify his name? The mouthpiece of springtime, Mendelssohn did not grow inflated, however. Like his muse, he ac- cepted what came, not with a greedy desire, but a glad, modest thankfulness. The budding rosebush turns its face smiling to the sun, and drinks in the raindrops that cool her throat, no more simply than Mendelssohn received his never-ceasing gifts, and remained for his people's happiness. Perhaps a little oversensitive in finding fault with a singer's bad taste in having light brown curls in- stead of black, perhaps a little too much inclined toward the sentimental, perhaps too overly precise, yet what freedom, what youthfulness, what inspira- tion! "I cannot describe how my music came," the com- poser said, in answer to our query. "It has been utterly a part of myself. Did I but meet the poet Goethe there came gurgling to my lips a series of melodies that expressed my complete joy. "Did I but go out into the countryland, the mere sight of a peony gave me a theme for a song. The 22 Face to Face with Great Musicians smile of my friends, the falling of the sun's rays on my writing table, the rise and fall of the ocean's waves, the mystical silence of midnight, the thought of my sister Fanny, the sweet fragrance of the gar- den, the distant coming of a coach in the roadway — these have been the cause and call of my singing. "See how my travels aided my inspiration. My 'Hebrides Overture' was my impression of the ocean in all its majesty, in all its moodiness, rising and falling, crashing and plashing, playing and treacher- ous as a woman. When I was twenty I visited Fin- gal's Cave in the Hebrides Island and then and there I wrote down the motive for the overture in a letter to home. My impressions of Italy were done in my 'Italian Symphony.' The shining sun and the march- ing pilgrims were before me as I wrote it. How else might I have written it? "When I write music, it isn't because I want to particularly, but because life is surging through me and singing and singing in my ear and begging to be released to come to you. "When you go out of a summer's day, and you see the red berries in the sun, and the birds are sing- ing their lifetime themes, and the grass and bushes and leaves are swayed in the breeze — tell me, do you try to think of the laws of Newton and of Pascal? Is that a time for a lesson in geometry and chemis- try? Or do you just want to throw yourself down on the ground, bury your face in the soft foliage, throw out your arms and forget everything? Face to Face with Mendelssohn 23 "Well, in my music, I've written it as it came. That little thing I called 'Spring Song' — a conceit, an elfish whispering at my ear, a mischievous prompt- ing at my heart — that's what made me write it. I put it alongside of some deep book of Moses Men- delssohn, my grandfather, and I don't know what to think. Sometimes I've become a little uncertain, and I've tried to write a philosophic and intellectual work — on such occasions the world has applauded, but I don't feel it myself. "Then, I've done some work. I enjoyed interpret- ing the old masters — Bach, Palestrina, Cherubini, — digging deep in research and study. As conductor of the Leipsic Orchestra, I worked hard and enjoyed it. "Long before these musings came to tempt me from my path of the native beautiful — when I was just seventeen — I wrote my best music. Oh, since I have improved my style, I have added to my vo- cabulary, I have become more worldly-wise and more cognizant of the mannerisms of the masters. But I never have produced since a more native thing than my 'Midsummer Night's Dream' overture. My good, kind parents, who did everything in the world to make me happy, had arranged musicales every month. For one of these I, the young god of my father's household, was to write a composition. So I did the 'Midsummer Night's Overture.' "I was just tingling with the music of Shake- speare's phantasy ; Puck came winking to me, Titania 24 Face to Face with Great Musicians marched majestically past me, Oberon bowed to me, the fairies went pirouetting before me. The whole thing spun itself out like gossamer or silvery cobwebs before my eyes — and looking at the promenade of my brain I wrote down what I heard. I can remem- ber the early days, when I was privileged to call on my beloved old friend, Goethe. There was I at the piano, and he, like a Jupiter Tonans, sat in the shade, with his old eyes flashing fire. "Play my music for what it brings you that mo- ment in which you hear it. Let it give you ever so tiny a spell of beauty and I am recompensed." Shine out, O springtime sun; bud, little flowers, and sprout, green grasses — earth is awakening, youth's season is beckoning; leave out all sorrows, and listen to the joyous, smiling optimism of Men- delssohn. The principal works of Mendelssohn are: String Quar- tettes, Capriccio Brilliante, Songs without Words, Con- certos Nos. I and 2, Overture "The Midsummer Night's Dream," Overture in C, Overture "The Hebrides" Over- ture "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" Overture "Ruy Bias," Overture "Melusina," Music to "Athalia" Music to "Antigone," Music to "CEdipus," Italian Symphony, Scotch Symphony, Reformation Symphony, Elijah, St. Paul, Hymn of Praise, Lauda Sion, Forty-second Psalm, Ninety-fifth Psalm, Walpurgis Night, An Die Kunstler, Concert Aria "Infelice" Loreley. Important books about Mendelssohn: Biographies by Lam- padius, Benedict, Devrient, Hitler and Hensel. Interest- ing references in works of Horsely, Wolff, Shatton and Daniel Gregory Mason. CHOPIN IV FACE TO FACE WITH CHOPIN 1808-1849 THE other night the Dr. Thompsons were at home. Grouped about the sitting room were a few friends, while in a comer Potjes, the Belgian pianist, sat apart. As the evening wore on Potjes was asked to play — the instrument stood awaiting him — but for a considerable time he hesi- tated, as if abashed. I was reminded of other scenes and gatherings like that in lands far removed — where the subject of the 25 26 Face to Face with Great Musicians urgings was the greatest personage in the history of the pianoforte, its poet, its very soul — Frederick Chopin. See that gentleman sitting back there, in the inner room — there, right past the alcoves? That pale, sad- faced esthete, that sickly, beautiful-faced knight of melancholy ! That is Chopin. Oh, what a conflict rages beneath that quiet ex- terior — ^what passions, what loves, what sorrows, and yet what fairy-like joys ! What poems of exquisite finery and delicate melody have been written by those artistic hands. What bitter, damning, roar- ing pseans of hate have issued underneath the flash- ing of those pitying eyes. The sphinx is beautiful, fragile, almost unearthly. See with what a languor he opens and closes his eyes ; with what oriental and feminine grace he strokes his chin. "You will play now," the hostess is whispering to him. "A little wait, please," he pleads — for to him the sight of an audience is painful. On but few occa- sions has he been able to arouse his courage to give public recitals. Only in homes like this, with a few chosen intimates — in a quiet, restful, darkened room will he permit others to hear him at the keyboard. Oh, to have been the little statuette which stood in his studio — and overheard, when he was all alone, the truly personal manner in which he caressed the notes. Face to Face with Chopin 27 But, nevertheless, now we see him rise. Note the frightened look in his eye — see with what shrinking he goes to the piano, as if trying to draw away from the sight of the others. A nocturne ! Are those rippling melodies brought forth by fingers, or is the bree'^e rustling across some ancient instrument? Now disappears the room, fall- ing petals of sweet perfumed flowers drop on our eye- lids. We no longer see the man — ^great colored lights dazzle our vision. A rainbow of melody stretches across the clouds of memory. When it is completed Chopin does not bow. It is rather a pleading glance to the audience to spare him. This is not the proud, smiling, perhaps thankful, bow of the concert performer; it is rather the frightened bewildered look of the trapped doe. He is racked with a deep-seated cough, and he is led back to his seat in the corner. A sad figure is Chopin. Here we behold him at his thirtieth year — a man with his foot in the grave, with his heart in the power of an amorous woman, with his hands on the keyboard he loved, with his ear placed close to the mouth of nature, with his soul striving hard to reach that impossible goal of para- dise. If Hamlet was the melancholy Dane, then Chopin was the melancholy Pole. Never, never, never merry; always saddened by some hidden woe, which he never himself could explain. Perhaps that is why Chopin's music brings a tear 28 Face to Face with Great Musicians to the eye of the sensitive and explains the somber aspect of the merriest mazurkas. The story is told of a certain famous comedian that once as he was about to go upon the stage to act the fool and buffoon, word was received that his dearly beloved child had died. Thus the actor stepped to the footlights and played his part. The people laughed. But those behind the scenes under- stood and wept. So with Chopin. I always imagine I can see be- hind that veil of notes and read the anguish of the man, his sufferings, his melancholy, his dejection. But put him among his friends, he would try to be good company. The short, delicate, curly-haired, princely gentleman talked in a low voice, sometimes stifled. With eloquent, graceful gesture, he assumed something like the society manner. Sometimes he would become quite droll. "This is how my music might be played by the dance-hall musician," he would declare, and mimic the style of the cheap player to perfection. "This is how the old man of the theater would look trying to read my music," and immediately the beautiful fea- tures would grow grotesque and ugly. Once in a great while, the pale waxiness of his complexion would suffuse with a hectic glow. But most gen- erally the blue eyes were glancing out as if in readi- ness for tears. We saw the pianist in his home one evening, when he did not expect us. The room was darkened, two Pace to Face with Chopin 29 waxen candles standing on the piano gave the only- light in the chamber, which in the indistinct shadows of ghostly chairs and tables, seemed filled with strange fanciful spirits. In the granite fireplace, rosy flames rose towards the chimney, casting their light on the ceiling and walls opposite. All was quiet and, to add to the solemnity of the place, a faint glimmer of pale moonlight was peeping through the skylight. Chopin himself was at the piano, improvising lightly as a whisper. Mme. George Sand was on the floor by the fireplace, listening, half-dozing, with loving look upon her cheek. The pianist was gracious and made himself ami- able — reticent to silence on everything but his music. "I didn't study to be a musician of Poland. No truly inspired musician could intentionally set out to speak for a nation. I have sung spontaneously of my beloved country. I hear coming back to me all the memories of my childhood, of my boyhood at Warsaw, of the great Polish folk who were my friends. I hear the mazurkas and the polonaises. I hear martyred Poland singing at my elbow. "When you hear my music your heart does not deceive you if in the gloaming you feel stealing upon you the feeling I have never been free of — regret, re- gret, always regret. "You must not ask me to play for you. I am not suited for concert giving. The public intimidate 30 Face to Face with Great Musicians me, their looks, stimulated by curiosity, paralyze me; their strange faces oppress me. Then their eulogies — ill-chosen phrases, poor applause for a spiritual abasement. It is not enough that I should please people externally. I want to deeply move them, and strike a real responsive chord. Then I feel it is worth while. Sometimes, I have spent months, years, without giving a concert. That musicale you attended the other night was my first in ten years !" "You will write something about your life?" we asked him. "Oh, no; that is one thing I never do. I would walk miles to deliver a message rather than write it." We left him, and when I saw him again, the dear man had become dreadfully ill. He knew he was dying. "Who is near me?" he whispered. "Ah, come and hold me close. Play that canticle of the Virgin. It once saved the life of Stradella — ^perhaps it might save mine ! How beautiful it is. How very beau- tiful. Again, again. "When I am gone, play more music for me. Have the Mozart 'Requiem' played at my grave. It will speed me graciously on my way. Send me many flowers, all who love me. Bury me in the cemetery between Bellini and Cherubini, the sentimental genius and the classicist. "Give me my Louise, sweet sister, faithful com- panion. Come, my love, home to my dear family. Face to Face with Chopin 31 Go back to Warsaw and let Poland know how I loved her." The principal works of Chopin are: Two Piano Concertos, Four Sonatas, Funeral March, Berceuse, Polonaises, Ma- zurkas, Etudes, Nocturnes. Important books about Chopin by George Sand, Professor Meek, Franz Liszt, Jean Kleczyuski, M. Walker Cook, Moritz Karasowski. GRETRY FACE TO FACE WITH GRETRY 1741-1813 CITIZEN GRETRY, by your leave, musician of the French Revolution — ^salute to Frater- nity and Equality. Chevalier Gretry, sir, of the Legion of Honor, siamed by the Emperor Napoleon, Superintendent Gretry, of the Conservatoire Musique, civic musi- cian, friend of the people. "I am a man, my friend," he said, "and after that 32 Face to Face with Gretry 33 I am a musician. Voltaire once sneered at me, 'You have humor — ^you are no musician!' Perhaps he was right." If you are a woman, young or old, instantly you adored him. Or if a man, you put him down for friend, and didn't miss in your calculation. "Oh, I should so like to please everybody, even the fashionable people," he continually reiterated in his speech — and those who know will tell you that he came near to that state of perfect amenity, and so doing, lost his immortal opportunity to please only a few, and write himself alongside the masters. But see the man, sprightly, fastidious, serenely complacent, deeply religious, amazingly supersti- tious, whimsical, sentimental, vain surely — ^but hu- man, all too human, and always sincere. Somebody once said that the Diary of Pepys displayed the man in all his attributes, a small man, but the best known man in history. Now, Andre Ernest Modest Gretry wrote a set of Memoirs, which pictured him as he was, and Rolland, author of "Jean Christophe," says of Gretry, that he is the most thoroughly known musician in all history. He was living in his place in Montmorency-^— the home formerly occupied by the great Jean Jacques Rousseau, whom he loved and admired. In the room wherein he worked, we found a num- ber of odd contrivances, devices developed in his spare moments — ^how queerly his mind did squirm! There was a musical barometer, which operated by 34 Face to Face with Great Musicians a single piece of catgut. In fine weather the string expanded and set free a pipe which played a lively air; in stormy days, the string contracted and a mournful dirge in a minor key added to the dismal atmosphere. First he told us some of his musical theories: "Different scales have different psychological effects; the scale of C major is fine and outspoken, that of C minor is pathetic. The various instruments have their psychological effects, too; the clarinet is suited to sorrow ; if I were to dance in prison, I should wish to do so to the music of a clarinet ; the flute is tender, the bassoon is lugubrious. Then there are colors in soimds, the solemn notes are black and gray, the sharp keys are bright and glaring; purple red depicts anger, and so does the scale of G" — and so on he goes, for a long, long hour, until one grows fidgety and nervous, and wonders where the distinction be- tween sane reasoning and insanity is to be found. Politely we attempt at various pauses to change the subject of conversation. But he doesn't catch the cue, so to speak. We don't want to hear his the- ories, but something about himself. At last he ex- hausts what he set out to say, and is ready for the next chapter. "I have had a very eventful life, my friends — there could be books and books written about me. From the day when my father took his first peep at my face, way back in Liege, and glanced over toward my mother, saying, 'A great man' — I have never for Face to Face with Gretry 35 one moment been still. To-day I rest my weary old body in the home of the greatest man of the Revo- lution ! "You see my eyes — ^how weak they are ! That's from music! Sure — when I was six years old; no, I wasn't above five — I heard a kettle boiling. It was playing pretty notes, and I wanted to see why. I investigated — over went the pot, and hot water splashed into my eyes ! "You see how thin I am? That's from music! Sure — when I was eighteen, I wanted to compose. I went to Italy. The big name in music was Piccinni — I would see him ! A friend joined me. We en- tered the home of the great man. He never looked up — went right on writing austerely, as if we weren't there. Finally I gathered up courage to ask what he was writing. 'An oratorio,' he said. So I went home, determined to do likewise — write an oratorio. I ruled my paper, seated myself exactly as Piccinni had done — ^but the notes didn't come. So I gave up. " — But that isn't what I started to tell you. It was about my chest — see how hollow it is. When I was in Italy, my ideal composer was Pergolesi. Friends told me how much I resembled him in ap- pearance. Of course I was proud ! 'You know,' they said, 'how he suffered from blood vomiting when composing?' Now, it's remarkable, how ever since when I compose, I've suffered Pergolesi's complaint." My, my, what a man, talking like sixty — like a child, like a woman, like a cyclopedia, like a trifler — 36 Face to Face with Great Musicians like everything rolled into one. Incessantly moving about, showing us little pieces of bric-a-brac, com- menting on them as he goes. He picked up a pic- ture — / "The statue in Paris they erected to me" — ^and he eyed it admiringly — then burst into laughter. "Sometimes I imagine I am famous. Then I think of Rousseau. He sent for me — ^my opera had just been produced — and Rousseau liked it. I was in the seventh heaven. We went out walking. We grew bosom friends. I said something. It angered Jean Jacques. He strode off and left me ! He never spoke to me again." He couldn't stop his fit of laughing, as he con- tinued sorting through the old papers. But some- thing struck his eye, and he grew instantly solenm. "My daughter's opera, composed when she was thirteen — she died when she was twenty. Three girls — beautiful roses, which faded scarcely before they bloomed. Jeimi, Lucille and Antoinette — they dressed themselves for the dance, but the carriage brought them out to the cemetery. "An artist's hardships are the death of his chil- dren. As a father he violates nature to attain per- fection in his work and saps his life — death claims his children before they are born. " — But that is life and music — everything that happens is for music. Even many themes have come to me as I watched the sad events of the French Rev- olution. I was one evening returning from the Face to Face with Gretry 37 Champs Elysees. On my way I passed a lilac tree in bloom. Suddenly I heard voices and music. Flutes; cornets — and then some one pointed out to me the guillotine. The knife raised and lowered a dozen times. On one side was the soft air of spring and the last rays of the setting sun — on the other the unhappy victims. I turned away, but a cart with the dead caught up. 'Peace and silence,' said the driver, 'they sleep, citizens.' "Let us ever seek delightful sensations, but let them be seemly and pure. Those are the only kind that make us happy. Love and woman ! Oh, lov- able sex ! Oh, source of all blessings ! I fell in love first at six. It was indefinite and extended to many people, but I was so shy I dared not tell them. "I have lived on impressions. I can still hear the limpid spring by the side of my grandmother's house. I can still remember my singing experiences with the company of Italian opera people and how there I developed a love of music. "Now I tell you that if you watch over a man's diet, you can make him anything you like, according to the way you feed him. But you're not interested in that. "I will tell you something about music you never knew. Music will make a criminal confess, will ab- solutely betray the lovesick girl. Be careful of it, for it is a sure sign to everything. You knov/ it made me sick. It gave me those vomiting spells. My brain at times is like a pivot on which a piece of music 38 Face to Face with Great Musicians eternally turns, and I cannot stop it! Momentum gets into it, and good-bye to me, I can't stop it sound- ing in my ears. "But do you know that when you go to bed at night, your brain sets your thoughts in order, and in the morning everything is neatly arranged for working nicely. "Ah, but I am happy — is not my name on the list of citizens who have a right to national safety on account of the service they have rendered to the useful arts of society ! "I am Citizen Gretry. Salute, sirs ! Do you not like my new cravat and my new stick? I bought this stick in the shop on the comer. It is a very beauti- ful stick. It is made of " "Oh, yes, my friends, I have seen my sad days — but all my life I've never lost that sense of humor, which has been my saving grace. Think of me as a man of the world, who enjoyed the pageantry of life. Play my operas comique and laugh and laugh and laugh !" Gretry composed fifty operas, full of melody and charming dramatic effects. Composed also six piano sonatas^ six string quartettes and church music. "Memoirs" by Andre Ernest Modest Gretry. An interest- ing article in "Musicians of Former Days" by Romain Holland. BRAHMS VI FACE TO FACE WITH BRAHMS 1833-1897 HERE is the picture we saw coming along the road: A short man, walking so briskly as to make his little, squodgy legs do terrific labor. How he went so quickly and so straight was a problem, for the little frame was corpulent. His hat was off — ^he crushed it in his hand at the side, behind his back he held his other hand, somewhat in the attitude of 39 40 Face to Face with Great Musicians the Little Corporal of Corsica. Despite the warmth of the day the man was clothed in a long coat, most too big for him about the arms and the neck. As we came nearer the little bulk became more distinguishable in the details. A splendid head on the broad shoulders came out of a short neck — a head that instantly arrested attention. Despite a wealth of beard and mustache it was a forehead that was most amazing — Abroad, massive, and intellectu- ally dominant. In the eyes spoke mastery and strength; the whole face seemed heroic, Jove-like. He was smoking a cigarette, puffing away like a steam-engine. It was Johannes Brahms. We would attempt to make his acquaintance here, without our formal introductions. So we stood stock still and waited for him. He noted the action, and for a moment it seemed as if he were about to turn about face and give us a glimpse of his back. But he went on, and as he was about to pass us he snorted, "Good morning." "This is Mr. Brahms?" we asked. "Johaimes Brahms, the famous composer?" He looked us up and down sharply: "You mean my brother — ^he is over the hill — ^but he is the most unamiable musician in the country." And he went on, leaving us non-plussed with mortification. Strange, we thought, I never knew he had a brother ! But doesn't this one look like the pictures di the composer? They're as like as two peas! Face to Face with Brahms 41 However, we will seek him out in his residence. That is the only way to find a gentleman. When we found it, our letters were sent in to Mr. Brahms and word was sent out that he would be with us immediately. Soon a little man, with a great beard, a broad forehead, squodgy legs, and long coat came to greet us. Tableau ! "You are very like your brother, Mr. Brahms," I said laughingly. "Very," laughed the host, "you will forgive me. I didn't know it was you — I am eternally bothered by admirers, who seek to reward my work with praise and compliments. That is my only way of warding them off. My brother is a valuable aid to me, in that respect. My brother, if they have ever found him, has been kept busy signing pictures, answering ques- tions, and listening to pretty flatteries. It's a pretty fiction, you'll admit. It enables me to get rid of all sorts of nuisances. "Why should they praise me?" he asked, now making an extraordinary effort to appear hospitable with us, and offering cigarettes of various qualities. "It is not of my creation. That which you would call invention is simply an inspiration from above for which I am not responsible, which is no merit of mine. A present, a gift, which I ought even to de- spise, until I have made it mine by hard work. "A composer has no time to listen to such truck. It is work, hard work, all the time. The gift — the 42 Face to Face with Great Musicians inspiration from above is merely the seed which must be sown. Whether music is beautiful is one thing — it must be perfect. A phrase comes to me — I might close the book and not think of it for months — it will return, nothing is lost. As a matter of fact, I prefer to let the idea germinate — all by itself in my inner consciousness — suddenly at the appropriate time it comes back to me in perfect form. It has been idealized and crystallized. "My mission for music was made clear to me early in my boyhood — I saw that I must only create that which is the elect — something grand, something clas- sic, something intellectual and philosophic. Opera I would not do — I know nothing of the theater — I have tried to walk in the footsteps of Beethoven in producing orchestral music for orchestra and in- strumental solos; in the footsteps of Schumann with my songs, in the footsteps of the grand old Bach in the pianoforte and organ compositions — and yet — and yet be myself always, always. These last few years I've been writing songs of death — some day hear my 'Blessed are they that Mourn.' "The worst thing in the world would be if I couldn't work. That is real death — ^not to be able to work." Brahms glanced at the clock. "Dear me," he exclaimed, reaching for his hat and his cigarette case. "It is time for my walk. I never miss it. You have the idea where I go — ^you already know my roads — ^would you come along? Walking Face to Face with Brahms 43 is the finest exercise for everything. A young woman asked me : 'What shall I do to improve quickly in my music?' to which I answered, 'Walk constantly in the forest and censure yourself always. You can't do it enough.' " As we went along the street we were surprised at the genial manner he displayed to all the villagers, and we gave voice to our idea. "Ah, you are amazed to see the most unamiable musician in the world like this? These people I love — they do not care for me because of my music or my fame; or my music because they know me. Oh, hello, Rentner, you played well at your debut. Here, take this fine gold-tipped cigarette." "Thank you," said the novice, putting the cigar- ette in his pocket. "Smoke it, smoke it," Brahms urged. "I do not smoke," was the response, "but one is not able to receive an offering from Brahms every day. I will keep it." "Well, if you must, let us change. Take this poor one, — it is just as good for a memento," said Brahms, as he went on. "Ah, good day to you," as he bowed to a lady at the little shop. "She stands there every day to wait for me to say that to her," he explained. "A nice girl, very kind — the sort to make a man happy at home. What a misfortune that I never married, thank heaven," and at the startling turn his remark took, he laughed quite heartily. "No marriage and no opera for me — 44 Face to Face with Great Musicians when I was younger I couldn't support a wife, and when I could I was too busy to find her. "Ah, a wife — ^no woman was ever a nobler, kinder, more generous wife than my friend Clara Schumann. I first met Clara and Robert Schumann when I was very young — they received me at their home — they didn't know my name — they listened to me play, and you know what they did. You remember what Rob- ert Schumann wrote about me. It almost harmed me more than it did me good — 'a true successor to Beethoven' — and half the world grinned at me, and the other half sneered. That is, until my music ex- plained a bit of why Schumann felt that way toward me. It made Richard Wagner hate me. It started a war around me — and made me a question of dis- sension. And yet, I know that with Schumaim's help, I started on my real career. Recognition is absolutely necessary. Indeed, I have felt that if the world didn't want my music to live, I need make no effort. I am not like my father, who said to the conductor when told he was playing too loud, 'This is my contrabass, and I shall play it as loud as I like' — I must fit into the orchestra of life and play softly, as is the decree of the great Conductor of all. "My father, good, kind fellow. He thought to make of me a prodigy, and so make life easier for the family. We lived in a cheap little hole on Speck street in Hamburg, a most unpicturesque place. As soon as I could learn, I was playing a piano. There came a hard life — ^little pay, and hard work. While Face to Face with Brahms 45 my mind was on great symphonies, I had to live by arranging dances for the mob. But I do not regret one sorrow or pain, one whit of the austere and rough boyhood. It helped me and shaped me. I never feel dull; pain and rain are another kind of beauty, that is all. The prettiest songs came to me as I blacked my boots before daybreak. "It is curious that with my viewpoint on music I should nevertheless have first been heard as a young man with Remenyi. A lovable boy, a violinst of extraordinary ability. My, oh, my, but what a brag- gart, what a player to the galleries, and what an eccentric egotist! We struck up a friendship — ^per- haps I was glad to travel with him and earn some of the fruits of his fame. Innumerable times, we came near parting — ^he would strike me over the shoulder with his bow during rehearsals, and fly at me. His was the first place in the public eye, and he never lost sight of it. "One concert I will never forget. We came to a town where the piano was too low, and Remenyi re- fused to bring his pitch down to it. So I told him to tune to a half tone higher, and I transposed the Kreutzer sonata as I read it at sight. Remenyi — ^he didn't even acknowledge the task. What a compari- son to that later friend and violinist, Joachim, the classic interpreter! He understood what the pure morning joy of composing and playing really meant." As we returned to the village by a different path, 46 Face to Face with Great Musicians a crowd of children came running toward us. "What have you to-day, what have you to-day?" they shouted, and in answer, he dug down into the immense coat pocket and brought forth piles of candy. "The dear children," he muttered as we passed them, and went into the cafe. There was one large table, and many grouped about it, invited Brahms and his companions. One of them poured out some wine. That he was a con- noisseur one could see at sight "It is a great wine, the Brahms of wines." "Let us have some Bach then," said Brahms. "Another 'B' — Bach, Beethoven and Brahms," suggested one in the manner of von Bulow, who originated it. "That's better than it sounds," smiled Brahms. "Like your music," says a disciple. "You don't mean that my music sounds better than it is, like Tschaikowsky's ?" "Indeed not," drawls a musician, "Brahms says what he means in music instead of what will come off well." As the talk grew livelier and the time for depart- ure drew nigh, we asked for permission to write of him. "No, don't — I have destroyed my papers, and I shall destroy all memories of this old, ugly frame. Posterity does not want to think of me — ^but only the music which came through me." A stranger at a nearby table on hearing this, ap- Face to Face with Brahms 47 proached and said: "Pardon me. Is this not the celebrated composer, Johannes Brahms?" With a knowing wink to us, the master answered : "You mean my brother — ^he lives over the hill." The principal works of Brahms are: Four Symphonies, Two Serenades, Tragic Overture, Academic Overture, German Requiem, Triumphlied, Schicksalslied, Chorale Saint Antoine, Hungarian Dances, Rhapsody, Sonata in F Minor, Chamber Music. Important books about Brahnis, by Heinrich Reinmann, Dr. Herman Deiters, Albert Diebrich, J. V. Widmann. Personal recollections by a pupil, Florence May. Ref- erences by Dr. Philip Spitta, James Huneker, M. H. Hadow, Daniel Gregory Mason, Elbert Hubbard. DEBUSSY VII FACE TO FACE WITH DEBUSSY 1862-1918 IN my volume of Dante's "Inferno" the illustra- tions by Gustave Dore are saturated with a spirit of mystery and mysticism. There is one picture which comes to me now — the poet accompa- nied by Virgil is being led to the entrance of the nether regions; the cavernous depths yawn below, and the two figures stand in curious and heroic con- trast to the mocking emptiness peopled with unclean 48 Face to Face with Debussy 49 and unregenerate spirits, the furnace of hate into which they are about to plunge. Now, we are talking with Claude Debussy, in a cozy Paris home. He is genial and a good conver- sationalist — we discuss the simple topics of the day ; he looks at us out of warm, brown, deep-set, and kindly eyes. A heaArjr mustache and Van Dyke beard scarcely hide the sensitive full lips. His head is set firmly on broad, masterly shoulders. Except for a play of nervous, artistic fingers, and an abstract, dreamy look in the man's eyes, the fantastic trend of his imagination, and the epicurean fastidiousness of his dress, his table, his manner, his voice, and his whole being, there were none of the mystic about him. He tells us that he loves to travel — especially into lands still wild and untrained. "I am a veritable nomad," he says. "I believe there is something of the gypsy in me, their wild songs have won me so. I prefer to hear a few notes of an Egyptian shepherd's flute, for he is in accord with his scenery and hears harmonies unknown to your musicianly treatises. If only musicians would listen to the sounds inscribed in nature, the sweet, persuasive voices concealing perfect oblivion, instead of that which is written by clever experts. Out in the country I hear songs, the silences, the rustlings of the air. When I was a lad I would tingle with enjoyment when I heard the echoing of the church bells, especially when they came just out of time with the call of the bugles at sundown, and a whole 50 Face to Face with Great Musicians regiment of queer harmonics and tinkling, twinkling overtones came rustling out of the compact of the two metallic voices. "I prefer light, delicate effects in my music, I use a small orchestra for 'Pelleas and Melisande,' and rarely permit it to play full strength. Pianis- simo — delicate — win the emotion by suggestion. Reach the mind through the imagination! Take fleeting impressions — not the obvious !" So there we stand, like Dante and Virgil, before the great mysterious kind of whispering white and green sprites. Debussy, erect and smiling, waves his wand — and we are floating along the river of the land of heart's desire. A pale blue haze envelops the universe, a thou- sand voices of soft, gurgling fountains lull the air into a drowsy listlessness. White, chaste pillars of Grecian design stand sentinel along the waterway. A dense forest stretches further than the ends of the world. Misty shapes dart in and out of the dark, distant knolls. A soft, scarcely distinguishable mel- ody floats out of everywhere; the river voices its inner spirit-mind with a musical fret; the fountains are mingling their thousand themes in a volume of tone scarcely louder than silence. The white-draped figures move in and out with a swishing of sibylline singing — too low for mortal ear, crashing and shout- ing a triumphal strain at the, throne of the emperor. The mood of the music. Like a finely carved bit of a Japanese temple; like a monkish embellishment Face to Face with Debussy 51 of the Lord's prayer on the head of a pin; like the dainty embroidering of the face of the world on a doll's doily. Insidious, mesmeric, indefinable, suggesting the kiss of a century-dead courtesan, searching for the lips of a young man of love, breathing the breath of the tomb, the curious scent of the long shut-in sack- cloth. A chant, funereal, like the old Catholic service in Latin, or the suffering plea of the Hebrews, rending their hearts in a sobbing recall of all that the race has suffered, moaning and crooning in irregular, organ-like bursts of emotion. Take care, we do not know how far the soul ex- tends about men — ^here is the epoch of the subtle; effaced are the bodies and persons of humans, only their spirit is left us. What is it that makes one hate or love another at first sight? Is there an outer being — a cosmic effulgence about the body? This music would have it so. The leering face of the idiot is gone. The guns and cannon are carted away, and only the cries of the suffering, the hopes of the survivors, are left us. Struggles, boastings, commerce of cities are stopped up in the throats of the shouters, and only the soul of the tree is left us. A never-ending flow of infinitesimal dewdrops make up the melody; they come shimmering in the pale green moonlight, form- ing graceful arpeggios and shapes somewhat akin to cave-growing stalactites. They will never end, these 52 Face to Face with Great Musicians melodies; they never began — ^he snatched a string of the pearls and held them before us, but they melted away and rejoined their river of jewels, scarcely before we had gazed on them. The phantom boat moves up the river and enters the far-reaching forest. At the fountain of gold sits the girl with the hair of red, singing her plaintive appeal and braiding her hair of red, ceaselessly. Fur- ther on, as we pass, sits pale Melisande, weeping and fearful, until Golaud, the king's son, takes her away to wed and to keep. We follow and reach the dark, damp, unhappy home of the king. See sad Pelleas, Golaud's brother, start at the sight of the lovely maiden. Come the nights of gladness and fear, when Pelleas and Melisande discover their love and flee to the forest for safety. Oh, that long hair of Melisande, reaching down to Pelleas, who buries his face in its tresses. Deep goes the knife of Golaud into the back of his brother, and pale Melisande drops into the sleep of the righteous, confessing her love for the dead one. Oh, how the musical voices of all of that drama whisper behind the veil of the poet's and the musi- cian's art and whip the flagrant spirit of man to ad- mit the myriad ghosts all about him. There are Melisande and Pelleas, Golaud, and his father, and little Gniold — but don't you bathe in the spirit of fountains and caves, forests and rings, lakes and dark chambers'? We leave the lovers behind us — the phantom boat Face to Face with Debussy 53 glides through the forest— sylvan delights picture the day of a faun man. Here is a garden of an ar- tist's concept, bathed in the sweet-smelling rain of springtime. Yonder you can catch the faint whisper of the sea, talking with the wind, the play of the surges, from dawn to noon. Clouds overhead melt away. Sirens ahead in the river beckon with heavy-eyed grimace, mouths open and lustful; images, masques,, all of the unreal stalk, dance, make merry the jour- ney. Next lives the Damozel, blessed by the lov« of her earth days. Now she is mourning for him who is left by the seaside, left with only the memories of arms which one time entwined him, left with the echoes of laughter and the taste of the kiss which was tearful; blessed Damozel, peering through clouds to the earth man, weeping and mourning for him — we pass and leave her to suffer until Death makes him hers again. Melodies play now the sound of the waters. Pic- tures the stories of goldfish shooting and lingering in the bowl of the palace; sounds of the death of lov- ers, and finally the harmony of evening. Nothing real, only suggestion. Not sharply de- fined, but elusive. Not light, but shaded. All be- low the surface — ^part of the soul and spirit. Lovely effects — startling effects on the keyboard, the most novel since Chopin. The blue haze turns into gray, then into brown, then purple and black. An antique and almost evap- 54 Face to Face with Great Musicians orated perfume mingles with penetrating modern odors, the lines become more vague, floating, misty, shifting, intangible and atmospheric. Baffling, in- calculable, remote and inexplicable, the arabesques continue. So I think of the pictures which Dore has made for Dante's "Inferno" — reversing the place from infernal to the magic and mystic and beautiful, won- dering how it was that Maeterlinck scolded De- bussy for daring to take "Pelleas and Melisande" for musical setting, when really he should have been glad to see it done by him and no other. I wish that indeed my picture might contain Maeterlinck, writer of mystic beauty; Verlaine, the poet, and Debussy, the musician — I would paint it in tones such as Monet might use, and place it in keeping of you. The principal works of Debussy are: "Pelleas and Meli- sande," "Afternoon of a Faun," "The Sea," "Children's Corner," "Air de Danse" "March Ecossaise," Six Ar- ieties. Three Nocturnes. PAGANINI Prom a Caricature Published 1S31 VIII FACE TO FACE WITH PAGANINI 1 782-1840 THE auditorium is crowded. The stage is dark, save for a little line of Light which falls on an advancing figure. He moves up to the front, and the whole audience seem to stiffen up with a mingled sense of horror and wonder. The light catches his face, and graves yawn and ghosts shriek. White as a ghoul in the yellow moon- 55 56 Face to Face with Great Musicians light; gaunt and shrunken and hollowed. His eyes, large and green and ancient, tell of sad, wild tales. His figure, long and thin, is curved like a snake about to spring. He does not walk — ^he undulates and jumps with weird little motions — ^his arms and shoulders are in continual activity — like a Uriah Heep. " 'Tis the devil's son," whispers an awe-stricken woman at our side, "every one says so. At night, when he's all alone, the Evil One enters his room and embraces him, and tells him how to go forth and deliver his message. He's a wicked one — I'm sure he's brought me here against my will." And then comes the answer of her companion: "And such a miser. He steals into one's city — lures all the good folk to his wicked music, robs them of their money, and then steals away. He's worth more than kings and nobles. But he'd never spend a sou — lives on devil's food. He's a vampire, sucks our money. Look how he moves — like a crawfish. It's terrible. There are Paganini waltzes, rondos, caps, hats, boots, dishes. It's awful to make a figure of such a devil. Did you hear of Lyser's painting him? He said : 'The devil guided my hand while I did it,' and I believe it's true." Now the sound of a plaintive note silences the vicious voices that whisper superstitions and lies. It rises like a cry in the night, and echoes and re-echoes across the moor his music pictures. And the slow- drawn melody gives way to a wild, dramatic strain. Face to Face with PaganinI 57 Malicious and frenzied grave-sprites whirl in a der- vish dance. See that shaking, straining, maddened figure of the violinist ! He smashes his bow upon the strings, and in a passage of terrific speed runs from the low- est G to the uppermost half-note on the E. In ar- peggios and thirds, and chords; in chromatic succes- sion, the notes pile up, beneath those wiry, bony fingers, which seem more automatic than human. If the audience believes Paganini devil or of the flesh of the Evil One, then now truly they acknowl- edge themselves under the spell of Hell! Never did a crowd of musicgoers become so mad — shriek- ing and yelling themselves hoarse. They fear Paga- nini, but they cannot escape his magic. Recall after recall will not suffice, and Paganini bows in his clumsy, circular motion. Someone whis- tles and calls him lobster ! Others take it up. They are determined to let him know that they believe him to be of a sinful breed. "Paganini — ^Nicolo Paganini," he says to himself, "will you let this insult pass? I will fix them." So, raising his violin to his chin, as if to play, he gets their silence, then very dramatically he says : "I will give you imitations of birds and other animals." Sure enough come the voices of nightingales and parrots and dogs and cats. Then, bringing his bow right over the bridge, he produces a peculiar sound : "Hee-haw." Shouting out, Paganini cries, "That 58 Face to Face with Great Musicians is the voice of the donkey who laughed," and again he plays, "Hee-haw." Well, the concert is over — the people pass out, but we are fortunately able to meet Paganini in his own rooms. We find him — ^he is practicing again. His beloved violin is hardly ever out of his hands. It is told of this violin, that once Paganini had to choose between it and a woman he loved — and he gave up the woman. "My sweetheart," he whispers to the instrument — he can hardly talk above a whisper — and no Ro- meo ever put more passion into his love-making, "my sweetheart, once I almost lost you. It was when I was very young. I had just tasted the joy of triumph — the world was at my feet. I was see- ing new cities, travel was in my blood. I thirsted for romance and adventure. I began to gamble and I lost — lost heavily. But I would never give up. I believed in my lucky fate. Despite losses and de- feats, I always knew something would come to my rescue. One night, all my money was gone, all that I earned in my big concert of the day. I had noth- ing for my hotel, for my travel to the next city where I was to play the following night. Some one dared me to put up my violin. I was desperate — I played — and lost. Gone, my sweetheart, they took you from me. I cried, I wept, I shrieked, I was going to drown myself in the river. And then came a friend — ^he bought you back for me. That cured Face to Face with Paganini 59 me, my beloved. Never did I risk you again, and never did I approach the gaming table from that day forth. You are everything to me." "But me, papa?" And a handsome little boy romps into the room and clasps his tiny hands about the lank legs. "Ah, my little Achilles," Paganini smiles, "my violin and you." "My boy," — the violinist introduces us. "He will be greater than I. He must be I And he must be happier. Never will he go hungry as I did, when I was a lad. I am putting away riches for him. The world is paying Achilles for its cruelty to his father. I am a miser, says the world. So be it. Let them think. Once, when Berlioz was starving, I sent up some money to him. And since, my good friends have been trying to decide what kind soul really gave it in my name. "Pshaw — what's the use? One time a good lady — I've forgotten her name — she was the widow of a fiddler who used to revile me and throw mud at me — well, this widow wished to have a benefit. She engaged me to play — ^my price was very high. But she knew that with Paganini as the attraction she could make money. The day came. I played. Afterwards, the widow came to pay me. I knew what was in her mind. She wanted me to give her a discount! Wouldn't the old miser relent! She brought her small child — they were both dressed in rags (they had better clothes). She counted out the amount to me in the smallest coins. One was short. 6o Face to Face with Great Musicians I made her count it over and bring the missing money from her pocket. Several times she started to say something. At last we went to the door. " 'Little boy,' I cried to her child, 'come here and I will give you some pennies for candy.' When he came, I dumped the whole pile into his hands — what do I care*?" We wanted to ask him how he acquired his won- derful technique. "That was easy," he laughs. "I was bom with it — ^my violin is another limb — or sense — that's all. I must grin when I hear these would-be violinists trying to play. Once in Prague, a fool conductor who called me a faker behind my back, wanted me to play a symphony he had composed. He thought it was dreadfully difficult. But at the concert I used my walking stick instead of my bow. That was lots of fun. The conductor was wild !" So with rare and unexpected humor and humanity the "ghost fiddler," as he was sometimes called, en- tertained us with bits from his adventurous life. "Once during a concert my 'E' string broke. I didn't have time to fix it. I was in the middle of a number. It was a wet night and a moment later, crash went the 'D' string, and snap went the 'A'. That left one string, the 'G'. "But I kept right on playing, and the audience thought it was a miracle. Afterwards ' the news spread, and whenever I played I had to pretend the same thing happened, and play on the 'G' alone. Face to Face with Paganini 6i It became a famous feat, and I even wrote music especially for the 'G' string. "I have been very much abused and misunder- stood," he said, with a tone of injury and tragedy in his voice. "I have been accused of being a jail- bird, a licentious libertine — a pervert of the nastiest type- "But I have tried to live my part with virtue and a kind heart until the world forced it out of me, made me nasty and unhappy. I grew crabbed and misanthropic. Blame the world for its unkindness tome. "Since I was six years old — sickly, incapable of healthy maturity, I supported my family. We lived in a sad little home. My father was brutal, coarse, but he loved music and liquor. My mother — ^but for her I would have died — they already had me in my shroud. I came near being butied alive when I was four, but my mother saw I was breathing. I had no real home until I was fifty. This boy's mother, my wife — the cat, was a mischief -breeder, a hateful disturbance. "They have perpetually said I have been in prison. I never was. I had lawsuits, but my honesty was never questioned. A lie it was to disport at my ex- pense. They said I was loaded down with chains, without a violin, and yet violin music issued from my cell. Imagine in civilized times that I should find it necessary to prove I was the son of so-and-so 62 Face to Face with Great Musicians and not of the devil, I always thought the devil hated music. "I have always had simple tastes — ^my beloved violin and jewelry in a dilapidated box, my clothes shabby, traveling in a carriage, eating little, a bit of chocolate would do me for hours. "But you can forget my own faults, if you will remember me in the music I left for my successors to play — ^if you will sometimes think that I taught you how soloists should play without notes; and that I first suggested the infinite possibilities of my beloved violin. As that little English girl, Char- lotte, who fell in love with me and wanted to run off with me, said : 'You raise me up into the mountains with your playing. It is divine.' " The principal works of Paganini are: Twenty-four caprices for violin solo {of which pianoforte transcriptions were made by Schumann and Liszt) ; twelve sonatas for violin and guitar; Concerto in E; Concerto in B minor; varia- tions on many themes. Important works about Paganini by Stephen S. Stratton, N. Conestabile, J. Theodore Bent, De Laphaleque, and scores of interesting references. STRADIVARIUS IX FACE TO FACE WITH STRADIVARIUS 1649-1737 THE other day I heard a great violinist. He is noted for his marvelous tone; for the rich, sensuous beauty of his music; for the deep- reaching resonance of each golden note. Thousands congregate wherever he is booked to play — and as he stands alone before the multitude he brings out of his violin lovely melodies, which rouse fiery emo- tions in the breast of all who listen. 63 64 Face to Face with Great Musicians After the concert we were together in his home, and the violinist played again for me. How lov- ingly he handled the instrument, gently taking off the silken wrappings, inspecting the violin from all sides, slightly adjusting the bridge, tuning the strings and bringing the rest under his chin. Scarce- ly had the bow touched, the string when the notes rang out, so that it seemed as if the violin itself and not the artist were the intelligence. Out of the little thing of wood and gut came messages of heavenly beauty, lifting the prostrate soul to ecstasies more divine than ever are touched by earthly beings. "Inspired artist," I murmured. "Marvelous violin," he answered, and he gave it into my hands, as a mother would intrust her child to a dear friend. "Look at it, what a symphony of color and grace it is." I clasped k in my fingers, held it to the light and read the label inside — there written in a scrawly hand was "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Fecit, Anno 1724." "A Stradivarius," I cried with delight. "Yes, an Antonio Stradivarius of his best period," the artist answered. Just then came a message calling him away. "And if you will pardon me for a moment, I will leave you with my Strad for a little tete-a-tete." I tried the instrument under my chin, rati my fin- gers up and down the strings to feel the sensation of the neck under my hand — ^brought the bow down Face to Face with Stradivarius 65 and essayed a chord or two. I held it at arms' length, trying to devour it with my eyes. An Anto- nio Stradivarius of old Cremona ! And then it seemed as though I must have closed my eyes, or something happened; for I was no longer where I thought, but walking along the quaintest street you ever saw. I lotoked up at the signs to learn where I had lost myself, and I read, "Antonio Stradivarius, His Workshop." Cremona, Italy! Old-fashioned people all about me, and I dressed in the garb of long ago. I will enter the shop — ^Antonio? — upstairs, signor. I mount a flight of wooden steps, and walk into the room. A pretty signorita courtesies and begs for my message. "I would like to buy a violin," I answer. "I will call father." "Please do not disturb him," I ask. "Let me go into the shop and talk with him there." "Yes, signor." Then into a large room with open sunlit windows all around. The ceiling has raw beams, and about the walls, suspended from nails, are violins, parts of violins, lutes, 'cellos, basses, violas da gamba. In the comer stand basses, and at half a dozen benches are young and old men bent over their work. In the very center of the room is a large table, and on the bench nearby is seated a very old man. He is tall and gaunt; he wears an apron and on his head a woolen cap. "Father, dear, a gentleman to buy a violin," die young woman announces. 66 Face to Face with Great Musicians "Ah, Gina, thank you. Won't you be seated, sir, and tell me your wishes," and the Master Stradiva- rius rises to greet me. His shoulders are rounded from the constant bending over his work, but in his face, much wrinkled and furrowed, there is a look of inspiration. With compliment and round-about manner, in the Way of the day, I tell him my needs and ask for the privilege of watching him at work. "There is not much to see — an old man at a bench, carefully modeling, cutting some wood. You can- not tell as you look what I am doing, but every little move I make is part of the life of my violins. Be- cause I cut the sides with this curve, the tone is so and so; because the depth of the violin is not more or less than it is, the timbre of the tone is what you hear." The old man takes me about the room, and in- spects the work of his assistants : "Now, Francesco, that will never do, you must smooth that much finer, much more slender at the ends. And, Omobono, my boy, you better leave the sound post to me, before it goes; I will adjust that. Ah, here is my good assistant, Joseph ; you have my ideas very well. You see the inside of this violin. That little post under the bridge — that is the soul of the violin; it holds the vibrations of all the parts into one harmonious rhythm. The violinist draws his bow, my friend; what do you suppose happens? The strings vibrate, the black finger board here vibrates, the belly and Face to Face with Stradivarius 67 the back vibrate, the sides vibrate, the air inside the violin vibrates — and the little slender piece of wood is the controller. Look, I move it a bit; listen, what a difference ; I move it the other way — oh, not good, but the right place; that will do. "Here is the wood for the sides, and here is the wood for the back, and here is pine wood for the belly. It comes from the lower parts of the forest of the Alps, and all of it is cut only from the south- em sides of the trees. Here is sycamore for the back, the neck and the sides. The wood must be nursed and cured and kept just so, until it is alive for me. Some stuff is cold and lethargic, other kinds are re- sponsive and obey the violinist. "When I was a boy I was given over as appren- tice to Amati, and before I was with him many years I wanted to change his model, even though I signed his name to my work. But I loved the master Amati, and he loved me. He left me his tools and patterns and secrets, though his own son was cut off. "You see these curves at the side, I remodeled them; you see these f-holes at the top — ^I made them straighter and more slender, for the air current to come out with more delicacy. In the violin are fifty- eight to seventy-two parts, and every part is so im- portant I cannot slight one." "Father," calls Gina from the inner room, "here is the gentleman from Poland." A tall, noble-looking gentleman comes rushing in, "See here, sir, I am here from the King of Poland — 68 Face to Face with Great Musicians three months ago I gave you his order, and you have kept me here in this sleepy town awaiting the in- strument." "Another week, my friend," says Stradivarius, scarce looking up from his desk, "I must have it at once. Where is it?" "Show him the violin, Francesco," and the young man lifts down an instrument from a nail and hands it to the envoy. "I will take it with me." "Oh, no, you won't; it is not ready. It needs fur- ther varnishing, or it will not be my violin, and my name will not go in it. If you wish to carry out your king's commands, you wait until I give you this violin. I have dealt with kings before" — all this in a very quiet, matter-of-fact manner — "and they have waited for the proper time. I sent the Spanish court a set of instruments inlaid with ivory — it took me a full year. I will not be hurried for the Pope at Rome. I will send for you when the time is ripe." While this dialogue was going on a long-haired gentleman came in ; and all arose to bow to him. "Ah, Signor Corelli," Stradivarius called out, "I have the violin for you now to play for me. Listen," and the maker went into another room and brought forth an instrument, which he handed to Corelli. "I want to have you particularly listen to the purity of the highest harmoniques on the E string; I want you to listen to the lowest and fullest open note oa the G string. Try it" — and Corelli lifts the instru- Face to Face with Stradivarius 69 ment to his chin, and performs one of his difficult Sonatas. "Splendid, Antonio," he cries with delight, and the violin maker rubs his hands violently as he lis- tens to the child of his hands in the glorious care of a master musician. "Now, please, Corelli, handle with greatest care — wrap well at nights and on damp days in woolen cloths; when it is cold keep the violin in a warm place — not too hot, you know. Choose the strings with absolute taste — ^better let me furnish you when you need them. Let not unskilled hands profane the finger board, and bring it back to me every once in a while that I may look it over, and correct any trouble." It seemed to me that with the exit of the instru- ment the old gentleman sighed as if he were parting with a dear, dear friend. "Another gentleman," Gina called. "Have him come in, my dear," and a young dandy entered. "What do you charge for a violin, Signor Stradi- varius?" the customer asks. "Well, I will tell you. Woods are high these days, and labor is going up in price, besides I per- sonally will cut and inspect the making of the violin, and in it will go my signed labels, as I do with all my finest customers. It will be very stylish — it will make you very much admired to own a violin of mine. There are only a little over two thousand in the world." 70 Face to Face with Great Musicians "The price, Signor Stradivarius?" "Yes, oh, yes ; to you, sir, $24, "Is that the best you can do?" the buyer haggles. "Yes, that is my price, and I never go below it — " I feel a violent tug at my shoulders, and flop, all Cremona, Stradivarius, and his shop are gone. Over me the artist is standing — ^my great violin friend. "Did you have a good tete-a-tete with the violin? What do you think of my Strad? Hasn't it a glo- rious tone? I had lots of trouble getting it. Strads are getting terribly scarce now — not more than two hundred on record. Do you think it is worth the $24,000 I paid for it?" Important books about Stradivarius: Vincenzo Lancetti, Carl Schulze, Horace Petherick. References in "My Mu' sical Life" by H. R. Hazoeis. See "Violins of Stradi' vari" by W. E. Hill & Sons. FACE TO FACE WITH HUGO WOLF 1860-1903 WHO is this comes all excitement towards us — a-flutter, eyes blazing, hands wav- ing madly at us, interrupting our con- versations, and drawing us with his voice in a circle around him? "Come, come," and mysteriously nodding his head, and beckoning with his hands again, he has the air of one who has marvelous news to impart — ^news which 71 72 Face to Face witK Great Musicians affects the very equilibrium of the world, and every (Mie in it. We draw close, all expectation ourselves, excited with the maimer of the man, who, all breathless, is vainly trying to give utterance to speech. "A great thing — the greatest thing since Schubert or Schumann — ^I have just completed a song. Oh, you will grow hot ^id cold when you hear it. You will love it so much that you will just want to die!" So sincerely does the man talk, that for a moment we scarce appreciate the utter absurdity of the situ- ation, and the unbounded vanity of the stranger. "Oh, wait, wait, wait," he pours forth in a tor- rent, and feverishly turning from one to the other of us, he taps his forefinger against his lips, to implore silence, "wait and I will play it for you." He bounds to the piano: "A Serenade — a very peculiar, very peculiar serenade — :I won't tell you what, you just listen— listen to this exquisite music." And passionately he closes his eyes, turns his head heavenward and delicately caresses the keys — it tells of a youth in love, filled with the soft sensuousness of Spring. The man at the piano sings, but the melody coming from his lips is the story of an old man dreaming of memories gone by. And rippingly up and down the piano-keys, the boy is alive again. Oh, yes, we see, the voice of the song is reality, to- day; and the accompaniment is the memory of yes- terday. The man jumps up, gazing inquiringly into our Face to Face with Hugo Wolf 73 faces: "What do you say? Did you ever hear any- thmg more lovely in all your lives?" Who is this strange man? Don't you know? Why, it is Hugo Wolf, writer of songs. He has just completed another melody and he is overjoyed with the accomplishment. While he is relating the circumstances of his writ- ing this composition to the little lady whom he has cornered, while he is telling her every little detail, down to the way he wrote the double bar — let me quickly give you something about him and his ex- traordinary career. A stupid youth, passionately devoted to music, he did not distinguish himself with an ability either to play or compose — and believed himself a worthless specimen, good for nothing, except to worship at the feet of the masters. His father had not wanted him to be a musician, but he himself was eager to write. He adored Wagner, ran in front of his cab to open the door. He wrote some songs and con- sidered them worthless. During his twenty-seventh year, a friend pub- lished some of Wolf's songs — and the sight of these in print excited the genius in him. He had been liv- ing near Vierma, and had become tremendously in- terested in the poems of Morike, the Swabian pastor- poet, who lived and died amidst the sneers of the world, but whose resurrection by Wolf made him loved and honored as one of the greatest lyricists in all literature. 74 Face to Face with Great Musicians Wolf read these poems, and he became inflamed with melodies which grew with every word. A voice cried: "Hugo, write," and for three months he scarcely left his room — scarcely ate or drank — scarcely slept. For the voice cried, "Hugo, write," and he followed the call and gave to the world fifty-three songs of Morike. Nor did he stop here — but in rapid succession came songs of Goethe, of Eichendorff, of Heyse, of Keller, and of the old Spanish poets. For two short years, the young man cowered and slaved before his master-muse, joyous and afraid, gazing almost as if from afar at himself, the comr poser ! This is the mystery of inspiration. You are sit- ting at your desk. Suddenly an idea comes from but of the great expanse. You write furiously, you grow hot and cold. Oh, faster, faster, write. I am losing it. The voice inside grows excited, "Write, write." You grow afraid. You sit back, you watch your- self carried away before the torrent. And when it's all over, you say: "How did it happen? Did I do that?" In this way Wolf was affected. He wrote because he would have been struck dead if he had refused or even hesitated. And for many years Hugo Wolf was slave to his overpowering inspiration, happy, and surprised at his great gifts. Then — crash! Something happened, awful, Face to Face with Hugo Wolf 75 tragic, hateful. The muse departed, and there came no more music to Wolf. Day after day, the man pleaded with himself, went down to the woods, threw himself into rivers, sated himself with new poems, wept, raved, languished in anguish. But it was of no use. Silence in his brain, a mocking hol- lowness at his heart, meaningless notes at the finger- tips — ^he sat for hours at the keyboard — ^not a single chord came. He lived in this desert for two years. And then, as suddenly as the fickle muse had gone, she returned. She was a mean mistress to Hugo Wolf, for now that she answered his prayers and came back to him, she again demanded his all, and made him her slave, with increasing cruelty. Still he didn't mind. But again, after a month, she de- serted him, and he did not find her for five years. He has finished telling his story to the little lady whom he cornered. He is coming back to us. We gaze upon this strange man. He is short and slender, stooping as from long nights over his desk or from sheer weakness. His face is thin and pale; the hair is the color of burnt-out ashes. In the face is a certain degree of force made noticeable by prominent square jaw-bones which project when he is thinking and silently grinding his teeth toge- ther. His mustache is thin, and under his lip is a sparse tuft of bristly beard. "Friends," he says, "I am so happy, happier than kings. If you could hear what is going on in my heart. I am composing, I am creating again. And 76 Face to Face with Great Musicians what I write now, I write for the future. Some- times, a song comes to me, which sounds so horribly strange, that it frightens me. For instance, one that I finished the other day, is like nothing in existence. Heaven help the people who will one day hear it. "You cannot imagine how I love those divine moments when I compose. When I am silent, I think if only I were Hugo Wolf. I feel like crying at people, 'Help me, help me ! Give me some ideas again — shake the sleeping demon in me and I will fall at your feet and worship you I' Sometimes I imagine that I will go mad or that I am soon to die. In any case I feel that a man is not to be taken away before he has said all he has to say, and then I am not yet through. "You know what I am doing? It is seeking out a pleasant little nook in the lovely heaven of compo- sition. I want to be in a merry company of primi- tive beings, among the tinkling of guitars, the sighs of love, the moonlight, and such-like. When I put a poem to music, I don't merely give it notes. I translate the very emotions into melody and har- mony. I read the words over and over, live with them, become saturated with them — ^become the poet all over — ^go back over the events which inspired him to write — and when I am ready for my work, the whole thing is part of my consciousness. "For years I've wanted an opera; where could I get the book? I've searched high and low, but noth- Face to Face with Hugo Wolf 77 ing I've ever seen suits me. Where are the poets? Where are the great books'?" The deep brown eyes gazed out with bewilder- ment. Such a nervous, unstrung manner was never beheld before. Pity, disappointment, uncertainty are written all over his features. "I've led a life of misery. I've been a log on a troublous sea, doomed to be dashed from wave to wave, calm or furious with my moods. My home was a poor one. A dear father whom I disappointed. Lord knows, without desire to do so. They sent me to study and I was expelled because some liar sent a nasty letter to the director and signed my name. I tried to support myself and teach myself. Oh, but what a struggle — what a fight. I took pupils, but it was misery. I couldn't teach, but I had to live. They got me a job rehearsing choruses, but that didn't suit. "I wanted to give it up — ^go to America, be a miner, a butcher, anything. So I took a position as critic on a paper. That didn't suit — I was too frank — I praised ability irrespective of lack of reputation. I descried inability even where apparently excused by so-called genius. When my first music was played, directors made fun of it. Oh, they were nice. They made it easy for me. They tried to kill me — but I came through. Thank God! If I had let them have their way I'd be dead or a butcher. "Wait — wait — listen — that poem. That poem I read last night. It is come back with music. Let 78 Face to Face with Great Musicians me pass — let me pass. LET ME PASS. I must write it down." When Hugo Wolf died, mad, at the age of forty- three, the whole world which had ignored him, sud- denly rushed to acclaim him "The Second Schubert." The principal works of Hugo Wolf are: "Italian Sere- nade," "Pentkesilea," "Der Corregidor," "Christnacht Elfenlied," "Lieder aus der Jugendzeit," "Italianisckes Liederbiich," "Dem Vaterland," "Spanisches Liederbuch." He wrote about 500 songs, of individual and original style. Important books on Hugo Wolf by Dr. Ernst Decsey, Ernest Newman; A Bibliograpky by "Peters." XI FACE TO FACE WITH BACH 1685-1750 I REMEMBER once having spent a whole sum- mer down at a quiet little farm, where all that ever disturbed one's peace of mind was morn- ing, noon and night. I remember how, returning to the city, life seemed like bedlam, crashing, smashing, and noisy. Reverse the process and we will travel backward 79 8o Face to Face with Great Musicians to old Leipzig, to the home of Johann Sebastian Bach. Out of the dazzling to-day we come to a soft land, where all is peace, all is still. Down a spic-and-span road we inquire for the home of Bach. Everybody tells us, for everybody knows him and reveres him. Led by a procession of urchins and bent old men, we finally reach a tumble-down house, covered with vines and shel- tered with the rich shade of massive oak trees. "In there, there he is, old Johann." The door is open — none is denied welcome or the right to enjoy the hospitality of this homely board. Inside, and one realizes that here is home. In a great wide-armed chair sits the master of the house, smoking a deep-bowled pipe and sipping occasion- ally at a mug of creamy ale. On his lap are two of his children — on the floor are several more, and hustling around the stove and dishes are more Bach boys and girls aiding their mother. Supper is being made ready — and that, despite its daily occurrence, is an event of importance. Steam- ing pots bubble joyously, the youngsters chatter, clatter, the old man continues his smoking, dropping a word now and then to the baby on his knees. As we come into the room Mr. Bach jumps up, almost upsetting the pipe, the mug, and the children. "Company — Good Welcome, my dear people," he says, in his gruff, deep voice, which comes from the very pit of that huge paunch. "Anna," he shouts, "we have company — they will stay with us Face to Face with Bach 8i for supper," and listening to no entreaties, he per- suades us to sit down at the table. "Yes, we dine early, it leaves more time for work afterwards," he explains, "and besides the children need to get to sleep." "What do you think of my little broods Some of them are older than the wife! It showed that I really loved the first woman when I selected Anna to be the second. Well, my youngsters have more to be thankful for, than was their father. They can have all the music they like — ^I was forbidden to play violin more than two hours a day. "Think of it, a Bach restrained from making mu- sic when for a century and a half music throughout Europe meant Bach. There were almost fifty of the family, musicians. "My uncle Heinrich was a great organist, and it was him I succeeded when I grew up. Through working hard every day I had learned the notes. I had heard famous musicians. I had worked fi-om farm to farm for daily bread. "One day I was near starving. In the roadway were two fried herrings. I picked them up, fam- ished, and inside each herring was a sUver pie ce." s,> "What did you do with the silver, father?" piped one little voice. "I tried to find the owner, as any honest boy would do, but I found nobody, so I accepted that as a sign that fate was with me and was going to help me. "When I succeeded to my Uncle Heinrich's place 82 Face to Face with Great Musicians as organist, I used my own ideas, and the people be- came quite indignant. Heinrich's way was good enough. They wanted no innovations. They brought charges against me because a stranger maid- en was seen in the choir loft. The maiden was later my first wife." Entertaining us with bits of anecdotes from his life, his studies, his composing, he keeps us amused throughout the meal. We realize that there are many things Mr. Bach has never encountered, fortu- nately for the world. We realize that speedy travel, divorce, airplanes, Mrs. Sanger, ragtime, vaudeville, and Broadway theatrical managers have never come into his life. So sunny, sweet, and untainted he seems — all unconscious of any greatness or superi- ority. "You have five fingers as good as I," he says, "you can play as well as I. You have only to touch the right key at the right time and the instrument plays by itself." He laughs, but as if explaining — "I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equal- ly industrious will succeed as well." In between mouthfuls and words, the old gentle- man helps the little mouths. He butters the little boy's bread, wipes another's mouth — corrects an- other's table manners, graciously assists his wife in passing dishes and serving his guests. So he talks until supper is over. Then he rises, as IS his wont, and goes to the clavichord, prepared to compose. Face to Face with Bach 83 "First, Anna," he shouts noisily, "you will sing for our friends. One of my own, 'My Heart Ever Faithful,' or 'Bist du bei mir"." So saying, he playfully draws his girlish wife into the anteroom. "She is very good, this little woman. Later I will help her clean up things. She helps me with my music, and I help her with the dishes. She knows more of my music than I do of dishes. But she doesn't mind. "We have good times together. So many wonder how we get along — we're just as happy as can be in here. Sometimes when I have to travel, I alwajrs take two or three of the family with me. I can't bear to leave them. "Once King Frederick sent for me. I had work to do and I didn't like to leave home, so I waited a year. What are kings?" Bach finally induces Anna to sing. She has a sweet soprano voice. She puts the master's mean- ing into the words and melody. She understands her husband. She is his constant guide — ^more than a mere housekeeper. She knows that beneath the merry face of the master of the house there is a trou- bled soul — knows that even his simple wants have not been filled, knows that his kindly manner to- wards his less gifted musicians has many times robbed him of his due. She knows that he is great, she knows that from his pen has come the most wonderful music ever 84 Face to Face with Great Musicians written — and she, far more than her husband, feels the pang of regret that the world is meager of praise, while tawdry and loud-mouthed weaklings hold the public ear. Either Johann does not know, or does not care, for he goes right on laughing, goes on working, goes on studying, goes on composing, to the very end. Night time has fallen now. All is quiet and pen- sive. Anna has taken her place at the foot of the table, just where the lamp sheds its light to the floor. She is quietly sewing, gazing up from time to time at Johann. He is seated at the large table, the blank paper before him, all ruled and ready. He taps the table with his pen. He catches the spirit of a theme, he nods his head several times to make sure he has understood perfectly the message which comes to him. And then he writes it down. After a little while he turns the sheet and continues. But he never looks back — ^he is absolutely sure from opening bar to "Finale." Little does he know that the mu^ic he writes is destined to remain as the classic standard for all time. Little does he imagine that men will look back at him and say: "The Father of Modem Music." Just writing — ^just writing — that is all — and do- ing the best he knew how until late. Then, "Anna, it is time to finish. Come, I will help you wash up. It will relieve my mind and help me to sleep well. Good little wife. How nicely the children sleep. Face to Face with Bach 85 Littl? Emanuel is feeling much better. Thank God ! "To-morrow I must go over the garden and pick the weeds, and I suppose I had better write an an- swer to the Duke. Let us offer our prayer to the Maker of us all." The principal works of Johann Sebastian Bach are: "Saint Matthew Passion Music," "Mass in B Minor," "Char cone" "Christmas Oratorio," "The Well-Tempered Clav- ichord," Brandenburg Concertos, Six French Suites, Six English Suites, 232 Sacred Cantatas, Two Magnificats, 2g Organ Preludes and Fugues. Important works on Johann Sebastian Back: Biographies in German by his son Emanuel, his pupil Agricola, and Prof. Forkel — in English by Samuel-W-esly. Also works by Miss Kay Shuttleworth — "Life" ; Lectures by Sedley Taylor; Biographical notices in Gerber, Fetis and other biographical dictionaries. XII FACE TO FACE WITH GLUCK 1714-1787 IN A LAND of tinsel and an era of frippery, French music was making effeminate toy-melody the spirit of opera. Singers danced merrily as they pretended to affect the tragic mood or the com- edy ; Hercules was portrayed by a woman, who acted in tra-la-las. When a son died, the mother danced; when a daughter was bom, everybody danced. When war was declared, the nation danced. Men made 86 Face to Face with Gluck 87 love in similar metaphors. Cleverness was mis- taken for depth of feeling. Wit was substituted for wisdom. Never saying what they ought to — enough to bore one to death. Actresses shrieked and forced their beings to do over-work; they clenched their breasts, their veins swollen, their bodies heaving. It was all so delicate and useless. It was all such hy- pocrisy and sham, such affectation and inconsistency ! Into this Liliputian activity, breaking down the cardboard dwellings and trampling upon the mid- gets of music, dashing aside all the tra-las and tip- toeing masqueraders, came Christoph Gluck, a giant, dreadful and rough, bellowing and snorting like a mad boar. He came out of the forest, where he chopped trees and learned the secrets of wild animals; where the earth was his bed and the sky was his ceiling; where in order to live he had to work, and in order to eat he had to kill; where men and women loved and hated with simple fervor, where the graces and fol- derol of polite society had no place, and you killed offenders as you would a pig, and worshiped a good man more than your king. His father kept game for the prince, and he, the son, went barefoot about the woods until he left to make his way in the world. When he came out of the wilderness, singing in his curious way, playing concerts on the "musical glasses" and the violin, from village to village, un- til he reached the center of musical activities at Paris, having traveled Europe even to Denmark, he was 88 Face to Face with Great Musicians not beholden to any man, and he asked none for aid. The sickish, perfumed opera was stifling to him. He couldn't breathe in its stuffy, closed-in drawing rooms. He couldn't sit on the slender gilt chairs; he didn't like to hold himself straight and frigid and to smile at puns and pretty phrases. He wanted to take up the manikin men and crush them between his strong hands into powder. And that is virtually what he did. He determined to sweep out the rubbish of the opera and to fumi- gate it — and then to put in place of the lisping woman Hercules the bigness of the world itself. Think of him, towering over the embroidered, be- wigged philosophers. Tall, massive, and broad- shouldered, with his head always pushed forward with a kind of defiance. His face, deeply pock- marked — in repose, very red and savage; in anger, white with the pock-marks blackly contrasting and savage. His hair was mussed most often, with the powder on in careless fashion. It was a big face, round and hard in its outlines and the cut of the features, the eyebrows raised in querying manner. One could but think that the Creator in molding his contour had been very determined about it, and left very little of softness to mark the soul of the man. There was an intelligence about the eyes, however, that, if you looked intently, seemed to give out a hint of the mountains, the mountains in the far distance which you wanted always to approach, but which always seemed to move further as you Face to Face with Gluck 89 came closer. A poet? Not in that frame, and yet, and yet, — ^he was I It was difficult to dissociate the idea of the animal; that thick neck was like a boar's, his heavy hands seemed rather fitted to con- tinue to swing the ax than the conductor's baton — and when he spoke or sang it was done so boisterous- ly that it made you move back a bit, away from him. He played the harpsichord, and he did it as your ice man might. He smashed at the keyboard, he pounded it — ^no little grace notes, oh, no. Chords, heavy, sonorous, orchestral in their effects. Well, just like all his music, in fact. When he entered the parlors of the bigwigs of the day he seemed to be so much out of place, awk- ward, stiff, and sulky. He spread all over the place and sometimes used vulgar language, which shocked the gentility. He would as soon swear at the king as at the merest singer in his company. One time, it is told how, a certain prince named Henin com- ing into the room, all arose except Gluck, who said aloud, "I get up for people I respect." When the first night of the new opera "Iphigenie en Aulide" had arrived, and the king and all his court were assembled in their boxes, Gluck an- nounced that the company was not ready, and every- body had better go home. Lese majeste — insult to the king — the opera must be played; this fellow is unbearable and he shall be ousted. Need I say the opera was not played that night? Nobody liked Gluck, but everybody respected him 90 Face to Face with Great Musicians and feared him. Courtiers made no impression upon him — ^he acted disgustingly crude in all his dealings. He had a desire for wealth and he made it. He stuffed himself at the table, drank to excess^-would reach over in true boarding-house fashion to pick any morsel that pleased his fancy, though it were at the other end of the table, and half a dozen in be- tween might have passed it. He attended his re- hearsals in his nightcap, and finished dressing him- self before the entire company. He was crude as the mountains and as true. That was the exterior of Christoph Gluck, the battering ram which smashed open the iron gates of the opera house, in order that the interior of his person might be uncovered before a world needing just such a browbeating to whip it into an attention worthy of the music he brought the people. The composers who had strung together pretty phrases and effeminate melodies could not under- stand the sweeping bigness of Gluck's new work. He brought into opera the memories of his early days, when he slept on the earth and looked up at the sky. He told of the naked passions of real men and women. His operas "Alceste," "Iphigenie," "Orfeo et Euridice," "Semiramide," and the rest are as genuine to-day as when they were first heard, back before our American revolution. Some detractors of the day said, "Why, you can't find any airs or melodies in all he ever wrote that stand being played in the drawing room," and when Face to Face with Gluck 91 Gluck heard it he said : "When I have produced my effect in the theater that is all I want; and I assure you it matters very little if my music is not agree- able in a small comer of your bedroom. Your criti- cism is like that of a man who has placed himself on the gallery in the dome of the cathedral, and who shouts to an artist below, 'Hi, sir, what are you try- ing to paint down there? Is it an arm or a nose, for it resembles neither one nor the other.' The artist might shout back, 'Suppose you come and look for yourself.' " "My music," Gluck has said, "is stamped with the truth of nature, and all the emotions have their true expression. It is not the kind of work to give momentary pleasure; it is not based on fashion; it is fashioned out of nature. When I am engaged upon a scene I will break every rule of writing for my effects. Simplicity, truth, and naturalness are the great fundamentals of art." Also he uttered another truth which I want to give you for its significance to-day: "I am seeking music which shall suit all nations, and I want to eliminate the ridiculous distinctions between music of different peoples." This is how he thought and worked. He heaped out huge parcels of harmony, and laid them on his canvas with thickness and depth. He made his strokes with broad, sweeping lines. He could not tolerate the insipidity which had preceded him. His was simplicity of style which knew no sham. 92 Face to Face with Great Musicians When he came he found French music a thing of wood and mechanics. When he went on, it had become human and breathing. Then rose Mozart. The principal works of Christoph Willibald Gluck are: "Orpheus and Eurydice," "Alceste," "Iphigenia en Aulide," "Iphigenia en Taitride" "Armide," "Echo et Narcisse." Important works on Christoph Willibald Gluck by Leblond — "Memoires pour servir a I'histoire de la Revolution opera dans la Musique par M. le Chevalier Gluck" ; "Gluck und die Oper" — A. B. Marx; Thematic Cata- logue by M. Wotquenne; Biography — Fetis. MACDOWELL XIII FACE TO FACE WITH MacDOWELL 1861-1908 THERE is a beautiful old house that beckons and welcomes you up in Peterboro, in the heart of New Hampshire's hills. You walk up the curving path, underneath sweet- smelling trees, and past luxurious bushes of roses and lilacs; in a little fountain pool lilies bend their graceful stems. It is the home of Edward MacDowell, America's 93 94 Face to Face with Great Musicians own composer, her first and greatest genius of com- position, who stands beside contemporary writers as the equal of any nation's best. There is a large window, thrown open that the breezes and sweet odors of summer may enter the house and mingle with the music which has grown out of it. Seated at the open window is MacDowell; whit- ened hair and mustache, keen blue eyes, pink and white skin, he who has been sumamed abroad the "handsome American," His eyes do not move about ; his face has assumed a single expression of a sad smile, his hands hold a book, and occasionally he glances from the bushes to the book and from the book back to the bushes. We move before him, but he does not see us, and then the awful fact dawns upon us. MacDowell is a tiny child again. The brain has fled ; all the memories and melodies have faded out. His brave wife sits beside him, and strokes his hands and gazes lovingly into his eyes, but he smiles back at her unknowing. The book in his hand is all that he seems to care about; it is a set of fairy tales. Fairy tales ! It is as though he has been carried away to the land of mystery and unreality by the fairies. As though the dryads and njmiphs he waved into being with his music had come to take him with them; as though his dreams of the land of heart's desire had at last conquered him, instead of his con- quering it. Face to Face with MacDowell 95 Music of your dreamer's soul! Come in rapid succession before us now. Titles of fairy-like nature, frail as a wisp of the night : "The West Wind Croons in the Cedar Trees" ; "The Swan Bent Down to the Lily"; "As the Gloaming Shadows Creep," and "Winter Wraps Her Grimmest Spell." Deep, mari- onette music: "Villain," a title that is a marvel all in itself; "Moonshine" and "Forest Stillness." Play out, you musicians of elfish powers, the "Kel- tic Sonata," for the reeds are dancing by Coolaney Lake, and the white waves have danced themselves to sleep; the wind blows out of the gates of the day, the wind blows over the lonely of heart. The fair- ies dance in the place apart, shaking their milkwhite feet in a ring, tossing their milk-white arms in the air. Come, little bird with the silver feet; come like child with the hair of red gold, your face as pale as water before dawn.* I hear from out the bogs and dells, the voices of all the legends of olden days — the Gaels and the Celts with the superstitions and colorful stories are whispering their fears and dreads; their heads to- gether, while the blackbirds soar in a ring of hate. Old Cuchullin is afield, and the warp and woof of dreams in the air while melodies resound. MacDowell sits at the window, and reads on with childish glee the fairy tales of romance and mys- ticism, couched in the one syllable words for the merest kindergartner. * See W. B. Yeat's "Land of Heart's Desire." 96 Face to Face with Great Musicians I see old legends of King Arthur, as played in the "Sonata Eroica" : "The king having died, now who was to be King? Came Arthur, the beardless boy, to answer the sum- mons. Who should pull the magic sword out of the anvil — ^he would be King of England. Sir Kay es- sayed the task and failed. But Arthur did sur- mount the difficulty. Then was he made King, and all through the night vigil he kept, swearing to give his life and might to protect the innocent and weak. A blow on the shoulders with the sword and Arthur was King. Thus is told the coming of Arthur. "Being out in a forest, King Arthur fell asleep. When, all of a sudden, dainty music sounded; oh, so faintly. Myriads of lovely girls danced about the sleeping King. "Oh, was it sleeping, or was it waking"? "So faintly I So delicately! "There was the Lady Guinevere, most beautiful damsel in all the world. King Arthur was out a-hunting when he first lay eyes upon her. Her eyes were like the doe — ^her hands like waxen tapers, and her hair was night's blackness, shimmering with moonbeams. Instantly, Arthur loved Guinevere, and he pleaded with her until she married him. "Such of Guinevere. "Then it came to pass that danger beset the good Knight Arthur. His followers were wroth and civil war ensued. They gave battle and Arthur was Face to Face with MacDowell 97 wounded mortally- They carried him into the church and later out to the barge where three queens tried to save his life. And to the weeping and sor- rowing of the multitude, King Arthur went out. "And this is told of the passing of Arthur." So this is the story of MacDowell. If you will walk with me down into the slums of the lower East Side, where peddlers and hawkers crowd the gutters with their pushcarts, and where the millions of ill- clad children make messy the streets with their poor games, I will lead you to a house, 220 Clinton street, and I will say to you, "That is where he was bom." It was a different neighborhood then — rather the residence of the better-class. Here is where he took his piano lessons of a South American first, then a Cuban, and then the beloved Teresa Carreno. Then abroad to Europe, and Raff — ^Joachim Raff, his master. They loved each other, the old maestro and the young American. No, MacDowell was no prodigy; the question once came up, concerning the advisability of his continuing his music. One day he was in school and in the drowsy hum of the teacher's voice, MacDowell was sketching the teach- er's face; he had a large nose, and the boy didn't hesitate to show it. MacDowell was caught at the trick, the teacher took the paper, and was so startled by its realism that he showed it to the drawing mas- ter. "Give me that youth. I will give him three 98 Face to Face with Great Musicians years' instruction free, and I will make him a great painter," said the teacher. And MacDowell was almost transferred to the other class. The mother was consulted. She was nonplussed. But Edward himself had to decide. MacDowell was there to study piano, but he had another habit. He used to scribble music. He would snatch time from his practice hours to do it, and he felt really ashamed of himself. Besides he took pupils, one of them was an American girl. Miss Marion Nevins. But we were talking of RaflF. One time, shortly after the American came under Raff's instruction, he was sitting in his little room, and the master en- tered. It was a great honor to MacDowell and he was overwhelmed. "What are you doing, boy?" Raff asked. "A sonata." "Show it to me." "I am not quite finished." "Well, bring it to me on Sun- day," Then Sunday came, and it was not finished. So came a postponement, and others, and the sonata was never finished. Back to America, with Miss Marion Nevins, now his bride, MacDowell went for a brief stay, only to return to Europe for real work. Then came the de- lightful three years at Wiesbaden in the woods. All nature called out to the composer's soul. His Irish ancestry came to the surface with its love of the mystical, fairylike, delicate. Then came the real return to America as America's own composer, with concerts with the Kneisel Quar« Face to Face with MacDowell 99 tet, the Boston Symphony, with Theodore Thomas Orchestra; home in Majestic Hotel, New York; the engagement to accept the chair of music at Colum- bia University, "because he was the greatest genius of music America ever produced." This, as you know, MacDowell accepted. How he worked! Playing for the pupils, lecturing to them, he was a picture one couldn't forget. His hands in his pockets, his head tipped to one side; talking animatedly, he made music something human and no longer a thing dry and mathematical. But after a time he had to resign, and some of the reasons which caused the break are worthy of at- tention : "I do not believe nationality should be accounted in the estimate of a man's music." "I do not agree that Americans shall be put in a separate division in music." "Music should be put on a par with all of the classics in t^e school curriculum." MacDowell was a strangely modest and sensi- tive man. "I never could imagine that folks would take my music seriously, and yet I would not change a single note for gold, and inside I loved it." He called some music "that dreadful thing," and begged Carreno not to put it on her program. Many times MacDowell wanted to recall old compositions which didn't measure up to his newer ideas. His wife says: "I used to go through the waste basket every evening, for MacDowell threw out 100 Face to Face with Great Musicians many scraps. One of these was 'To a Wild Rose,' and I put it aside and kept it for several months be- fore I asked his permission to have it published. "By the way," Mrs. MacDowell went on, "he used to say of the way that some young pianists ren- dered 'To a Wild Rose' that they pulled it up by the roots." The beautiful home of Peterboro. How he loved it. Most of all, how he loved the little log- cabin he built in the woods, where he could sit com- posing with dreams piling up about him. So there at the window MacDowell sits, the book in his hands, the same sad, sweet smile on his feat- ures, and one thinks of those beautiful lines he wrote for his music "From a Log Cabin" : "A house of dreams untold. It looks out over the Whispering tree tops and faces the setting sun." Too, of MacDowell, it might be said "A House of Many Dreams Still Untold," and as we watch him reading the book we hear "Lancelot and Elaine" and "Hamlet" and the Irish fairies, weaving the warp and woof of the unrealities and the tales of the land of dreams. The principal works of Edward A. MacDowell are: "Lancelot and Elaine" "Lamia," "Sonata Tragica" "So- nata Eroica" "Indian Suites," "Hexentanz" Concertos Face to Face with MacDowell loi in A Minor, Concerto in D Minor, Four Piano Sonatas, "Hamlet and Ophelia," "Barcarole," "Wald Idyllen," "From an Old Garden" (Songs). Important work on Edward A. MacDowell by Lawrence Gilman. LISZT XIV FACE TO FACE WITH LISZT 1811-1886 HE CAME towards us — the master, Liszt. A figure of medium height, just inclined toward stodginess. His face, smiling — those caress- ing eyes glistening beneath huge, bushy eyebrows. His hair long, white, with the snowy purity of his seventy years, brushed back from his forehead, and resting on the shoulders which had learned to bear so much. He wore his abbe cloak — and he was indeed the very picture of the priest of infinite goodness. Some 102 Face to Face with Liszt 103 there are who preach the gospel of good, and some there are who enact the deeds of humanity. Of this rare Samaritan cult was Liszt, friend of all, caring neither for religion nor nation ; ready to aid the op- pressed, holding forth his hand to guide the new ideals and ideas. We wondered how this good, kind old man could be the same as that perfect lover — that dreamer — that romancer whose life was one long trail of feminine hearts, broken. We were overcome as we grasped his hand, those soft, limpid fingers which could call forth fire and crashing thunder from the keyboard of a mere piano. We knew not what to say. He understood, and with kindly voice, he asked : "You want to play some of your music for me?" With courtly mien, Liszt motioned to us to be seated, and placing a hand on our knees, he voiced this idea: "Music is the heart of life. Your commerce is the brain, your every-day existence is the brawn. The humming birds, the sweet flowers, the fleeting clouds, these are of music a part. Music is the mouth of love, without which no good would ever come, and with which all becomes beautiful." It was at Weimar, the retreat of retreats, the Mecca of all good musicians, to which there came as pilgrims all who sought to commune with the grand old man of the pianoforte. The room was simple ; at each wall was a sofa and chairs. At the 104 Face to Face with Great Musicians end was a grand piano — while in a corner stood a statue of Elizabedi of Hungary. "I was born of good parents — of a family the noblest in all Hungary. But poverty and dire ne- cessity came into the life of the Liszts with my grandfather; and I peeped into this world, the son of a steward on the estate of the beloved Prince Esterhazy. "I loved to attend the church service and listen to the organ with its 'Ave Maria.' I yearned to play, to sing forth the melody in my heart. One day when my father asked me what I should rather be than anything else — I pointed to the picture of Beethoven and said 'such as he.' "I attribute my early rise in music to my good parents. Father was an amateur pianist. He had a love of music such as I have rarely seen in the dilet- tante. He worshiped at the feet of the famous artists and composers. He encouraged me to think music, and want it. But at first he didn't intend to make me a professional. Still my early demonstra- tions at the piano surprised him. He had taught me the rudiments in his unknowing way — ^he knew no theory of study. And I was soon proving better than he was. My fingers were too small to reach all the chords I wanted, and I would devise methods of playing them anyway. I'd hit some notes with my nose. "Soon everybody knew I could play. Kihd friends paid for my incidental expenses. Hunimel, the Face to Face with Liszt 105 teacher my father wanted for me, refused to take me except at prices fabulous for us. But along came Czemy, and he did it free. Think of his generosity. "I was an impetuous child — thought everything was too simple, completely balked at supervision. And it was only after my dear father gave me a severe lecture that I listened to Czerny. "One day — I was about twelve; I went into a mu- sic shop to see some difficult compositions. They were all too easy. I annoyed the clerk by my childish egotism. He said, 'Here, play this, it's the most difficult music I know of,' and he handed me Hum- mel's Concerto in B-jflat, and I played it as if it were nothing. "Never shall I forget on the occasion of one of my early recitals, that Beethoven, in attendance, jumped to the platform, clasped me in his arms and passionately kissed me. That kiss I have never for- gotten — it has inspired me to play and to compose. "My father had been trying to visit Beethoven with me, but the great man couldn't see anybody. We tried every idea to win his attention, but with- out success. Finally he was induced to come to that concert. It was an epoch in my life. After that it was one success after another. "To me no obstacle was ever offered — I came at a time when the world wanted me and my kind. That is, I speak of my piano playing. But my com- position — there is where I tread on toes, there is where I was offered resistance. I was speaking a io6 Face to Face with Great Musicians new tongue, and the orthodox wished no new tongue. "Poor Wagner, with his great operas — ^how he suflFered and strove to win attention. I helped him and I helped every new prophet. If I were with you to-day, and you asked me what more than any- thing else is needed, I would say this: 'Get closer, you composers, to the breath of nature, get down to the hearts of the people, listen to the music of the brooks and the rivers, sip out the honey from your lives of commerce, and offer it up to the people them- selves.' I have never foimd in all my life that the people did not understand. "I remember the first time I played my sym- phonic poem, 'The Prelude' — the press laughed, called me a clown — said that no real music should try to reproduce the impressions of life. Now, I am admitted with my prelude to the best pro- grams. That is my monument." "By what do you wish to be most remembered," we asked, "by your poems, your rhapsodies, your oratorios, your books'?" The old man paused a moment. Then: "I know — listen. No man ever came to me with a message in his soul but that I would listen to him. No man ever brtought to me the merest spark of genius but that I tried to fan it into flame and en- courage him to go forth. "You will excuse me now," and the master rose. "It is the hour for my friends to arrive. Join us." He led us by the hand into his reception room* Face to Face with Liszt 107 There were gathered the stars of music — ^his noted pupils, Friedheim, Rafael Joseffy, Moriz Rosenthal, Hans von Buelow. There were the princes and scholars, the writers and artists — they all were friends of Liszt because he was the friend of all. It was a great afternoon — Liszt was to play a new rhapsodic. He moved to the pianoforte, sat down without ceremony, threw back his hair, leaned mysteriously over the keys, and let his fingers touch them. In- stantly the whole room was transformed. Stars on a blue black sky twinkled forth. Beautiful women curtsied and smiled. Grim tragedy leered out, desolation was upon us — we wept and then smiled; we trembled — and the piano seemed to be plead- ing, just as a lover of ancient romance. We beheld a handsome youth fallen on his knees, before the woman he adored. At first she was cold, heedless, petulant. But gradually the ardor of his words awakened her — the heat of his passion warmed her. Something within her began to stir, and in a mo- ment more she was in his arms. Kisses showered upon her, and as the vision dimly faded away We came back to listen for another mood of the spirit of the piano And thus it pealed forth its message — softly at first, like the gentle murmurings of the breeze in gentle summer weather. We heard the cricket and the katydid. We basked in the silver moonlight. In a canoe the lovers splashed the waters of the lo8 Face to Face with Great Musicians lake and glided past us. But now the air grew restless, the moon hid behind a cloud. The storm approached. Suddenly the thunder crashed; the lightning crackled and raged — the world was in a tumult. We listened, frightened and cowering. The sobbing of the wind ceased; the rain gradually less- ened — ^until all was quiet as a tomb. Then, with a mysterious accent, there came from the distance churchbells — the singing of a heavenly choir. We lifted our heads and came out of our dream. It was the spirit of the piano. While we listened the piano revealed a gorgeous scene of mountain view. It was a calm, placid, spring day. Bluish clouds himg low above the sum- mits. The buds were beginning to bloom. Play- fully trickling down the steep incline, a brook mer- rily whispered its lifetime song. Here and there a snake wormed its way across the tufted ground. Of a sudden himdreds of little njrmphs and fairies and gnomes appeared. Out of their midst rose a stately beauty in trailing robes. She danced — ^swiftly, lightly, gracefully, passionately, like the weird maid of Herod's court. All the while the tiny band pirouetted about her. Then the vision cleared and the mountain and clouds and everything else dis- appeared, and once more the spirit of the piano was still. With the playing of the piano we closed our eyes and our fancy pictured three old men. They were seated in a dingy room, but their faces were lighted Face to Face with Liszt 109 with joy. One held a violin and 'neath his quiver- ing bow each impassioned string groaned and trem- bled like a living thing, and each speaking note con- tained ineffable sweet sadness. Joining him, an- other drew out notes like sobs from the moaning 'cello; while the third struck the strings of his harp and seemed to have reached the heights of heaven. They went through all the shades of fury and when they stopped we could scarcely realize that it was the spirit of the piano which had been talking to us all the while. Then Liszt had risen, and with an all-embracing smile was bowing to us. The principal works of Franz Liszt are: "Divina Comme- dia Symphony," "Faust Symphony," Episodes from Le- nau's "Faust," "Tasso," "Les Preludes," "Berg Sym- phone" "Mazeppa," "Prometheus," "Festklange" "Or- pheus," "Hunnenschlacht," Huldigungs March, Vom Fels Zum Meer March, Piano Concerto No. i. Piano Concerto No. 2, Graner Mass, Hungarian Coronation Mass, "Christus," "Legend of the Holy Elizabeth," "The Bells of Strasburg" Six Hungarian Rhapsodies. Important work on Franz Liszt by L. Ramann. LULLY XV FACE TO FACE WITH LULLY 1632-1687 THE poet La Fontaine had been growing in favor with the King, Louis XIV. And Lully, the Court Musician, looked on the situation with exceeding ill-humor. It did not please Baptiste Lully to see any one supplant him in the graces of His Majesty even for one brief moment. He was too much the cour- tier, the jester, the politician, the Richelieu, to over- Face to Face with Lully iii look the slightest loss of the king's favoritism. It neither aided Lully's operatic undertakings nor con- tributed toward his personal satisfaction to find him- self displaced at the elbow of Louis. Lully bent toward his secretary, Lalouette, and whined: "You must act warily, you must use your ingenuity, you must rid us of this nincompoop, this usurper, this rhymester; your wits are to be tested, Lalouette." And Lalouette nodded his head in assent, thor- oughly understanding that once more he was to be the tool. For when the master said "Lalouette, you must act warily," it meant that Lully was himself up to a new trick, which his secretary must work out, though it be through mud. The Court Musician lifted his eyes threateningly, and you might have said that you could see his evil thoughts at work; he stroked his chin and fat neck. His eyes narrowed down to the merest slit, so that the red rims almost became one. His heavy, spread- ing nose, his cheeks, heavy and lined with malicious folds — a thoroughly uninviting countenance, over which there spread that expression so typical of the miser, the deceiver, the sneak, the snake. His untidy dress certainly did not make him look the part he was best fitted for — the role of a maker of music. He rubbed his hands together, viciously: "He thinks to supplant me, Lalouette. Ha, well, he shall see the wolf at work. It was not for a 112 Face to Face with Great Musicians nothing like him to upset, that all these years of plodding and scheming have been spent. The little Florentine peasant ruling the world of music and ruling the king and ruling the world does not appeal to him. Well, my dear, good poet, you had best take yourself back to your garret, and compose your empty nothings, as to come before me. "He does not like my ancestry, well! I do not like yours. He does not like my artistic career, well ! You have not heard, Lalouette, about me — well, he will tell you. La Fontaine will carry the whole story to the king and the court. Let him ! But first I will tell it myself — only I will tell it truly and make it worse than he dares. "I was bom in a dirty family, rogues and wretches. They turned me out when I was scarcely old enough to say my prayers. But I had a voice here, and I used to go about the old inns singing and picking up a bite of food and drink. One day I got to France, traveling as boy to the Chevalier de Guise — and an old Franciscan monk heard me sing — liked me and taught me to play the guitar. "I have never forgotten that instrument, and I love it — I can always amuse myself with it, strum- ming and boring people to death in the attempt. Our poet does not like the guitar — ^it is too plebeian. So be it. La Fontaine — :^I shall write a hundred min- uets for it, and you shall witness the king, listening to a whole orchestra of them, with unfeigned de- light I Face to Face with Lully 113 "I am a kitchen scullion, he says. Sure, and I know how to cook and wash dishes and do things, which is more than he. Oh, Lalouette, times have made me a selfish, grasping old man, unthinking of the ways and needs of others. But the world has made me that way, Lalouette, and I am a very dif- ferent being from the boy who played violin in the kitchens of the restaurants. I fought my way out of the kitchen gang with my violin, and brought my- self to the top rank of violinists as I fought. And that rhymester thinks to place himself in my way — to undermine my dominion ! "Am I mean to my wife? Do I not call her father, 'father-in-law'? Do I not give him a place in my home without charge? To be sure, the old father gave me a dowry of value when I took his daughter. Don't I let my wife take care of the money? What if I do cast sheep's-eyes at pretty ladies? Am I not human? "You have watched me since the day the King took me into his service, appointed me to a place in his band, raised me to the rank of director. You have seen me lay my scheme, until the whole em- pire of music came under my hand, and with it the King. You have seen how the direction of the opera was offered me by his Majesty, beseechingly, you might say, and how at last I accepted it. You have seen those great nobles of the court coax and plead with me to play for them, and how I have refused. You have seen the Minister himself come into this 114 Face to Face with Great Musicians room, trying to wheedle me into urging some ide^ of his with the King. You have seen how I man- aged my plans so that the King made me his sec- retary. Tell me, Lalouette, who has ruled France since? Has it been the Minister, has it been the King? "No, no, it has been Lully — and every step of it has been my work. But, Lalouette, you must act warily, understand?" Down to the rehearsal of the Opera, Lully and his secretary now direct their steps. The singers and musicians are waiting, and as he steps into the thea- ter, instantly a new atmosphere is to be observed, — the old wolf has certainly arrived. Lully steps into the director's place, he taps the baton, lifts it for a sharp first note. But the orches- tra has not responded as Lully desires. He throws his baton to the floor, and stamps his feet. "The at- tack, the attack, where is it? You know what I want, how I have drilled you, I want the thing to sing at the first note, I want go and rhythm, where is it? I want you all to start and bow together like one. Now." At last it starts, and all seems going well, when he drops his baton once more. "Marias, you played a h flat, it is not in the music, it is b, play it as it is written." So the re- hearsal progresses, and the singers come out. Co- lasse is first, a dark and good-looking little lady. She sings and acts with her eyes glued on the little Face to Face with Lully 115 man in the box, almost hypnotized, and does her work as he wants it. There in the wings is Dumenil, who was a cook, until Lully found him and made him the greatest tenor of his day, patiently working with him for years. There is La Forest, who is going to be fired to-day — for Lully is tired of him — ^he has not yet learned to act, as well as sing. The dance comes — and behold the ugly little fellow instructing the lithe, lissome sprites how to make themselves beautiful and graceful. And the rehearsal ends. In the wings Lully yells at the men and women. He kicks Marias for his blunder. He kisses and annoys the little ballet girls and chuckles to Lalouette. It is time for the conference with Quinalt, his col- laborator, the writer of his lyrics. "Good morning, sir," and the tall, handsome, beloved gentleman seats himself beside Lully, and holds his newest manuscript before him. "I might say, sir, that I have submitted these lines to the French Academy and they have approved them." "Well, I wouldn't care if Dante approved them, read them to me, and see if I do." "Stop, stop. You're wrong; that isn't what I want, at all. You have made Phaeton a brute; I want him ambitious, but not hard-hearted. I don't like that second scene at all. You'll have to rewrite it." "But, sir, it is the sixth time." "And so it will be the sixtieth time, if necessary. ii6 Face to Face with Great Musicians There are words in your lines I would never per- mit. Leave that first scene with me, and I will cor- rect it." And now for the music. First Lully read and reread the words until he knew them by heart ; then he sat at the harpsichord, and banged the keys, all dirty and covered with snuff; then he sang in his broken voice, then he called Lalouette and dictated it to him. Every once in a while, he would interrupt the music dictation with remarks like this : "He thinks to overpower me. He would do the same as I have, if he could. . . . Lalouette, I believe I shall pur- chase myself an estate in Grignon. The First Presi- dent has bid 60,000 pounds for the land. I shall go above him. I have the whole idea of the build- ing worked out in my head, I will do it. Also, Lalouette, I shall put up a suburb. I have the place all picked at the Butte des Monleus. There shall be working buildings, factories, shops and apart- ments. . . . Lalouette, I have more money than anybody thinks — ^fifty-eight sacks of Spanish dou- bloons and louis d'or. I'm worth over a million francs, Lalouette. You shall have a goodly bit when I die. ... If the King does as I wish him to-night, I shall be enriched with a half a million more in a little time. ... La Fontaine will get his medicine, you watch and see. "That horse trot of the other day — ^you remem- ber that theme — ^I will use it now as an air for the Face to Face with Lully 117 violins. Close the door, Lalouette, that wind howls in a key all out of tune with the opera." So with the interruptions. The scene with its recitative, aria and dance, meanwhile has been written — lofty, regal, passion- ate arid deeply enthralling — the kind of music which for centuries was to be the example for all operatic composers — the music which inspired Gluck, Gretry and even Wagner. The scene, written with the in- terjections of the crafty miser — represented, as it were, a conflict between the god and the devil in the man. Evening now — and the grand ball at the Palace. "You must be wary now, Lalouette," chuckled Lully and the secretary nodded and wondered what the Master had in mind. The King on his throne looked not so lovingly at Lully as he would have liked. La Fontaine sat by the royal side and glared triumphantly at the discomforted musician. But Lully smiled back as though he really enjoyed it. Time wore on with its banality of retort and rep- artee, spoken from the lisping lips of bored cour- tiers. The King spoke: "Lully, our poet tells us that he has written an epic to our royal person, which he has given you to be transcribed to befitting music." Lully smiled. His time had arrived. He looked mockingly at La Fontaine, as he said, "Yes, sire. Ii8 Face to Face with Great Musicians it is true that our poet has essayed the supreme task of accomplishing that purpose, but it is but a rhock- ing imitation of the sort of tribute my muse seeks. All my life I have been waiting to build my great- est masterpiece in singing about your beloved per- son — it will be the greatest music ever written. Would you have me ruin it with a base rhyme? Or would you have me still to wait until the poets now working under my authority complete their in- spired verses? "I will sing you a bit of the music in advance." The King turned to Lully and said, "Wait, Lully, and throw out the trifle you have been given. Hence- forward you are my Knight of the Drama as well." The principal works of Lully are: "Les Fetes de Vamour et de Bacchus," "Cadmus et Hermione," "Alceste," "Thesee," "Le Carnaval," "Atys, Isis, Psyche," "Belle- rophon," "Proserpine," "Le Triomphe de L'Amour," "Persee," "Phaeton," "Amadis de Gaule," "Roland," "Armide et Renaud," "Acts et Galatee," pastorals, sym- phonies, etc. Important works on Jean Baptiste Lully by Fetis; "Les Musiciens les plus celebres" by M. de Montrand. PERGOLESI XVI FACE TO FACE WITH PERGOLESI 1710-1736 WHOSO has seen the portrait of the youth- ful Rafael, the painter, will recall the pale face, the delicate mouth, thought- ful and melancholy, the eyes of that dark heavenly liquid hue, gazing earnestly forward. He is lean- ing his elbow on a table, the arm is bent upward to support the head, which rests on the palm of the IIS 120 Face to Face with Great Musicians hand, and the admirably modeled fingers are lightly imprinted on the cheek and chin. Now muss the black hair into a disorder, so that the locks fall back over the shoulders, add an un- trimmed beard, growing with a natural symmetry that discloses the graceful curve of the lip and the contour of the cheek; throw open his shirt, display- ing an attenuated chest — and that is Pergolesi. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi is much overwrought to-night. Maria Spinelli is in great distress. Giovanni loves Maria, and she had returned his affection. But to-night he must see her in the home of another man, or accept his own sentence of death. He is thinking now of Maria and their first meet- ing, just six months ago. It was in the opera house. "Olympiade," Pergolesi's music-drama, was at its first performance. All the Roman populace was in attendance. They remembered with delight the many charm- ing things he had written before. The young boy was a musical lion. When an Italian creates an opera which succeeds — every one is on tip-toe for his new creation — every one from the bootblack to the King. They remembered "The Maid Mistress," they remembered lovely little sacred songs and arias you couldn't forget but just had to hum. So the city turned out to hear the new Pergolesi opera. The composer took his place at the harpsichord, played the overture, and the curtain rose. But the Face to Face with Pergolesi .121 audience — what was the matter with the people? They listened without enthusiasm. They had come prepared to be thrilled. They v/ere not. They had come prepared to cheer. They were unable to do it. So they sat silent. Then they hissed. They grew mean and uproarious. An Italian audience doesn't cheer its hero one moment after that hero loses his crowd. They turn quickly and this time they went hot and heavy for poor Pergolesi. Oh, the shame of it ! Some one threw an orange. It hit Giovanni squarely in the eye. Others took up the hint. Chairs, boxes, sticks came firing at him. He was disgraced. A woman pushed her way through the infuriated mob, and stood alongside Giovanni. She raised her hand and shouted "Stop!" It was Maria Spinelli of the princely- house of Carlati, she who must be obeyed. The crowd, sud- denly called to its senses, slunk away and left them together, the young composer and the beautiful young princess. "Please," she whispered, bending over him and touching him on the shoulder until he lifted his head, and turned his eyes in amazement at her. "Do not mind. I think the music is beautiful — they could not understand it, that is all." Giovanni opened his eyes wider and wider, then fell on his knees before her, and gave her the salute due her regal position. "I have heard much about you, Pergolesi," she 122 Face to Face with Great Musicians told him, "and I have often played your music. There is something so evanescent and fragrant about it. It breathes so of poetry and seems to bring into my life all that I have been dreaming of, and which has been forbidden me." That was the beginning, and love had ripened ere it had been sown. To Pergolesi this was a new sort of love. The youth had followed many will- o'-the-wisps. He had had strange romances, exotic, passionate. He had given of himself to many women, but never had a woman really satisfied him. In his search for love, Pergolesi had ruined his health. In his search for the right woman he had known the disappointments of knowing the wrong woman. But with this new love, it was all so different. Maria didn't ask him to give up his ideals. She raised them. She did not laugh at his dreams. She strengthened them. She did not make life harder. She was a staff and a support and an inspiration. How Pergolesi loved Maria! And he loved her with no deeper sentiment than she returned to him. It was the day before yesterday; their plans had been made for the future. Suddenly the doors were thrown open. Maria's three brothers marched into the room, their swords drawn before them. "Pergolesi," said Leo, the oldest, "we have been watching you and your impudence in daring to make love to our sister. You must leave her and never see her again." Face to Face with Pergolesi 123 "Oh, no, no, Leo," moaned Maria. "I love him." "Ridiculous," sneered Leo. "You don't know who he is ! The son of a cobbler, the free pupil of pauper musicians. How can you, the daughter of royal blood, love one so low? The libertine, the partner of loathsome amours." "I love him, Leo, I love him," Maria moaned. "Well, then, here is our order," and at this point all three brothers had jumped to their feet and point- ed their swords : "You will leave this fellow. In three days you will marry yourself to any man of your choice, in your own rank — or Pergolesi will die." That was the way these royal brethren condemned the greatest genius of the day — that was how im- portant his fine operas and choruses seemed to them ■ — a nothing ! A scribbler I A fiddler ! Giovanni Battista Pergolesi sat with his head on his hands. The world was ready to collapse. Then an idea came to him. He threw his cloak about him and took himself to the home of Spinelli. "Maria, to-morrow is the third day; your broth- ers will keep their word; you shall not give your- self to any man; let me die and you live on, and then, maybe, some day you will meet one worthy again of your love." "No, Giovanni, you shall not die and I shall not wed. Listen to me. You will never forget me. I know it; I feel it. You will be a man. You will live with all the energy and in the full meaning of 124 Face to Face with Great Musicians the word. I — I have lived. I have lived enough. I have loved. I am going to leave the world and consecrate myself to God." The third day, and the brothers returned; but Maria was Sister Maria in Santa Clara. A year dragged and the bells tolled for the passing of Sister Maria. And Pergolesi, kneeling in the chapel, heard for the first time the strains of his Stabat Mater, weeping in his heart. So out of that lost love came the beautiful Stabat Mater, which for centuries to come was to ring out mournful and sighing. Just as lovely flowers grow out of a sickened, deserted soil, so did this music sprout from the dead heart. Then a sixth month loitered on and Giovanni Bat- tista Pergolesi passed out, and on his grave is written "Giovane e Moribondo" ("Young and Dying"). .MEYERBEER XVII FACE TO FACE WITH MEYERBEER 1791-1864 IT was very evident from the way Giacomo Meyerbeer approached us that he liked to cut a figure. His clothes were immaculate, and they had been draped to his rather shapely person, quite for effect. Of middle height, he carried him- self well, smiled genially, and displayed his teeth to their best advantage. The face was clean shaven, the brow high and intellectual, the cheek-bones pe- culiarly set, rendering unusual character to the 125 126 Face to Face with Great Musicians countenance; the mouth firm but kindly, the eyes large and deep set. His hair was plentiful and was neatly brushed in a pompadour effect over his temples, in the manner of a gentleman of the day. I must tell you about myself. I am a young fellow, a little singer in Meyerbeer's company. I have known the gentleman very well. I have done little things for him which brought me into close contact with him. I can talk about him knowingly. We were rehearsing "The Huguenots," working at a fever strain to bring it out on time, and in the manner it deserved. "Good-morning everybody," Meyerbeer shouted grandiloquently, pleasantly anticipating the return salute from all the company, which came and brought the smile again to his lips. We wondered what he would find wrong this time, for, as much as we loved him, we were put on edge whenever he appeared. Nothing escaped him; the minutest details came under his obser- vation — the singing, the acting, the stage setting, the position of the orchestra's chairs. The stage director was expecting a compliment from the maestro to-day — the scenery he had laid out was elaborate and beautiful — and "What do you think, maestro*?" "I think you cannot have very much faith in my music, that you spend so much effort on the scen- ery !" was Meyerbeer's injured retort. Imagine — and only last week he was saying we were surely Face to Face with Meyerbeer 127 slighting his opera in giving but passing attention to the scenic effects I Herr Meyerbeer, Monsieur Meyerbeer, Signor Meyerbeer, what should I call him, for he is all and none of these — how much slander he has stood and from those who should be his friends! They say many cruel things about him, and some of them are true — ^but for all that I love him. I have known him. He has been kind to me, and I have seen him more than most, and I know what is really in his heart and what he thinks. Surely he loves to be admired — who doesn't? He is sincere at least in his appeal for applause. "Oh, to bring down the house!" How often I have heard him say it, and to change his music and a whole scene to do it I Everybody knows he would sit beside his chief of the claque and change the cue sheets of the score to suit the applause. Some have sneered and placed it all to vanity, but isn't, it possible "bringing down the house" meant good, moving, effective music to him? Isn't it likely tha\- he felt the public knew when a great passage had been played? It is true, to be sure, that big and wonderful as he was, he would go behind the stage and listen to the remarks of the stage hands about his music — actually play the eavesdropper to know what the carpenters thought of him. He wanted his friends to applaud, applaud — ^he would never hire a gang to make a noise at the opera, but if some one else had 128 Face to Face with Great Musicians done it he would have closed his eyes and swallowed it all with delight. Such traits as these, I imagine, were responsible for Heine writing: "When he is dead, who will take care of his glory?" I do not think the world will neglect to do that, when it hears "Robert the Devil," "The Hugue- nots," "L'Africaine," "The Prophet," and "Di- norah," and all those other masterful, tuneful works. I have faith in the people who know great music and will not let it be passed by. The other day the master showed me a passage out of a writing by Richard Wagner — "Meyerbeer is a miserable music maker, the weather-cock of mu- sic, who swings with the fashions of the day, and who really is a dirty little Jew banker who took it in his head to write operas." He wasn't angry or grieved. He said: "Who would have thought that he would say that of me ! How can he be so narrow to utter nasty things be- cause I'm a Jew'? He himself the son, of a Jew, the husband of a woman of Jewish extraction, the re- cipient of Jewish philanthropy — ^how can he act like that? Religion means nothing, does it? In my 'Huguenots' there is the story of the struggle. between Catholic and Protestant — written by a Jew. "Wagner, Wagner, great genius but petty, nar- row, bigoted. Here, read this he wrote not so many years ago about me : 'It would seem impossible for Face to Face with Meyerbeer 129 any one to advance further; he has reached the su- preme heights.' Who would think a man could be so changeable and ungrateful — when he remembers how he came to me, penniless, starving, unknown, and I produced for him 'Rienzi' and 'The Flying Dutchman,' and gave him his start." I said, "Youare so good," but he shook his head and denied that he had done anything other than was good for the world. "I brought Jenny Lind to prominence because I owed it to the world to present such beauty of voice to all mankind. How could any one do otherwise? What finer thing could I do with my name? "Indeed, my friend, I am a man of the world. I have been accused of debasing my art before the altar of public praise. I know some of my closest friends have said so. I'm human, I'm just a living little man. But in the big I'm all for Art. When I paid the 30,000 francs forfeit for delaying the production of my 'Huguenots' that I might perfect it, was that sacrificing the art? "When I was a boy, my friend, I had no need for aught. My father, John Beer, and my friend Meyer gave me wealth. I took the name Meyer because he was so good, added it to my own and made it Meyerbeer, thus — did you know that? "I went into music because I loved it. All my life I have slaved for it. As a boy I studied with an old teacher, Weber, and he recommended me to the great Abbe Vogler. 'I will write a fugue for 130 Face to Face with Great Musicians him,' I thought, and I sent it on to the Abbe. Weeks went by, and finally my fugue came back with a long discourse on how to write a fugue. Poor old teacher was very sad, but I went back to work and made another and sent it to Vogler. 'Come on, my boy, to Darmstadt,' he wrote me, 'and be a son to me.' Was that for praise or art? "You know, my friend, I started out in life to be a pianist. When I was all ready for my concert tour I went to hear Hummel, the virtuoso — ^he opened new vistas of the possibilities of piano-play- ing. I went back to my room, and spent six months perfecting myself anew. Was that for art or not? Did not the great critic Moscheles say of me that had I chosen I would have been the most renowned pianist of any time? I gave up my piano for my composition, because it called me, and I have been a slave to it." Good, kindly master. I know — I have seen you poring over the little scores of unknown operas — you have gathered them from everywhere, and your library is the most complete musical storehouse in the world. You read everything — ^you are alert to everything, you let nothing escape you. You listen to everybody's suggestions and criticisms. "Is it not enough," I ask him, "that the public responds to your wonderful operas?" "It is, my friend," he says to me. "I believe in the people — they know; but it has injured me most deeply to have the charge made against me, of all Face to Face with Meyerbeer 131 people, that I copied and imitated the successes of my day. You have read and heard it said, my friend, that Meyerbeer went to Italy and imitated Rossini, and came to Paris and imitated the Pari- sians, and then went back to Germany and took up their ideas. "How mean and unfair. I am a cosmopolitan. I am that which I happen to be near. The moods of my companions, their lives, and their habits be- come mine when I am with them. I went to Italy — all my faculties instantly became Italianized. After I had lived there a year I felt like an Italian born; I thought, felt, expressed myself in Italian. I was not a German in Italy, but an Italian born in Germany. Then I moved to Paris. The manner and spirit of France carried me away from myself. I was French — Parisian to my finger-tips. If I had gone to Russia I would have written in the manner of the Cossacks; if I had lived in Turkey I should probably have fallen before the beauties of the mosques and sung the praises of Allah. If I had lived in Africa I might have turned black, and in China yellow. That is the peculiar faculty of the Jew — it belongs to no other race in such a degree. "I am a disk on which events and manner write themselves, and I but reproduce the place and the mood in my music." I could tell he was thinking about von Weber. You know, Meyerbeer was a schoolmate and in- timate friend of Carl Maria von Weber, and he 132 Face to Face with Great Musicians was wounded when Weber said of the Italianized opera of Meyerbeer: — "It made my heart bleed to see a composer of creative power stoop to become an imitator to win the crowd." He never recovered from that dig. Another thing. To my mind, too many people try to describe Meyerbeer's music without knowing what it really means, and I remember very distinctly what the composer himself said to John Ella : "My friend, you have heard the opera once, have you not? You are going to write about it, or tell me what you think of it, so? Well, I am going to send you tickets that you may hear it at the next fourteen performances — use my box. At the end of that time, I shall send for you, and you may tell whether you like it — we will have a little Supper together, so?" And those suppers — ^nothing like them was ever conceived in the mind of mortal man — "little sup- per" — why, you would find every delicacy under the sun heaped up at the table, and Meyerbeer would pretend to eat very much — the butler was wary, removing the filled plate and giving him an empty one — such conspiracies, to make gour- mands of one's guests ! King man — ^you did so much for me, and Jenny Lind and Wagner and Weber and many others — ^you were all too human, vanity, vanity, you owned a bit more than your share. And how afraid of death. You hid your face in your hands when your little Face to Face with Meyerbeer 133 babies died, and you wrote nothing but religious chants for years after. You feared your own death, too. Imagine giving me a letter like this : "To be OPENED AFTER MY DEATH. I am to be permitted to live face upward for four days after I am sup- posed to be dead. I am afraid to be buried alive. When I am put in my tomb, there is to be a guard for a week outside, and to my fingers and toes strings are to be attached, that if I should move, bells will ring, and the guard will rush inside and give me air and water." I remember one time, when you received this let- ter from George Sand, how you laughed and cried with joy: "Oh, musician, you are more of a poet than any of us. Between angels and demons, between heaven and hell you have seen man divided against him- self. You have painted the strife, terrors, pangs, promises of mortal man. This must be because a man's heart beats under the artist's frame. Tell us how upon a few stanzas you were able to construct characters of such individuality? Oh, master, you are a noble dramatic poet, an arch romancer." And how happy you were when Herbert Spencer, thinker and philosopher, summed up your career in this fashion: "Meyerbeer combines the two requi- sites for fine music; he has dramatic expression and melody." I applaud you, great composer, I a little singer in your companies, and you are so happy that you 134 Face to Face with Great Musicians could throw your arms about me for it. It is all right, your littleness is part of your greatness. The principal works of Meyerbeer are: "Margherita d'An- jou," "II Crociato in Egitto," "Robert le Diable," "Les Huguenots," "Ein Feldlager in Schlesien," "Le Proph- ete," "L'Etoile du Nord," "Dinorah," "L'Africaine," Overture to "Struensee," "Fackeltdnze," Schiller Centen- ary March, Coronation March. Important works on Giacomo Meyerbeer by A. de Lassalle, A, Pouguin, H. J. Weber. FnRRVMAI^ GRANADOS XVIII FACE TO FACE WITH GRANADOS 1867-1916 (Drowned when Germany blew up the French Steamer Sussex.) FRESH from the colorful music of Bizet's "Car- men," we journey into Spain, with the clatter of castanets and the swing of the habanera sounding in our imaginations. Into a land cut off by the Pyrenees, isolated villages appear on the widening horizon. Moxmtains and glens, multicol- 135 136 Face to Face with Great Musicians ored in the dusky sun, nestle cozily together, defying the oncoming train, emblem of civilization and in- vasion. Through Catalonia, Navarre, New and Old Castile, Andalusia, each province offering new and strange sights and peoples, at last we come into the ancient city of Granada. Noble rises the Alhambra, the fortress of the thirteenth century, the palace of the Moorish conquerors. Richness and elegance of ornamentation, in the columns and the arches, tell of the ancient splendor, when the caliphs of Cordova received the greatest artists and thinkers of the olden world, and civilization revolved around Granada. In the streets, lazily the crowds move back and forth, many standing at comers in idle conversation, everybody smoking. All are in gay colored cos- tumes. The men are in their knee trousers and sashes. The women are in their rich lace mantillas, a flower and a big comb in their hair, their arms bare, and in their hands a fan, which they use in the most graceful way, swinging it and their bodies in harmony. Their skins are a dull white or a dusky brown; their hands are long and graceful, slender and delicate. As we move along the streets beggars plaintively ask for assistance. They are handsome, the men, and old and haggard the women. They cry to us, "Oh, natives of a foreign land, may God be merciful and keep you." Tall, powerful men, with lace and dia- monds, strut like warriors of old along the street, Face to Face with Granados 137 and all step aside. "The bull-fighters," people whis- per, and regard them as true heroes. We had come to meet Granados, the composer. Of a sudden his name had been blazoned all over the world. Critics said that the opera "Goyescas" had opened a brand new field of music. It had been the first great opera of a modem Spaniard they knew worth while. And to this city we had been sent in order to talk with him before he left for the United States, to conduct there the first performance of "Goyescas" at the Metropolitan Opera House. We found him at last in a cozy room, his wife and little daughter along with him at the door, making us welcome. Extremely polite and gentle they are, and instantly we feel at home. The composer is a man of medium height, dressed in scrupulous taste, the glossy black hair being neatly combed, the full black mustache covering a large part of his face. Large, luminous brown eyes softly fall on us, and we think of Emma Eames's remark, "They seem to see what is not to be seen." His manner is very modest and simple, but when he talks on his music, instantly he grows enthusiastic, terribly enthusiastic, and he changes into a big, ar- dent boy of a talker. "My 'Goyescas'?" he laughs. "When I went to Paris to put it on I had not any expectation of success. The shock of success almost made me ill. My songs and my piano work had been talked of around my dwelling place, then in the neighborhood, soon throughout my country, 138 Face to Face with Great Musicians and first thing I knew I was called to France. My poor 'Goyescas' ! Almost twenty years before, the idea for thq opera came to me, as I became inspired with the paintings of our great Goya. The pictures were in my heart, the life of the painter seemed heroic to me, and I wrote the music, asking my friend Pariquet to do the words. Eighteen years ago 'Go- yescas' was produced and failed. I was heartbroken. It doubtless deserved failure, I figured. But I was unhappy. To me it seemed to embody the spirit of Spain, as it is not to be found in tawdry boleros and habaneras, in coarse tambourines and castanets. "Spanish music is much more complex and subtle than that. There is real color in Spanish life; its music must be filled with longing, sadness, tragedy, and depth of heart. 'Carmen' is a lovely entertain- ment, but it is not Spain. Spain is not all dancing and castanets. Spain is not all laziness and bull- fighting. Spain is a nation of wonderful beauties. It is the last of the great countries to retain its primi- tive aloofness. Some places in Spain are absolutely isolated. The natives never were outside of their villages. Each province has something equally beau- tiful and unusual to offer you. Wound up in every life is the whole past, glorious history of Spain, from the time of Cadiz's glory under the Phoenicians, in the land of the Iberian's memories ; the Roman inva- sions, when Spain was the richest province of the em- pire; memories of the reign of the Goths, the coming of the Moors, the coming of Christian rule ; the great Face to Face with Granados 139 and glorious exploits of the Cid. In each life is the romance of Isabella and Columbus, the wars with Napoleon, the loss of the colonies, the struggle for independence, the Carlist uprisings, the war with America — a grand, long, glorious history, from the days when Spain ruled the world, until now, when she is all but ruled. Do you think you have known Spain when you listen to the castanets and watch the dances, and read of the bull-fights'? Do you think Spain has had no real music? "I could show you how in the middle ages Span- iards were the greatest musicians. There was Mo- rales of Seville and Guerrero of Seville and the no- blest of all, de Victoria. There were Calezon, Ca- seda, and Gomez. In your own America did you not have Manual Garcia, who was the first to bring opera to your shores'? And was not his daughter, the incomparable Malibran, a Spaniard*? Was it not a Spaniard, Alphonso X., who created the very first public professorship of music, thus establishing real education in music?" "But of yourself, Signor Granados, tell us some- thing?" "I — ^very little. I was bom in Catalonia, which is somewhat strange. My nature is indolent, lan- guorous, impatient, and timid. Catalonia is famed for bringing out men of sturdy, keen character. My name, Enrique Granados y Campania, suggests An- dalusia, the indolent, languorous. I studied music with Pigot and our old famous composer, Pedrell. 140 Face to Face with Great Musicians There you have a great composer — and with him to-day have we not Almeda and Albeniz?" We made a gesture as if to recall him to his own narrative. He became greatly annoyed, made him- self like a querulous, petulant child. His wife glanced at him in impatience, and this seemed to serve the purpose, for he said : "I beg your pardon. A passing madness — a gesture, a random word or look sets me off. It's my nerves ; you will not mind. "After I had studied with these teachers at home I went to Paris, and learned with the French violin- ist, Charles de Beriot. Previously I had had some slight experience in composition. At fourteen I of- fered my first original music — ^I called it 'A Spanish Dance,' and people liked it. "Here is a little something that may interest you. A childhood anecdote. I was ten, and I was brought before Dom Pedro the First, Emperor of Brazil, de- posed and traveling through Spain. He was a great character; he talked of all other kings as 'my col- leagues.' I was asked to play the piano, and I did so. Afterward Dom Pedro, old and feeble, took me in his arms and kissed my forehead, and said, very dramatically: 'This is the only majesty — of this child — ^here in this place.' "Well, I studied in France two years, and then back to my beloved country, and marriage with this my only love, and then the little girl, after many years. "So. all this time, I have been trying to express Face to Face with Granados 141 the voice of my country. Everything I have done has been spontaneous — right from the soil. I have had no patience to study the other composers, no curiosity to see how they do it. Friends have told me I could be a better musician if I would only study. I do not want to study, I do not want to write in the language of foreign composers. That would be all wrong. "See, here is what I have done. I have taken the tonadillas. They are like the lieder in Germany. They come from the middle ages, real songs of ouf people. They have no development ; they are merely an avowal, a cry, a wish. They are admirable ma- terial for great musical ideas. Why ruin their value by studying the German or the French or the Italian method? If people can't enjoy Spanish music just as Spanish music, then it's not good — isn't that so? But, please, tell everybody that Spain is bigger than the castanets and dances. The dances are all right. Would you like to see a real Spanish dance?" After dinner we are led into a little inn. It is crowded — at all the tables sit men and women, smok- ing. Finally, a woman goes up to a little platform, sits at a piano, and starts a wild theme. Instantly out come guitars and castanets and tambourines. Up jumps this one and that — tables are pushed back. Nobody recognizes anybody else; there are no such things as partners. Women take tiny steps, keeping their feet glued together, wriggling from the hips in rhythm with the music. Madder and madder the 142 Face to Face with Great Musicians dancers become, yelling and screaming. "Ole, ole, Gracia, Balie la chigulka, la Salud. Consuelo. Anda anda. Ole, ole." Enrique Granados, smiling, turns to us : "This is the music you have heard as being Spanish music. Would you call your American or English music the ragtime of your dance halls'?" He takes us back to his home. He goes to the piano and plays it like an orchestra — with the rounded harmonies you might hear in a symphony. Lovely songs are accompanied ; fine, feminine, tender melodies whisper of lovers in Aragon or Andalusia. Somehow or other, the color and rhythms of the towns and mountains, the landscapes, and the real spirit of the people we had seen are conjured up be- fore us; somehow or other the history of the nation is retold by the languorous, tender man at the piano. FmiavHAW* CHERUBINI XIX FACE TO FACE WITH CHERUBINI 1760-1842 HENRI, you will go down to the library and bring me the new bulletin; run into the students' room and see that everything is quiet, and then go to your lunch." An old man at a desk in the Parisian Conserva- tory was issuing orders to his serving man in rapid succession. His manner was such as expected to be obeyed, and yet surely anticipated the contrary — these stupid servants hardly ever get instructions 143 144 Face to Face with Great Musicians clear. It is first this thing and then that which goes wrong. One tells Henri to go here, he goes there. But if Henri were the only one who makes life one series of annoyances that would be all right. But it is every one. The students are mischievous imps — they cannot understand one kind of chord from another. There is that impudent Berlioz, who tries to tell his master what to do. There is the young Halevy, who is always trying some new joke. But what can one expect? It is impossible to write new music with these duties piling up. If there were not the family to support, it wouldn't be worth while. Yet, it would come as a struggle to give up the post — these young aspirants to compo- sition need the kind of advice that they get from one who knows so well the right, the calm, crystal- line, pure knowledge of classicism which he pos- sesses to the last degree. Where is that Henri? It takes him so long to do anything. Ding, buzz — a full minute of ringing the bell, and finally Henri comes rushing into the room. "Yes, sir, Mr. Cherubini; yes, sir." "Why do you take so long; do you not hear the bell ? Do you think I have nothing to do, but wait for you? What do you say?" The little shrunken figure has risen from the desk, shaking with anger. The feeble, hoarse voice, ema- nating from the narrow chest, is trembling with im- patience and irascibility. His head is thrust for- Face to Face with Cherublni 145 ward, the eyebrows, bushy and thick, seem to glower over the black, brilliant eyes, which shoot fire. The large, pointed nose is alive with impatience. A thick lock of hair curiously curls over the forehead, giving a softness that belies all the other signs. My, how irritable is this old gentleman. "Now, Henri, is this going to be kept up; must I always correct you?" "But, sir, you give me no chance to explain " "What explanation can there be, Henri*?" "That Berlioz — you know your orders about go- ing in different doors, the girls through one, the bpys through another — Berlioz came through the girls' door " "What, what, my heavens! where is the scoun- drel? In the library?' And off the director, Cherubini, flies. In the hall as he goes is a very tall man with a very little boy. The man attempts to speak to Cherubini, but he brushes him aside. He is determined to show Ber- lioz a lesson. "Hector, what does this mean?" "This is a score of Gluck, sir." "Not the score — this breaking of the rules. You know I said no going through the girls' door; you disobey — ^you go and come the right way. Go, go; why do you not go?" "It is no crime; I am here to study." "Study? Study? You go and do not come back to-day. When I say one thing I mean it — go. I 146 Face to Face with Great Musicians make a rule; I obey my own rules. Punctuality, regularity and everything correct. This is a lesson for you, Berlioz, which you might remember also for your music." The argument well-nigh exhausts Cherubini, bursting in his French, so heavy and Italian in ac- cent. He walks back to his room and finds the man and child awaiting him. "What is it? Lessons'? You are too big, and he is too small," and he turns his back on the pair, with a gesture of dismissal, expecting them to be gone. But the tiny child goes to the piano, and starts a melody. Cherubini looks up in amazement. "Fine, my boy — ^you are a member of the Con- servatory already. I better be careful or you will be showing me about music. He is like me as a child, my friend. My father played harpsichord, and I did, too. How old are you? Seven? Good; at ten I was placed in an orchestra with my violin to substitute for the concertmaster. Very good, boy. Henri, take this new student and have him taken care of." Rushing from one thing to another, eternally showing his points like a porcupine, utterly devoid of tact, Cherubini — born Mari Luigi Carlo Zenobe Salvatore Cherubini of Florence — ^pursues the daily routine. Nighttime advances. Luigi looks to the clock. Ah, it is time for the approach of the opera "Ali Baba." "I will not go down to the opening. It is an old Face to Face with Cherubini 147 effort of mine, written many years ago, and just brougjit to life. It is time now for the overture. "Gtntlemen, are you ready? Da! da!" The room is dark, and the old man settles himself in his easy chair, conducting for all the world as if he were at the opera house, in the full flare of the lights, with all the company at attention. "The curtain. Bring out that melody more, my friend. Fortissimo, crescendo. This is good. The curtain drops. They are talking in the lobbies j what do they say? The second act — the third. Well, it is over — I will go to bed. But first — ^I will see my flowers. A candle, and into the garden — good little flowers, you alone are beautiful; good-night." In the morning Henri comes in with the news: "It was good last night at the opera, Mr. Cherubini; people were asking for you. But Berlioz, oh, mon- sieur, he is impossible. He said at the end of the overture — 'Ten francs for an idea in this music' At the end of the first act, 'Twenty-five francs for an idea.' At the end of the last, 'I have not enough money to buy an idea of this composer.' " "He said that? He thinks ideas are everything — something unique, bizarre. For me the simple, the pure, the classical. Is it not said of me, 'The last and noblest Roman of them all for classical style?' Let him go on. But what did others say?" "There was Beethoven. I heard with my own ears say: 'The greatest living opera composer is Cherubini, I keep his score of "The Water Carrier" 148 Face to Face with Great Musicians on my desk always,' and Spohr said, 'I do, too; it was that very opera which inspired me to write music' " "These are opinions that count," said Cherubini, half to himself. "That Beethoven I cannot under- stand, but alongside of his music, I feel like a little boy. I feel as if brought back to my own childhood days, when Sarti, my teacher, said, 'In order to write music, you must sit in a cold room, with a single lamp sAspended from the ceiling.' I never could understand what the lamp had to do with it,. or why I was forced to copy old, dry manuscripts. Sarti would say, 'That is the way to do it.' I couldn't understand, and I feel the same way about this Beethoven." , But the day's work must begin. Among the early callers is a gentleman who had left a score to be read, and hinted that it was by Mehul, a writer of some importance. Says Cherubini : "I can't believe this is by Mehul ; it is too bad for him to have done, and yet too good for you to have written. Whose, I pray, is it?" To a singer who asks for his advice : "You have a big voice. I recommend you to enter the profession of auctioneering." To a man who, knowing Cheru- bini's aversion to the flute, asks what is worse than a flute — "Two flutes." To Halevy, who plays over a new score he has written; no comment after the first part, none after the second, and "Please, master, Face to Face with Cherubim 149 what do you say after the last part?" — no comment, nor would he say a word. To BJegrez, the tenor, "Well, my former fiddler, what do you think? If I had not forced you to play that part, substituting on a minute's notice, you would have been scratching away, and instead, ladies weep for your sad notes, eh*?" To a fellow who declares that he hasn't heard the popular play, "The White Lady" — "Waiting for her to change color?" To a critic, who asks what he would do to the villain who perpetrated a piece of music much despised, but since accepted: "I wish I had com- mitted it." And now the grand news of Napoleon's return sweeps across France. He has escaped — ^he has re- turned, and the Hundred Days are on, Cherubini smiles — the old memories of the Emperor come back to him, how Napoleon commanded him to make music, and then declared it was too loud, and how he, the little musician, had impudently said : "I am sorry. Sire, but I cannot suit my music to your intel- ligence. You cannot understand music. Sire, it takes your mind away from affairs of state. To you it is a disagreeable noise" — all very tactless, to be sure, but even before the Emperor, this proud churl could not give up his ideas, or adapt them to suit a con- queror's mind. One memory brings on another. How he left Florence, where he was not given his due, and came to Paris, where he made success but never wealth; 150 Face to Face with Great Musicians how during the Days of Terror he had been forced to hide in the convent of the Chartreuse de Parma. And that terrible day, when he was dragged out by the mob of revolutionists and forced to lead them in their singing — ^he, with a violin under his chin, they, with drunken voices, carrying him on a barrel, with "Keep it up, oh, Cherub, lead the band, make music for the Revolution." That terrible day — ^finally the production of the opera "Lodoiska" which made him famous over Europe, played for two hundred times in one year alone. Henri comes rushing into the room and spoils all the memories. "Monsieur, monsieur — a messenger from the Emperor — Napoleon has returned." "Yes, yes, I know, I know. What would you have?" The messenger enters. "I have the pleasure and the honor to report to you that the Emperor Napo- leon has made you a member of the Legion of Honor." "He forgives me — even Napoleon is good." Then comes the end of the Hundred Days and then Waterloo, and the crowning of King Louis xvin. Cherubini is called before the King. "Cherubini, in honor of your lifelong services, I desire to appoint you my court musician." The old man is overcome. At last recognition, and what does the cross, cranky, irascible fellow say : "I am honored, Sire; there is a better musician in Face to Face with Cherubini 151 the kingdom, one better fitted for the position than I — Lesueur: and were it not that I need to support a wife and family, I would say give it to him. But if he and your Majesty will permit, I should like to share the honors and the remunerations with Le- sueur." The Court rises to honor Luigi Cherubini and the last days of his life opened with a prospect of joy such as he had never known in the seventy-two years that had ended. The principal works of Cherubini are: "Lodoiska" "Me- dee," "Les Deux Journees," "Anacreon," "Abercirages," Church Music. Important works on Mari Luigi Carlo Zenobe Salvatore Cherubini — "Memorials Illustrative of his Life" by Edw. Bellasis. For personal traits and anecdotes consult "Derniers Souve^ nirs d'un Musicien," by Adolph Adam. ^'Biography" — Fetis. SULLIVAN XX FACE TO FACE WITH SULLIVAN 1842-1900 IT IS England, the ruddy, glowing England of David Copperfield, where long lanes haVe their turning, where down at Yarmouth houseboats speak of other Peggottys and Riderhoods, where London houses peep cheerily through the fog, prom- ising mutton and ale, rotund innkeepers and chat- tering Samuel Pickwicks. Oh, what a cozy, comfortable picture it is! — the 152 Face to Face with Sullivan 153 room large and warm, the fireplace sputtering and coughing, the servants nodding and active, with the gentlemen almost buried in great, deep armchairs, making their cigarettes and drolly telling stories with dry, biting wit, English wit. This gentleman you see with the chopstick whis- kers is Sir Arthur Sullivan, You just naturally ad- mire the luxuriant growth of hirsute adornment on his cheeks and upper lip, all of which blackly con- trast with the dead whiteness of his forehead. The broad shoulders and stocky size of the gentleman scarcely mark the composer — you might, if you didn't know better, put him down as a chemist or member of Parliament. He is a cosmopolitan, you admit, but somehow or other there come to your memory the words of a famous Sullivan song — "In spite of all temptations to belong to other nations — he remains an Englishman." The whole scene is overpoweringly English, the kind of picture I love best in my dear Charles Dickens. "And you were telling him about America, my dear Sir Arthur," drawls one of the other gentlemen, none other than the famous W. S. Gilbert, lifelong collaborator of Sullivan's. "Oh, yes, to be sure," the composer responds, ad- justing his monocle deliberately. "In America, why, the music of my operas was all the rage. It was Mikado this and Pinafore that, wasn't it, W. S.? I was distinctly honored several times. I was 154 Face to Face with Great Musicians greeted by a crowd of gentlemen — ^very peculiar, you know — and they said they wanted to welcome me; they liked my punch and my bearing. 'My what?' I asked. 'Why, the way you handed it to the Kid last night.' 'I don't understand,' I declared. 'Aren't you Sullivan'?' asked the leading one. I nodded. 'John L. Sullivan?' And I don't know to this day who he is ! But you should have heard them when I said I was Arthur Sullivan, the com- poser." "And tell Tim about your American translations, Arthur," urged Gilbert, preferring to hear the other do the talking. "Oh, yes ; they wanted me to change H. M. S. to U. S. S., and carry the action to America and a lot of little things like that — ^very little, said the Ameri- can manager, but it'll help — and I had to introduce American verses to calm the chap. But a wonder- ful time, Tim, we had " "Sir Arthur was knighted every night," suggested W. S. "And Gilbert almost learned to whistle the music, he heard it so much." The laugh was on the librettist for the moment — but he turned the tables by saying: "Didn't know a note of music ; that's why I chose young Arthur Sul- livan to write around my words. First time I met the young, aspiring, 'Serious grand opera aspirant, Sullivan, I said : 'I beg your pardon, but could you tell me the importance of the inflated third over the Face to Face with Sullivan 155 diatonic bass*?' 'What?' asked poor Arthur, be- wildered. I repeated it, and Arthur said he'd need time to think it over. He's still thinking it over." "That's how we started, years and years ago, W. S. — and we've had a bully time and all sorts of fun and made others happy." "I'd say that you did something which had been done but rarely before, Sir Arthur," the tliird gentleman said, breaking his silence. "You've put humor in music." "That's right, Tim; that's what I've done. I just couldn't help it. That's the way the fates have led me — to laugh and, laughing, put the very smiles into the music. It isn't the way I started out. It isn't the way I intended it. But fate said 'laugh,' and I've gone on laughing. "There was a time when I thought to devote my mind entirely to serious music. From my baby- hood I wanted to write. My father was a band- master, the son of an impoverished Irish squire, from whom I've inherited nothing substantial, but much that's worth nothing ! He had been drinking a wee bit, when along came some officer, and 'pop' — ^grand- pop was in the king's service, and later went out with Napoleon on his little Isle of St. Helena, to share the solitude with the emperor. Well, that's off the point, isn't it; as far as poor Bunthome in 'Patience.' My dad had every intention to make me a musician. I learned to walk with a clarionet. All wind instruments were my hobby as a boy — so 156 Face to Face with Great Musicians that truly, like Moses, I was cradled among the reeds." At this point the monocle went to his eye again, as Sir Arthur waited for the response. "Oh, oh, oh, Sir Arthur; that's a poor pun, in- deed." "But it was right. Though soon I forsook the reeds and wanted to sing, to see myself as choir boy at the Chapel Royal, and that wish was finally grati- fied. At fourteen I tried my hand at composition, competed, you know, for the Mendelssohn scholar- ship offered by my later good friend, Jenny Lind, and what do you think — I won it, the youngest lad in it. "That started me off. I had visions of Mendels- sohn, Mozart, and others reincarnated in me. I went to Germany " "Enough to ruin you," interposed the silent one. "So they said — I'd lose my individuality, my na- tionality, but no matter how 1 try he remains an Englishman. Ah, the day of my 'Tempest' music, when Charles Dickens came behind stage and shook my hand and said : 'I know very little about music, but I must confess I like yours.' That first talk led to a dear friendship which we never inter- rupted until Dickens passed out. We traveled to- gether over the Channel, and visited Rossini, who said he had much hope for me. "Oh, yes, serious music was to be my fate, but along came this good-for-nothing Gilbert, and first thing you know I was writing 'Mikado,' 'Penzance,' Face to Face with Sullivan 157 'Patience,' 'Pinafore,' and other things, and we were making phrases all the Continent knew, until folks were saying: 'What? Never? Hardly ever* — ^ha, ha! but we did make people say that, every- body asking, "What? Never? Hardly ever!^ "Humor, then, in music I've been following. But sometimes, in the still of night, when tragedy has walked in my path, then — then only — tears come to me and laughter is forgotten. I remember the day my father died. He had been a good friend, advis- ing and encouraging me to do the best. Such happy times as we had spent together, singing, playing, like two brothers. He died and all the world seemed to fall about my ears. Then music swelled, and 'In Memoriam' came to life to remain as my tribute to my father. "Later, when my dear brother was taken low, my companion and friend, I sat by his bedside and all through the night I heard the sad strains of 'The Lost Chord' — 'Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease.' That is how the little song came to life as my brother passed out of life. And 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' came to me in a spirit of melancholy, and as I listened to the music inside of me I, too, became exultant !" "My dear Sir Arthur," the silent one of the trio again breaks his quiet, "those very songs are evidence of your fine humor. The laughter is only real joy when the laugher knows how to weep. The fun- niest moments are often the saddest. For all your 158 Face to Face with Great Musicians beautiful lyrics, your lovely oratorio, your great grand opera, it is for your comic operas you will live. There is where you are most at home." "Yes, he could write a song for anything — even while he was asleep," Gilbert added. "And I've practically had to do it, W. S. There was once a dancer " "You mean the little chorus girl?" interjected Gilbert. "Oh, no; she was a solo dancer. This is when I was still plain Arthur and very little known. She wanted some incidental music written. She sent word that her dance rhythm was ta da de, a dum dum de, ta da di a da — and then 'William Tell Overture' time. Well, I wrote it; we had just ten minutes rehearsal, and milady was satisfied." "What about the chorus lady?" The third gen- tleman was awake again. "Oh, that was the time when we were already doing our operas. Carte the manager, Gilbert stage manager, and I director. The troubles I had ! This tenor would sing a note, so long, to show his wind power. 'Please,' I'd say, 'do not mistake your voice for my composition.' Another would take an into- nation completely different to mine. 'May I trouble you now to try mine,' I would plead." "But the story of the chorus lady?" the third gentleman insisted. "Oh, yes, poor thing. She was in a corner cry- ing. 'What is it, child?' I asked. 'Well, that girl Face to Face with Sullivan 159 there says I'm no better than I ought to be.' Pooi child, I thought. That's like my music. 'But you are, aren't you?' I asked. And that satisfied her!" With that he looks through the monocle and sits mouth open, waiting for the laugh. Ah, dear Sullivan, always with your little jokes, your subtle humor — the real humorist of music, an Englishman in spite of himself. Your fine come- dies have whipped the crudities of your day, even as Charles Dickens lashed the outstanding wickedness and insincerity of his. So, in the large, comfortable, cozy room, with the fire crackling a welcome, the three men cheerfully and drawlingly have their fun, and Sir Arthur Sul- livan smokes slowly and deliberately his cigarette. The principal works of Sir Arthur Sullivan are: Sym- phony in E, "The Sorcerer," "H. M. S. Pinafore," "The Pirates of Penzance," "lolanthe," "Princess Ida," "The Mikado," "Ruddigore," "The Yeomen of the Guard," "The Gondoliers," "Ivanhoe," Overture "In Memo- riam," Overture "Marmion," Overture "di Ballo," Music to "The Tempest," Festival Te Deum, "Kenilworth" "On Shore and Sea," Concerto for 'Cello, "The Prodigal Son," "The Light of the World," "The Martyr of An- tioch," "The Golden Legend." Important works on Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan by B. W. Findon — "His Life & Music"; by Lawrence — "Life Story, Letters and Reminiscences." XXI FACE TO FACE WITH STRADELLA 1645-1682 NOW it chanced that the responsibility for the preparation of the opera for the big fete fell to the nobleman Signor Bassi. As the eyes of all Venice, or in reality the ears of the Venetians, would be turned on the event, the signor felt that it would be only proper that the matter be given serious attention, and the opera produced in the best style. The duke himself would praise or blame ^e opera in the person of Bassi, and if it were a 160 Face to Face with Stradella i6i failure many things might go awry, while if it succeeded who knows but that the duke's son might become definitely betrothed to Leonora, daughter of Bassi"? The signor realized that he had put himself more or less in a dilemma. He had become the musical authority of Venice, and he didn't know one note from another, like some ladies I have met who head musical societies because it is fashionable to do so. Hence estimate the great bewilderment of Bassi. To begin with, the opera, and who might do it. Signor Bassi had determined in his own mind the story of the opera — a pretty compliment to the duke — it would be a splendid idea to invite a well-known composer from another municipality to do the work. Thereupon the duke consulted with all who might advise, and the choice finally centered on one Alex- andre Stradella. He had done many works of con- sequence — it was he who wrote the very first opera on French soil. There were already seven operas and six oratorios to his credit, some of which had been heard already in 'Venice. A good name to juggle with, he would do Bassi justice, and the duke would commend the importation of the noted world traveler. The details of making the offer to Stradella, and his coming to Venice — ^unimportant. So witness the arrival of our composer. A handsome fellow, with something tremendously magnetic about him. He is dressed in the height of fashion. His eyes are i62 Face to Face with Great Musicians black and deep-set, his lips full and red, the amo- rous Italian, with a rich, fulsome mustache, black as the Nubian night. His step is graceful and his manner polished. His words are crisp and witty. Instantly he enters the room all things resolve them- selves about him, setting off his presence, and mak- ing a composition for this central object of import- ance. "So, Maestro Stradella, these are the ideas; we have just six weeks to perfect the opera. You will have at your command a company of good singers and an orchestra of eighteen. Your room is on the balcony, where you may write and look over the Grand Canal ; four servants will attend your wishes, and the fee we agreed upon is doubled, mind you, if the opera is a success. Come, I will show you over the house. This is our reception room, here are the gardens — and here is my daughter, Leonora." "Charmed, Signora," and the perfect gentleman bends in courtier fashion over the lily-white hand which is extended to him and imprints a kiss on the rose fingertips. "I am pleased to meet you, Signor Stradella," murmurs Leonora. < So the opera started. And as the first few days advanced the themes were written — and the first act rapidly took form. Out on the balcony the black-haired gentleman sat in the spring, soft morning air and sketched his music on the page. Now he would draw his harp Face to Face with Stradella 163 toward him and run over the melodies until you would have thought that the breezes were plashing the wavelets on the Venetian waters, rippling and rushing in arpeggios and tinkling phrases. Or he would take his violin and try the love arias until the balcony seemed transformed into a concert stage and all the landscape became part of the loveliness conceived in the heart of the instrument. On occa- sion he would sing the recitatives and solos in a rich, robust, baritone voice, which trembled with passion and anger, and rose in ecstasy at the moments of triumph. Servants gathered together and whispered at the wonderful music. Bassi sat rotund and pleased in his great chair, picturing the delight of the duke and the victory which would fall to him, Bassi, creator and impresario of this glowing opera. The singers, given their first numbers, were wild with excitement — they couldn't fail to make a sensation with these insinuating notes. While in a room nearby to Stradella a beautiful form was held tight against the window ledge, listening, afraid to breathe, wrought to a frenzy by the music's pleading, in love — with what, with whom? Oh, Leonora, responsive creature, you may not have known it, but all the music is intended just for you. Your form is in Stradella's mind; he is singing, playing, writing to you ! So the days go, the opera nears completion; the 164 Face to Face with Great Musicians singers have learned their parts so far, the perform- ance is but two weeks off. At the dining table, the same, same scene is en- acted. Bassi, at the head, commends the fine efforts of the composer. "And do not forget. Maestro, the fee is doubled if the opera is a success." Leonora, pale as death, fears to look upon the handsome gen- tleman. She has no more use for Giovanni, the duke's son, though she scarcely realizes it, and she dares not voice it. Bassi notes with pleasure the increasing interest which Giovanni shows — in fact, from little questions asked and answered, it is quite definite that Giovanni will seek to marry Leonora, and that the duke will give his consent, on the evening of the opera. Hear Stradella: He tells of the progress of his story, and of the meaning of the music, and per- petually glances at Leonora. He tells of his past, of the music he wrote since he was a boy. He sketches the romance of his career. He makes them afraid as he tells of wild experiences where his life was all but gone. They all laugh at his witticisms — Giovanni and Bassi and Leonora. They all like him; who could do otherwise? And so one evening, toward the end of the fifth week, supper being finished, Stradella asked Leo- nora if she would care to hear a new violin nocturne which had just come to him. Up to the balcony, and he takes his violin, while "the masts rise white to the stars, and the stars lean down to them white, Face to Face with Stradella 165 and softly the gondolas rocked, beautiful beneath the magic moon." The girl sits with her head bent low — the music ceases and in silence Alexandro Stradella finds her hand. One touch and all is told; no words are spoken. Their lips meet, and all through the night thus they sit until dawn, and "The east is blooming, yea a rose vast as the heavens, soft as a kiss, sweet as the presence of woman is, arises and reaches and widens and grows, deeper and deeper it takes its hue, and around about, tower and spire start from the billows like tongues of fire." Such love pledges never before were heard — it is done when she creeps to her room — they will flee the next night; they must have each other alone. That day; will it never end? Stradella does not play. When Bassi asks him why he replies : "I am composing the swan song, signor; the grand finale, signor." Comes night and the gondola splashes as they push off — ^gone ! But how does outraged decency speak the morning afterward'? "Gone, the scoundrel knave! Ruined my life and hope !" Bassi shrieks and curses the day. Giovanni is heartbroken, revengeful. "Oh! the mockery! The fete will come and I, Bassi, will be shamed before all!" "Your opera?" "There is none, your grace." "Your daughter?" "I have none, your grace." "My son robbed?" "Aye! your grace, by a filthy musi- cian!" i66 Face to Face with Great Musicians Will the rascal escape like this? No, no. Not while Bassi lives; not while Giovanni has the blood of nobility in his veins. Oh, Leonora, beautiful Leonora. Look you, Giovanni, you will travel at once to Naples, where he is doubtless, to his home, and track him in his lair. I, Bassi, to Rome, for fear he may have gone there. But we cannot tell. These assassins will we hire to cover every city in the country. You men, to Genoa, you to Verona, Milan, Florence, Ravenna, and Sorrento. Kill him on sight, show him no mercy. Bring back Leonora, dead or alive, to her home, and let her live out her days with her father and her God. The bloodhounds are on the trail. The assassins assigned to Genoa have found them. There they are on the garden bench, their arms around each other's waist. There is no doubt — they gave their names as Signor Stradella and his wife I His wife — ^such mockery ! Now, Barbarino, we will do the work like this — ah, we are lucky, we two, to have come here — double pay for bringing her back, to us. Won't the others be mad? I will dig this knife into his heart — creep- ing up behind the bench. You instantly rush out and bind the woman. People will surround us, we will explain our mission — they will understand, and we will be permitted to return — indeed, they will help us right this wrong. When shall it be, Malvolio? Now, why wait? Down behind the bushes Malvolio creeps, knife Face to Face with Stradella 167 naked and hungry. And look on the lovers now. All unsuspecting, Stradella starts to sing, and Leo- nora rests her head upon his shoulder. He sings so sweetly and tenderly in that manly voice, a melody no human could resist. Malvolio, behind him in the bush, stays his hand to hear the song to a finish. Barbarino, Italian that he is, sobs aloud. "Malvolio, Malvolio," he shouts, "do not do it!" Stradella sings on, Leonora never moves — the murderers rush away, robbed of their will and power. When Bassi hears, he goes on to Genoa, with Gio- vanni; but the lovers have moved on, and for ten years the search continues. Alexandro and Leonora flee from city to city, still loving and still faithful. But time dims all things but love — and that venge- ful father and lover must have given up, they think. Stradella accepts a commission to come to Genoa again, to conduct an opera. The curtain rises, there is a wild commotion in the house, and the conductor throws his baton in the air and falls — dead ! stabbed in the back. 14.8 of Stradella's works exist in manuscript in the Mo- dena Library, and others elsewhere, including eight Ora- torios, many Cantatas, Madrigals, Duets, etc. Important works on Alexandre Stradella by Bonnet-Boude- lot — "Histoire de la Musique et de ses efets." CHAMINADE XXII FACE TO FACE WITH CHAMINADE 1861- IT was beginning to be a matter of considerable discussion, these compositions of C. Chaminade — who was the writer? Why did he not make his appearance? To be sure, there were some who connected the music with a woman pianist, one Cecile Luis Chaminade. But the idea was pre- posterous, for who ever heard of a real woman com- poser, and what woman could possibly have put 168 Face to Face with Chaminade 169 such virility and vigor into music as this mysterious C. Chaminade had done? But as all things will out, it was finally discovered that Cecile Chaminade and the C. Chaminade were one and the same. The wiseacres shook their wise old heads and said something was wrong somewhere. Wherever Chaminade appeared as soloist, all the local experts came out to see what she looked like, and what possibly could have prompted her to dare the fates with composition. At first she was looked on with curiosity and dis- dain, but finally this gave way to a spirit of willing- ness to let her sex pass. At last, however, the tide changed, and Ambroise Thomas, the composer of "Mignon," gave her high praise with a peculiar twist to it. "She is not a woman who composes," he re- marked, "but a composer, who happens to be a woman." By this he meant to indicate that here was not a mere feminine dabbler in notes and things, but a serious writer, who chanced to be of the gentler sex. This was the woman we were to meet to-day, our first composer of the fair sex. She came toward us, a pleasing figure, of little more than medium height, very beautiful, a fine oval face, framed in a crop of short, curly blonde hair. In no sense the anticipated slouchy type, she was well dressed, with a distinctive style that marked the artist. She ex- tended her beautiful slender arm, and we shook hands with her. 170 Face to Face with Great Musicians "We greet the George Eliot of music," we said. Madame Chaminade smiled at the gallantry, and said: "I like that reference to George Eliot. We both of us went through somewhat the same hard- ships. Woman's place in literature, however, had advanced considerably further in George Eliot's day than woman's place in music has in mine. George Eliot adopted the masculine nom de plume, because to have used her own name would have been to in- jure her chances of success. You will remember that many literary critics refused to believe that George Eliot was a woman, even after it was widely known, because they insisted no woman could write in that way. "However, fortunately, in literature we have our many representatives with George Sand, Char- lotte Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Olive Schreiner, Mrs. Ward, and many others. "Anybody will tell you that women have never produced great composers, but do you realize, my friend, that it is only some fifty years that women have been admitted into most of our musical con- servatories? Yes, women were all right to learn just enough to tinkle the piano at home for enter- tainment's sake; but, with few exceptions, musical authorities looked with disdain on women in all fields of music. "Rubinstein said women have no place in music. They belong in the home. I said, 'Where in our elections have I heard that repeated in the suffrage Face to Face with Chaminade 171 question?' There was a young woman who entered a composition in a contest run by the London Con- servatory," Mme. Chaminade continued. "It was entered under a nom de plume, of course, — and won first prize; but the directors had to eliminate the number when they learned the name of its composer, because they did not know what to do with her. They had never admitted a woman student. "When I first entered the conservatory, I was an object of curiosity, I can assure you. I think that if I had attempted to learn mining engineering or bricklaying, it would have been no more of a rarity. "To me it has always seemed that music belongs essentially to women — it is her art — it is something she can understand, more readily than man. I know that among audiences, the women are always the most responsive listeners. Why should they not be capable of creating as well? "I know that in my particular case, music has been part of my existence from the time of my birth. I can remember how in our house at Vesnit, I would listen to our good friends who came to play for my parents. I would creep under the piano with my little doll, and lull both the doll and myself to sleep to the sound of the wonderful melody. "I had my fun keeping house and playing with my doll — I had all the domestic and maternal in- stincts — but when I come to think of it, everything I had was merely an excuse to make music. I would dress up my dolls and compose dances for them. I 172 Face to Face with Great Musicians wrote slumber songs for the dog and funny little lullabies for the cat. We would go running races down the hill to my music. I would creep over to the piano when I was scarcely big enough to reach the keys, and sing for my dolls, to my own accom- paniment. I was fortunate, to be sure, in that I was bom and spent my childhood in an atmosphere of music and beauty which included all the arts. But I think that no matter where I had originated I would have had to devote my life to music. Yes ! I know it. "I can remember as i± it were yesterday, one night after supper, when I was sitting on the floor with my dolls and dogs, singing to them, that my mother and father came into the room, and with them was a stranger. I was about eight years old at the time, and utterly unconscious of my ambitions. All I knew was that I wanted music. " 'Cecile,' my mother said to me, 'I want you to meet a very wonderful musician. Monsieur Bizet — ■ and you will play for him, won't you?' I didn't have to be asked twice in those days. I rushed oyer to the piano, and gave him some of my little lulla- bies. M. Bizet, looking for all the world like a char- acter out of his own 'Carmen,' was quite pleased and took me in his arms and kissed me and said that I had a brilliant future, and then turned to my pa- rents and talked about me for a long time. I don't know just what he told them, but it sounded very Face to Face with Chamlnade 173 important. I learned later he had recomniended my being given a solid musical education. "Then came the time for school, and my dear old teacher, Lecouppey. He taught me piano. He was a strange, eccentric, fatherly dear, always with his box of bon-bons on his desk. He called me his 'first pedal,' the compliment being understood when I tell you that he always preached that the pedal was the soul of the pianoforte. "Savard was my harmony teacher, and I didn't like him at all, because he wanted me to write music the way he wanted it written instead of the way one feels. He gave me the strictest kind of rules and theories to follow, and I never wanted to do it that way. He roused all my youthful anger. "One day I determined to have my little joke with him. I brought him a fugue, and he became very angry and said, 'Look at these mistakes — ^have I not told you not to write music this way?' I lis- tended to him without a single wee whimper and let him make all his markings of correction, and then I said, 'Oh, I am so sorry ! I brought you the wrong fugue. That is one by Bach.' He became very red, and said nothing, but after was more lenient. "I have repeated that same little joke in different ways with many other people. I despise the men- tality of so-called experts, who fall prostrate before the recognized names, irrespective of the merit of the music ascribed to them, and who sneer at won- derful music because it is credited to an unknown. 174 Face to Face with Great Musicians "I never thought I would develop as a composer; but when I found that inspiration was surely call- ing me, I determined to bring out the music and give it to the world, despite the criticism which might ensue. Friends told me, 'Don't think of pub- lishing the music under your name ! It will be killed at the start.' But I thought if my music is good enough, I will get the credit it deserves — ^if not I will fall with it. 'But your woman's name will kill it.' So I decided to compromise and simply say 'C. Chaminade.' "Over in America I have watched with interest that noble woman Mrs, H. H. A. Beach, and long ago came to the conclusion that woman is about to step into her own in music. I haven't tried to go further than my inspiration has led me. My music has always been full of melody and extremely sim- ple. I've never said anything I didn't mean. One set of pianoforte compositions which I brought out were criticized, can you believe it, as being too mas- culine ! That is to say, I had put force and power into them. "Other things which were dainty of treatment, they considered too effeminate and lacking power. What is one to do with them? "In my home in Paris, not far from my birth- place, we have many interesting gatherings. Mosz- kowski, Chabrier, and Charpentier come for little discussions on music of the day. Debussy comes in for his share on modern music. Moszkowski is Face to Face with Chaminade 175 a wonderful conversationalist, and we almost com- pose together, all of us, as we take subjects and improvise musical theses, descriptive of the ideas. Now it is on the springtime, then on flowers, rain, snow, and so on. "I do not like big cities. I cannot work in them. As soon as springtime shows herself, I hurry away from Paris and get out to my beautiful summer home. As soon as evening comes, I prepare to write. Ever since I can remember, my inspiration has al- ways been dominant at night, and especially on moonlight nights. I am as a barometer, affected by every change of weather. "After I write a composition I put it aside. I have no use for rapidly manufactured music, made to order. I want to see whether what I have done stands up under the test of time, before I send it to the publisher. "This is the beginning of woman's age, and I make this prediction: That in the years to come, say fifty years from now, the great composers of the day will be women, and then you may look for something really new and really vital in your or- chestral and operatic compositions. Women will vote. They will be elected to office. They will hold responsible positions, but most particularly will run the hospitals, the schools, the prisons, the parks, the beautiful, the helpful. "Your music will then enter the new domain — 176 Face to Face with Great Musicians and you will say I have been the predecessor of a long line of really great feminine musicians." The principal works of Chaminade are: "Callirhoe" (ballet symphonie); "Les Amazones" (symphonie lyrique) ; two orchestra suites; "ConcertstucK' for piano with orchestra; and many popular songs and piano pieces. MASSENET XXIII FACE TO FACE WITH MASSENET 1842-1912 WOMEN ! Since the days of Eve, you have been the ruling power of the world. You tempted Adam, you have been tempting Adam's sons ever since. You are beau- tiful, heaven knows. You are the greatest gift the Creator presented to mere man. You have been the slave of emperors whom you ruled; you have been the work-horse of savages who adored you; 177 178 Face to Face with Great Musicians you have been the hated torturers of poets and mu- sicians who wrote epics and symphonies to you; where you have been thought least, you have been made most. Who is to understand you? You smile and be- hind the smile are tears or perchance the treachery of a wildcat. You seem to weep and all the while you are gloating over the broken strong man who is torn by your sorrow. You have scarcely the will to resist the pleadings of that distraught lover, and when he seems to regret his impetuosity, you glance toward him with the irresistible demand that he return. You are a good woman, and you are cruel as a Nero. You are a bad woman and you have the tenderness of a child, the simplicity of a maiden chaste. You are cold with the stoniness of Cata- lonian marble ; you are fired with the warm tongues of a million flames. You are the nun in sack-cloths who dreams bitter dreams of arms that never held you; or in the moments of your love's surrender, you are thinking of a gown desired. Oh, to flay you — to hold you; to lash you with the stinging rebukes you deserve — to tenderly embrace you; to cast you out — to enslave you for mine forever. It is the turbulent surging of unreconcilable thoughts you hear as they tear at the heart of a Parisian, a certain Jules Massenet. He has been trying to put woman into music, from the cocotte Face to Face with Massenet 179 to the saint, to describe her in her every mood — as she is. And the question comes to mind, has he written about women because he wished to do so, or because women dominated all his life and thoughts'? Perhaps what he put to paper then was nothing of what women are, but what men desire? Massenet is studying his newest woman delinea- tion. History books are lying before him, accounts of the strange exotic creature are clipped and mounted for his edification. Commentaries by ex- perts revive the ancient figure into life, clay figures visualize the character. And toward the end of the work table at which he writes is a photograph, not of the character, but of a woman very much alive, who left the studio only a few moments ago. As he picks up the photograph he evokes the living woman in his imagination, and thereafter she and the person of antiquity are one. Now it is the modern woman who is shining forth in that old account of dead lands and scenes. It is she who will henceforth be his model for the opera; it is for her the thing is written; it is of her it is con- ceived. Yes — it is she! The composer goes into a reverie. While his eyes are closed let us glance hard at him. He is of medium height, fine figure though slightly stooping, his long, blond hair being thrown back from his high forehead. A small pug nose on a pale, thin face adorned with a thick blond mustache makes Massenet unique among composers, of whom i8o Face to Face with Great Musicians scarcely any are permitted to pass muster without a prominently projecting appendage. His eyes are small, and, as you will observe when he opens them, very kindly and sympathetic. You would take him to be no more than thirty-five, but he is easily fif- teen years older than that. He never tells his age to anybody, especially not to the ladies. That would prejudice them against him. It would weaken his case with them. But he is very considerate of everybody's feel- ings, with a fine show of delicacy such as marks the true Parisian of taste and culture. He talks in soft, liquid tones, like the clarinet he loves so much in his orchestrations. Everything about him is quiet and soft — ^his rooms are decorated that way, his footfall is that way — ^you always feel that there is a woman nearby and that she must not be awak- ened, and it would be quite improper if you dis- covered her a dream woman perhaps. But how quiet it is here. You think about this, and Massenet, extraordinarily psychic, divines the thought. "I've heard so much noise," he explains, "that I've hated it. I played the drums in orchestras when I was a youngster. They supplied the noise to keep me supplied with food. Once in an opera where I was assisting — with the drums — one of the villains in the show was to come out and yell. It was a very dramatic entry, for he was to break in on a quiet, idyllic scene. But he didn't appear — ^I be- Face to Face with Massenet i8i came so excited that I banged the drums, the cym- bals, and all the traps I could reach. It had just the right effect, and I was congratulated by the man- ager in saving the day. "When I was a boy I heard all the noise ordi- narily supposed to belong to the German operas — with apologies to Wagner and Co. My father was an ironmaster, and the clash of steel and iron and hammers vibrated throughout my childhood. "I was the eleventh child — ^not the finest kind of household for a sensitive little soul to enter, and surely not the kind of business for a future operatic composer to learn. I wanted to be a musician, and I played piano myself, and I argued with my people, and they laughed at me. My father had good in- tentions — what did music mean to him? — and he taunted me so much that I determined I would have my way anyway. So I packed up my books and a shirt, like I'd read in some novels, and started from home to carve my way to fortune. I ran off to Paris, and would have become king or em- peror, or something equally romantic, except that my parents came after me and took me home. Nev- ertheless, the adventure was not lost, for from that time on I was permitted to study my dear music. "A luckless little fellow I was. When I came to harmony class I was put under Frangois Bazin. We didn't get along at all. He continually dis- couraged me, and I, silly boy, thought he was right. What a day it was when he called me to him a;nd i82 Face to Face with Great Musicians seriously said to me: 'Jules, I mean well for you. Don't waste your time with composition. Go home and do something else.' I wept, packed up my belongings, and went home discouraged, broken- hearted as only a disappointed boy can be when everything seems dead. "Enough to have ruined me forever! It was so serious that I've never advised anybody against entering music, no matter how bad he seemed. For five years I tried to follow Bazin's advice, but I sim- ply couldn't do it. So one day I said, 'I don't be- lieve it; I was a fool. Bazin was wrong. I will try again.' This time my teacher was Henri Reber, and when I had been with him for two months he too sent for me. I approached his office with my blood running cold. He was going to tell me what Bazin had, and I didn't want it — I simply had to write music. • "I was ready to fight if need be. 'Mr. Massenet,' he said, and at the mister I straightened up — ^it was the first time I had ever been addressed that way — 'you are making a mistake in staying with me, for you know more than I can teach you. You are instinctively a master of harmony and orchestra- tion. You must take higher instructions, for I say to you that if I am any sort of prophet you will reach the greatest heights.' Well, that was differ- ent, and I was happy once more, studied then with Ambroise Thomas, and while I was playing drums won the prize of Rome with a cantata. Face to Face with Massenet 183 "Ambition was ripe then as now. I did some big numbers, and thought to take them to Pasdeloup, who ran the famous popular concerts. I met the great man on the street : he was very imposing look- ing and I very insignificant. I told him my pur- pose, but he pooh-poohed me, but he said, 'Send around the score.' A week later I received a note to come and hear the rehearsal, but I was afraid, silly thing that I was, that the music would be laughed at, and I wouldn't go. But imagine, I saw some bill posters a day or two later announcing that my music would be given at the next popular con- cert. Oh, I was never so happy, and I never hope to be." And even now Massenet was weeping as he re- called that happy moment. Men like Massenet can weep. Only villains caimot weep. "Later I brought some more ambitious music to Pasdeloup at his rooms. He told me to play them at the piano. The room was full of smoke and I was almost choking, but I wouldn't give in. I played all the music and Pasdeloup said never a word until the end. 'No good, my boy,' he declared. 'Throw it away.' And that time Pasdeloup was wrong. "There was another time I had to play my music — of my opera 'Werther.' It was in Vienna, and all the artists of the opera house — over two hun- dred — were there. It was a great honor. Only Verdi and Wagner had been so honored before. I 184 Face to Face with Great Musicians felt so upset that I broke down and wept. I was very young then. But they were so kindly, said 'Courage, confidence,' and then listened to the whole opera with such courtesy and applause." Massenet tells his story with fine sense of dra- matic effects, and himself relives each emotion he describes. Perhaps a little too much sentiment — sentimentality, some have said, perhaps too weepy and unrestrained — Massenet is sensitive to every impulse, upset by criticism, put all agog by the smile of a pretty woman. He is a tremendous worker, giving lessons a good part of the day, hearing artists another part, attending rehearsals. He was once asked, "When have you time to work?" He an- swered, "While you are asleep." And that is the fact, for he is up at five and writing at five-thirty. All around him are pictures of women — Calve, Garden, Cavaleri, Heilbronn, Renard, Carre, Sibyl Sanderson, Arbell, Viardot, Galli-Marie, Leblanc, Pacary. Through them and with them are women of neurotic and exotic personality, who comprise his musical family: Eve, Salome, Manon, Mary Magdalene, Sapho, Thais, Anita, Phedre, Ariane — strange, passionate women. So we will leave this poet of femininity musing on his problem. He is looking at that woman's por- trait again. "She will be my creator for the new opera. I always want to have a single person in mind when I write. Then I know I never will create a lifeless composition. Face to Face with Massenet 185 "Mme. Massenet understood me. She is an angel — I dedicated the 'Juggler of Notre Dame' to her because the Virgin is the only woman in it and she does not sing a note. "Do you wonder that I have been so fortunate to have so many lovely artists who have worked with me, giving their beauty and their voices and their art to me? Without them I would be lost. A com- poser is but the creature of his interpreter. No opera is better than its soloists. "Woman, I have studied you all my life, and I have never yet seen the light. The more I know of you, the less I understand you. Each new face gives promise of some new romance. Are you but the medium of a strange emotion, the companion of ecstatic moments, the temple of oriental desires — or what are you? I despise you, I loathe you. "I bring rare presents to your court, I burn in- cense at your altar, I pay eulogy to your beauty. I want you, I want you." The principal works of Massenet are: "Les Erinnyes," "Marie Magdelaine," "Eve," "Overture to Phedre," "Scenes Napolitaines," "Scenes Alsaciennes," "Scenes de Feerie," "Le Roi de Lahore," "Herodiade," "Manon," "Le Cid," "Esclarmonde," "Le Mage," "Werther," "Thazs," "La Navarraise," "Sapho," "Cendrillon," "Gri- seldis" "Le Jongleur de Notre Dame." Most important on Jules Massenet: "Mes Souvenirs" — /. Massenet; "Massenet and his Operas" — Finck. FAKavaAR. MASCAGNI XXIV FACE TO FACE WITH MASCAGNI 1863 TURRIDU is killed; Turridu is killed"— and the affrighted Sicilians run crying and weep- ing in their Easter Sunday array. Santuzza, the victim of the handsome Turridu, and Lola, the woman who lured him away from Santuzza — ^both swoon. There is a sweeping agony of mournful song, the entire city is cast in immeasurable gloom. Alfio, who brought the fellow to his doom, is hur- ried away, and the mother flings herself to the earth. 186 Face to Face with Mascagni 187 And so the curtain fell on "Cavalleria Rusticana" — on that tense, brisk opera of rustic chivalry, at its first performance. For a moment there was utter silence in the house„ a dreadful, ominous moment, while Pietro Mascagni held himself in anguish behind the scenes. Then something happened — the place was a mad pande- monium of cheers and hurrahs. People forgot them- selves. The Italian music lovers made an uproar of applause such as that famed opera house had never before known. "Mascagni! Mascagni!" They brought him before the footlights ; they show- ered him with glories; they made him speak; they made him come into their midst. Twenty times he went through the same steps — ^bowed, spoke, tried Co win silence, tried to get them out; but no, no, they wanted to show him how he had become in- tensely their idol, how they placed him foremost among composers of the day. He was carried home in the early morning, fol- lowed by hundreds for whom there was no sleep that night. Finally they left him to close his eyes in delicious dreams, but they woke him later with serenades and loud acclamations. "Verdi's suc- cessor," they dared to call him — to link him with the greatest opera creator Italy had ever known. They brought him his breakfast of the delicacies of the season ; they carried the newspapers into his bed- chamber, with the printed story of his success. Pietro Mascagni rubbed his eyes. Was it all just 1 88 Face to Face with Great Musicians another of those silly dreams which had come to him when he lay hungry, disappointed and near death in little Cerignola? Were they having fun with him? What was it all? This the little baker's son, destined for the law, who scribbled notes all over his father's house and was whipped for it, was it come that little Pietro was famous? He remembered how the good uncle Stefano had taken him under his protection, and then father had been reconciled, no longer regretting a good baker's helper had been lost to the world. He remembered his early struggles for recognition and his innumerable failures; his travels with opera troupes which were forever disbanding in the most outlandish towns, leaving him stranded and broken' hearted. He remembered with what lavish enthu- siasm each new venture had been approached, — • this was going to be the great opportunity, this would bring recognition, this would be successful. It couldn't always go wrong. There must be a rift in the clouds. Every dog has his day. But good-by, fond dreams and great expectations. He remem- bered his first coming to Cerignola and how he de- cided he was not made for big things, that he would settle down and give lessons like any ordinary music- scribbler. It was a terrible comedown for a climber among the clouds, that cut and dry existence. But food couldn't be bought with dreams, as Mrs. Pietro said. It is hard work; pupils did not pay much, nor were there many who wanted to learn at Signor Mas- Face to Face with Mascagni 189 cagni's Musical Institute, situated in the little front room at Madame Somebody's boarding-house. Such a life, my God, Pietro, such an existence. Then came that advertisement of Sonzogno's — a prize for each of three best one-act operas. You might com- pete, no matter who you are, and if you won, your composition would be played at Rome — think of it ! Pietro read it and threw it aside. What's the use^ He read it again and shook his head despairingly. Why grow enthusiastic over another fiasco? But he couldn't forget it. With artful carelessness, Pietro left the paper right on Mme. Mascagni's kitchen table so she couldn't help but see it. Per- haps, though, this was the long waited chance. "What do you think, Pietro?" said Mme. Mas- cagni from the washing tub. "What do you think?" said Pietro from the piano. Mme. Pietro didn't pause one moment. She, too, had suffered. She, too, had hoped and prayed, been buffeted and rebuked by Fate. But she had faith. "I think you will win!" she shouted back. "Then I will try," he said with conviction. All hope and ambition returned instantly. He wrote all about it to his friends in his home town, Leg- horn, "Send me a libretto, quick, quick." Targioni and Manasci started at once on the poem, but time was short, and Pietro was feverish to begin. Each post brought him some verses — sometimes only a line scribbled on a postcard. Finally, it was done; and lovingly and prayerfully Pietro and Mrs. 190 Face to Face with Great Musicians Pietro wrapped it up, stamped it, mailed it and waited. The days dragged, oh, so slowly. Pietro couldn't wait. He was desperate this time. If that lost — no more, no more, no more. Oh, men, — what days and silent hours, Pietro looking at his wife without a word or sign. Oh, how good, how good, is fate ! They brought him word that "Cavalleria Rusticana" had been given first prize ! It was the chance ! It had come ! Pietro was bewildered; he looked wonderingly at his wife and she looked joyously at him. She knew all along it had to be. So to-day he rubbed his eyes and wondered at it all. But things happened rapidly. His Majesty the King made him a Chevalier of the Order of the Crown, the highest honor that ever was given a musician; his birthplace, Leghorn, struck a medal in his honor; the residents of the little Cerignola, where the institute of music of Signor Mascagni would no longer be located in the front room, made him their most honored citizen and everybody was anxious to show what a friend he had been to the maestro — the maestro! The world of music hailed the new conqueror and paid him homage as rarely was paid any mu- sician. Sunday newspaper supplements pictured him and talked! about and around him. Anecdotes galore were told of him. Every opera house in the Face to Face with Mascagni 191 world paid to produce the little masterpiece. Trans- lators in German, French, English rushed the libretto into their native tongues. Every patron of music awaited with anxious breath the hearing of "Caval- leria," and then added his hand-clapping to the thunder of applause rolling around the maestro's feet. No composer, none, had ever become so in- stantly the hero of the world's fancy. Pietro soon recovered from his astonishment; he soon took the plaudits as a natural accompaniment to his genius. He had always known it — ^he had since a child been cognizant of his mission in life. He now was conscious that the world realized that the master musician had arrived, the Messiah of music had come — ^he would be.kindly to the world, this good, silly, good-natured institution which had been so long in recognizing its master! He would not abuse the world's confidence in him; he would from time to time scribble an opera or two to feed the hungry masses — ^he would give them more of himself. I can't be harsh on Mascagni, the little baker's son, who at thirty-seven and with one act of opera to his credit, was made to know that he was im- mortal — and who received withal more praise than even Beethoven had known. After the storm there's svmshine. Pietro was ruined — for work. There he strutted — a short fellow of good- natured' countenance; of blufF, hearty, kindly man- ner, not exactly condescending, you know; he was 192 Face to Face with Great Musicians determined that he would be democratic, with even the most ordinary men. He went back home to visit the little bakery shop and to survey the school where he had first taken music lessons. The mayor of Leghorn came forth to greet the Illustrious One; they made a procession in honor of the returning genius. Pietro Mascagni bowed' — ^he was glad and overflowing with good cheer to all. He was just puffed up to breaking, poor fellow, very human fellow. When would the maestro offer another gem to the world? Soon, my friends, very soon, I will give you more of my soul to keep you in spirits. "We wait, maestro, we wait." "Very good, my friends, very soon." "Why don't you speak, speak?" Silence, silence, and Mascagni still smiles; oh, fame is a cruel enemy to greatness. If only the opera hadn't been so well received — ^just a little bit of success, enough to encourage Pietro. But it hap- pened that way. At last announcement is made of a new Mascagni opera. "L'Amico Fritz" is pro- duced; people look at each other and say, "Mmm, pretty good, but it isn't at his best." Then appeared "I Rantzau," "Zanetto," "Silvano," "Iris," and "Le Mascheza." Some pretty melodies, some charming scenes, which, without the "Cavalleria" incident, would never have been produced, and doubtless never would have been written by Signor Mascagni Face to Face with Mascagni 193 of the Institute of Cerignola and never would have made his name ring with plaudits. Then in 1917 came "Lodoletta," which was put on the Metropolitan stage, and still he didn't succeed. But such is the curious mind of the world, Mascagni continues great and powerful in reputa- tion, and "Cavalleria" goes on singing and playing its way to new audiences and old, forever fresh and moving. Mascagni need never have written another note. Mascagni's place in history was made when first the opera was heard in Rome. I appeal to you for Mascagni that the man, all too human, and car- ried off by the success he made, is worthy of all that he has received in money and fame. For that beautiful phrasing in the intermezzo, and for the dashing, action of the opera, the first realistic, common-life music drama, Mascagni de- serves to live. A man who gives the world one beau- tiful idea, who sings a song of beauty that will be heard to the last day of eternity, is a hero greater and more potent than conquerors of peaceful lands or soldier warriors. The principal works of Mascagni are: "Cavalleria Rusti- cana," "L'Amico Fritz" "I Rantzau," "Guglielmo Rat- cliff," "Zanetto" "Iris." XXV FACE TO FACE WITH HAYDN 1732-1809 THERE being a special performance of the oratorio "The Creation," and its venerable composer, Franz Josef Haydn, living in the nearby vicinity, it was arranged to bring him as an honored listener. A large orchestra, a tremendous chorus, and an imposing audience were to fill the house and greet the old gentleman. Seventy-six 194 Face to Face with Haydn 195 years old, worn by ill health, he was really too feeble to attempt the outing, but, strongwilled to the end, he insisted and had himself carried to the performance. The physician. Dr. Cappellini, by his side, Haydn was seated in the front of the great hall. Age is cold, and the good man should have been wrapped more thoroughly — the physician hinted it, and instantly rich capes and shawls were given over by handsomely attired ladies to cover the feet, legs, and hands of the master. The concert began. The audience listened awe- inspired by the masterpiece of that old man. As the chorus sang the sublime tribute, "The heavens are telling," it seemed to those who watched Haydn as though his eyes were looking even then upon his Maker, for at the close of the number he rose to his feet and cried: "I never wrote that, it came from Him." It was a dramatic moment — the shriveled, bent man, curved like a letter C, his hand raised to Heaven with pathetic piety. His excitement ex- hausted him and his agitation became so great that the physician insisted it was absolutely necessary he be taken home. There was a pause in the music. The fine ladies and gentlemen all stood as Haydn went out bid- ding him a fond, sad farewell, saying, "Farewell, dear master." The director kissed his cloak,* while Beethoven, master of all music, bent and kissed the hands and forehead of him who had once been his 196 Face to Face with Great Musicians teacher. It was a silent farewell — ^not a person clapped. It was too solemn. At the door Haydn lifted his hand in blessing and went out. "My last concert, what do you say, doctOr?" he asked outside with a break in his voice. Arrived at home, Haydn soon became calm again, smiling at the eagerness of the good doctor. "Be not afraid, my friend, when it is time that my day of meeting my Master is come I go forth cheerfully and content. I pray daily for strength to express myself in accordance with His will. "Do you like 'The Creation,' doctor? Never was I so devout as when I was writing it. I know that God appointed me to a task, and I acknowledge it with thanks and believe I have done my duty and been useful to the world. What more can man do? Believe in God and do his bidding. At the heading of every manuscript I ever wrote I put these words: 'In the name of God.' Fifteen hundred times I wrote it — for fifteen hundred works, for symphonies, operas, trios, minuets, waltzes, Orato- rios, songs — everything, doctor, because everything was simply an expression of God." "What a wonderful way to have written," ex- claimed the doctor. "That is real religion, real faith, Papa Haydn." "Sometimes in my church music I would become quite gay. Well, well, some one would come to me and say, 'Pardon me, but how can you be so happy and joyful?' — ^I cannot help it. I give forth what Face to Face with Haydn 197 is' in me. When I think of the Divine Being I am filled with joy, and the notes fly from me as from a spindle. Perhaps the Almighty, knowing that I have a cheerful heart, will pardon me if I serve him cheerfully." "Yes, Papa Haydn, if all men were like you there would be no hell." "Ah, be not so sure, doctor- — I have done many things which I should not have done, but I have tried to balance the mistakes with better deeds. We cannot erase our mistakes, but we can try to redeem ourselves." An expression of such amiable goodness filled the old man's face that his ugliness seemed quite beau- tiful. Pitted with smallpox, dark as "the Moor," his aquiline nose, deformed by a polypus which he had always refused to have removed, leaned over a projecting lower lip. Always neat and clean, even in his present feeble state, the pigtail was nicely adjusted, the side curls in perfect place, the cravat tied with care, the shoes and buckles shining with polish, over the short, well-formed limbs. "My parents taught me to respect my Maker, and be glad to live. When I think of them I can never complain. I live in luxury — you should have seen those poor souls. I can remember, doctor, when I was so big as a peanut, the father would come home from his work, making wheels for carriages. At night we would gather around the fireside, my mother, simple hearted, a cook and a servant be- 198 Face to Face with Great Musicians fore she became my father's wife. You seem sur- prised to hear my people were so lowly — 1 am proud of it, my good fellow. My ancestry was of the soil, real, and I come by my disposition because of them. Why, I couldn't be dissatisfied, when I think of what we once were content with." "You misunderstood me. Papa Haydn. I never sneer at the station of people. I am an incipient democrat," said the doctor. "But you were speak- ing of your early days." "Yes, I was saying about the nights of my baby- hood. Father had a fine tenor voice, mother sang well, too — they belonged to the village chorus. Fa- ther would play the harp for diversion, and we would all sing. Those were happy times — when we'd all sing and the neighbors would join along. When I was so big as a big brother to a peanut I made myself a violin. A cousin decided to teach me how to play. Well, doctor, he gave me less lessons than food, and less food than beatings. But I learned something — we learn something from everything and nothing if we will only try. I learn something noticing you, doctor. But you're not in- terested in this, are you? I'll tell you more, and you can see then how mistaken you are in your pa- tient. You take me for what you heard of me — when fame has come to me. But wait, you shall hear of what I was. You can't like me. "My parents were lowly, is it so? Well, after my cousin gave me up, I was singing for a choir, Face to Face with Haydn 199 and then I was thrown out because my voice changed. What a terribly unfortunate little boy I was. And I walked the streets. But when I think of it, do you know, I didn't care one bit. No money, with just the gnawing of hunger in my little stomach, I went around singing. Anybody can be happy who will sing — try it, doctor, with your patients. "Ah, there is such goodness in the world — who should have sent me that dear Spangler, terrible tenor singer but good hearted to the core? He took me in his place — a poor little attic, and shared it with me. Dear fellow! Such goodness in the world. What reason to take me? He didn't know me. Do you think God was not working there? Will you deny it? "And then came a little storekeeper who hardly knew me, and loaned me enough to run my own apartment. Apartment? A little attic room, where the sun came in at mom, and rain and sleet and wind and snow, came, too. And there with a harpsi- chord and paper I was writing. 'In the name of God!' Life is good. "You've heard of Porpora, the composer. Did you ever know that I worked for him? Yes, blacked his boots and cleaned his dishes, and ran his errands and did everything to get some lessons in composi- tion. I was glad. It kept me occupied and helped me to keep my balance and to pay back my bene- factor. With Porpora I learned that if you filled a sheet with notes that was writing. Fill it, that's 200 Face to Face with Great Musicians all, was Porpora's idea. But I have changed since, doctor, and I write now what I hear. "But I must have clean paper, very fine, or the feeling is not so intense. Isn't that finicky"? And you see this ring — ^my signet of creation. Without it I should be lost. It was given me by King Fred- erick. Writing is very strict business, and I have always bathed, dressed and fitted myself for the court when I sat down to write. One day I wanted a razor — 'My best quartette for a razor,' I cried, and got it. Neatness first, my mother said, and I never forgot it. How can one approach his inspiration without respect? And in writing, it is the melody that counts. The invention of a fine melody is a work of genius. Simplicity, doctor, not sensation- alism or extravagance, — it is unnecessary, it is the excuse for having nothing else to say. A sensational writer has to make exterior activity atone for lack of interior sincerity. My good friend, Mozart, 'the greatest composer in the world' — ^he wrote that way. "I learned from that young man. I, sixty, he thirty, would walk and talk together like brothers. You saw Beethoven to-day — ^the successor, I say to you, of Mozart, and one who will leave his name on the sands of time. I taught him, doctor. I sixty, he twenty-two — ^price per lesson, twenty cents, Beethoven and Mozart called me Papa Haydn, — all of them call me that, and I love it, but I at sixty, doctor, was like most men at thirty — cheerful, alert, Face to Face with Haydn 201 alive. I consider the music I wrote after sixty my greatest work. What do you think? "I always studied and watched. As a boy you would find my books under my pillow at night." "And Papa Haydn, what happened after Por- pora?" "Oh, then came the beginning of my career. I worked for Count Morzin as leader of his orchestra, and then for my dear Prince Esterhazy, where my contract called for my keeping myself and my musi- cians free of vulgarity — think of it, doctor, with musicians, too — ^in good instruments, white stock- ings, white linen, carefully powdered and arranged pigtails — and, of course, lest I forget, it was my duty to write music and perform it. Sometimes the peo- ple would fall asleep. So I determined I would make them listen. I wrote the 'Surprise Sym- phony.' " * "Your pardon. Papa Haydn," the doctor said, with hesitation, "the ladies — they have always seemed to like you — and you were never married?" "Wrong, doctor. I did marry," Haydn said, with * Papa Haydn liked to have his little joke. Determined to wake his audiences from the customary lethargic state many of them assumed in listening to his long works, he pre- pared a little surprise for them. A very slow, benumbing melody is played for a considerable time, gradually dim- ming and softening until there is an absolute silence. Crash! Bang! Boom! The entire orchestra — cymbals, brass, all, strike a deafening chord. The sleeping auditors were surprised, to say the least. Such is the novelty in Haydn's famous "Surprise Symphony." 202 Face to Face with Great Musicians a catch in his voice, "but not the girl I loved. I was young and inspired and full-blooded then. My girl was a lovely creature — only the daughter of a bar- ber — a peasant myself, my tastes are not for roy- alty, but for reality. I loved her, but — I don't know, she didn't. She went into a convent, and her father, good business man and well meaning, suggested the elder daughter, Maria Ann — ^pretty, and seemingly a good woman for a wife. I followed his advice — but two weeks ended all -hopes of peace and domes- ticity. She cared nothing for me, cared not if I were a cobbler or a composer, wanted money incessantly, used my music for curling papers, hated me, called me ugly fool. I couldn't live with her, but I owed her a living, doctor, every man owes his wife that, and I have paid her regularly. "Moreover, I was her husband before God, and though once since there came one Mistress Schroeder who aroused my tender feelings, I have been loyal. You will hear many stories to the contrary, doctor, but, take my word, I have been loyal. Surely I loved beauty. When I was in England they wished my portrait made — and I was too restless. So they brought me a pretty dame to keep me company, and I sat for the picture. She was nice, but my wife ! Thirty-two years of such a marriage was my lot, and then the formal separation. Maria died eight years ago, God rest her soul, I hold not a regret — it was so, and God willed it. "That is the story of my life, doctor — ^has it in- Face to Face with Haydn 203 terested you? There is the trip to England, which I might have mentioned — where king and court and Oxford University honored me. But that is unim- portant compared to the way the people have seemed to love me. That is my great joy to-day, as I look out on the future and see the eternal life everlasting. Wasn't that a wonderful reception at the concert to- night — ^my last! "I have talked too much, I will sleep. Do I look happy, doctor?" The principal works of Hadyn are: "Le Midi" Syinphony, "Le Soir" Symphony, "L'Ours" Symphony, "Le Matin" Symphony, "Farewell" Symphony, "Military" Sym- phony, "Oxford" Symphony, "Surprise" Symphony, "Clock" Symphony, "Chase" Symphony, "Children's" Symphony, "Queen of France" Symphony, Symphony "With the Kettle-Drum Roll," The Creation, The Sea- sons, Salomon Quartettes, Emperor's Hymn, Various Trios. Important works on Franz Josef Haydn — Biographical sketches by himself; Burney's "History of Music" ; "Jo- sef Haydn" by Arnold and C. F. Phi, "Notice Historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de Haydn" by Le Breton; Daniel Gregory Mason's "Beethoven and His Forerun- ners." MONTEVERDE XXVI FACE TO FACE WITH MONTEVERDE M' 1567-1643 ' UCH discussion along the Rialto. The duke is giving his attention to the new amusement house. They are calling it the Teatro di Saint Cassiano, but it isn't a theater for the playing of plays. No, it is to be used only for musical plays — what they call operas. A strange name ! Well, there are fools everywhere, to be sure, but who ever heard of an opera house where people will go to pay 204 Face to Face with Monteverde 205 their ticket and listen for a whole evening to such sort of entertainment? Let the nobility have their music affairs, they must do something additional to amuse themselves in their palaces, stupid musicians may do their bidding. But, as in all times, let fools have their way, let them have their experiments even with such truck as this. Oh, yes, we like music, to be sure, but not in such places exclusively alone like this, you know. But the Maestro di Capella himself is behind the whole idea. Claudio Monteverde has interested him- self in the venture, and he is writing a production for the opening. That sounds interesting, doesn't it? Well, suppose we come for the first night, An- tonio, and see it in operation? We ought not to be prejudiced. And so, in the narrow Venetian street, where Saint Christopher, carven in stone, stands near the garden gate, the gay and grave gentlemen and their ladies made their way to the first opera house in the world, and laid the precedent for ages to come. Here, be- fore St. Mark's, where the steeds of brass glow with their gilded collars glittering in the sun, the new house flung its doors, bravely admitting the curious and the anxious, the music lovers, and the scoffers. "The play is called 'Adonis,' " the manager an- nounces from the wings. "It is written by a poet and our beloved Maestro Monteverde in collabora- tion. The poetry is the servant of the music and is the foundation for the lovely melodies which the 2o6 Face to Face with Great Musicians director has written for our ears to be tickled with, and perchance that we might remember." Portia looks at her Antonio with raised eyelids, as if to say, "Can it be possible*?" and Bassanio and Gratiano lean forward in anticipation of the wonder to be performed. The Duke of Venice sits in the box in state, faintly conscious of the epoch in the world's culture which he is thus inaugurating. "Ladies and gentlemen, my dear friends and our beloved duke and master, I introduce to you our con- ductor of the evening, known to you all, Signor Mon- teverde." The maestro is a venerable old gentleman. He is tall and thin, with pale, ascetic face, serious and solemn. He is in priestly garb and walks with fal- tering step. He bows several times, first kissing the hand of the duke, his retainer, and then proceeds to the improvised conductor's stand. Then follow into their chairs forty men — ^members of the orches- tra ! The audience stared aghast. Forty men in an orchestra! Why, the idea was unheard of! What a confusion it would be, and how much waste of manpower. Ha! What sayest thou? Now for the overture — Marry, though, 'tis most agreeable to the ear, master. They all seem to fit into their places, and to play up when the maestro calls for the instrument to sound. They must be afraid of him, they follow him so perfectly, 'Tis good, and well done — the applause says. Face to Face with Monteverde 207 But, wait, the curtain is rising, and the players are in their places. Egad, they are singing their parts, not speaking them. Hush with the orchestra, why don't you, the musicians will drown the players' voices. Hush yourself, Salanio, my friend, 'tis part of the new idea for the orchestra to have its say along with the players. But they will drown the singers. No, leave that to the Maestro Monteverde. He will keep them in their places. Just listen and find what new kind of mystery and magic this is, to be sure. By my troth, it is most engaging. Do you notice that the orchestra seems to paint the scenes for our imaginations, and to make fuller the merriness or sadness of the player? And so to the end of this strange performance, the conductor in his black frock leading his stage folk and his players in the orchestra, through the acts of his "Adonis" until the thing is done. His Grace now rises in his box and turns to his subjects : "My friends, it is but meet that the good things of life should be enjoyed by the people, and as many of them as it is good to reach. It has been but the privilege of those who rule in state to listen to the sweets of musical entertainment. My good Maestro di Capella, whose idea of combined drama and music you heard to-day, opens up a new field of entertain- 2o8 Face to Face with Great Musicians ment for the world, and no longer is it reserved to the royal ears to partake of his and his contempo- raries' offerings. I dedicate this playhouse to the further development of our idea — let all the people know of our great goodness to you, and perchance the Teatro di Saint Cassiano will become one of the worthiest temples of culture and entertainment." The people answer with cheers: "Long live his Grace and may his splendid health be preserved ; long live his good music master. Father Monteverde." Out of the playhouse back to his monastic cell the musician takes his way, bent in contemplation and praying for the wisdom and the happiness of all his people. We seek to talk with the priest, and are led into the dim quietude of his stony but voluntary retreat. There is a sad sweet smile in his eyes, though the face is drawn and thin, and his whole manner is one of silent suffering. "You wonder why I am here, as a priest, and not back in the duke's palace, enjoying the fruits of my labors?" he asks us. "I am here because I am through with the world's vanities and weaknesses. Since the death of my be- loved wife, I have wished to be apart from all the noise and sinfulness of my brothers. I married my wife in Mantua, back when I was first struggling for my ideal music : she bore me two sons, grew up with me in my fame and increasing power, came with me Face to Face with Monteverde 209 to my new triumphs in Venice, and four years ago, worn out with all the fatigue, and weary after our great struggles, she passed out. With her going, I wished to take myself apart, praying and making myself close to my Maker; while I wrote at the duke's request occasional music for his use. "This performance to-day I have had in my mind for half a century, and in my mind I see that this is but the beginning of something that cannot die. It came to me the other night, as I was finishing a rehearsal, that this is to be the first of hundreds of public opera houses, into which millions will go in the years to come. "It was Jacopo Peri, the long-haired we called him, who was the first to write an opera. I heard him talk when I was a boy. He haunted the salons of the Count Bardi and was an intimate at the court of my beloved first master, the Duke of Mantua; he used to say that the stage might be made more beau- tiful with a musical setting. He wanted to pro- duce musical plays in the style of the old Greeks, like Sophocles. He wrote an opera called 'Dafne,' and it was given but once in the Count Bardi's house. "I have never forgotten the words of that grand old long-haired Peri, and musicians to come may thank him for what he conceived. I have but moved ahead. Also with me I have tried to make the music more human than it was ever before, breaking down stiff theories and using music in a freer way. "My life? Very little to tell you, you will see. 210 Face to Face with Great Musicians I was born in the midst of music — in Cremona, close by the shops of the Great Amatis, who made violins and violas and viol de gambas, which every rich family had to own to be in style. I studied viola and was selected to be the Duke of Mantua's violinist. Do you think I merely played for him? Oh, no — I was sort of head servant, to keep him happy and to follow his orders. 'Write me a madrigal, Clau- dio,' 'Brush my clothes, Claudio,' 'Do me a canzo- netta,' 'Oh, Claudio, my boy, write us a dance for next week, when the Duke of Padua makes us a visit.' 'Go ask my daughter, Claudio, what she will wear to-night.' "So it would go — first this and then that. The duke was a powerful man ; he was perhaps the most intelligent ruler of the cities of Italy; he was the famous Gonzago, and hence everything he did was imitated and talked of. He called me one day: 'Claudio, a great event is about to occur. My son, as you know, is to be married. Francesco de Gon- zago is to be made the husband of Margarita, Infanta of Savoy. For the event I wish something most un- usual !' Then, thought I, here is the opportunity to do an opera, such as Peri did, and the world will fo- cus its eyes on me. "The title of the piece was 'Arianne.' The audi- ence was in tears at Arianne's grief. The duke and the young couple joined in the tears. They called me to them, the duke showered praises upon me, the young bride kissed me on the cheek. Face to Face with Monteverde 211 "I neglected to tell you that shortly after I en- tered the orchestra of the duke I had been given les- sons in composition with Marc Antonio Ingenneri, who was then maestro di capella at Mantua. But we didn't get along very well together, for I insisted on writing harmonies quite against his orders. 'That's a bad combination of notes, Claudiol' he would shout in exasperation. 'But it is nice to hear,' I would answer. "So at his death, I succeeded to his place, and for years I continued to follow out my own ideas. I brought the violins into dominance in the orchestra, using long bowed notes in place of the picking of the strings — thus sustained tones brought out more beautiful effects. You wouldn't like to see people go tripping along always — you want a little calm- ness and grace, too. I increased the size of the or- chestra to give greater volume of tone and more con- trasting harmonies. "As I worked, the fame of my operas and my or- chestras spread. And then came the grand offer of the Duke of Venice to come to his city at the palace of St. Mark's. Three hundred ducats was my sal- ary, with 50 ducats for traveling expenses — an un- heard-of remimeration — ^no one had ever received more than 200. So, life went on, more music, more improvements, and finally this." The priest picked up his Bible, read over a verse, and signaled that the interview was at an end, as he solemnly chanted his prayer. 212 Face to Face with Great Musicians The principal works of Monteverde are: "Arianne," "Orfeo," "Bella del Ingrate" "Proserpine Rapita," "Adone," "L'Incoronazione de Poppea." Besides these operas and dramatic episodes, he also composed masses, psalms, hymns, magnificats, madrigals, etc. Was the most popular and influential composer of his time. FMWkVHAIC BELLINI XXVII FACE TO FACE WITH BELLINI 1802-1835 {ONCE had a great adventure as a boy. My parents had left the house and I was all alone. I was too young to know just how to devote my time, but I realized that there was something I had always wanted, and I would have it now. Into the pantry I stole; there before my eyes were all sorts of foods — ^but from these I turned aside. In 213 214 Face to Face with Great Musicians jars, fruits and jellies stared at me, and these I de- termined to sample. My advice at the table had always been: "Now, Charley, take only a little bit of the sweets on your plate," but now — ah, I could eat the jelly just as I did my porridge in the morn- ing. I dug my spoon into this jar and that. Just then my eyes caught the sugar bowl, and a heaping mouthful of sugar I took. There was some syrup — I took a sample; there was a large slice of maple sugar — I broke off a bit; there was some candy — ^I ate some. A fine mess of sweets it was, to be sure; and when the folks arrived at home a very sick little boy was found lying on the bed. He had come to the conclusion that sweets may be all right as such, but not as a steady diet. Now, once there was a gentleman named Bellini — ■ There he comes, that tall, well-dressed, handsome man. Yes, that is Vincenzo Bellini. Oh, no; he is not the fashion leader, although he might be. He is the composer, you know, of those successful operas. Surely. "Norma," "Sonnam' bula," and iothers. He is quite the lion of the hour. See how the ladies flock about him. Quite a dandy, oh, my. Thin, you think? Oh, no; just slender and graceful. You like the curly blond hair, don't you, it is so becoming; it gives such charming contrast to the rose-tinted complexion of the long, fine face. It gives such an air of sadness to his person. He is very sad, is he not? His clothes Face to Face with Bellini 215 are worn that way. I don't know why, but they seem to make him look sad. I like sad men, they are so mysterious — you always wonder why they are sad. It must have been a tragedy, don't you think, which made Bellini like that? Well, no; nothing terrible, I imagine, but some- thing. He's so young — quite boyish — I don't be- lieve he's over thirty. Strange, he never married. But hush, here he comes. Perhaps we'll meet him. "I am most pleased to know you," and the cour- tier-like youth, answering our greeting, bends very low and smiles coquettishly, smiles with his eyelids drooping. "Oh, charmed, charmed. We were just discussing your music, Signor Bellini, and we were saying it is so sad. We were wondering why it is that you have always written such sad music, such beautifully sad music. Why do you not write something of farce or comedy?" "I could not write any comic music. I am not of the merry mood. My life has been founded on sad- ness" — and Bellini heaves a sigh, which rocks his body and threatens to dislocate his curls. "If you were to ask me why I am sad, I do not believe I could tell you. If you ask me whether I would rather be diflferent than I am, I believe I would have to answer you truthfully, no. In fact, I enjoy my tears. I can cry for almost anything, from the meowing of a cat to the death of a dear friend. I 2i6 Face to Face with Great Musicians believe tears are beautiful. The poet calls them pearls, does he not? "Have I had woes'? No, none that I can think of. Have I been in love? Well, y-y-yes, I was in love once and I was unable to have my desired one, and I couldn't eat or sleep for days. Whenever I wish to I can conjure the dear girl back from my memory. Her picture is engraven there forever" — and Bellini struck a pose. "Her name was Maddelina Fumaroli. I knew her in Naples. Her father was Judge Fumaroli, a very stubborn, egotistical, old fool. Maddelina was beau- tiful, romantic, poetical; I was very much liked in Naples — some of my first works were going nicely. I was not a bad sort, I was not ugly, I was not stupid, I was very desirable, I think. Maddelina thought so, too. We were decided to marry. But the judge didn't agree with us — in fact, he thought me to be quite worthless, for he insisted that, if I didn't get out, he would assist me, and I do not like to be assisted, especially assisted rapidly in get- ting out of the presence of ladies. "Later the judge changed his mind, and he sent very friendly messages to me, which led me to be- lieve I could have Maddelina. But that was too much, my pride would not allow me to marry the girl then. Think of all the suffering I had endured, think of the musical melodies which had come to me when I realized how tragic my love affair had been. Think of the ridiculousness of my position Face to Face with Bellini 217 and of my music if I should have given myself the lie and married her after all. All my tears for noth- ing? Better to go on forever, despairing that the one love of my life was denied me. It is something to talk about. How much nicer to think of Madde- lina with tears than see her in the early morning as she is." It was quite amusing the way Bellini related the story with a fine show of feeling, somewhat vague and indescribable, sometimes over-sentimental, and sometimes so much on the edge of the ludicrous that one couldn't decide whether to look sad or smile. Over his face as he talked crept a look of vagueness, his very features seemed to grow vague and almost characterless. Heine's cryptic comment came to mind as we watched Bellini : "He is a sigh in pumps and silk stockings." "Of course, as I say, there is no reason for me to be sad," Bellini continued, with a semblance of en- ergy. "In my birthplace at Catania, in the little island of Sicily, everything was sunny and cheerful, and so was I — and so am I still" — this latter as if he had forgotten himself; but then "I cannot under- stand. My father was an organist, and you can see how much music was given to me, that when I was twenty months old I was singing songs very well. Oh, I know, I was there; and although I don't re- member, my mother told me it, for I sang gloriously, and all the neighbors came around and listened en- raptured. 2i8 Face to Face with Great Musicians "I must use that scene some time in an opera; think of the rustic beauty of Catania, the mother and the child, the neighbors. But the difficulty — oh, I never thought of that — getting a singing infant I "When I was three — so my father has it, and so the local reports tell — I led the choir in the little Capuchin Church. I held the baton and led with a firm, correct stroke. My father used to say : 'Men- delssohn, Mozart — ^pooh, why, you were writing mu- sic and playing it before they could say their prayers.' "He wanted to make me a musician, and I agreed with him — so everything was nice and pleasant. When he wanted to get me lessons, fate stepped in and arranged it. There was the Duke Pardo, or, as we loved to call him, the Signor Patrizio. "What! little Vincenzo Bellini wants to learn music, and you've been wondering how you could pay for it^ You naughty people, not to come to me at once. Here, we will send Vincenzo to Naples. There he will learn. He will go to the conservatory and get the best teachers, and we will arrange some other lessons in private, too.' "So off to Naples I went, and at the Conservatory I had the finest teachers. I studied with Pergolesi and Mozart and Haydn! Everything was mine; why shouldn't I be bappy? I guess I am, but it's nice to be sad, don't you think? It makes people sympathize with you and sympathy is the first step to love. It was at Naples that I met Maddelina, Face to Face with Bellini 219 and she gave me a poem which later I set to lovely music. It was at Naples that my first opera, 'Adel- son and Salvini,' was acted by the Conservatory pupils, "See how Fate acted foi me. In the audience was Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of La Scala. He understood my genius at once. He engaged me to write for La Scala. Well, there is the story. "I have written incessantly ever since. I've never had to work, my inspiration is ever flowing with mel- ody and song. Music is a sweet, which is sweeter as it flows. It is sugared sugar, honeyed maple, pre- served essence of cloying deliciousness. People love it. They cannot get enough of it. I give them more and ever more. In the bitter tears of wounded love, sprinkle sugar. In the defeat of ambition, drop honey. Let notes of melody spring out of candied loveliness. For me no depths of passion — why bother us with such stuff? Life itself is too often made of such bitterness. Do not poison music with philosophy, it is not necessary or wise. Leave phi- losophy to the academy. "Sighs and tears, like dewdrops, are well and good. That is the sort of sadness we love, and that is the kind of music which sentimental people like myself enjoy. "I have wanted my singers to know my theories of music, and then they will know what to do with it. But not often have I had to tell my interpreters — ^not with such singers as Grisi, Malibran, Lablance, 220 Face to Face with Great Musicians Tamburini, Ivanoff, Rubini, — Rubini — once we did have a little quarrel. A love song, and Rubini sang it without a throb. 'Have you never been in love,' I shouted, 'you have a gold mine in your voice which you have never explored. Dig deep down and find yourself — and then Rubini sang it as I felt it." "Signor Bellini," said a lady near by, with that innocuous look which composers detest, "which is your greatest opera*?" "None, madam. They are all my loves." "But if you were at sea with all your scores, and you could save but one " "Ah, Madame, you are cruel. Save one, one — that would be ma belle Norma." And for once as he said it, Bellini's face grew hard and firm, and his voice became real and masculine, determined and genuine in its emotion. Perhaps "Norma" was his real self, and all the rest, his excursion into the pan- try, where sweets and honeys and preserves and bon- bons, and sugar and syrup, were arrayed so tempt- ingly! A little boy then, who liked to be dressed well, who loved to disport his slender cane, who never lost his taste for sweets and so mixed up his sugared, de- licious melody and harmony. The principal works of Bellini are: "La Sonnambula," "I Puritana" "Norma," "II Pirata," "I Capuletti Ed I Montecchi." Important works on Vincenzo Bellini — "Memoirs of Bel- lini" J. W. Mould; "Musical Tunes." NOVERRE XXVIII FACE TO FACE WITH NOVERRE 1727-1810 THE beautiful Queen, Marie Antoinette, had summoned her former dancing instructor to the Palace. She who loved the dear Jean Noverre, had not forgotten him and his anxiety to attain to the rank of Master of the Academy — and at her coronation she had fulfilled for him his life- time ambition. The Court of Louis XVI was lavish in its enter- 221 222 Face to Face with Great Musicians tainments and the ballets were under the supreme direction of Noverre, who studied them, wrote them, produced them, and even acted in therri. The rich- ness and sumptuousness of the mountings were all that money could buy. Louis and his beautiful queen knew not how to stint — the requisitions for purchases were sent to the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, Calonne. This smiling, witty minister never refused to honor the demand — ^he borrowed on every side and never thought of repaying it. Mil- lions of dollars were owing — what difference did a few hundred thousand more for a sumptuous ballet make to Calonne? Let the King send his jewelers' bills, it all mattered little. It had been planned that Noverre should mount the greatest of all his ballets — "Iphygenie en Au- lide." The great ideals of the master dancer would here come to their ultimate fruition — the dance which he had brought through vast evolutions would now be shown in its ideal form, as conceived here- tofore in Noverre's imagination, while he was dreaming dreams. But history was mumbling. A meeting of the States-General was called to discuss the poverty of the people; three million men voted; the King tried to keep out the delegates. The tempest broke, the mob stormed the Bastille, they moved on the palace; crude, dirty, drunken fighters filed into the Queen's private rooms. Then the guillotine, the Reign of Terror, Marat, Robespierre, the cockade, citizens Face to Face with Noverre 223 and citizenesses. Revolution, bloody and cruel, tore France to shreds. In such a time as that there was little need for such a one as Noverre — and he fled to London. Ar- rived in England's capital, he was the guest of the elect — the intelligent circle of Johnson, Goldsmith, David Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds. There his presence became an artistic record, at once he was engaged to produce his ambitious ballet, "Iphygenie en Aulide." Here we see Noverre in the old coffee house at Temple Bar. "Gentlemen," said David Garrick, the elegant, in presenting the visitor, "this is Jean Georges Noverre of Paris. He comes to us from the celebrated friends he has known so well, Frederick the Great, Voltaire, the witty, and the litterateurs of France and Ger- many. Noverre is the Shakespeare, gentlemen, of the dance." The tall, handsome, Apollo-like figure rose and bowed. Despite his fifty-five years, he had still the glance of an old Greek athlete. An aquiline nose was chiseled in perfect line. The lips were full and bow-shaped, as though a sculptor had sought to bring back the face of a former day. "My friends," he responded, "David Garrick. is always the perfect actor — ^he loves his climaxes and his lines — ^his introduction has a sensation to it, which he likes, but that is all. I am merely a danc- ing-master, my friends, who is trying his best to show 224 Face to Face with Great Musicians how the ballet might be brought to a pitch of beauty such as it has never known. "You do not need me to tell you how much the dance has meant throughout history. To the old Greeks it was the most important art they possessed. It was a real language — fraught with tremendous meaning. They danced everywhere and on every prjctext. How importantly the dancers were es- teemed is shown in this — the dancers were considered above all other artists.. "The great dramatists danced in their own produc- tions. Terpsichore was the best loved of the muses. Simonides said that 'Dancing is silent poetry' ; Ho- mer said it was the unapproachable art; Anacreon was always ready to dance, and Socrates, the great- est philosopher, was first to trip the light fantastic toe at every ball. He did not sneer at it, but wor- shiped it. "Dancers have always been known as the sages of the foot and hand, the ballet masters in old Greece were recruited from the finest citizens. "Among the Indians, dancing was the only form of worship. Dancing is so old that no one can say where it originated. But I have a feeling that the first real dances of art were done under the shadows of the Egyptian sphinxes, while Hercules watched enchanted. "I know, gentlemen, that the dance had degraded from the time of the graceful Grecian ideal, until it grew licentious and vile. But the noble dance is Face to Face with Noverre 225 about to return. It has been returning for the last hundred years, and such papal decrees as forbid all dancing have been long forgotten. A hundred years ago, King Louis XIV led the fashion by taking the leading roles in court ballets. The good teacher, Beauchamp, taught men and women how to step gracefully, and Dupre, God of the dance, my friends, and my teacher, brought beauty of form and line into being again. There was Mademoiselle Camargo, who before my time drew vast crowds, and made her name the talk of the country, even a bootmaker coining a fortune by selling Camargo shoes !" "Who is to make another," asked Dr. Johnson, 'lay making Noverre pants?" After the laughter subsided, Noverre continued — ■ "I have been always a lover of the dance. My father intended me for the army — ^but I simply couldn't go. At the earliest age I was inventing new steps, moving to the strains of music, thrilling to dance my way before great multitudes — and my father was forced to let me have my way. I made my debut at sixteen at the Court of Fontainebleau, but I failed. They laughed at me. "Let me tell you why. You have seen the ballets, and the way the dancers look. The women have huge padded skirts, they are covered with imgainly cloths and jewelry. Their headdress is grotesque. It is pyramided a foot over their foreheads, and over each temple there are five rolls! What does such 226 Face to Face with Great Musicians ridiculous mummery mean? I could never under- stand it. "Think of Camellia coming out in a hooped petti- coat, her hair decked up with fantastic ribbons and flowers, the whole appearance like a clown. Think of Apollo in an enormous black, full-bottomed wig, wearing a mask, with a big gold copper sun on his breast. The whole thing was like a puppet show." Garrick laughed, Johnson laughed in his deep-toned haw-haws. Boswell did likewise — they applauded roundly, and the big Apollo continued — "A ballet is a picture or a series of pictures, con- nected by action, indicated in the subject of the bal- let. The stage is merely the background for the dancing, the notes are the coloring and the ideas. A still picture is an imitation of Nature, but a good ballet is Nature itself ennobled by all the charms of art. "Therefore, why should the dancers be grotesque"? I have sought to make the ballet something sincere and genuine — real. It should convey its idea to the merest layman. The music, I might say, is the libretto. The dancing is the music. The libretto tells the story, the music carries it out, the dancing vitalizes the composer's ideal. "Do you see why they laughed at me, and why I have had to fight my own ideas before the scoffers? "When I asked the dancers not to wear their masks, there went up a cry of holy horror: 'Whal^ V Face to Face with Noverre 227 S90W our faces, why that would be a sacrilege. That would be degrading.' But is it sacrilege for the actors and singers to show their faces'? " 'But that is different. We are doing something that is symbolic' Yet I insisted on removing the masks. When I objected to the crude costumes and the old, dirty, torn garments that the ballet used, I was told that that was not my province. Yet I have fought for right costuming, and won. "I wished to reduce the paniers of the danseuses. They were opposed to freedom and quickness of action. They retarded prompt, animated dancing. They deprived the figure of its elegance and natural proportions. They diminished the beauty of the arms, took away grace, they embarrassed and dis- turbed the dancers, who had to think more of the movement of the panier than their own limbs. "How I rejoiced when the shepherdess in my bal- let was permitted to come out looking like a shep- herdess, not a barrel of fantastic hoops surmounted. "I have had my successes. If my ideas of the bal- let of true action survive I ought to be known as the father of the ballet. "In my day I have done over fifty ballets, music for them being written by great composers — chief of these being Mozart. How sad I felt, when at a great performance, I was applauded, the dancers were applauded, and poor Mozart was completely forgotten by the audience. Further, I have done the 228 Face to Face with Great Musicians ballet work forGluck and his rival, Piccinij I have been court dancing master at Vienna, where I taught Maria Theresa how to trip the light fantastic toe. The Duke of Wurtemburg was my patron for many years. I was influential in inducing the Empress Anna of Russia to establish a Russian Imperial Bal- let School — ^it is already doing good work. I should like to see France and England follow suit. "Why don't you people make a Ballet School? "I am getting old, but already there is that pupil of mine, Gaston Vestris, who's getting along nicely. Such a little egotist — he said publicly one day 'There are three great figures in Europe, Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and Vestris.' "Such egotism, but a good dancer — that's temper- ament, he thinks. He is already wealthy — and I — well, I am a poor man, who does not mind it one bit. I have been a gentleman, and I want to live to the day of my death as one who lived honestly and modestly, fighting to bring the dance to its final possibilities. "Oh, my friends — ^I see a picture of the future. There will be vast open spaces, filled with the people. Lovely music from a large organ and orchestras will peal forth. The people in flowing robes will rush forward, singing together — hundreds of thousands of them, and they will dance to the spirit of music — conveying the significance of the message by their pantomime and their gestures. It will be a beautiful Face to Face with Noverre 229 sight, it will inspire the people, it will make them happier, it will make them more graceful and stronger. It will be the return of Greece and the Greek spirit." fMgvHM^ ^ VERDI XXIX FACE TO FACE WITH VERDI ,1813-1900 THE grand old man of opera stood out on th«s veranda and watched the moon rise in its zenith, and with his eyes followed a night bird in its flight. Tall, erect, white-haired and white- bearded, he held his lonely station, surveying the expanse of his farm lands. The cool perfumed air of the summer night cast a mystical spell over the 230 Face to Face with Verdi 231 scene, while the once-in-a-while chirp of the droning insects made a theme for a nocturne in B flat. He glanced over the grounds, saw the little the- ater he had made to give free concerts for the peo- ple, saw the park he had given over to the neigh- bors, saw the low-walled entrance to his house which was open to all his friends — and that meant all the world. On his face was a slight tinge of sadness, but it was a sadness which broke into a tender smile of hu- manity and intense understanding. Here was the face of a noble father or a beloved minister, or a benefactor of man — a friend, a sympathetic protec- tor of supremely superior wisdom. All alone, like a giant elm tree on a level plane, the fine old creature towered. His physique was overpowering, conunanding, and yet with it all he had a courtliness of manner like a young man's. For hours he stood there motionless — the moon faded, the farm lands faded, the world of reality faded — and before his eyes there passed in panorama the drama of his life, the true story of Giuseppe Verdi, a more exciting romance than any opera he ever wrote, a century almost, of music, of glorious operas succeeding one another like drops in a waterfall, from "Nabucco" to "Rigoletto" with its "Donne Mobile," and "Trovatore," and "Traviata," and "Aida,' with its "Oh, Celeste Aida." Everything is moving before him — ^his whole life is passing in panorama. 232 Face to Face with Great Musicians The panorama : Busseto, in Parma, which is Italy. To be exact, Rancole, in a little hut you might call an inn. It's hard to feed little Giuseppe — and the ragged urchin must get along as well as he can on the poverty fare which the pater and mater have scraped together. Hard days, but nothing extraordinary in Rancole — was it, Giuseppe? Indeed not; other little bodies suffered equally, but it was something to climb up from the rags, eh? You remember the bread and tea, the bit of a bone and occasionally, on holidays, a piece of meat. Well, you've grown to be a man of seven now, boy. Going to live on your parents' bounty still? Not Giuseppe. He would go forth and pay for his place on God's green earth. See him running errands, carrying onions and greens and fruits and cheese and spaghetti for the grocer. He worked very hard then. People get angry if things are delayed. They scold, but not Giuseppe — always a smile for him, always because he is a good boy, and minds his business and takes his orders. See him graduated now to the position of chief clerk with an errand boy taking orders from him! It is better to be doing the ordering and not be or* dered. One can be kind when another is taking the orders. Those evenings: The boss had a spinet upstairs and the boy was permitted to play it. Jasquith, the Face to Face with Verdi 233 grocer, had ideas all his own, which were very high and mighty. He liked music and musicians. He sold to them. Perhaps that is why he had so many bad debts. So little Giuseppe had his chance to play. No sort of method, you know — ^just picking out the notes and melodies folks used to sing around Bu- setto. His own crude way at first, of course. But when Signora Barezzi took him in hand and said : "You must hold your thumb this way and run up the scale that way" — then he played like a mas- ter. It was wonderful the way Signer Barezzi came into Verdi's life. Signor Barezzi was the wealthy man who owned the big house. It had high walls and gates and fences. But inside the house all was lovely because one could hear music. And wherever there is music, there is happiness. It seemed to the little fellow then, that the greatest happiness in the world would be a place where there was always mu- sic. He used to listen at Barezzi's steps when he called to deliver goods. He would listen so intently that the Barezzi cook related it to the Signora and she told her father. He asked the grocer boy inside, and the boy played for him. Father and daughter were delighted, and Signora offered to teach him, but soon he knew more than she did ! So he played well. Played organ — all the town came down to church to see the tiny Verdi at twelve play the or- gan — also they came to hear the priest. 234 Face to Face with Great Musicians Seventeen — ^hot blooded, passionate, seething with melody. A free scholarship to Milan but refused by the directors — ^you were too original, they said — too erratic. They were fools, but you — ^well, there was a job for you as organist at the princely salary of 75 cents a week. Marriage — a bit of a girl, oh, so pretty and sim- ple and confident of you. So frail and wistful. Ah, Giuseppe, then came hard times, remember? Your first opera — ^your immigration to Milan, your baby boy, your garret opposite La Scala the thea- ter, the days of feverish work and hvmger, the per- formance, the failure. The months of hardship that followed, the fierce fight with sickness and pov- erty and an opera bouffe that must be roaringly fuimy to make people laugh. The cold nights, the job as a pianist in a restaurant, the baby's wasting away and death, the child-wife's cough, the opera finished, the failure again, and the passing out of the little mate ! Well, no one blamed you — ^sad, disappointed youth — that you gave up. You went almost mad. Your baby and wife away. You did odd jobs, you scarcely knew what you were doing. Oh, but those two years, Verdi — lost, and you floating around like a ship without its rudder. But the book of life had it written down that you couldn't go on forever like that. Something was stirring in you, aching to make you Face to Face with Verdi 235 write. There was a voice calling — write, write, compose, it cried. So the third opera came — you wrote it half-heart- edly, remember, Giuseppe? Several times you were on the verge of throwing it out, feeding it to the flames. You didn't even bother to attend the per- formance. What's the use, you thought, it's bound to fail. Barezzi and Jasquith and the dead wife were wrong. Everybody was wrong, but the critics who called him erratic. Why couldn't he write as they wanted? — but no, not that way, he'd rather die. However the next morning, "Viva, Verdi !" when they came to tell you that you were famous all over Italy, that you were rich with 20,000 francs. Ah, it was wonderful ! You didn't care much, did you, at first? But, finally your heart healed up — opti- mism became your creed. Thenceforward there was no worry. Operas just came from your heart and flowed through your pen, a dozen — every one applauded. Now it was Verdi, the great Verdi — Italy's marvelous composer, the century's most famous musician, opera's most cele- brated spokesman — certainly the most prolific man in operatic history. And finally, when you were forty — ^just growing up — I guess that bad setback at twenty-six made you young again, when success came, and you were bom all over, you wrote your finest when most men lay down their pens — "Rigoletto," and "Trovatore," 236 Face to Face with Great Musicians and "Traviata" — the creations you yourself loved the best. Then out of the vast universe there came to you the mate of your dreams — this time a wife in mind, as well as heart, in body as well as in station — the lovely companion-to-be for fifty years to come, al- most. She had no ambitions but for you — to make you happy. She's gone to-night, strong old man; she left you a twelvemonth ago, but you see her now, don't you? — lovely in her true wifeliness, smiling at you and encouraging you, out of the mist that gathers round the moon. You see now the serenity of that married life with her — the years of simple, rustic joyousness. You would kiss her hand, and smooth her hair in the old way again, wouldn't you? Even when she was old you were the same. For many years you lived hap- pily with her in a blissful state at the home you bought (of course. Old Barezzi's!). Sentimental idea but a beautiful one. So you lived quietly, broken by an occasional return to the opera — such as when there came from the Khedive of Egypt this naive command: "To the brilliant master of mu- sic, Verdi, I command you to write me an opera, the nature to be Moorish and the dedication to be to the immortal Son of the Sun, the Shah who showers this honor upon you. It must be all about the East, written about the lives of the noble great, the wonderful monarchs of Egypt." Face to Face with Verdi 237 Came "Aida," with its "O, Celeste Aida," with all its wonderful atmosphere of the Nile and the tem- ples, with its brilliant triumphant march, the great- est spectacle in history; and the Khedive's order was filled, produced in Cairo, with thousands upon thou- sands taking part, with real Egyptians in the ballet. Came honors such as never before rained on a musician. Came communions of free music with the people to whom Verdi belonged and to whom he returned. Came "Othello," and finally the laugh- ing, boisterous, rollicking jollity of "Falstaff." There was a feat of wit and overflowing humor. It was the real spirit of Old Verdi, at his best and full-ripened genius. In panorama these scenes pass before the eyes of the grand old man of music — almost a century of operatic leadership — a life of joy and accomplish- ment and romance and love and suffering. A whole library of opera rolled into one life. And lonely, on the veranda of his house, the old man, white-haired, white-bearded, erect, gazes over tlie plain. And the cool, soft, perfumed breeze of midnight casts a mystic spell over the scene and the "Miserere" sounds out of the monotonous drone of the night insects. The principal works of Verdi are: "Ernani," "Rigoletto" "II Trovatore," "La Traviata," "Aida," "Otello," "Fal- staff" "Nabucco," "I Lombardi" "Attila," "Luisa Mil- ler" "The Sicilian Vespers," "The Masked Ball," "La Fofza del Destino" "Don Carlos," "Manzoni Requiem." 238 Face to Face with Great Musicians Important works on Fortunio Giuseppe Francesco Verdi-— "Masters of Italian Music" by R. A. Strealfield; "Musi- cal Times"; "His Life" by Pougin; Rivista Musicale Italiana Vol. Vlll. HANDEL XXX FACE TO FACE WITH HANDEL 1685-1759 HE stood at the window with a proud glance on his pale face and pointed down to the street. Following the direction, we saw what had drawn his attention — they were tearing down the placards of his concert. They were breaking them into bits, and derisively flinging them toward the window where Handel was standing. An English mob — Shakespeare has pictured them 239 240 Face to Face with Great Musicians well — ^not only of the dregs, but of the snobbery, were at work. Handel had wounded them — ^how, no one knew — and now all the suppressed antago- nism that for years had been smouldering took flame, and nothing would stay the conflagration. Handel must go-^and no one realized it better than himself. His concerts were played to empty seats, his friends had abandoned him, his opera house was a failure, he himself was bankrupt — ^in debt, ten thousand pounds. Creditors were cruel — imprisonment stared him in the face. His body was paralyzed down one side, at moments his mind even seemed to have given way. The foreigner, they called him, the usurper. Now, after all these years, sullen nationalism was express- ing itself as an excuse for private grievances. Ene- mies of Handel, who had always viewed with envy his leadership of the Opera, had plotted it all. Their sinister efforts had succeeded. The mob had suc- cumbed to the blandishments of the anti-Handelism. How they gloated, these miserable cads. How they pulled the cards from the signposts and broke them into tiny pieces. What malice was written on their faces. But it was not these underlings who were really responsible. It was the men behind the work, sit- ting in their homes, rejoicing at the downfall of the erstwhile national idol. Stolidly Handel watched them, in this last act of their malice: his face took on a more determined Face to Face with Handel 241 frown, his head was raised in a mixture of defiance and courage. His long face, strained with the years of suffering and striving, large, serious and sad eyes, mouth of indomitable spirit, tremendous forehead, surmounted with a King George wig — the fallen idol was scarcely written on him. Rather the hope- ful crusader. Once more to fight and win, perhaps. He shrugged his shoulders, he summoned his man, and said : "You vill back my glothes. Ve leave Eng- land to-night. "Vat do you dink of it," he asked in his heavy Hanoverian accent, "after thirty years in London! I come here a boy, I am to-day fifty-five years old — my whole life I have given these country. I re- nounce my own land, I make meinself an English- man. I become naturalized. I vork for these coun- try — to make it a place in the world's music. I come here, dere is no music, no English composer, no opera. Purcell is dead. Everybody saying, 'Give us some music, give us some music. Nobody in all England to do it.' I write forty-four operas right in these city of London ; among them my beloved 'Ad- meto,' 'Rinaldo,' and my heart's child, 'Tamerlano.' My audience — they ask for Italian music — I give them what they ask in the style of Italians — any- thing to please them. They vant songs for the king's whims, I write — odes, serenatas. I write oratorios — I geeve them everything they ask — from vedding march to funeral march. "I write a Te Deum for the Peace of Utrecht, I 242 Face to Face with Great Musicians write a Birthday Ode for Queen Anne; I do the 'Water Music' for King George, to make him happy. 'But mainly I vork for the people. For the Kings at the start; but afterwards for the people. I head the theater, I make English music a thing envied by the vorld. I fight; I make the greatest virtuoso out of English know-nothings. I bring over Cozzini, Faustina. I take the argument up with Buononcini and beat him back because he know nothing. Many times I lose all I have, I go bankrupt. I am ten thousands pounds out of pocket. I go back to vork. "I come to England robust, strong, able to stand everything. I get sick, I go to the baths to get better — then comes this sickness, paralysis, I am on my death-legs. "Debt, and where are the friends? Creditors, lofely fellows, vant to put Handel in prison. I fight still, I recover. I help other poor musicians — give my time and ideas to make an English Society of Musicians. They try to make a benefit for me — some foolish friends, I did not vant it. That is killed. Now I am through, they do not vant me. So"? "I am dismissed — ^I go." The grand old figure moved away from the win- dow, and into the inner room, helping the servant with the packing; doing it aimlessly, and pausing every now and then to soliloquize. "Perhaps the fader was righd. I should never go into music. A lawyer, that's better. Taking gare Face to Face with Handel 243 of beople's droubles, and making more. Ah, vat goes in a man's life, from the dime of the fader, looking over the cradle at me, my big, stern fader, who vanted his boy to be a lawyer. He never forgave me, perhaps he knew vat vas in store for me. "Ah, no, I had to be just vat I am. I vould never have met Zachau, and vidout knowing Zachau how could anybody be happy? There's a teacher, they don't come any more like him. I vouldn't have met Buxtehude, dat great organist. Maybe, Buxtehude was righd. I should have took his job and his daugh- ter and settled down to play in the church. Playing in the church vas alrighd — ^but the daughter, impos- sible. I'm sure I'm happier vidoud any vife. "I'm sure I belong vhere I am — for dink: I vouldn't have med Matthewson, and I vouldn't have had a duel, and I vouldn't have had fun vid the musicians, making out as if I vas stupid as could be. I vouldn't have had all the fights." Night time had arrived. The carriage pulled up to the door, he dragged himself down the steps — where he was going, he did not know. But just then a note was handed to him — Fate was the messenger — and following the directions it contained he made for Ireland. The Lord Lieu- tenant craved his attendance to direct some public performance, and would he come? Dublin — it was as good a place as any other for Handel to make a new start! They knew his 244 Face to Face with Great Musicians works, they had played them many times — and he was received joyously. What a reception when he came into the city — to settle there! The beloved composer to live in Ireland. Every musician called and paid his respects. And Handel smiled anew. So simple is the heart of the great. Handel was born all over. Overboard with the woes — ^strike out for bigger, deeper things ! There he stood again at the window, gazing out on the populace, but this time he was happy and felt a kindly welcome — he was no outcast — ^he was one of the people. A great burst of love surged all through him, the whole world of men and women seemed to be crying for utterance in a great paean of hope and faith. The sorrows were all melting under the warming influence of the supreme ideal that glistened and burned before his soul-lit eyes. He was bursting with it — it could not be contained, it filled his whole being with humanity and com- passion. For two weeks he watched at the window, his writing table lit with the Irish sun, and wrote down the promise that he was urged to give to the world. "Unto us a son is bom," it said, and it told of the savior of the world anew. The message of the Messiah was to be brought to people with renewed powers. The old Bible story came to Handel, sing- ing and playing for vast choruses and orchestras. "I vill try and write you some better music," Face to Face with Handel 245 Handel said to his Dublin friends, smiling all over, "a little better than I have written for the Eng- lish. If what I have done in the past has been good, this is far better. We will produce it right here in your city. If you like it you may have the first rights to it. I will make it for Ireland's music- lovers. "Here we will rehearse this very day. Ve will try this, Tor Unto Us a Son Is Born,' and 'Worthy Is the Lamb.' You, Miss, have this solo, 'I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.' " What a rehearsal it was, though. It was different than during the operas. This was dealing in something bigger and mightier. Every one felt it. They listened awe-struck and couldn't understand the hold of it. Handel himself was unable to fathom the surge of melody and harmony which this mighty subject brought him. "This must be given free to the beople. Ve vill make a benefit — for the debtors in brison," his words were, evidently thinking how near he had been to it. And so everything was to go to charity. The years seemed to roll away on the instant, Handel looked younger than he had at the first pub- lic performance, at forty. The moment he played out the first crashing chord on the organ, and the chorus sang the glorious mel- ody, of the Hallelujah Chorus, the great old master 246 Face to Face with Great Musicians realized that his masterpiece had been given the world. In the audience were prisoners released to hear the music. All Dublin rose to do him glory; they carried him through the streets to show how they loved him ; and the news was carried to London, and they whispered: "Handel has done a big thing — the world will say we threw him out and didn't realize his genius. Let us get him back." But he was not destined to peace, even yet. "The Messiah" offered to London was forbidden produc- tion, imder that name, in England. "It is sacri- legious," they declared. The plotters refused to be stilled. But Handel was not to be silenced or de- feated. From his now inspired pen came "Judas Maccabeus" and "Saul," the two others of his trio of oratorios. The beauty of the music, the over- powering majesty of these religious sermons in mu- sic, were applauded by the people. The enemy was damned. The battle was won — Handel was ac- claimed England's national composer. He is standing at the window again. Always he is looking at the people, and the green, looking on life and mirroring it in music. This time he realized his victory — ^but it was, too, but short-lived. Look- ing, gazing, drinking in the beauty of things that are — something snapped — his sight grew dim. "How Dark, O Lord, Are Thy Ways," he wrote, and "Grief Follows Joy as Night the Day." Then Face to Face with Handel 247 "Total Eclipse." But the old Titan even now won't give up. He still plays at the organ all through Lent. And at Easter he leads the "Messiah," playing at the organ all wrong. But he forgets for a moment only, and then improvises the rest. A very short time thereafter, he went out to the Lord God he had glorified and brought to earth that very toil might be made divine. When he climbed the Golden Stairway, let us surmise that he knew what others said of him in after years. He surely heard the words of the Shakespeare of Music, the master of all, Beethoven, when he de- clared, "Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived." Surely he heard Liszt singing of the "genius of Handel, as great as the world itself." The principal works of Handel are: "Messiah," "Samson," "Saul," "Israel in Egypt," "Judas Maccabaeus," "L'Alle- gro and Penseroso," "Ads and Galatea" "Zadok the Priest," "Water Music," "Dettingen Te Deum," "Utrecht Te Deum," "The Harmonious Blacksmith," "St. Cecilia Ode" Important works on Georg Friedrich Handel — "His Life," Mainwaring; "His Life," Rockstro. (S) FACE TO FACE WITH GREAT MUSICIANS Two Books. By CHARLES D. ISAACSON FIRST GROUP. Introduction by Leopold Godowsky. The chapters include Music, Beethoven, Mendels-- sohn, Chopin, Gretry, Brahms, Debussy, Paganini Stradivarius, Wolf, Bach, Gluck, MacDowell, Liszt, Lully, Pergolesi, Meyerbeer, Granadoa, Cherubini, Sullivan, Stradella, Chamlnade, Mas' senet, Mascagni, Haydn, Monteverde, Bellini, Noverre, Verdi, Handel. SECOND GROUP. Foreword by Dr. Frank Crane. Introduction by Frank La Forge. The thirty chap' ters include Wagner, Rossini, Berlioz, Patti, Cesar Franck, John Field, Donizetti, Auber, Schubert, Balfe, Abt, Rubenstein, Cristofori, Stephen Foster, Grieg, Palestrina, Gounod, Coucy, Spohr, Purcell, The Scarlattis, Tschaikowsky, Garcia, Dvorak, Bizet, Moussorgsky, Lalo, Weber, M. N. I., Mozart. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON